| Students Can Learn On Their Own Tests of Reading Comprehension Daily Reading Comprehension Quiz A Packet for Substitute Teachers Teaching First Grade |
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Robert Jackson
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Contents:
- Mastery
- Limits on the Teacher's Time
- Background: Principles of Teaching
- Teaching Strategies
- Textbooks, the Framework of Classroom Life
- Students Can Produce Cartoons (line drawings) on Any Classroom Topic
- Certificates of Accomplishment
- What Certificates of Accomplishment Can Be Awarded For
- Sixth Grade - A Good Year
1. Mastery
Mastery is the goal of all teaching. In a classroom there is a special problem: the students vary so much in knowledge and abilities that it is impractical to expect all students to master all of the material taught.
Since, as students grow older, the gap in knowledge and abilities among them widens, getting all students in sixth grade to learn the basic materials for the grade becomes even more difficult than it was in the early grades.
Should teachers throw up their hands and give up on the slower learners? This is a mistake that some teachers make.
Slower learners respond to conscientious instruction. There are several strategies that teachers employ:
When mastery is sought, as it should be, the importance of testing is readily apparent. With test results in hand, both teacher and student can see how well the student has learned, and plans for next steps can be made. There is a proper use of tests and an improper use. Properly used, tests are used to identify the next steps needed in a child's education. Improperly used, tests are used to reward the good students and stigmatize the poor students.
The teacher teaches a single student or a small group during class time or after school.
A faster student is assigned to help a slower student.
The teacher finds special instructional materials for slower students to work on independently either during school time or at home.
The teacher enlists the parents to teach the child at home using instructional materials supplied by the teacher.
When it comes to report cards, the teacher is, of course, constrained by the school system. However, the most commonly used reporting system - the A-B-C-D-F grading system - is a brutal invention. To knock poorly achieving students down further with a poor report card has serious lasting consequences - poor self-esteem, troublemaking, and worse. These students are eager to succeed - at something! - and what they can succeed at is contrary to what one might wish. The teacher has to make sure that these students get to answer questions, to help out with classroom chores (passing out paper, etc.), and to receive the teacher's encouragement.
2. Limits on the Teacher's Time
The idea of mastery sounds good, but how can the teacher find the time needed? Obviously, compromises are needed. The teacher's time is finite.
First, limit the amount of student work that you have to correct. Student compositions should be no more than a half a page long. Forget about homework - it's not all that valuable, the teacher doesn't have the time for it, and it just causes friction at home. Second, take responsibility just for the basic curriculum, not all the extras that ambitious parents might want you to add. Third, explain to students who take up too much of your time that your time is limited and that you have to pay attention to everybody. Fourth, make students captains of your centers. Fifth, assign chores - keeping desktops clean, cleaning window sills, cleaning tables, keeping floor in coat closet picked up, keeping art supplies orderly, keeping paper supplies orderly, etc.
Note: if you have already visited the "Students Can Learn On Their Own" Web site, you should skip to "Textbooks, the Framework of Classroom Life" - skip.
3. Background: Principles of Teaching
Two Kinds of AssignmentsAssigned School Work: Part of a Continuum?
School Work: Do Students See It as Purposeful?
Whole Class Instruction: Is It Out of Date?
4. Teaching Strategies
Keeping a Studious ClassroomObtaining Student Commitment to Independent Work
Providing for Student Management of Classroom Materials
5. Textbooks, the Framework of Classroom Life
Textbooks form the framework of classroom life. It is impractical for school systems to produce them on their own. School systems make a mistake in being led down the garden path of "behavioral objectives." The textbook publishers have already done that work. If textbooks are wisely selected, they can be relied upon to provide the structure and information needed in each subject-matter area. Furthermore, the teacher's manuals give many worthwhile suggestons.
For guidance in choosing textbooks, a teacher (or school system) can be helped by learning of state-wide adoptions, as found in these links:North Carolina State-Wide Textbook Adoptions
California State-Wide Textbook Adoptions
Texas State-Wide Textbook Adoptions
Florida (Orange County) Textbook Adoptions
6. Students Can Produce Cartoons (line drawings) on Any Classroom Topic
Cartooning (line drawing) is an important basic skill with all kinds of applications - illustrations of events in social studies, illustrations of characters or episodes in literature and reading books, illustrations of science experiments, events in history, current events, etc.
Students can be introduced to cartooning by, initially, copying and modifying cartoonists' line drawings and then creating their own cartoons. Here are thirty cartooning worksheets that can be printed and bound to make a folder: Cartoon Index
7. Certificates of Accomplishment
Certificates give students recognition for 1) extra work accomplished and 2) special contributions to the classroom. They are a basic teaching tool. They can be created generically and reproduced in quantity.They can be printed free at this site: Certificates
Example:
8. What Certificates of Accomplishment Can Be Awarded For
"Extra work" assignments for the year can be organized into loose-leaf binders and kept on a special bookshelf. A binder sheet is created for each item. Here are sample binder sheets that can be used. To print, in "page setup" set left margin to 1 inch and right margin to minimum. Sheet protectors are needed, such as these: Sheet protectors. They are also available from Office Depot.Binder Sheet#1Here are some examples:
Binder Sheet#2
Binder Sheet#3
Binder Sheet#4
Binder Sheet#5
Binder Sheet#6
Binder Sheet#7
Binder Sheet#8Initial Cartooning Skills Binder. One binder sheet for each of the thirty cartoons. See link to Cartoon Index above. A Certificate of Accomplishment is awarded for completing twenty cartoon assignments.
Have a set of punctuation and capitalization rules in a sheet protector available. More extensive is The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation.
Typical binder pages:
- My brother/sister
- My father
- My mother
- My pet
- My house
- My grandmother/grandfather
- If I could do anything for one day, it would be . . .
- If I won a million dollars, I would . . .
- The best time I ever had was . . .
- What I like most in a friend is . . .
- I would like to be an educated/uneducated person because . . .
- What worries me most in the world is . . .
- In my spare time I like to . . .
- Etc. - student's own ideas
Example (a binder page for each):
Make up a word problem requiring:
- Two-place division
- The use of money
- The use of percentages
- Multiplying decimals
- Square roots
- Estimation - products of multiplication
- Estimation - quotients of division
- Adding positive and negative numbers
- Subtracting positive and negative numbers
- Multiplying positive and negative numbers
- Dividing positive and negative numbers
- Multiplying multi-digit whole numbers
- Dividing multi-digit whole numbers
- Multiple steps
- Ratios
- Proportions
- Percents greater than 100%
- Percents less than 1%
- Percent of increase or decrease
- Conversions within the metric system
- Units of time as fractions and decimals
- Angles
- Triangles
- Perimeter
- Area
- Circumference of a circle
- Circle graph
- Sampling a population
The classroom should be supplied with one or two books of science experiments for elementary grades. The binder would contain one page for each presentation (see sample binder page Sample binder page). The following books, found at Amazon.com or Alibris.com (search term: children science experiments) or the local library, are typical of what is available:For example, here is a sampling of science experiments available in Science in Seconds with Toys. The selection is made easy by the use of the Activity Index.
- Exploratopia by Pat Murphy and others
- Thomas Edison Book of Easy and Incredible Experiments by James G. Cook
- Science Experiments for Elementary Schools by Robert E. Walters
- Science Surprises!: Ready-To-Use Experiments & Activities for Young Learners by Jean R. Feldman and Rebecca Feldman Foster
- Science Activities for Children by Willard J. Jacobson and Abby B. Bergman
- Science in Seconds with Toys by Jean Potter
- Sounds (Science in Seconds with Toys - present to the class five experiments from pages 98-113)
- Static Electricity (Science in Seconds with Toys - Electric Record page 89)
- Energy (Science in Seconds with Toys - choose three experiments to present from pages 33, 79, 85-88, 90)
- Etc.
It would help students to be taught the three types of levers. A lever is comprised of the pivot (fulcrum), the effort, and the effect. Class I has the pivot between the effort and the effect (scissors). Class II has the pivot at one end, and the effect is between the pivot and the effort (nutcracker). Class III also has the pivot at one end - the effort is between the effect and the pivot (spring-back tweezers).Typical contents. A binder sheet is needed for each item.
- electric razor
- bathroom scale
- other scales
- toaster
- watch
- lenses (old eye glasses), prisms, magnifiers, microscope
- dice
- zipper
- hand-powered rotary egg beater
- hand-powered salad spinner
- light bulb
- book bindings
- magnets
- computer keyboard
- spring scale (with a hook at the bottom)
- wheel and axle (toy truck/car)
- spring-back tweezers
- two-armed corkscrew
- ice cream scoop with movable dispenser
- jar opener (pivot at one end)
- medicine dropper
- garlic press
- sponge
- stapler
- faucet
- can opener with twist handle
- pliers
- scissors
- nutcracker
- clamp that screws down (or a vise)
- clamp that uses a spring
- monkey wrench
- nail puller (with a claw)
- fingernail clippers (pivot at one end)
- toy boat
- suction cup
- balance a straw with screw stuck in one end of it (as a weight)
- electric switch
- mounted weather thermometer with a bare bulb (touch moistened (warm, cold) finger to the bulb and see the colored liquid expand/contract)
- sounds from a fork/spoon/tablespoon suspended on string and struck with a pencil
- wind chimes
- things that reflect (mirror, shiny spoon, other shiny surfaces)
- tape measure, yardstick (for measuring)
- coiled tape measure that retracts into its case - sometimes a plastic cover can be pried loose or unscrewed, revealing the workings inside
- flashlight (imitating the sun) to shine on the globe. Stick a few pieces of clay to the globe to imitate mountains - as the globe is slowly turned toward the "sun," the "mountains" pick up the sunlight.
- As you approach the beginning a new unit of study, identify topics of study that advanced students can work on independently. For example, if the unit of study is ancient Rome, list these:
- Roman money
- Roman clothing
- Roman cooking
- Roman military equipment
- Etc.
- Ask the librarian to find references for each topic, with book titles and page numbers. The resulting list is stored in a special binder in the school library. School Library Project Binder Sheet (On the printer, specify a left margin of one inch. Sheet protectors are needed.)
- The student's task is to read the material referred to and to write five to ten facts about the topic. Alternative: instead of five to ten facts, a student can create several cartoons/illustrations. A Certificate of Accomplishment is awarded for each topic reported on.
9. Sixth Grade - A Good Year
Every sixth-grade teacher needs a plan for the year. This plan can be sent home to parents, who often can make contributions to a unit of study. The framework for the plan will be based on the contents of textbooks. Here is a typical plan:Navigate to Students Can Learn On Their Own - Students Can Learn On Their OwnHistory and Geography
Information taken from the textbookDescription of the creative art program and the visual arts programDescription of the singing program and the instrumental music program and information about the music program taken from the music textbook
Navigate to A Packet for Substitute Teachers - A Packet for Substitute Teachers
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