Discussion Responses: Craft/write a written response to our assigned readings as if you are responding a parent or administrator. This will allow you to practice synthesizing your learning and articulating it to a variety of audiences. Your original post will:
- Be around 250 -350 words is the “sweet spot” for length–enough to engage, but not so long that it can’t be read quickly.
- Include references to a variety of readings and resources, rather than just about one reading. (e.g., class discussion, articles, etc.)
- Also include personal and professional connections.
- This includes:
- Your initial Post &
- Your response to two other people (about 3-4 sentences) by Monday @ midnight.
- Please refer to the rubric Links to an external site.to ensure that you’ve addressed each criteria of the assignment.
Discussion Prompt:
You are a third grade teacher and a parent has written you an email of concern. This is their child’s first year in the public school system and they have a lot of questions. Please choose two of their questions to respond to in email and offer a follow up time to talk about their remaining concerns:
- Why are you using so many texts? Doesn’t my kid just need to practice STAAR passages this year?
- What kinds of reading will they do in your class? How will this help them in the later years?
- How do you support students’ literacy in math, science, and social studies? These have lots of new vocabulary and complex background knowledge and I’m afraid this will be too overwhelming for my kid.
- How do you choose texts and plan for students’ literacy and language needs?
This discussion should include a response about at least two of the following topics making at least 3 references to a combination of a) our course slides, b) readings, c) class discussion. You can also briefly make personal connections, but please note that this is not included in the three references. Lastly*I put my resources and personal connections in bold so you could see me explicitly addressing them.
Here is my example on another topic:
Hi Mrs. Johnson,
Thanks for reaching out. I’m so glad to hear about your questions, and I’m happy to chat here and talk more on the phone as well. One of the most helpful frameworks for me as a teacher has been thinking and planning with the gradual release of responsibility. As a new teacher, I thought the learning intention was pedantic; it was just something we had to do, but I didn’t really see how it was helpful. Then, as I continued in my first several years, it helped me to not over teach and focus my entire lesson on introducing one major standard. I also learned that when I am in a rush teaching or planning my teaching, I skip the modeling. In my teacher preparation classes I learned that when we’re in a hurry, we forget to model. In my later years in the classroom to meet everyone’s needs when it came to independent practice, I would ask students to reflect and let me know if they wanted to work by themselves, with a partner, or with me. This helped me to differentiate and give the “just right” level of support (not too much and not too little), so students could develop confidence to eventually work independently.
From these experiences, I’ve learned that people never outgrow the gradual release of responsibility–whether it is my students or other adults! I wish education systems gave more space for adults to receive this normal support; it’s just a natural part of learning. In relation to the textbook, I especially appreciated the quick tips it pointed out for modeling: focusing on naming it, explaining it, showing it, and pointing out errors. The article also mentioned examples across content areas to show us what it looked it. This is a super helpful mental checklist I can have as a teacher so I don’t “over teach”, which is my tendency.
This is just a start of the answers to your questions. Again, I’d be happy to set up a time to talk with you over the next week or so. What days and times work better for you?
I look forward to talking more,
Dr. Salazar
