Summary of Field Advisory, October 2009
Mary Stalzer shares a math vocabulary
literacy artifact with UIC student
We held our second Field Advisory on October 20, 2009, with UIC students and Chicago Public School partner teachers. Each team was prepared to engage in collaborative discussions built around literacy artifacts. A literacy artifact informs us about student learning as well as our instruction. Each UIC student and partner teacher brought a student literacy artifact to share with his or her group. Students participated in different discussion groups from the September Field Advisory to get a broader perspective on various instructional strategies to use in the classroom.
One of our CPS partners, Mary Stalzer brought a table she created for her students to help them understand product, exponential notation, and square numbers. Mary recreated a modified math chart for her students to have for their use because she knew her students would have difficulty with the vocabulary.
To further help her students understand the language behind the math vocabulary, Mary came up with an activity which was an array diagram so students could actually see what exponential notation and square numbers looked like in picture form. Mary showed the literacy artifact to UIC students in her group and UIC students asked questions on how she collaborates with other teachers to meet the needs of students.
UIC students also asked if she grades student work that they do with her. Mary shared with the students that her school uses something called Gradekeeper. Gradekeeper is an electronic system that allows anyone in the school working with a particular student to see their grades. So, she will post grades on Gradekeeper and then both she and the classroom teacher have access to it. From there, they communicate and collaborative on strategies and adaptations to meet the needs of particular students.
One of our UIC students, Madeline Hodges shared a character analysis literacy artifact with her group. The learning outcomes Madeline had for her students were to analyze character traits, how characters change over time, and the sequence of major events in the story. She used a t-chart graphic organizer with students to help them make meaning of how the character evolved from the book read in class. She selected to teach with this particular artifact because it gave her a sense of how much insight students had into the character’s development. Students worked on t-charts and character maps and had students partner up and work on sequence sentence strips of the story’s events as well.
Maryan Fine shared an artifact from a math vocabulary lesson which taught division vocabulary. She explained how she used the artifact to introduce the math vocabulary to students with a diagram of the process to solve computation and word problems. She also used a sequence counting chart to help them with their multiplication tables as another resource for students instead of always using a calculator. Maryan shared how vocabulary is crucial to children’s development and highlighted the ways she incorporates vocabulary into her daily instruction. Such ways include, word wall activities and various reading, writing, and listening activities. Maryan’s explanation helped UIC students to understand how to overcome challenges of teaching vocabulary in math lessons.
Dave Rench and Alex Horn listen as UIC students
share their literacy artifacts with the group
UIC Student, Madeline Hodges shares a t-chart
she used to teach character analysis
Maryan Fine shares a math vocabulary literacy artifact
Maryan Fine shares a math vocabulary literacy artifact
