In this blog we look at Barrish’s claims on if “The Good Bheavior Game” works for disruptive behavior in the classroom. Before we look further, what is the good behavior game? The game is a on-going classroom activity, where the classroom is split into teams, this works with multiple classrooms as well. After the teams are split, behavior is monitored and rewarded for good behavior. Poor behavior is met with taking away items such as tickets or any system the teacher has in place. This is a system that allows progress and motivation for “problem children” in the classroom.

Many would look at this classroom management strategy and cringe, how can group dissaproval motivate a “problem child”. Before learning about the good behavior game I would questioned this as well, however, seeing this in action in a classroom was the best experience I could’ve asked for. While observing a 6th grade classroom on the East Coast I was able to see this management strategy. In talking with the young teacher this was her main way of controlling the classroom behavior long term. It allows the students to look forward to something, in this case the group reward would be ice cream. Students work harder seeing other groups succeed and many “problem children” become managable within the classroom. Students want to behave, as they have something to motivate them, a reward. Seeing first hand accounts of this game in action I believe it truly does improve classroom behavior.

I will be incorporating this into my future classroom and use this as a management strategy. Not only do I believe this promotes good behavior but I believe it engages the students and is a fun way to manage behavior. I believe this promotes collaboration skills on top of promoting good behavior. Students must work together as a team to achieve rewards based on how they act collectively trhoughout the semester or year.

Barrish, H. H., Saunders, M., & Wolf, M. M. (1969). Good behavior game: Effects of individual contingencies for group consequences on disruptive behavior in a classroom 1. Journal of applied behavior analysis, 2(2), 119-124.

In this blog I will be talking about Skerrett’s article Religious literacies in a secular literacy classroom. In this article Skerrett observed how a teacher engaged her students “Christian religious literacies”, engaged in their own religious literacies, and what were the outcomes? But does religion belong in the average classroom?

Skerrett states that students were able to include religious literacies to analyze and understand secular litereature and produceing academic writings. However, I have a rather different opinion on using religion in the classroom. While Skerrett mentions the way religious literacies can benefit the classroom, I do not agree. Skerrett talks about previously bringing in religious texts to increase literacy competancy, I feel as if this does not benefit students present day. Bringing religion into a classroom is problematic and has no real place in an secular classroom. As teachers we want our students to feel comfortable in the classroom and we want our classrooms to serve as a safe space for ALL students. Following this, each of our students will be vastly different from each other in numerous aspects, beliefs, cultures, ways of learning, height, etc. In education we tend not to say phrases like “mom and dad” we try and change them to family, “bring this paper home to your family”. I believe we should refrain from talking about religion in classrooms for the same reason, many students will have different beliefs and while Skerrett speciifcally focuses on Christianity I don’t see any real benefits in bringing it into a secular classroom.

An claim made in favor of this was to have students see themselves in curriculum, many students have different beliefs this would be problematic. Student’s are able to see themselves in a variety of ways, such as cultural readings. Overall I do not think religion should be in schools, unless it is specifically a religion class or catholic school, etc.

Skerrett, A. (2014). Religious literacies in a secular literacy classroom. Reading Research Quarterly, 49(2), 233-250.

As my future certification is in ELA I will be talking about the use of affective evaluation for literary interpretation. Interpreting literature is an important skill to ELA students, this is a skill where students are able to conceptualize themes or pull out important details and form a deeper meaning or understanding. Levin states experienced readers are more likely to identify aspects of text that are important to literary interpretation and more likely to construct thematic inferences and figurative meanings than novice readers. However, this does not mean novice readers cannot be supported by using everyday interpretive practices to their readings. 

In this study draws on three assumptions in general areas of research and theory. The first of these being that affective evaluation is an everyday interpretive practice, this suggests affective evaluation acts as an “everyday control structure with which to make sense of the world” (Levin).  Individuals may have different views or draw on various personal beliefs, or influences from culture when interpreting things. An example given of this in the study includes a white southerner senator and an African American interpreting the meaning of the controversial confederate flag. 

The second assumption looks at how students are able to interpret language and how students make positive or negative appraisals of characters based on their real-world values or expectations. This study talks about how students are able to use context as well as their personal knowledge to evaluate fictional characters, drawing deeper meanings and character goals. 

The third assumption brings forth another method that can engineer their success. This method includes novice readers engaging in familiar texts to gain a meta-level knowledge of their everyday interpretive practices. The goal is to apply these interpretations from basic, familiar readings to more formal readings. One intervention showed this by looking at ways they already interpreted music, such as symbolism in popular songs. The intervention went on to apply this to more extensive readings, short stories and novels. 

Using think-aloud to promote critical thinking and interpretations, we are able to provide support for novice readers. Engaging and examining the ways students look at language is important, if we are able to support novice ELA students or students who are struggling in interpretation and breaking down literature we must. We have to use a variety of strategies that allow students to pull what they know and apply it to ELA. 

Levine, S. (2014). Making interpretation visible with an affect‐based strategy. Reading Research Quarterly, 49(3), 283-303.

The domain of rational numbers has often been difficult for middle school students to “master.” While students often learn the specific algorithms taught in school, they lack general conceptual knowledge and remain deficient. Middle-school graduates are mostly affected, unable to answer addition of fractions, and read certain percentages. These are just some of the problems these students face, while each students’ challenges vary they show a common lack of conceptual understanding. The common lack of conceptual understanding raises the questions of current teaching methods. Common arguments for our current method of teaching mathematics includes “middle school mathematics programs spend too much time teaching procedures for manipulating rational numbers and too little time teaching conceptual meaning.” Another argument of current teaching methods is that teachers don’t take into account a student’s attempt to make sense of rational numbers, discouraging them from attempting to understand on their own. These arguments also include not differentiating the difference between rational numbers and whole numbers and often causes problems when dealing with decimals, in ignoring these problems it creates a learning environment that is tough for students to grasp an underlying conceptual idea. According to a study, one of the most important things we can do as educators is refine and extend the process where schemas are first constructed out of old ones, schema is defined as “a representation of a plan or theory in the form of an outline or model.”

The teaching framework of this theory was to use single forms of representation and present children with a sequence of tasks that maximize the connection between original  understanding of rations and their procedure for splitting numbers; the visual prop the educators chose was a beaker of water. If students were able to possess ratio measurement (beaker of water) than they should be able to use this type of structure as a starting point for learning decimals and fractions. The main idea of the framework is that if these techniques are adapted on a more widespread basis, educators can capitalize on children’s accomplishments. It is important to include various ways when teaching fractions and other numbers; while students may learn with a pie chart it is important to show other ways as well. Moss states that students will not learn from repeated showing of one way. This year, as a senior, we are learning other examples of showing children fractions, this can include base ten blocks or folding papers to show fractions. 

Moss, J., & Case, R. (1999). Developing children’s understanding of the rational numbers: A new model and an experimental curriculum. Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, 30, 122-147.

Disciplinary Literacy has been introduced and has sparked some sort of controversy in the world of education. It is the standard for 6-8th graders to understand and comprehend various forms of disciplinary literacy throughout all of the content areas. Where it becomes somewhat controversial is the inclusion in younger grades, or elementary. I believe it can be introduced to the younger grades, however, many believe that they are too young to fully understand the literacy. In my experience during observations being inside a hybrid history/science classroom students were able to comprehend and understand the material presented and be actively involved in literacy; this does not necessarily mean that students have to master these literacies or be a professional in science or history. While in early grade levels I believe disciplinary literacy does not have to be the main focus of each and every lesson, but can be introduced and allow the younger students to get a sense and provide them with an opportunity to experience what they will be dealing with in higher grades. 

As a pervious elementary student I do not remember learning with disciplinary literacies in history, It was present within my ELA courses where we would analyze and discuss deeper meanings of texts and themes. However, it was not really present in other courses. Being able to engage students and provide them with a more challenging opportunity that can prepare them for future schooling is important as we want to be able to prepare our students for success in all courses (especially our own). Within a future classroom I would like to introduce disciplinary literacy, especially in a 4th or 5th grade classroom; this not only prepares them but introduces the style of learning they will be being taught. It is important for teachers to communicate with each other and learn from each other’s courses and how the students learn in those classrooms to better the overall learning experience for students. 

In my field experience thorughout the mid-atlantic region I have been able to view a wide array of classrooms, each with a different perspective of teaching. While observing and teaching in these classrooms, I was able to be including in a hybrid course containing history and science content. As a hybrid course students would have a block schedule which would include science for the first half and history for the second. These could change due to the schedule. However, the material taught followed the 4 E’s Moje provided engaging, engineering, examining, and evaluating work. Students in the science classroom were able to dive into the lesson by receiving cards with information of planets, they were able to analyze the information on the card and seperate the cards into certain classifications. After this the students were able to create a log containing useful information on planets, stars, etc. They were also able to construct and demonstrate moon phases and orbit using classroom tools. Disciplinary literacy can be used in any class as long as the teacher is knowledgable on it and can prepare their classroom and students for the material.

Content in my eyes is the information being taught within a classroom, while on the other hand content area is is where that content is focused. This can include but not limited to, Math, Science, ELA, History. While observing in these classrooms, I have enjoyed seeing the different content areas, and the content has differed within the same content areas. This has given me more exposure to different levels of content and knowledge within the classroom as well as various grades in the same content area. The same goes for Discliplinary Literacy, some teachers can implement this into their lessons however, it is dependent on the teacher and how they want to model and shape their classroom and grab the students attention.

This weeks reading deals with the overarching idea of content, content area and the term Disciplinary Literacy. Content is defined as the information or expiriences that are more so directed at the audience.

Each student differs coming into a classroom, this can mean each student has different knowledge or expirience with various content being taught. This not only supports the fact that each student learns differently but that each student takes something different away from the lesson. Students learn content or material based on the expiriences they have had throughout life or how they have seen it be completed.

Teachers are able to use this information or can be knowledgable on how to direct students to best fit their learning expirience. This allows us as educators to try and eliminate confusion and give the best opportunity for our students to learn and comprehend “content”.

Disciplinary literacy however, is the notion that students are able to use strategies learned in a reading classroom and apply those strategies and resources to various classes. This means that students can learn one thing in a english class and apply that to a math test, using resources and strategies for them to fully comprehend the material. This method or theory calls for teachers to be experts in their content, as students should be learning from the teachers who are experts or best in their subject or content area. This allows the students to grasp a deeper understanding or comprehend the material at a higher level. The overall idea is to have students be able to comprehend and understand the material being taught, compared to teaching or giving students material that only stick with them for a test or that course. Students should be able to carry over strategies and methods to allow them to succeed in various courses.

follow my blog as we continue on with the year, this blog will grow with me as an educator so keep up to date with me!