Sunday, August 24, 2014

"But to You I'm Just a Novel that You Wish You'd Never Wrote" MTBOSChallenge Week 2




Currently Reading:

  1. Discipline with Dignity by Curwin, Mendler, & Mendler-I am nearly finished with this book.  I have read several books by Allen Mendler and when I saw a good deal on the newest edition of this book, I picked it up.  What I like about this book in particular is that it addresses the past state of education and discusses how situations have changed over time.  They talk about what was effective in the past often isn't today for various reasons and have taken the time to update the strategies to reflect the students that make up our classrooms today.
  2. Assertive Discipline by Lee Canter-I am also nearly finished with this book.  A colleague and I wanted to do a book study on this over the summer.  As the book's title suggests, a major goal is making sure that you come off as assertive to your students. Something I am working on is building up my teacher voice.  I like also the suggestions about how to effectively sequence the various procedures your students need for successful operation in your classroom.  Another plus about this book is that it does include examples at elementary and secondary levels.  Often times, a book focuses on one or the other.  I will say that it is quite interesting to be reading this book at the same time as Discipline with Dignity because Assertive Discipline stresses a sequential discipline hierarchy, whereas the other book is more about logical consequences.
  3.  Negotiating Science by Hand, Norton-Meier, Staker, & Bintz-I am reading this book because I would like to try to implement the Science Writing Heuristic with my students.  I have used it from time to time, but not consistently.  Since I have been a middle school/junior high teacher, I haven't really used it much at all.  I didn't have enough time in the high school level to develop my plan of using it.  It has been a nice review of SWH so far.
Next in Line:

  1. Questions, Claims, & Evidence  by Norton-Meier, Hand, Hockenberry, & Wise-This will be a good companion for Negotiating Science.
  2. More What Do I Do When....? by Allen Mendler-Again, I like his books.  I'm interested in the strategies to use with challenging students.
  3. Classroom Teacher's ESL Survival Kit #1 by Elizabeth Claire-I will have three beginning level ESL students joining my largest group of 7th grade science.  This is not an area of expertise, and I need help!
  4. Science for English Language Learners:  K-12 Classroom Strategies by Ann K. Fathman-Again, I need help!
  5. I ordered a couple books on reserve from the AEA about teaching science to ELL students, but I don't remember the title of those.
  6. In my late hour of writing this, I totally forgot Teaching Science with Interactive Notebooks by Kellie Marcarelli-I will be reviewing this as we setup our notebooks this year.  I have had this for a while and have read it before.  I've tried different ways of setting up the notebook, but have never been 100% pleased.  I'm going to try to stay a bit closer to the examples of this book.  I have another one that I've had for sometime as well.  Honestly, I like this one better.  I am hoping by some miracle, my projector and whiteboards will be here soon because it is hard enough to start setting them up with students, let alone have no way of showing them a large model.  If all else fails, I guess I will have to draw on large chart paper!  :)
Do you any of you have recommendations for building up resources to use for ESL students in science?  What about RTI or MTSS for science?  These are two areas that I don't have much training and it is really going to be a baptism by fire this year.  Luckily, I do have some great colleagues that will be able to work with me a bit and I have put out some feelers to others who have some more experience in these areas than I do.


2 comments:

  1. Thanks for linking up Anne. I took a grad course on Assertive Discipline many years ago. Have you read Discipline With Love and Logic. I also took a grad course on that, it completely changed my classroom discipline.

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  2. Yes, I have that! :) I refer to that book when I need a refresher and I have taken a few Love & Logic courses that center on particular classroom needs. For example, there is one coming up in my area that 's focuses on working with students with mental health issues.

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