Difference between revisions of "User:Natasha Rankine1"
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For my Design Project I will be focusing on "Using News ELA to raise the reading level of the lower 3rd of any class". | For my Design Project I will be focusing on "Using News ELA to raise the reading level of the lower 3rd of any class". | ||
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It is known that many students struggle with the fundamental skills of reading and comprehension. | It is known that many students struggle with the fundamental skills of reading and comprehension. | ||
Revision as of 20:21, 9 May 2019
Return to ETAP 623 ||| Natasha's Mini Course
About me
My name is Natasha Rankine and this is my first semester in the CDIT program. I am currently in my 2nd year of teaching and couldn't be happier with my choice to become a teacher. I received my undergraduate degree from Queens College. My major was Education with a concentration in English.
My Topic/Purpose
For my Design Project I will be focusing on "Using News ELA to raise the reading level of the lower 3rd of any class".
PURPOSE
It is known that many students struggle with the fundamental skills of reading and comprehension. Using News ELA will help teachers help their students. News ELA has predesigned articles and lessons that are Common Core aligned. These lessons help struggling readers to raise their reading level to "on grade level"
Needs Assessment
Instructional Problem: As a teacher, our main goal should be student achievement. Ideally all of the students that we service will be reading on their correct grade level or above. Working in schools makes us realize that this is not always the case. Often time students are 2 or even 3 grade levels behind. This become extremely problematic as students get older and the content that they are responsible for becomes more difficult. With students and literacy there are multiple obstacles that get in their way of achieving their proper reading or lexile level. According to the National Assessment of Educational Process (NAEP) approximately 25% of all 8th graders in 2017 read below grade level and approximately 30% of 12 graders read below grade level. Obstacles such as vocabulary, pronunciation, and most importantly comprehension hinder students' ability to grow. In order for our students to excel in their future life endeavors, we need to promote literacy. Student achievement in school is greatly correlated with life success.
What is to be Learned: ELA educators will learn how to integrate News ELA into their lessons in order to raise the lexile level of their lower 3rd. Participants will examine different articles and how to use them to maximize the effectiveness of the service. Participants will be encouraged to choose the articles based on the interests of their students.
The Learners: Learners will include secondary ELA educators teaching in Grade 7-12 environments. Learners will all have experience with CCSS standards and what each standard means. Additionally, learners will have some experience teaching reading strategies such as highlighting and annotating. Instruction and activities will be geared toward the classroom teacher although information could also be shared with students to help them navigate the website and to promote self motivated learning.
Prerequisites:
- Basic knowledge of how to use a computer/laptop
- Knows how to send a receive emails (participants should have a working email address)
- Know which students they are going to focus on. AKA their lower 3rd
- Know how to assess data
- Currently has data reflecting struggling students. Teachers must know which standards they want to focus on for their focus group of students
Analysis of the Learner and Context
The learner in the context of my mini course will be middle school teachers. This mini course would be a series of professional development sessions. The projected attitudes of these learners is that they are reluctant to try new things in the classroom. They all also do not subscribe to the growth mindset ideology. This is important to note because when starting the course, these ideas need to be brought to the surface and discussed in.
Determine what you need to know about your learner(s):
-How much experience do you have with students who are reading below grade level?
How have you tried to help struggling readers in the past?
Locate the desired data or identify/design tools to collect it
I will have 10 learners in the professional development. The learners have a range in experience with struggling readers. Also, they do have different opinions on struggling readers. This was confirmed through conversations with them. This will impact design because for some learners, they already have a wall up. That wall needs to knocked down before any learning using Newsela can take place. Also, other learners see how it can be helpful but think that it would be too time consuming and “doing too much”. This will also impact design because although the learner believes that their students can learn regardless of their level, they fear the extra work. To combat this issue, I would have to show learners how easy and time efficient this is. Learners all have 3 or more years experience in the classroom as an ELA teacher. 6 of the expected participants are women and 4 are men. The learners do not have any noted cognitive or physical disabilities that would prevent them from completing this Professional Development. Motivations: For the PD, learners will need to be intrinsically motivated to complete this. Motivation will be created on the first day of instruction. Learners will be asked “how do struggling readers hold you back as an educator?” This makes the learner in the PD the main attraction. This question makes it about them and not their student. Although the student is a stakeholder in this, the teacher needs to see how helping struggling readers become better readers can help them in the future. Most of the learners are from a Caribbean country. This impacts instruction because Caribbean teachers usually have a different perspective on student learning than America does. They are use to more teacher centered instruction than student centered. This will affect instruction because with Newsela children are urged to work either by themselves or with a partner/group.
Performance Objectives
Course-level objectives
Teachers will be able to:
- Reflect on prior knowledge and experience regarding the lower 1/3 of a class or struggling readers
- Explain and understand the importance of differentiated instruction and using News ELA as a tool
- Develop an understanding of to why News ELA is important to the development of you and your students
- Create a News ELA login and use it
- Create a differentiated lesson plan using the News ELA articles
- Recommend next steps for their students based on the results from the assessment
Task Analysis
Unit 1: Motivation
Lesson 1 : Motivation: Reflect on prior knowledge and experience regarding the lower 1/3 of a class or struggling readers
Lesson 2: Explain and understand the importance of differentiated instruction and using News ELA as a tool
Unit 2: Creation
Lesson 3: Creation: Creating a Newsela login
Unit 3: Implementation
Lesson 4: Implementation: How to implement Newsela as a differentiation tool for a lesson plan
Lesson 5: Implementation: How analyze data received by Newsela
Curriculum Map
Unit 1: Motivation
Lesson 1 : Motivation: Reflect on prior knowledge and experience regarding the lower 1/3 of a class or struggling readers
Lesson 2: Explain and understand the importance of differentiated instruction and using News ELA as a tool
Unit 2: Creation
Lesson 3: Create a Newsela login
Unit 3: Implementation
Lesson 4:Assign articles to students
Lesson 5: Find the data of the students that are part of your lower 3rd.
Media:News ELA Curriculum Map Rankine.png.ogg
"'ELA Curriculum Map"'||"https://tccl.arcc.albany.edu/knilt/index.php?title=File:Screen_Shot_2019-03-31_at_2.24.56_PM.png"
["| Curriculum Map]
References and Resources
Unit 1:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5vc1lMoJFjg
