Annotated Bibliography #4

Lost the Plot Productions. (2010). Zimmer twins. Retrieved from http://www.zimmertwins.com/

1. http://www.zimmertwins.com/
   
2. http://www.zimmertwins.com/about/teachers
   
3. http://www.zimmertwins.com/sites/zimmertwins.com/files/teachers_lesson_thewritingprocess.pdf
   
4. http://www.zimmertwins.com/node/949698
   

The above websites are not traditional kinds of sites from which teachers usually access information or lesson ideas. Also, as a disclaimer, I have never used this site in a classroom but I think any teacher could find some use for this site in many different ways (more about this in a moment) as long as they had access to computers for students to use. The site is called Zimmer Twins. The first site listed above is the actual site's home page. The second site is designed for teachers and includes lesson plans and teaching ideas for using the site. The third site is one of the lessons plans about teaching the writing process. Finally, the fourth site is an example of what I did with the site. (Oh, can you find my small error in it?)

So what is Zimmer Twins? According to the website, it "is a site devoted to kids and creative storytelling." Students can make their own simple short story in the form of a movie choosing between three characters – Edgar, Eva, and a cat named 13. With the fact that students can make short movies, I think it is good for them to be able to show their creative side and can be done individually or in groups. A teacher could use this site for a short story assignment, or even possibly to teach English (e.g. grammar, expressions, vocabulary) or to test comprehension.

I believe this website incorporates the TPACK concepts. From the example lesson plan that I picked, students are introduced to the writing process. The teacher is the expert of the content which includes writing and storytelling. The lesson includes a variety of pedagogical methods from group work, to pair work, to individual reflection. Technological knowledge is incorporated in the use of the Zimmer Twins site and its capabilities. Additionally, since this lesson involves writing and reading too, it is then also a literacy lesson. The example lesson plan is lacking a viable assessment tool and something like a rubric would need to be developed before this lesson is utilized. Though I created an example movie, it did not follow this lesson plan. A new movie would have to be generated and I think that is a necessity for students to have a model to follow. One limiting factor with the site is that the characters can't speak and this may affect students' interest in it. Nevertheless, if given the chance, I would like to try this site with students in the future.

Annotated Bibliography #3

Carrier, K. A. (2005). Key issues for teaching English language learners in academic classrooms. Middle School Journal, 37(2), 4-9.

Summary

This article looked at three issues that play an important part in the education of English language learners (ELLs). The three issues were “(a) the amount of time required for second language acquisition, (b) the two jobs that ELLs are doing in the classroom, and (c) the use of multiple modes of input and output” (Carrier, 2005, p. 5). The author believes that an understanding of these key issues can help a teacher build a foundation to effectively instruct ELLs. In the article, Carrier focuses on ELLs who are assigned to regular academic classrooms for their content instruction (other than English).

For the first key issue the author states that it will usually take ELLs one to three years to develop English conversational proficiency and five to seven years to develop academic English (Carrier, 2005). Even though an ELL communicates with other students in reasonably accurate English, this does not mean that the student has learned English well enough to comprehend all that is taught in his/her content classrooms or participate fully without any modifications (Carrier, 2005). ELLs will need to become literate with the content area vocabulary, but often this is the case for many of the others students in the class. However, the teacher can help ELLs “by providing extra support in developing not only the content specific vocabulary, but also the academic sentence structures” which they usually will not acquire through everyday conversation (Carrier, 2005, p. 6). If teachers modify their lessons for the language needs of ELLS, then they are integrating them “into the classroom and curriculum, instead of having to create a separate and often less rigorous curriculum for them” (Carrier, 2005, p. 6). As the author writes, the focus on the language needs of ELLs may also benefit other students in the classroom who may be having trouble with literacy.

The second issue that the author addresses is that ELLs have two jobs to do at the same time. ELLs have to learn a new language (English) and new academic content simultaneously meaning that they must work harder and need more support than the average native English-speaking student in a classroom (Carrier, 2005). The author insists that for the sake of the ELL, the content teacher and ESL teacher need to collaborate so that the ESL teacher can pre-teach or reinforce what the content teacher has taught. In the case of the ELL, the content teachers should focus their efforts “on determining the major concepts and processes in the curriculum that students must know and sharing this information with their ESL teacher (Carrier, 2005, p. 7). The coordinated instruction between the content teacher and ESL teacher makes the job of the ELL a little easier as the student can focus on the most important concepts. As the author states, having teachers that “create a supportive and comprehensible learning environment is very motivating for ELLs” and may spur them on to greater success (Carrier, 2005, p. 7).

The third issue addressed by the author of the article is most closely related to differentiated instruction as it discusses the need for multiple modes of input and output. Realizing that many ELLs may have not developed the proficiency to comprehend all of the information they encounter in their content classrooms, the teacher will need to occasionally use methods that are less dependent on language to present content. The author believes that graphic organizers are one of the best tools to use with ELLs. Without directly stating it, the author suggests differentiated instruction for the purpose of assessing the ELL. Rather than having the students write a composition, “ELLs can use pictures, graphic organizers, demonstrations, and drawings to show their understanding of academic concepts” (Carrier, 2005, p. 7). Because of the lighter language requirement, “performance based assessments” “are ideal for assessing ELLs” and as suggested by the author, could also be used “for native English-speaking students who need assistance to adequately demonstrate their content knowledge” (Carrier, 2005, p. 7). However, the teacher has to ensure that the assessments are fair for all of the students in the classroom.

Reflection

I agree that these three issues need to be considered as they can help guide teachers in working with the ELLs in their classroom. However, I believe that there is a fourth factor that the article has failed to address. For an ELL, their culture is important to understand because it is the foundation of who that student is. Knowing and understanding the ELL’s culture will also guide the teacher in planning lessons and more importantly, in assisting the student in the best ways possible. With this in mind, the teacher can appreciate and focus on the diversity of the classroom. I believe the author of the article addresses ELLs with this idea of diversity in mind, but like I said, just left off the key idea of the student’s cultural background.

As the population of ELLs increases in classrooms across the United States, teachers are charged with the responsibility of educating them along with native English-speaking students. I agree with the idea of content and ESL teachers working together, and think that in general, more coordination and collaboration needs to be happening among the teachers in schools across various content areas. Teachers must accept the duty for the academic and language development of ELL students, meaning that they need to be aware of the language of their subject area, the process of second language development, and best practices for integrating ELL students into their classroom to include their needs as well as the native English-speaking students’ needs. In addition, teachers must become culturally competent of cultures other than their own. By understanding these issues, teacher can be facilitators and partners in their ELL students’ language and academic literacy success.

Annotated Bibliography #2

Belland, B. R., Glazewski, K. D., & Ertmer, P. A. (2009). Inclusion and problem-based learning: Roles of students in a mixed-ability group. RMLE Online: Research in Middle Level Education, 32(9), 1-19.

Summary

The purpose of this study was to determine whether or not problem-based learning (PBL) has potential for use in a mainstreamed classroom and what types of supports mainstreamed and average students need during PBL. This case study gave an in-depth look into how members of a mainstreamed group in a seventh-grade science class handled the PBL process. For this article, the authors chose to define mainstreamed students as students with special needs "who are eligible for special education services due to learning, emotional, or other cognitive disabilities" (Belland, Glazewski, & Ertmer, 2009, p. 2).

The students were given a defined purpose of developing a promotional brochure outlining their positions on the human genome project from the perspective they were given such as lawyers or religious leaders. The researchers mostly focused on how three students (two average female students and one male student diagnosed with learning disabilities and ADHD) worked together for problem solving their point of view and how they communicated with one another. Reflection was also included by having the students at the end of each day write responses in their journals to an open-ended question related to their day's work and plans for the future days. The students in this study believed that they could not have completed the project on their own, and that they needed each other. The students did an excellent job of supporting each other and "each group member served a specific role that counterbalanced the shortcomings of their group member's approaches" (Belland, et al., 2009, p. 14). In their discussion of the research, the authors state that group members should have also been expected to reflect "on their roles in the group process," because this may "help members of mainstreamed groups recognize where they may make modifications in their group work to promote better group functioning" (Belland, et al., 2009, p. 14).

Reflection

I believe the researchers were slightly biased in their choice of one group of three students only because the teacher felt that this group's members would not have any behavioral problems, thereby creating an ideal situation to study and not necessarily a realistic one. The choice and make-up of this group cannot be easily duplicated and contains many variables, and therefore, teachers should not quickly assume that they would achieve the same results if this research was done in their own classrooms. The researchers were fortunate to have these results that though not completely duplicable, do leave open the hope that the same results could be achieved in other mainstreamed classrooms.

I was disappointed that the researchers overlooked English as a Second Language (ESL) students which are an equally important mainstreamed group. I think they could also benefit from PBL when included in a general education classroom. As the authors concluded, and as I concur, "for PBL to be successful in mainstreamed classrooms, it appears that teachers and researchers need to consider how to best support an effective division of roles among members of mainstreamed groups in PBL" (Belland, et al., 2009, p. 14). Much more research needs to be done for PBL in mainstreamed classrooms, but this study was a good first step in finding out the potential for use of PBL in a mainstreamed classroom and the type of supports students in this setting will need.

When I set out to find an article for this assignment, my goal was to find one involving ESL students and PBL. After a fairly thorough search, none was found. I did find two articles about PBL in China, but they were not related to ESL, nor shared anything groundbreaking. I ended up coming across this article that researched inclusion and PBL, and decided it was suitable and addressed a topic in which I am interested. Inclusion is a bit of a controversial topic, but seems to be the direction education is headed now. I also liked this article because it begins with an excellent review of literature related to PBL and mainstreamed students and theorizes why PBL might benefit mainstreamed students. In the end, I agree with the results of this study and do think that it is possible to have success with PBL in a mainstreamed classroom.

Reflection Paper #1

During the six years that I taught in China, most of the time the classrooms I used were very low tech – just desks and the chalkboard. It is from this standpoint that I approach technology and literacy. For me, literacy goes beyond a person's ability to read and write, basic components to literacy, because it also involves a person's competency about a certain topic. For example, when I taught students majoring in Medical English, it was not good enough for them to merely know a vocabulary word and its definition. They also had to be familiar with some background information about that topic. This extra knowledge is what made them literate.

Technology can be a broad topic. When referring to technology, in regards to education, I would generally say it is the electronic equipment or devices that facilitate the learning process. This could be everything from a computer to a SMART board or from an audio book to an accessibility device for a disabled student. Also included would be the wiring, hardware, software, and internet. This is far from a comprehensive list of technology in regards to education, but this does lay the foundation.

Prior to becoming a graduate student, I cannot say that I thought much about technology's impact on literacy. I recently read an article about how some Chinese and Japanese people were forgetting how to write some of their characters due to people's dependence on "computers and mobile phones with alphabet-based input systems" (Evans, 2010). For those of us using the 26 letter alphabet, the worry is probably not how write the letters, but more likely the spelling of words. A word processing program helps to suggest words when it comes to words that it does not recognize, virtually making it unnecessary to remember how to correctly spell a word. Of course, the phonics that were learned will be needed to at least achieve a reasonable spelling of the word. I would say another issue that technology forces English to deal with is the fact that informal writing (e.g., text messaging, instant messaging, and most emails) is used more frequently than formal writing (e.g., research paper). I believe this affects the quality and grammar of formal writing. One final issue I will mention is that I believe the internet will pull students away from the "classics" and more toward things they find online – shorter less thought provoking types of literature.

There were several times that the availability of technology or resources bothered me as a teacher in China. During my fifth and sixth years in China it was common place for students to have computers in their dorm rooms with internet access. This was great for them, but I never once had a computer in a classroom that was internet accessible. Outside of class I found that my students preferred to utilize Chinese websites to learn English rather than the English learning websites I would give them. I am a strong advocate of using English to learn English, so I suggested good sites and programs for them to use to help develop their communication skills and pronunciation. If my classroom would have been internet accessible, I would have been able to show all of them myself how useful those sites were. Unlike the teachers in the study, I think that the sites I could find for students were appropriate for all of them (Karchmer, 2001, p. 454-457). Finally, in the classroom, I denied students the right of using any kind of electronic dictionaries (or traditional dictionaries) because I felt that they were too dependent on them for looking up unfamiliar words rather than relying on their own guessing or comprehension skills to discover the meaning of the words.

While in China I also had the opportunity to teach writing a couple of semesters. At that time, the university's library lacked the English resources (databases, journals, and other publications) needed for students to do the research papers I assigned to them. Again I had to fight students to not use Chinese sources, but rather taught them about using Google to find sources for their papers. Like the teachers researched by Karchmer (2001), I also taught my students how to discern reliable sources from unreliable ones. In addition, like Marcy I gave my students a checklist to evaluate the credibility of websites (Karchmer, 2001, p. 458). Since most of their sources ended up coming from the internet, it made it easy for me to check passages that I thought might have been plagiarized. I do wonder if I would have had results like the elementary-level teachers in that "students' motivation to produce quality written work increased when they knew it would be published on the Internet" (Karchmer, 2001, p. 458).

Though most of the time I was teaching in China my classrooms were low tech, I did have a few classes that were taught in a listening lab (every student or pair of students had a computer with which to view or listen to something played by the teacher) or multimedia classroom (equipped with a computer, speakers, and LCD projector). When I taught in this kind of room I made use to utilize the technology at my disposal. In the listening lab, I could show students movie clips and other types of video clips or play some kind of recording that would challenge their listening abilities or provide a topic for discussion. In the multimedia room I could present a wide variety of information to students, but would also have students use it to present PowerPoint presentations I would have them to make. In either case, my ability to provide richer background information to them, made the students more literate.

Even though technology was not always readily available to me in the classrooms in which I taught, I did have students make use of it for the purposes of improving their English. Though I would not have called it literacy, I was encouraging literacy by having students to utilize English websites outside of their comfort zone. They were gaining more knowledge on various subjects that allowed them to read, write, and speak more confidently. My goal is to one day return to China and teach again. As China continues to develop, I am certain that I will be able to make better use of technology in the classroom in the future. I feel that I am able to embrace technology in a way that will enhance students' learning and literacy. Additionally, I believe that a teacher must adapt to the changing technology around him or her because certainly the students will adapt to it.

References

Evans, J. (2010, Aug 25). Wired youth forget how to write in China and Japan. AFP. Retrieved from http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jz3FEk2KJw3NEUyDhbMlTQO0IlOw

Karchmer, R. (2001). The journey ahead: thirteen teachers report how the internet influences literacy and literacy instruction in their K-12 classrooms. Reading Research Quarterly, 36(4), 442-466.

Annotated Bibliography #1

Klinger, J. K. & Vaughn, S. (2000). The helping behaviors of fifth graders while using collaborative strategic reading during ESL content classes. TESOL Quarterly, 34(1), 69-98.

Summary

This study included 37 students (all but two spoke Spanish as their first language) in a fifth grade class at an elementary school in a large city. The study researched “how often and in what ways bilingual students helped each other and their limited English proficiency (LEP) peers while working together in small, heterogeneous groups as they implemented CSR” (Klinger & Vaughn, 2000, p. 75). Collaborative strategic reading (CSR) is a cooperative learning classroom technique that was developed to reap the benefits of collaboration for language development. Mixed ability students (i.e., students with various reading and achievement levels) assist one another in using four reading strategies to aid their comprehension of a content-area text. The four strategies are preview, click and clunk, get the gist, and wrap-up. Once students are familiar with the strategies, they are divided into new small groups and each student is assigned a role explicitly taught by the teacher. These roles include leader, clunk expert, announcer, encourager, and timekeeper. During this process, students record what happens in their CSR learning logs and once finished, complete various follow-up activities. This kind of technique was shown to be effective due to the teachers thoroughly teaching the roles and skills involved with CSR. These researchers reported that their students spent more time engaged in academic-related strategic discussion than that found in previous studies. The fifth graders in this study readily helped one another in the ways demonstrated to them by their teacher. CSR in this study also resulted in significant improvement of the students’ scores on English vocabulary tests.

Reflection

This method and study did have some limitations. Since this is a student directed activity, teachers must be keenly aware of what is happening in each group. The teacher should ensure that all of the students are participating and that none of the students get marginalized. This study only looked at one class, so it is hard to determine if the success of this study would be repeated in other classrooms because class dynamics can greatly vary. One further limitation of this study was that the researcher states that her students were “remarkably engaged in learning” (Klinger & Vaughn, 2000, p. 94), while students in other classes may not show the same desire and motivation for learning.

Though I have never taught ESL reading, I believe CSR would be good to try for improving the reading abilities of students. This method goes beyond traditional cooperative learning and adds new dimensions and responsibilities for students to help each other improve their reading and comprehension ability. Along with this, based on the research, students also improve their vocabulary. In addition, it can be used in tandem with other strategies to introduce or reinforce important concepts. This would be a useful strategy to use with students in any type of classroom, whether they are ESL students or not. CSR gives a structure and format conducive to high levels of student engagement and therefore is ideal for a teacher wishing to teach reading comprehension strategies and implement cooperative learning in his/her classroom. If ever asked to teach ESL reading, I would be certain to utilize this method and then compare my results to that of the researchers.