For almost all of my classes this fall, I have been asked to
reflect on my semester. Now that it has actually come to an end, I can easily
say that I have learned more just this semester than my entire first two years
of college. At least that’s what it feels like. I remember not having much of
an option when registering for classes and then looking at my schedule before
walking into LLED. Content Area Literacy, hmmm. I thought to myself, I hope
they didn’t give put me in the wrong class. The first day of class I’ll always remember
the way Dr. Robinson took the time to greet each and every person to really
start building student teacher relationships from day 1. Hearing about having
our own blogs, for me, was a bit scary for me at first because I knew I wasn’t
a strong writer, and I didn’t enjoy writing at all. Obviously by now that has
changed. This class has helped me improve my writing skills without the pressure
of writing an essay, and has really showed me how important literacy is no
matter what subject you teach. I hadn’t realized that I was going to have
students who wouldn’t be able to read, and hadn’t thought about how it would affect
their math skills as well. So, how can we help our students to understand math
better without the appropriate literacy skills? Literacy strategies seem like
the best option if we want to improve a student’s understanding as well as
their literacy. I found this blog called Math Geek mama a few weeks ago when I
was looking for a resource, and she really laid out some effective strategies
that could be used while teaching math. https://mathgeekmama.com/using-literacy-strategies-to-teach-math/
Another huge assignment that I really gained a lot from was
the Text Set. It seemed really overwhelming to do, and was given to us early on
to ensure we wouldn’t wait till last minute, but really the only thing hard
about it was finding the actual texts. For me, I actually enjoyed doing this
assignment because I knew that one day I could actually use it in my classroom,
and would have an entire class worth of texts sets to take with me. The
strategies and lessons about the strategies also gave me a good basis of
knowledge that I can take with me into my classroom, but the text set really
tied everything together. I had a good understanding of the strategies, but
after completing the text set, I was aware of how to actually implement them in
my classroom. Finding pre, during, and post reading strategies for each text,
and providing a rationale required me to think through what I was picking for
each and why. This assignment also showed me how important it is to be able to
teach students with different learning styles. I had mentioned that I hadn’t
been exposed to podcasts at all before this semester, and it just leads me to
believe there are so many ways to teach. So why should we just use one method? This
text set was a valuable end of the year project, something that will benefit
all of us, and our future students. Going from thinking I was accidentally put
into this class, to now hoping everyone gets a chance to learn about content
area literacy like I have this past semester seems like a crazy transition. But
that’s just how much this class has affected me. I am now more prepared, and
confident about my future in the teaching profession than I ever have been.
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