Ch. 8 - Reinforcing Effort

The reinforcing effort chapter is all about teaching students that effort is a key ingredient in success. The act of reinforcing effort helps students to comprehend that there is a relationship between the two.

There are a few easy methods to help students see this correlation. Teachers can make a rubric showing what they believe to be "good" to "unacceptable" effort in any category that they believe to be important in classroom success. They can then give the students blank spreadsheets so they can rate themselves. After they have graded themselves, the students can highlight the Total Effort and Grade cells and create a new graph in which they can see the coorelation between the effort they expel and the grades they receive. Another example the authors gave was a math teacher who used his unit on graphing to help his students see that in the relationship of effort and grades, when one works harder, his grade is generally higher than when one doesn't work as hard.

It is also imperative to show students success stories of older or past students. When students see that their peers have overcome the same problems they have now, it is easier for them to believe they can succeed, too. Rather than just telling your students of success stories, there could be a section on the school website where teachers submit stories of their students. Teachers can also send out surveys to older students asking about how they overcame difficulties by hard work; teachers can then show their younger students the results of the survey.

Until reading this chapter, I never thought about needing to teach students that effort is necessary; it was always so obvious to me. But just because something was obvious to me, that does not mean that every student grows up with parents teaching them that hard work is the only way to achievement. I was lucky in that my parents instilled a great work ethic in me; but I now see that as teachers, we may have to do the same for our students. Using other students' success can be useful; instead of students just assuming, "Well, I'm a girl so I can't be good at math" or paying attention to other stereotypes, if a younger girl hears the story of a girl going to State for math, the younger girl may begin trying a little harder in math class. I also love the idea of using graphs and charts to show students the coorelation between working hard and achieving what they are striving for. As students grow older, this will probably be the most effective method for teaching students what hard work can do. When students see their grades raising as they put in more effort, that is probably a much more profound realization that simply hearing about a success story of another student.

Using Spreadsheets- El Ed Chapter 11

When I was younger, I definitely got frustrated when trying to play with word art or the shapes on Word when trying to create some sort of web or timeline or just creative text because it was impossible to get things lined up just so. I never thought to try and do it on a spreadsheet, it makes so much sense. Everything gets perfectly aligned and there's no struggle getting everything to print from one page because it will pretty much do it for you because multiple pages are accessed at one time, which is awesome.

We definitely took advantage of using spreadsheets for math related topics like graphing and money management, but this really broadens what can be done over all the subjects.

El Ed Chapter 11

I really liked some of the ideas in this chapter. I think teachers often assume that data bases and spreadsheets are too complex for elementary school students, but this chapter offers some really great uses for them in the classroom. I think my favorite idea is the webbing and timeline. As a middle school and even high school student I struggled to create neat and professional looking timelines in Microsoft Word, which I found nearly impossible. It never even occurred to me to try using Excel or another spreadsheet program. If I had the background knowledge of those programs from elementary school, it would have been very helpful. I also loved the ideas for graphing, especially the example about graphing genres of books read. What I like about that is that it combines the technology of the spreadsheet, the mathematical concept of graphing, and reading, which is associated with language arts. I think it is really important to show students that all of those areas are connected.

GPS keeps track of Palos Hts. School bus riders

Liz Exo’s Blog Post:

If the world of education could implement technology to do anything, the GPS tracker is the best idea ever. The article describes how certain Illinois school districts are putting tiny GPS cards on each student’s backpack, and this chip can track when and where the student gets on and off the bus each day. Coming from a family with very cautious parents, I can immediately see how much less stress parents would have to deal with in regards to letting their children take the bus to and from school. I am absolutely all for this type of technology because it gives everyone involved the peace of mind that their children/students are getting where they need to be in a very effective and safe manner. Although this technology is expensive- costing one district $16,000 for 10 buses- I think it is totally worth it. Safety should be of the utmost importance, as I am sure most people would agree.

How Schools are Putting the IPad to Work

Liz Exo’s Blog post:

I read the article about schools, mainly universities that are implementing IPads into the school. In the article the author describes the ways in which the IPads are being put to use. First off, they are being used as recruiting tools to get prospective students to go to their university. The students have a choice of purchasing a laptop or an IPad, which is about half the cost. Also, IPads are being used to increase classroom participation. There is an application on the IPad that allows for the teacher to ask the students quick true/false questions or even short answer questions throughout the hour, so that students that normally don’t participate can be held accountable. Other advantages to the IPad are that it can take the place of a traditional textbook, and that it is less distracting than a computer with internet.
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m all for new technology in the classroom, but I am a bit wary about the idea of the IPad completely taking over the classroom. Personally, the idea of the IPad replacing textbooks makes me nervous. For some reason, I am not as comfortable reading online as I am reading through a textbook. I don’t seem to concentrate as much, and I think being able to write in the book helps me take in the information more easily. Also, I wonder where the funding for all of these IPads is coming from? Personally, I think that money could be used for education in other ways that buying the latest technology.

Secondary Ed Sections

I found this reading to be interesting and very useful. There were tools I had never even heard of mentioned in the reading, such as the Flesch-Kincaid Readability Scale, which is a really helpful tool to develop writing skills. I also had no idea that grading software exists; with this software, there is no need for a teacher or TA to do any grading whatsoever. The teacher can focus on lesson plans more than would be possible if he was trying to grade 100 papers as well as get the plans completed.

The reading also increased my knowledge in the areas of classroom response systems and Wikis. I have seen these before, but only because the Office of Residential Life uses a classroom response system during spring training and as RAs, we use Wikis to make any reports to ORL.

There was also valuable information on note-taking and writing tools for students mentioned in the reading. I never would have thought about using the Track Changes tool in Microsoft Word to help students learn to ignore unnecessary information by simply striking it out with this tool. Using PowerPoint, a student can make his own combination notes, which can help a visual learner to connect photos to the information he needs to learn. The AutoSummarize tool is also beneficial when a student is writing a paper because he can use the tool to ensure that he is, in fact, making his point as he believes he is.

I had no idea about most of the technology the reading discussed, and had it not been for IWU, I would have known even less. It is really important for more shools to start using technology in different ways. It is not fair that certain students have access to more technology, while other school districts are still simply writing on white boards and chalkboards.

E-Books make readers more social

This article attempts to make the point that by reading an e-book (such as the Amazon Kindle or the iPad), people who are reading in public are now more approachable. The author states that people reading in public often seem unapproachable or "too busy to talk." He makes the point that when people are reading e-books rather than paper books, one might be more apt to approach them and engage them in conversation.

I do not however, necesssarily agree with this statement. Whether someone is reading a paper book or has an e-book in front of them, the majority of people are not going to interrupt that person. In our society, interrupting someone is considered very rude -- no matter what he happens to be holding.

The author also attempts to prove that e-books are removing the stigma of reading in public and seeming to be a "loner." I do not see a difference in reading a book or an e-book; either way, one is reading. I did not even realize there was a stigma of reading in public, but a dermatologist the author interviewed stated that "there may have once been a slight stigma about people reading alone, but I think that it no longer exists because of the advancement of our current technology." I do not understand how technology could simply remove a stigma of reading alone in public; even with a Kindle or the iPad, one is still reading in public.