Summary of Field Advisory, September 2009
STEP=UP UIC students and Partners
engage in collaborative conversation
around literacy artifacts
We held our first Field Advisory session for the 2009-10 academic year on September 22, 2009. UIC STEP=UP students and CPS partner teachers collaborated and engaged in professional conversation geared around literacy instruction of students with disabilities. Several aspects of literacy were discussed including various ways to differentiate the instruction.
Each partner and UIC student brought in a literacy artifact that revealed several aspects of both instruction and student learning geared around reading, writing, listening, and speaking. Partners led the discussion and modeled appropriate professional “talk” that educators should use while examining student work.
Carlitta Tucker, who teaches an instructional high school class, discussed the literacy artifact from her classroom. She first explained that students in her classroom have challenges with selecting appropriate and healthy meal options during lunch. To help meet the students’ needs, she developed a literacy lesson called, “What will you eat today?” With the ultimate outcome of students having an understanding of the food pyramid, she cut out several food options aligned to the school menu with the help of the Boardmaker program. She mini-conferenced with each student on food selections and students had to take the cut out food cards and attach it to the board under his or her name. Carlitta talked about the implications of this literacy activity for verbal and non-verbal students as well as it being a great way to incorporate assistive technology. Carlitta brought the large board to show to UIC students which was an excellent visual to learn from.
Maryan Fine shared a reading, thinking, and writing activity with UIC students. She discussed the Shared Inquiry strategy which engages students in metacognitive strategies as they gain deeper comprehension and make meaning of text. During her Shared Inquiry activity, students read and coded text. Coded text included what students had a question about (?), what was generally important in the text (.), and what surprised them in the text (!). This led to half of the class discussing text and the other half observing the discussion. Maryan explained that during this activity students gained confidence to share opinions and difficulties they encountered with text. Maryan brought the artifacts including the reading that accompanied the strategy. UIC students asked questions and enjoyed hearing about this very unique way to teach students literacy skills.
Dave Rench bought social studies materials that he uses to enhance literacy skills. He bought pictures of a big globe that showed land and water. He had students sit in a circle and throw bean bags on the globe and wherever the bean bag landed, they had to state if it was land or water. Students also categorized pictures of fish and people and told if they lived on land or water. Sometimes he integrated math as well and had a student tally the number of bean bags that landed on the land and how many landed on the water. They kept track of the numbers, sometimes counting by 5’s, and then decided which category, land or water, had more bean bags land on it to help them determine if the world has more land or water. Some students were then able to do a fill-in-the blank sheet requiring the word of land or water to be filled in and allowed students to categorize pictures of land and water. The UIC students speculated on how Dave differentiates his activities and he did a great job of explaining all the different activities he uses around the land and water theme. He also mentioned how he uses learning centers or stations in his instruction. The students inquired on how he would transition from the land and water concept. He mentioned that for some students he may move into the concept of countries and climate but it depends on the understanding level of each student. Dave also questioned the UIC students as how this kind of activity could progress further into reading and writing activities.
Carlitta Tucker shows her literacy artifact called “What will you eat today?”
Dave Rench shows UIC students literacy artifact from land and water activity
Partner teachers Alex Lichtenfeld and Dave Rench listens to
UIC student inquiries about reading centers
