Re: [Understand] Sarah, Audrey and the Hopper painting
All right, Ellin. How about this one? I am taking some very challenging coursework right now. The course is called Disciplined Inquiry 1 and involves statistical methods and methods for qualitiative and quantitative research. I started out completely intimidated by the math and by the difficulties inherent in the reading I need to do for this course. The text book is highly technical and we are reading just reams and reams of additional research but with a critical eye. We are analyzing research methodologies, critiquing researcher's interpretations and completing our own literature review where we must identify gaps in the research. I haven't worked so hard to understand something in my life, ever. I decided to pay some special attention to what it is taking me to understand. SO... yes, there are many reading/thinking strategies...rereading, making connections and two column notetaking figure heavily into my work... There has certainly been struggle as I try to undestand, dwelling in ideas, rigorous discourse with classmates and I do find myself looking for patterns. But the most interesting thing I have noticed about my process for understanding...and I am not sure whether or not it is a dimension or an outcome of understanding (I really don't think I get that distinction yet...) ...is a feeling of efficacy. I feel a sense of power that comes from my newfound knowledge. That can do feeling also comes from the sense that now know I can tackle and master something that is inherently difficult for me. I like reading research now and I like not skipping over the methodology and the statistical analysis which used to mean nothing to me. I like being able to see the strengths and weaknesses in a particular research study and thinking about how it fits in with the broader spectrum of research on a particular topic. I think most of all, I like being able to demonstrate for my students that yes reading strategies do work for adults too...and that learning to read continues for adults. We all get better and learn to understand more by exercising that muscle in your brain through struggling to understand challenging material. It is worth the struggle... and it feels GREAT! (Much to my own surprise!) Now I must go and read some more...my literature review for my final paper will surprise no one who has been on this list a while...Lesson study! :-) Jennifer Palmer Reading Specialist, National Board Certified Teacher FLES- Lead the discovery, Live the learning, Love the adventure. Ancora Imparo. (Translation: I am still learning.) Michelangelo at 87 years of age From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Ellin Keene Sent: Sat 11/29/2008 1:21 PM To: understand@literacyworkshop.org Subject: [Understand] Sarah, Audrey and the Hopper painting Hi everyone; I just wanted to underscore the important point Jan has made here. The writing example she raises was really the genesis for much of what we did at the PEBC in Denver in the early years. We spent time writing, sharing our writing and refining it before extrapolating lessons from our experiences into the classroom. It not only made the lessons so much more authentic, it seemed to build on the real needs writers have rather than on some curriculum list that a publisher created. It's not that some of those skills aren't important, but are much more easily taught and applied when they come from the real experiences of the teacher, first, and later, of course, from the children. The same thing is true in reading, but so much of our reading experiences are cognitive and therefore, not visible or audible and much tougher to define and describe. As you know, the Dimensions and Outcomes I describe in To Understand came directly from observing both teachers and children in the process of coming to understand. All I really did was to apply a set of descriptors to what I observed-those descriptors became the Outcomes and Dimensions. I think the potential that you all bring to this work is to continually observe (yourself and your kids) to discover Dimensions and Outcomes I may have missed!! What do you observe when you closely watch yourself and/or your kids in the process of understanding? If we can define and describe those observations, we can increase the likelihood that more children will use them! I'd be curious to hear if any of you have discovered new Outcomes or Dimensions in your own reading and/or in your classrooms. . . . Very best, ellin keene I think it is very important for teachers to experience the dimensions of understanding at a conscious level before trying to implement these ideas in the classroom. When we have experienced it, the experience becomes part of our schema. It helps us to understand what the students are going through if we go through it ourselves. The best teacher is experience. I was part of a 7 district collaborative on writing workshop.
Re: [Understand] Sarah, Audrey and the Hopper painting
Hopefully we'll all have a chance to benefit from the bib for the lit review?? Date: Sat, 29 Nov 2008 15:53:26 -0500 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; understand@literacyworkshop.org Subject: Re: [Understand] Sarah, Audrey and the Hopper painting All right, Ellin. How about this one? I am taking some very challenging coursework right now. The course is called Disciplined Inquiry 1 and involves statistical methods and methods for qualitiative and quantitative research. I started out completely intimidated by the math and by the difficulties inherent in the reading I need to do for this course. The text book is highly technical and we are reading just reams and reams of additional research but with a critical eye. We are analyzing research methodologies, critiquing researcher's interpretations and completing our own literature review where we must identify gaps in the research. I haven't worked so hard to understand something in my life, ever. I decided to pay some special attention to what it is taking me to understand. SO... yes, there are many reading/thinking strategies...rereading, making connections and two column notetaking figure heavily into my work... There has certainly been struggle as I try to undestand, dwelling in ideas, rigorous discourse with classmates and I do find myself looking for patterns. But the most interesting thing I have noticed about my process for understanding...and I am not sure whether or not it is a dimension or an outcome of understanding (I really don't think I get that distinction yet...) ...is a feeling of efficacy. I feel a sense of power that comes from my newfound knowledge. That can do feeling also comes from the sense that now know I can tackle and master something that is inherently difficult for me. I like reading research now and I like not skipping over the methodology and the statistical analysis which used to mean nothing to me. I like being able to see the strengths and weaknesses in a particular research study and thinking about how it fits in with the broader spectrum of research on a particular topic. I think most of all, I like being able to demonstrate for my students that yes reading strategies do work for adults too...and that learning to read continues for adults. We all get better and learn to understand more by exercising that muscle in your brain through struggling to understand challenging material. It is worth the struggle... and it feels GREAT! (Much to my own surprise!) Now I must go and read some more...my literature review for my final paper will surprise no one who has been on this list a while...Lesson study! :-) Jennifer Palmer Reading Specialist, National Board Certified Teacher FLES- Lead the discovery, Live the learning, Love the adventure. Ancora Imparo. (Translation: I am still learning.) Michelangelo at 87 years of age From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Ellin Keene Sent: Sat 11/29/2008 1:21 PM To: understand@literacyworkshop.org Subject: [Understand] Sarah, Audrey and the Hopper paintingHi everyone; I just wanted to underscore the important point Jan has made here. The writing example she raises was really the genesis for much of what we did at the PEBC in Denver in the early years. We spent time writing, sharing our writing and refining it before extrapolating lessons from our experiences into the classroom. It not only made the lessons so much more authentic, it seemed to build on the real needs writers have rather than on some curriculum list that a publisher created. It's not that some of those skills aren't important, but are much more easily taught and applied when they come from the real experiences of the teacher, first, and later, of course, from the children. The same thing is true in reading, but so much of our reading experiences are cognitive and therefore, not visible or audible and much tougher to define and describe. As you know, the Dimensions and Outcomes I describe in To Understand came directly from observing both teachers and children in the process of coming to understand. All I really did was to apply a set of descriptors to what I observed-those descriptors became the Outcomes and Dimensions. I think the potential that you all bring to this work is to continually observe (yourself and your kids) to discover Dimensions and Outcomes I may have missed!! What do you observe when you closely watch yourself and/or your kids in the process of understanding? If we can define and describe those observations, we can increase the likelihood that more children will use them! I'd be curious to hear if any of you have discovered new Outcomes or Dimensions in your own reading and/or in your classrooms. . . .Very best, ellin keene I think it is very important for teachers to experience the dimensions of understanding at a conscious level before trying to implement these ideas
Re: [Understand] Sarah, Audrey and the Hopper painting
So Jennifer, this is what jumps out at me, if one of my students said to me, to quote you, 'there has certainly been struggle as I try to undestand, dwelling in ideas, rigorous discourse with classmates and I do find myself looking for patterns' I would be so thrilled. Isn't that what we are now teaching kids to do but we have don't always allow the kids to have the luxury of the struggleand it is the luxury of the struggle. You also write, 'I like to think about.' and again, what is it that we want our kids to say? Dwelling in ideas...I want to copyright that for the title of a book. It's so powerful when you think about it and apply it to any aspect of what we want our kids to do, be it in reading and or writing. Jan last year I 'guided', as I cannot say 'taught' a master's credit course in 'Writer's notebook' to teachers. It was twelve weeks of writing for three hours at a time. Can you even begin to imagine the journey we did as writer let alone teachers? I think the most powerful moment for me when a very 'driven' teacher, sat for over an hour unable to get a thought on paper when it usually came so easily to her. Guess what she understood? My year eight daughter had the homework task this week to write a two page story, with a conflict and resolution, at least three characters, with it all taking place in only ONE setting and to ensure that it did not include death, violence nor was it to be, and I quote her teacher, ' a boo hoo' story. Next time I teach my next adult class it is going to be their first writing assignment!!! Happy days. What I love to do is 'dwelling' in all the ideas you all share. I go back to my classroom after every weekend really looking on what I do to build understanding be it at the simplest level. It's taken me off the treadmill of 'get this done, get that done'...which we so easily get caught up in and I'm thinking if my children walk our the door at the end of every day, 'dwelling in ideas'...it's been a great day. --- On Sun, 30/11/08, Palmer, Jennifer [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: From: Palmer, Jennifer [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [Understand] Sarah, Audrey and the Hopper painting To: [EMAIL PROTECTED], Special Chat List for To Understand: New Horizons in ReadingComprehension understand@literacyworkshop.org Received: Sunday, 30 November, 2008, 7:53 AM All right, Ellin. How about this one? I am taking some very challenging coursework right now. The course is called Disciplined Inquiry 1 and involves statistical methods and methods for qualitiative and quantitative research. I started out completely intimidated by the math and by the difficulties inherent in the reading I need to do for this course. The text book is highly technical and we are reading just reams and reams of additional research but with a critical eye. We are analyzing research methodologies, critiquing researcher's interpretations and completing our own literature review where we must identify gaps in the research. I haven't worked so hard to understand something in my life, ever. I decided to pay some special attention to what it is taking me to understand. SO... yes, there are many reading/thinking strategies...rereading, making connections and two column notetaking figure heavily into my work... There has certainly been struggle as I try to undestand, dwelling in ideas, rigorous discourse with classmates and I do find myself looking for patterns. But the most interesting thing I have noticed about my process for understanding...and I am not sure whether or not it is a dimension or an outcome of understanding (I really don't think I get that distinction yet...) ...is a feeling of efficacy. I feel a sense of power that comes from my newfound knowledge. That can do feeling also comes from the sense that now know I can tackle and master something that is inherently difficult for me. I like reading research now and I like not skipping over the methodology and the statistical analysis which used to mean nothing to me. I like being able to see the strengths and weaknesses in a particular research study and thinking about how it fits in with the broader spectrum of research on a particular topic. I think most of all, I like being able to demonstrate for my students that yes reading strategies do work for adults too...and that learning to read continues for adults. We all get better and learn to understand more by exercising that muscle in your brain through struggling to understand challenging material. It is worth the struggle... and it feels GREAT! (Much to my own surprise!) Now I must go and read some more...my literature review for my final paper will surprise no one who has been on this list a while...Lesson study! :-) Jennifer Palmer Reading Specialist, National Board Certified Teacher FLES- Lead the discovery, Live the learning, Love the adventure. Ancora Imparo
Re: [Understand] Sarah, Audrey and the Hopper painting
You should so write those books! (Though I think Ellin has already got copyright on dwelling in ideas... Luxury of the struggle is definitely your invention!) In these multi-tasking, rush here and there times...taking the time to struggle is a luxury! :-) Jennifer In a message dated 11/29/2008 8:25:18 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: and 'luxury of the struggle'...Jennifer, just think about it!!! **Finally, one site has it all: your friends, your email, your favorite sites. Try the NEW AOL.com. (http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dpicid=aolcom40vanityncid=emlcntaolcom0006) ___ Understand mailing list Understand@literacyworkshop.org http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
Re: [Understand] Sarah, Audrey and the Hopper painting
I think it is very important for teachers to experience the dimensions of understanding at a conscious level before trying to implement these ideas in the classroom. When we have experienced it, the experience becomes part of our schema. It helps us to understand what the students are going through if we go through it ourselves. The best teacher is experience. I was part of a 7 district collaborative on writing workshop. One of the things the leaders had us (coaches who were going to be training teachers) do was to try the lesson ourselves -at an adult level. We experienced what it felt like to pick a topic, find a great lead that hooks the reader, how to observe and take notes, etc... We also were asked to keep our own writer's notebook -well, that's what we asking the students to do. By experiencing it ourselves, we knew what it was like (at least for us). It helps build empathy for the student who has trouble picking a topic (it wasn't all that easy for me). Jan We must view young people not as empty bottles to be filled, but as candles to be lit. -Robert Shaffer - Original Message - From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] To: understand@literacyworkshop.orgmailto:understand@literacyworkshop.org Sent: Saturday, November 22, 2008 6:20 AM Subject: [Understand] Sarah, Audrey and the Hopper painting There are many of us who are involved in professional development ---we are either planning it, or participating in it. Consider the powerful teacher learning described in pages 92-96. How do we find such learning experiences for ourselves and how do we provide them for others? How important is it for teachers to experience the dimensions of understanding at a conscious level before trying to implement these ideas in the classroom? Jennifer **Check out smokin’ hot deals on laptops, desktops and more from Dell. Shop Deals (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/10075x1213345834x1200842686/aol?redir=http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;209513277;31396581;lhttp://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/10075x1213345834x1200842686/aol?redir=http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;209513277;31396581;l) ___ Understand mailing list Understand@literacyworkshop.orgmailto:Understand@literacyworkshop.org http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.orghttp://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org ___ Understand mailing list Understand@literacyworkshop.org http://literacyworkshop.org/mailman/listinfo/understand_literacyworkshop.org
