Final Synthesis Blog

                From the first day of class when we were presented different text samples, and display our understanding of those texts, to group presentations, many readings, and many assignments that all guided us to our goal as non-ELA content area teachers: Integrated Literacy. We found from day one that if we do not have past knowledge on our topic, that it is even hard for us to understand what we are reading. As college students, I would believe that we are all at least above average readers yet still have trouble. That’s why one of the things as future teachers that we need to be prepared for is a prior knowledge base for our students. Especially as my main content area is social studies, I will need to step back on a unit, and have these conversation with myself, “ What knowledge that I have, makes this an easier topic to understand.” Then I add that in. I have learned from this class the importance of communicating to my students and polling them on what they know and don’t know. Then, from our think aloud assignments, also the in-class tasks we had with reading strategies, I realized that I did those things without knowing I did. I also realized how important it is to have those strategies and to teach those strategies so that they can do well in my classes. This class has been a guide to what I already wished to do, being the best teacher for my students.

                Another thing this class has showed us, through our readings from our textbook and discussion in class, is the use of a textbook. From the point in time I decided to be a teacher, I knew that I would not use the textbook often, and this class showed me that we do not have to. I recalled from my time in high school and middle school, where a few teachers would just pull it straight from the textbook with no other pulled text. It made learning boring and almost agonizing. We have learned that textbooks should never be used in that way. Through our readings that confirmed that, and our discussions where we unanimously agreed that the textbook should be used as a supplemental reading, along with other readings pulled by the teacher. That’s more work, perhaps why some teachers sadly just use the textbook, but far more rewarding for your students and you as a teacher. It has been made easier for us thought through this course as we all had to find at least five resources that would help us supplement our classrooms in some way. If we do not use the ones we selected for our posts, we at least have had some practice in finding those resources, which I find more valuable. It is the difference in giving a person food or teaching the person how to grow it.

                The few of us who did journal clubs did the same thing. The journals however were not for supplementing the classroom but supplementing our own knowledge as teachers. I found that reading and finding a journal was an eye-opening task. I never realized until now the vastness there is on the library that is the internet, available to us as teachers. That vastness including research studies on different styles of education, like a study my group found on the use of journal clubs in a classroom, to other educators analyzing other educators, to even reviews of resources that would improve one’s classroom. This task and the one we did in class were extremely helpful. It showed the importance of them. As we read through many of them and it came to critique them, also reading some in other classes I had this semester, I recognized that we do not have to agree with them.  Even some of the research, where the authors present it as facts, you showed us how to analyze where there can be fault in their research. How small their sample groups were, how specific it was, for example one of the research we investigated was based on one single classroom, where the results of the research could be the opposite for another classroom. When it comes down to it, you showed us that this journals are again, merely a supplemental resource for us as teachers, a resource that we can pick apart and decide for ourselves what is useful for us as growing and always developing teachers.

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Journal Club- Single

Journal Club Entry: Teachers and content area reading: Attitudes, beliefs and change

*the journal given to us in class

                In summary, this journal is a review of research into content area teachers that are either preparing to be teachers or in-service teachers. It is about the attitudes and beliefs that these teachers have about incorporating and teaching reading in their non-literacy-based content areas. The research also displays how and in what ways these can and do obtain the techniques needed to do so. At the most basic of their research, they are polling teachers and gathering information on how these teachers feel comfortable teaching reading, and if they believe that it is their job or not. This research arguably proves that teachers can change their mind about wanting to teach reading, but that they need more resources, not just positive reinforcement on the benefits of it. The data showed as far as the attitudes towards teaching reading in their classrooms, the pre-service teachers believed that either shouldn’t or could not in their content areas. Then in-service teachers stated that most do, but they were also a lot that stated they felt they should but did not know how.

                An article I read in my first journal club, focused on literacy in a social studies classroom and its importance. It showed my group, and I believe changed some of our minds, on whether we should teach reading in the classroom. Another connection I made was the activity we did in class one day. We went around the room to the area we felt like we were in. Most of us, thankfully went to the side of wanting to teach reading in our classroom. I feel like our polls would have been different in the beginning of the semester though, as I believe we have all learned an abundance from articles like these, showing us the resources we can have as in-service teachers, and the importance of getting more resources now so we can better be prepared to teach our future students literacy skills.

                This was a very professional journal, with countless references to other prestigious works and researches. I wish they included more tables and gave an easier way to understand the graphs. I had to search through the journal back and again to understand what graph was telling me. I felt that it would have been easier to say what the authors represented as well, not just the author, as I kept forgetting what each stood for. Otherwise, the journal was laid out well and provided a good amount of helpful information.

                This journal is important because it reviews the research that shows us that we have a problem. We have teachers who have this attitude that they believe it isn’t their job to help students with reading. That their past teachers were just failures and it isn’t their job to catch them up. That is where they are wrong. Helping students with literacy will only help them be more successful at everything they do. This journal informs teachers on how they can fix the problem as well. If teachers do not know how, they are ample workshops, conferences, and plethora of resources to improve our skills as teachers in implementing literacy and reading strategies into our content areas. This review of research shows us that us pre-service teachers need more than just the one literacy class, that’s where these supplemental resources that are available to us will come in handy.


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