Response to Chapters 3 and 6

            Chapters 3 and 6 of this book went into the issues of textbooks. There are many issues that educators need to address. The first chapter was entitled “Why Textbooks Aren’t Enough” and the second was entitled “How To Use A Textbook”. I will focus more on the first chapter, since there wasn’t much to discuss regarding math textbooks in the other chapter.

While reading these chapters, I realized how much I neglected the true purpose of textbooks. It was stated that textbooks were like encyclopedias. I never realized how true this was. Textbooks are not meant to be read like a book. They are meant to be considered for facts. “They are intentionally ‘content-overloaded’ with facts, dates, formulas, and taxonomies” (40) because that is their true purpose. When we ask students to read a chapter of a textbook for homework we wonder why they have such a hard time reading through it. Imagine trying to read an encyclopedia yourself—I know that I wouldn’t want to do that!

Textbook publishers are now trying to make the textbooks easier to read. This doesn’t come easily with the amount of information that they hold. “Reviewers complained that the text was full of sidebars, boxes, and other presumably eye-catching special features… which distracted from the content” (42). This is a major issue. In trying to make the textbooks easier to read, they are actually making it harder. These sidebars and eye-catching features confuse the students more while trying to read their encyclopedias called textbooks. 

One of the most important ideas that I gathered from the text was that most teachers, including my high school teachers of the past, only used one text to give us information. “When we rely upon a single source for all of a course’s content, we are teaching kids to accept one view, one authority; we are saying that it is right to depend upon a single voice, even on complicated, value-driven questions” (43). We need to teach students that there is more than one way of doing things, and just because it is written in print, doesn’t mean it is the best, or easiest way of doing things. I recall that in high school, I was told that we wouldn’t be factoring the way that the book does because our teacher had an easier way of doing it. My classmates and I didn’t question our teacher at all. We had no problems with this because as long as it was easier for us, we were in.

In the next chapter that we read, the chapter focused on how we can effectively use textbooks. The idea that I took away the most was that “you have to prioritize; you have to decide to teach a few things well and fully—and let some other stuff slide” (146). This is a major issue in the land of math. We are constantly trying to get through the textbook, teaching students things that aren’t necessarily important skills that they will need later. In doing so, we negate to allow them to fully grasp what we are teaching them, thus assisting them to never be able to retain the information later on. When you think about it, did you really need to learn three different ways of factoring. Wouldn’t one have been plenty?

            Overall, I believe that these chapters helped me to realize that I don’t need to use the textbook for everything and I definitely don’t need the students to read the textbook cover to cover. It is OK for me to skip over some topics (even though I will feel uncomfortable in doing so), but it will be for the better good of my students. Hopefully in doing these things, they will be able to retain information later on and be able to see first hand when they will ever use that information again.         

Response to Modulo A and F (UbD)

            While reading these chapters, Understanding by Design was the main topic. This is the idea of teaching not just skills to students, but overall concepts. This is because “understanding is revealed when students autonomously make sense of and transfer their learning through authentic performance” (1). Students must be able to relate the content that they are learning to something previously learned so that they can transfer that knowledge to what they are now learning. The concepts must be applicable in many situations. This will help them recall the information later on in the school year whether it is on a test or maybe the NECAPs.

            As stated previously, it is vital that we teach students a concept rather than just a skill. This is going to be difficult to those teachers who are already set on their ways of teaching a section and then testing their students on it. What many teachers don’t realize is that “this approach leads to surprisingly poor test results, because students do not recognize prior learning in unfamiliar-looking test questions” (2).  Teaching overall concepts instead of skills will increase the students’ depth of knowledge. They will then be better off when taking standardized tests that aren’t offered right after they have learned the concept.

            When teaching using the Understanding by Design approach, most success has been found when teachers use the Backward Design approach to planning a lesson. This is when teachers start their plans with determining what they want their students to gain from learning this content. Once that is determined, the teacher must decide how they will determine if their students have understood what has been taught. For example, how the students will be tested on the subject matter. Last, the teacher decides how they will teach the concepts to his or her students so that these results will be evident. This design makes sense to me because it allows you to know what you expect of your students before you begin teaching them as the authors put it, “our job is to prioritize, make interesting and useful, and ‘uncover’ the content, not merely ‘cover’ it” (7). This is a very simple idea that makes the most sense. Why would you want to teach your students useless information?

            Understanding by Design is a great approach that I feel all teachers should incorporate in their classrooms. It is the idea of teaching students concepts that they can apply to different problems. It is the idea of teaching students not just things that they need to know to do well on the test, but things that they can use. It is the idea of knowing what you want your students to get out of the lesson before teaching the lesson to alleviate any unnecessary and irrelevant material. Understanding by Design needs more recognition by teachers so that our students can retain content throughout the years, instead of retaining it just for the time of the unit.

Review of the Wilhelm Chapters

            Strategic Reading: Guiding Students to Lifelong Literacy, 6-12 was a great except to read. I read chapters one and two and found myself surrounded with many great ideas for teaching. The most important idea I found was the learning-centered teaching guide. This model has four steps: “I do you watch”, “I do you help”, “You do I help”, and “You do I watch” (Wilhelm 11). This idea of learning-centered teaching is the best way for students to fully grasp what they are learning, while at the same time, you as the teacher will not be helping them too much. This model brings to light Vygotsky’s well-known idea of scaffolding and the zone of proximal development. “When students have had enough support and practice with a particular task… the ante of instruction can then be raised and a task in a new zone of proximal development approached”  (Wilhelm 20). This is very important when teaching students. They must constantly be moving their zones of proximal development so that they can continue to reach their maximum potential of learning and understanding.

            Wilhelm further explained that the curriculum-centered model of teaching and learning is most predominantly used in the middle and high school levels. This is when teachers are giving lectures to students and the students must regurgitate that information back to the teacher on a test. This is not a good model for learning because “the knowledge is declarative, decontextualized, and inert… knowledge is not constructed nor applied” (Wilhelm 10). The student does not think for himself when this type of teaching is occurring in the classroom. Later on, the student cannot recall this information because he didn’t have to come up with anything on his own. There was no real thought that went into the learning, just memorization.

            These chapters by Wilhelm reminded me of the important ideas from Vygotsky that we must apply in our own classrooms to make the most out of our teaching efforts. It is important as we get closer and closer to becoming teachers that we realize the best way for a student to learn. This means that we cannot lecture students for 50 minutes a day. If we want the student to not only learn but to enjoy our classrooms, we must make it a community of learning. We are not the all and powerful teachers who know everything. We must allow the students to learn first hand how and why something is the way it is. We must teach them in steps, allowing the student to master a particular strategy and then allow them to move on to a different approach as Wilhelm explained in the learning–centered teaching guide. We cannot start our teaching in the “I do you watch” phase and then skip to the “you do I watch” phase the very next example. It is a process of learning. Once we realize that learning is a shared and interactive idea, is when the students will learn to the best of their abilities.

Literacy Profile: Literacy in Baking

          Ever since I can remember, I was always helping my mom in the kitchen. I would help her with whatever she happened to be cooking, but what I enjoyed most was baking. We have this wonderful recipe for banana bread that we would make for my family whenever we had bananas in the house. Another memory is during Christmas, when we would bake many cookies for my teachers as well as for Santa. I have always enjoyed baking, but I believe that the reason I first wanted to bake was to help my mom. I always enjoyed spending time with her. Throughout the years, I became very good at baking. I also enjoyed it even if my mom wasn’t able to bake with me. To this day, I am the one who makes the cookies or banana bread in my household.

          There is literacy in baking. This literacy is quite different than the literacy you would commonly think of (like reading a book). Knowing how to follow the directions on a recipe is much different than reading a novel. You must first make sure you have all of the ingredients for whatever you are making and then you must follow the directions. Directions can be written in many different ways depending on who is writing them, who is the intended audience, and where they are written (i.e. in a published cookbook versus a family recipe written on an index card).

          Having baking as a background has given me an insight when it comes to teaching. I like to see things written out in steps. I find that if a student is having a hard time remembering the order in which to do things it comes in handy if we stop what we’re doing, and look at the big picture. For example, when solving a word problem it is important to break it down into steps. First, you must identify what you are trying to solve for. Once that has been decided, you must determine which formulas you need to solve the problem. Then you must pick out the information given in the word problem. Once your information has been gathered, you can use the formula to solve for the unknown. After this list is written, the student has the tools they need to solve math problem. This task is similar to the way you bake a cake. You must follow the directions in a particular order to arrive at your final goal (whether it is to bake a cake or to solve a word problem). This method is very helpful for those students who like to see the big picture. They like to see an outline for how to do this sort of problem and then apply it to the specific problem they are working on.

          In my years of tutoring students, I find that students prefer to have this list format. They like it so much that they even ask me to help them create a step-by-step list for other types of math problems. It helps them keep track of what is happening and when they have to use certain methods. It is very rewarding for me because I can see first hand how simple it made the problem for the student. In addition, I also have the satisfaction of knowing that I gave those students a tool that they can use when they go on to further classes. This method can be stored in their “toolbox” for them to use in not just math courses but other subjects as well.

          I believe that baking has led me to become a better teacher. This tool—something as simple as writing out the directions of how to solve a math problem—will help my students and I. I can teach students to write out an ordered list, which can help them in not only their schoolwork, but in other aspects of life as well. Baking with my mom has given me a tool that has not only helped my own life, but has allowed me to help future students who I will teach.