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Biscuits for Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Birthday Party
My daughter’s super awesome 2nd grade teacher, Mrs. Ryan, sent out the following Facebook message to families this week: Parents were quick to reply! Zoë and her classmates will be treated to a fantastic celebration of food and the pioneering spirit tomorrow! The menu will include rabbit stew, hominy, corn muffins, whipped cream (churned to…
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Repost from TILE-SIG Blog at Reading.org
I’ve contributed twice to this special interest group at Reading Today that focuses on the integration of technologies in literacy education. This week, my post focused on Universal Design for Learning in Online Courses. Here’s the link to the post: http://bit.ly/VzY4PI
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A formula for strategic online synthesis
The anchor standards for reading and writing in the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science and Technical Subjects (2010) place significant emphasis on the construction of meaning from multiple texts in print and digital formats. To date, however, the evidence for instructional methods that support “synthesis” skills…
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Old-school tech, new school reading: On repurposing transparency film to support multiple text integration online
I’m nearing the end of data collection in a study that (I hope) will provide teachers with much-needed information on methods that support (or don’t support?) 9th grade students’ reading of multiple, multi-modal Internet texts on science-focused topics of inquiry. As I was developing my teaching intervention, I was especially concerned with methods that would…
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On attrition, and new possibilities
This week as I was collecting data for my dissertation research study, I had (another) one of those moments that made me stop and think about why it is that I’m doing this work. In the end, I would like this research to inform teaching practice. In the end, I want this work to help…
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What makes a great teacher?
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXaLGt460e4?rel=0] I watched this TVO video tonight as I folded laundry, and it lifted my heart. It’s twenty-eight minutes of great teachers talking about what makes a great teacher, and I loved it! Key ideas — great teachers care deeply about their students, are confident in who they are and share their own strengths…
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Do students really use multimodal options when reading to synthesize?
Yesterday, I piloted part of my dissertation study with my very Fabulous Research Assistant (FRA) at Albion College. I tested my protocols for think aloud training (putting together a space puzzle) and for the pre-test activity. The pre-test prompt that FRA piloted asks students to read about the impact of common household chemicals, and specifically…
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Witches’ Fingers and Pumpkin Carvings
It’s two days after Halloween…but as long as there is left-over candy in that bowl, I figure it’s still fair game to post photos… It just so happened that the Hagerman family was scheduled to bring the classroom snack on Halloween. Now, generally, I send in apples, crudités, granola…that kind of thing. But, I’ve had…
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On the inherent struggles of inter-rater reliability
Today, I met with my colleague, Angie Johnson, to code 20 percent of her data from a recent descriptive study of 6th graders’ evaluation of websites. We met at 10 am. Angie figured the whole process would take a couple of hours. Seven hours later, we finished. Epic day. Percent agreement 72%. Tough outcome. We…
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Planning for a Dissertation
This is no news to any of you who have a PhD. And yet, I feel compelled to state the obvious. It takes a lot of planning to pull it off. Just now, I’ve made a list of things that I will need to provide each dyad of students who participate in my study. The…