Blog #6

When reading Chapter 7 some things popped out that I thought were pretty important. One thing is that I like how they showed me how to take notes in every subject. That is very important to know especially for a first time teacher. Another thing I found important was that the book clearly defined the difference between note making and note taking. I had no idea there was a difference until I read this chapter.

When I was tutoring this week I found out a little bit about myself. I discovered that I am not as stern as I might should be. I felt like the students were running over me and trying to abuse my authority over them. They wanted to do their own thing and not listen to any directions I was giving them.

As I stated in the first paragraph, the fact that the book gave an insight on the different subject areas and how they teach note taking stood out to me. I like how they said in the chapter that with notetaking you cannot go back and listen to the lecture again. With note making you can go back and reread the chapter in the book or slides from a presentation and add more notes. The text also said that better notetakers generally do better in school and specific types of notetaking produce better results. In this case I wish my teachers would have showed me the best way to take notes so that I could have been a better note taker so that when studying for test I could recall the information better.

This week I really enjoyed being able to have class outside instead of being in a classroom all the time. I also think that it was a great idea to have us take notes on our person and be able to enjoy the beautiful weather. However, maybe next time, or if there is a next time, it wont be so hot on us!

Questions: Why is it that my teachers never taught our class the correct way to take notes? Is this a new curriculum that is just being introduced?

How can students with disabilities be able to take the proper notes for class?

Blog #5

When reading chapter 3 about vocabulary I found some things interesting and learned new things. One thing I learned about was the importance of word knowledge. Vocabulary knowledge can have a profound influence on reading comprehension. Blachowicz and Fisher identified four principles for effective vocabulary instruction. Students should: be actively involved in word learning, make personal connections, be immersed in vocabulary, and consolidate meaning through multiple information sources. This will help teachers be able to effectively instruct vocabulary. Another thing that stood out to me is that Vacca and Vacca suggest that there are three types of vocabulary to consider—general, specialized, and technical. General is everyday language, specialized is flexible and transportable, and technical is words that are specific to only one field study. This would be a good way to show students the different types of vocabulary and talk like the different ways to show them and have them guess which one is which. I like the fact that this chapter gives several different ways of incorporating vocabulary into different subjects. The Brain Pop technology we did this week was very interesting and engaging. I believe that students would really enjoy this activity; especially since us college kids had so much fun with it. You could use this technology with any subject. With this technology it could help the students understand and think about what they listened to.

Questions:

1. What are some good ways to teach vocabulary to ELL students, since we have so many different definitions for the same word?

2. Where can I find more information on teaching vocabulary that would be fun and interesting for my students?