Week 4: REFLECT on chapter from Wilhelm Book
Reflect on Wilhelm's book: Strategic Reading Chapters 1-3. What did you read that made you reflect on your teaching? What ideas did you read about that prompted you to reflect on reading and learning? Share your thoughts...
posted by Susan A. Garr at 7:25 PM
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COMMUNITY OF LEARNERS
In chapter 1 of Strategic Reading, Wilhelm et al discuss a relatively new model for a classroom called a “community of learners.” This model suggests that both teacher and students are active participants in learning rather than the one-sided models of teacher- or curriculum-centered and student-centered classrooms. Borrowing heavily from Vygotsky’s theories that espouse learning as a collaborative event between a student and expert (teacher, peer, parent, etc.), communities of learners view knowledge as “socially and culturally constructed” (Wilhelm 28). As I read this chapter, NEIU’s College of Education motto kept echoing through my head: Reflective Professionals Building Learning Communities. As silly as this motto can sound, it really does reveal what I am trying to become as a teacher.
Much of what we have read in this class as well as what I have read in my other methods classes push strongly toward building a community in the classroom in order to have a safe and effective learning environment, so this concept of a community of learners is not new to me. Wilhelm’s writing style is very succinct and clear, so this chapter makes for a great review of Vygotsky.
ZAD, ZPD, SCAFFOLDING
Beginning on page 16, Vygotsky’s theory on the zone of actual development (ZAD) and zone of proximal development (ZPD) are reviewed stressing that learning occurs in the ZPD with the assistance of an expert to guide the student and build on what the student already knows in order to introduce new knowledge, a process called “scaffolding.” I have a question about self-instruction. Based on my understanding of Vygotsky’s theory, we need an expert to guide our instruction through the ZPD. How can self-instruction be explained? When reading a text, is the author considered the expert that we learn from? Or, when doing something by trial and error, are we using that action as the expert to learn from?
"It is up to the teacher to share what she/he knows about sloving problems and create meaning, and then apply these as we create meaning together with students and colleagues" from chapter1} sloving problems and creating meaning is the foundation of teaching according to Wilhelm. His bottom lines support this. I wholeheartily agree teachers should get to know their students, as people and learners. Teachers should consider their problems and interests. It is a symboitc realationship. If their problems are helped the student teacher relationship should be more productive. If his/her interests are meet the students should work eagerly, and productivly towards a certain subject. Teachers should be flexible and work with their students. I agree with all these sentiments which are expressed in chp 1 but the one, which is sometimes forgotton is also the most important. Learning and teaching should be fun! If you cant have fun or at least enjoy what you are doing, it is hard to do your best. Besides, half or more what is taught, maybe even half of what is learned is of questionable value, so at least have fun experiencing it. from noah u
Chapter 3 –Wilhelm – A Very Impressive Educator!
The more I read, the more overwhelmed I become at how much I don’t know about being an effective teacher. Wilhelm’s ideas on, “Authorial Reading and Democratic Projects” changed many of my thoughts on teaching reading. What struck me most was Wilhelm’s thoughts on teaching reading in a way to help the students become, “powerful and motivated readers who can do humane and democratic work with literacy.” (page 58)
The idea that by teaching these strategies we can contribute to helping students not only become effective readers, but involved citizens is quite a goal. But, I do see his point now that I have read this chapter. There are many key points that I will take away from this reading and try to incorporate into my classes.
On page 64, he discusses the importance of working together in “everyday activities and connecting reading to everyday life and making reading a everyday activity.” Also important is the idea that curriculum should always be purposeful and connected to the students’ lives. “They want to be taught for who they are and what they need right now.”
I also like the thoughts of, Arthur Applebee when he argues that, “We should use conversation as our curriculum model, and place conversation at the center of classroom activity.” To me this is a key point because it draws the students into activity creates an atmosphere for higher-level thinking and exchange of ideas.
Rosenblatt’s reference to Dewey and his insight into the importance of viewing reading as a means to solve problems is important when building students’ interests in reading and personal motivation to engage in reading. They must be able to understand that reading offers an opportunity to explore what interests them, to investigate questions that they wish to solve.
Another key idea relates to our status as “expert readers.” We take much for granted and must stay aware of the level of our skills in order to understand the students’ struggle with their own reading skills.
I think Wilhelm sums it up on p. 87 when he proposes, “…that if we make school reading more like the successful reader’s home reading – more pleasant, more supported, more functional, and more part of a larger social project – then we have a chance to motivate nearly all of our student readers.”
LEARNING-CENTERED TEACHING
Chapter one on “A Theory of Teaching” provides an excellent overview of what teaching should be. It presents us with questions worth pondering such as “But do you know how to teach things to your students?” or “Do you know how to lend students your expertise as a reader, writer, and thinker, and how to assist them to take on the strategies of other experts?” The authors urge us that “we must constantly examine our instruction, asking: Is it working? How do we know? What is effective teaching and learning? What is the relationship of teaching and learning? And who or what is most responsible for learning: the environment? the teacher? the learner? And what do our answers to these questions mean for how we should organize education and teacher-student relationships?”
Some of these questions can be answered by Lev Vygotsky’s ideas about how learning takes place. He emphasizes nurture over nature, arguing that “the place where instruction and learning can take is the zone of proximal development (ZPD).” This is the place where a student needs the guidance of a teacher to propel him/her beyond the comfort zone of familiar intellectual domain and into an uncharted territory that still has some familiarity with his/her surroundings.
I really like the concept of Learning-Centered Teaching, where a teacher in presenting new material to students follows four steps to help students arrive at new knowledge. I will definitely use it in Algebra class. The 1st step is: teacher does, students watch; 2nd step: teacher does, students help; 3rd step: students do, teacher helps; 4th step: students do, teacher watches. It makes sense to me/. The goal of a teacher as of a parent is become obsolete and let students become independent.
REFLECTION ON WILHELM, CHAPTER 2
OVERVIEW/SUMMARY FOR THOSE WHO DID NOT READ THIS CHAPTER
Chapter 2 in Wilhelm’s book explores some theories behind the reading process. After offering different definitions of reading (pages 32-33), the text presents theories of teaching reading that reflect these differing definitions.
The bottom-up theorists and New Critical theorists tend to go hand-in-hand, and is the most widely used (and most ineffective, according to the textbook) method. Most teachers are unaware that this the theory that they practice, and that it is the most ineffective. This is, on a very basic level, the teacher teaches the “hidden” meaning in the texts. There is an absolute answer to “What does this text mean?”
The top-down theorists and subjective reader response theorists correspond in a similar way. These theorists focus on student-centered approaches and embrace the overall question of “What does this text mean to ME?” The expertise of the teacher is usually missing here.
The authorial reading theory discusses a democratic edge to reading and writing. This theory and the principles behind it are very noble, in-depth and made me write “WOW!” in my margins—refer to the bottom of page 36, on to page 37. The big idea is blending the teacher-centered approach and the student-centered approach, by giving the students freedom of choice and exploration, while providing the expertise to help them to the next level.
Wilhelm uses the example of teaching irony to students using varying approaches and the responses the students gave. Basically, the text states that the “blended” approach is proven the best. (pages 41-44) He goes on to explain guided reading, which is a practical application to the theory of scaffolding.
The Inquiry Square is a graphic representation of this guided reading. (Check out figure 2.3, page 48). The chapter ends with 6 strategies to help teachers teach reading, on pages 53+.
MY OPINION/ACTUAL REFLECTION
What I found funny was that I immediately reacted to the beginning part of this chapter with “I don’t have the necessary background knowledge to truly understand this chapter… I didn’t read Chapter 1!!”
I think as teachers that we need to also explore how to teach students to tackle texts when they DON’T have substantial background info. Sure, we need to provide this as teachers, but what happens in the real world when they are faced with a text that they do not have sufficient background knowledge about? How do they tackle this task? I did not like the book’s suggestion on page 51, number 4 at the bottom of the page: “…If the student does not possess the appropriate background, then it must be built or the task must be given up.” I think I understand where they are coming from, and this is consistent with Vygotsky, but this statement is not conducive to providing the student tools with which to practically approach real world complications.
As to the Inquiry Square, I thought this was a confusing and awkward tool. The steps were numbered differently on the different pages, and the information given in Figure 2.3 was both too specific and vague (is this possible??)… There were some good points in the walk-through given in the text on page 49-50, like questioning “Why might an author write a fable?” or that the teacher needs to “…assist students’ to respond to and interpret the formal conventions of the text.”
However, I don’t think I agree with the statement on page 49: “The text tells the reader how to respond to the text.” Is this so? I think a better approach is helping the students to look for the clues that will tell them certain things from the text, but encouraging them to come up with their own inferences, conclusions, and opinions. I can say from many of the short stories that I am now reading in my late American Literature course that very few of the stories (the best don’t!) tell me how to respond. And isn’t this the whole idea behind everyone bringing their own background experiences to the text and making it their own?
The last thing I want to respond to is that I think too many teachers do not know what they are actually teaching. If I were going to do a unit on fables, and I were to present the question of purpose to the students, and then go on to explore the structure and how this helps to portray the meaning… I don’t think I would know this, even though I think I know what a fable is! (This is in response to page 50- “teachers… are always astonished at how much a student needs to know and to do to write or read what seems to be a simple kind of text like a fable…”) This gets me off on my tangent as to why it should be necessary for English education students to take a grammars course!! But I won’t…
I read chapter 1. I really found it interesting how they broke down the different types of learning/teaching. It brought up all of the clinical psychologists I am learning about in my beginning education classes. I never really thought about really having to apply their theories...but after reading the chapter, I felt a bias to using Vygotsky's theory of Zpd. I liked all the developmental psychologists and felt that they equally contributed to our understaning of the human mind and how we learn. The book made Vygotsky's theory out to be the best...that bothered me. I would like to be able to use a little of everyone's theories, not just the one. My one question on Vygotsky's theory of Zpd is when do you know you are pushing at the right level? the whole point of zpd is for structured learning where the student can learn to do things with help and eventually on their own. the book gave an example of a class to read Shakespeare. The class did not read it because it was too hard. the book said that Shakespeare was above their ZpD. How do we, as teachers, know how hard to push our students to the next level?
from seven a problem i had when i was kid, and still have to a lesser degree today is admitting a weakness, or even worse asking for help. As a student if i had problem say with algerbra, the last thing i would do would ask for help. Feeling stupid was one thing but bringing attention to it is another. It is like the girl with a huge zit on her nose. She will try to destroy it, try to cover it with makeup, wear those ski masks, anything. But the last thing she wants to do is bring attention to it. A teacher must draw out students who need attention, sometimes it should be done privately, for the student will have some sort of privacy, and not have a chance to feel ashamed. Peer help, peer teaching while a good idea, often will not bring out any real benifits. After all, a student does may not whant to draw attention to a reading problem, least of all to his classmates. It is no wonder that many students graduate high school, and a few college, with out being able to read. The older they get the more shame they feel, in not being able to read. On the other hand i agree whole heartedly, with the breaking down of complex, taks to their simplist forms. Teachers, experts are often the worst to instruct students, not because they lack the knowledge or skill, but because of their knowledge or skill. When someting comes easy for someone, or they are a natural at it, they uually did not have to work so hard on the founations, the building blocks, of that given subject matter. After all the best coaches are usually the ones who lacked the raw ability, to become the best players, but made up for it with a through understanding of the given sport. Ted Williams the last player to hit 400, was a bad coach because he could not relate to players less talented than him. To be a succesful teacher one should, take the mindset of not of a natural say, mathmatican, but of a struggling student trying to get by. He should be able to break down every step of every equation, and have the patience, of doing it over dozens of times. He should speak in simple terms and should be approcahable. ny noah
I am sure I wrote before for this blog, but for some reason I can't find it. so I am writing again :)
Title: Learning -Centered Teaching.
I really enjoyed reading this section on page 11 and definitely the diagram of the strategy I do you watch- I do you help - you do I help - you do I watch.
This was one of the greatest things I liked and learned in this course simply because it applies to math teaching a lot. In math I have to do an example, then I ask the student to help me with the second example, then I give them work sheet and I will help them and finally I will ask them to come to the board and give me their answer.
I really believe that is not only a strategy that is used in education but moreover it is a strategy that is used so much in our lives. As young children we watch our parents and we act like them, then when we are in older children we try to act like them. When we are teenagers we try to be who we want and our parents help us to become a successful person. When we are adult, our parents watch us grow and success in our lives. Isn’t this amazing?
I have always incorporated this strategy in my learning but I never realized that I did it :)
I am planning to incorporate it in a lot of my student teaching lesson plan because I believe that it is one of the fastest ways to teach children. You might ask, “But it is not going to help student learn through discovering?” I am planning to involve other strategies but this would be one of my main strategies.
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