Fall Apprentice Portfolio

Donahue writes, that this assignment is designed to spur teacher educators

reflection about how best to spark the metacognitive conversations that allow
teacher to explore readings varied dimensions and to nudge teacher over
disciplinary divides that isolate them and fragment students learning (p. 28).
Purpose:

To reflect on your reading development

Apply reading knowledge to content pedagogy

Practice reading strategies

Appreciate reading as a meaning making method while gaining new insight

into alternative content.

Objective:

TSW reflect on reading awareness in a 3 ring paper binder.

TSW read and respond to a partners readings and reflections in a 3 ring

paper binder.

TSW select five different articles. They could include: content theory, literacy
related to your content, content pedagogy using an education data base.

TSW respond in a journal to teacher assigned prompts.

TSW reflect on readings in a journal and respond to not only what they read,
but how they read, and why they read it in this manner.

*All articles need to be new article. Not new in publication, but new to you.

Prompts:
Respond to at all five prompts.
1. What have you learned about reading in your own subject area?
2. How will you use this learning to help your students make meaning from the text
you assign in your classes?
3. How do the articles clarify your ideas of how literacy activities build content
knowledge?

4. What limitations or challenges do you foresee using content literacy in your

classroom?
5. What have you learned reading outside your subject area?
Portfolio Requirements

Portfolios will be submitted in a 3 ring binder. Please use tabs to separate the
sections. Include the following.
1. Journal entries
2. Articles (only the ones you read.)
4. Partner reflections
Entry Requirements
Please list the following in each entry
Name: Will Davis
Partner: Nikki Richard
APA article citation: de Vries, M. (1996). Technology Education: Beyond the
Technology is Applied Science Paradigm, 8. 1.
Question: 1.) What have you learned about reading in your own subject
area?
What I have learned the most about reading in my subject area is that literacy and
the use of it can definitely be incorporated into Technology Education. When I first
entered into this assignment I was very confused as to what it meant to add literacy
to Technology Education, because in my field our we dont use very much text.
What I have learned is that content literacy and academic language arent just the
use of a textbook in a classroom, but more so the language we use. What I didnt
realize is that a safety test is a form of literacy in my field. One of my main focuses
is on the students feeling safe and comfortable in my classroom, so a solid and wellrounded safety test must be passed by all students.
Question: 2.) How will you use this learning to help your students make
meaning from the text you assign in your classes? I will use group discussion
and cooperative learning to help students learn and work with their peers. After
they are done with a small group discussion, I will have the students then answer
certain prompts, which include the main points I want the students to truly
understand.
Strategies: Small Group, Collaborative Learning

My Response

Partners Response

I found this article to by very

insightful in the fact that it focuses
on the integration of Science
subjects and Technology Education.
On a broader scale, I think another
idea that comes out of reading this
article is that with the right
connections, you can integrate just
about any subject with one another.
My time spent in college has been
basically a true definition of this.
While my major is Technology
Education, I have classes in
basically every other Technology
based subjects. All of which include
Math, Science, Engineering,
Architecture, and even literature.
Another major point that this
article guides us to is that with
integrating Technology and Science
together, we are not just adding
one to the other, we are actually
using both to teach the class.

5. I have learned that a lot of

the broader concepts
between our subjects can be
connected easily. The article
talks about the strengths
and weaknesses of
integrating subjects,
particularly science and
technology. This article
reminds me of an initiative
that I was part of this
summer to integrate art into
all classrooms. It was often
the case that we thought
about where the quality was
staying in the integration.
We said that arts was often
just being added and not
integrated which made the
art and the other subject
secondary.

Name: Nikki Richard

Partner: Will Davis
APA article citation: Szekely, G. (January 01, 1997). The Art Educator as Artist:
George Szekely's New Art.Art Education, 50, 1, 29.
Question: 2. How will you use this learning to help your students make
meaning from the text you assign in your classes? Using these strategies and
processes I can help students make meaning from the text:
*Letting them know their ideas are welcome.
*Finding rhythm in a piece and describing it through sound ( clapping, snapping, or
drumming)
*Role playing how different people would view it (Ex: Museum curator, creator,
historian, teacher, layperson)
*Being proposed questions about the specific piece, writing about those questions

Question: 4. What limitations or challenges do you foresee using content

literacy in your classroom?
I foresee it being difficult to explain how what reading a piece of artwork is literacy. I
also think that since art is so different from the generic type of content literacy
(text) it may be difficult for me to discern how I can apply it to my classroom. I have
found many ways through this article to create literacy in art and now I am
interested to see what I find on my own as a teacher about how I can teach artistic
literacy.
Strategy: Selective Highlighting

My Response
This article refers to the text as
the piece of artwork. The
students will make meaning from
the artwork through careful
interpretation. I would assign the
viewing of work that I have also
viewed and I will find ways to
freshen their viewpoint. I can do
this by:

It was helpful to be able to hear

about the artwork from the
artist. I would like to be able to
have an artist come in and talk
about their work. It would give
context for the students to build
from when talking about their

Partners Response

I found an important concept of this

article to be that students need the
opportunity to explain art to
themselves and to others. Personally
not knowing very much about art
history and its concepts, I find this to
be an important concept that I can
apply to Technology Education. By
allowing a student to truly
understand what is in front of them,
it will lead to them having a better
understanding of the material, as
well as, will lead to them being able
to explain what it means to someone
else. Whether that person be another
student, myself as the teacher, or
even a future employer. I also really
like how this article describes

own work. This would also help

them find ways to critique
others work.
Adults generally inform children
about art: how and why it was
made, what and how to see it.
They present it as a collection of
facts. But children need to
discover their own connections
to artworks p. 58

different ways that students can

describe the art the see. Whether it
be through hand gestures, different
points of view, sounds, or even word
plays, the student can learn to
express the meaning of something,
without actually writing it down. I
find this important, because at some
point during our studies we have all
had trouble saying what we mean
through words. Sometimes it is just
easier to act out a solution, rather
than trying to write it out on paper.

Name: Will Davis

Partner: Nikki Richard
APA article citation: Dearing, B., & Daugherty, M. (2004). Delivering Engineering
Content in Technology Education. The Technology Teacher, 64(3), 10-13. Retrieved
September 16, 2014, from
http://iteaconnect.org/Publications/TTT/nov04.pdf#page=10
Question: 4. What limitations or challenges do you foresee using content
literacy in your classroom? The only true limitation or challenge I foresee is that
the classrooms that I may be entering will have a lack of literacy. I do realize that
the internet is a wonderful tool in finding articles and free books, but from my
research throughout college I have found that there is a limited supply of resources
for Technology Education. So as far as finding literature for free this may be a bit of
a challenge. With the budgets of most schools, when I enter into a new school, I
have to believe it is going to be very difficult to persuade administration to buy new
literacy for my classrooms.
Question: 5.) What have you learned reading outside your subject area?
What I have learned the most from reading articles on Art Education is how the
academic language and concepts really tie in with Technology Education. I never put
the two together, but all of the design concepts that I have learned are used almost
exactly in art. This makes me think of an idea where both myself and an art teacher
come together to tie in the same concepts in our classes so that students can go
straight from my class and into an art class and continue on with the same learning
concepts. This way they are getting the both of both the Technology and Art
Education worlds.
Strategy: Selective Highlighting

My Response

Partners Response

I find this article to be very

insightful as to how to integrate
Engineering based concepts into
Technology Education. Having an
emphasis in Engineering, I find this
article to be especially important
to myself as a future Technology
Education teacher. I could not be
entering the field at a better time,
as both Technology and
Engineering Education are evolving
immensely. This article sheds some
light on the idea that as a high
school Technology Education
teacher it is my responsibility to
get students prepared for
secondary schooling or the job
field. Adding engineering to my
classrooms will both help boost
program numbers, as well as give
students a broader choice into a
field they may not otherwise hear
about until college.

I dont know much about

engineering but I know it has
exploded as an area of speciality in
the technology field. Engineering is
a demanding new field due to
recent advances in technology and
with that comes a need for literacy.
As with any demanding field, we as
educators need to be sure we offer
those opportunities to learn to
interested students. Students with
these experiences will have an
advantage compared to those
without when they get to the
college level.

Name: Nikki Richard

Partner: Will Davis
APA article citation:
Parks, N. (January 01, 2005). Media Education: Literacy, Learning and Contemporary
Culture. Studies in Art Education, 47, 1, 92-96.

3. How do the articles clarify your ideas of how literacy activities build
content knowledge?
The article illuminates the idea that teachers of any subject need to teach their
students how to use the technology they are expected to use. Students know how
to play video games but do they know the correct way to search for an article? It
brings back the artistic aspect by explaining how students need to be able to
interpret meaning from new media. I need to teach them how to read an

advertisement and that it may need to be viewed critically because advertisements

are often persuading. When the students learn these processes of interpretation,
they can carry those with them into the rest of their world but also into traditional
forms of art.
5.What have you learned about reading outside your content area?
I have learned it interesting how similar art and technology are. As I was reading
this article I thought about how Will may even use some of these programs in his
classroom. We talked in class about how he actually had taken a Photoshop class for
technology and we discussed the technology programs. When I took Photoshop
class it was considered an art credit so I thought it was odd that his was technology.
Another example is in my field experience, I asked my cooperating teacher if he
teaches photography and he said that he didnt because the technology department
took it over (film and digital). In many aspects of art we do use technology and as I
read this article it is more and more prevalent. Reading Wills articles was
challenging for me because I didnt know all of the terminology but from my brief
introduction to technology through art I was able to decipher most of it.

Strategy: Paragraph Shrinking (without a partner)

My Response

Partners Response

This article focused on theory mostly but

offered a few suggestions of what
students need to know when viewing
new media. It tells the reader that media
is becoming a large part of students lives
and in order for students to use it in an
academic way, they need to know how to
view it. The author offered four
conditions that...have led to changes in
art education in an increasingly visual
culture from Freedman and Stuhr
(2004):

One section of this article that I really

connected with was the part where
the author discusses how new
technologies will continue to
transform education. While this article
is referring these new technologies to
Art Education, it will also affect
Technology education as well. As
many do not know, Art and
Technology Education can share a lot
of class types. Whether it be digital
photography, photoshop, or a basic
design class, Art and Technology
Education both use the same design
concepts to teach their classes. This
where I find it especially important to
focus on how the changes in
technology will affect both fields of
study. This article does a great job of
discussing how the constantly
expanding technology use can and
should be used integrated into these
classrooms.

1. changing ideas about personal and

communal identities
2. children focus on new media,
especially visual technologies
2. the fluid nature of disciplinary
boundaries and the importance of
critical disciplinary knowledge
2. the recognition of the importance
of critical interpretation

The author tells that there are multiple

literacies required for understanding new
literacies so all subject teachers need to
teach ways to interpret new media.

The other part of this article that I

found to be of significant importance
was when the author speaks of how
media is different inside and outside
the classroom. According to the
author, learning inside the classroom
tends to be less student centered and
restrictive, whereas outside the
classroom, the student has freedom to
learn in the manner that best suits
them. I find this to be quite important,
because we should use this type of
problem to help make using media
sources in classrooms more student
based. Thus allowing them the
freedom to learn how they best see fit.

Synthesis Questions

1. What did you do while reading your article that you could not do
while reading your partner's article?
The main difference between reading the articles that I chose and reading the
articles chosen by my partner was that the content literacy between my own and
my partners article was different. What I mean by this is that when I read the
articles that i picked out I understood what the author was talking about. It was
easy for me to skim through the article, pick up the elements and concepts that
stuck out to me and then reread the entire article to tie everything together. When I
read my partners I could not do this so easily. I tried to skim through the articles just
as I had done with my own, but I didnt find the correlations and understanding that
I found when reading my own. I needed to use a different strategy to try and get a
better understanding on what was being said by the author. For the first article I
asked my girlfriend if she would read it with me so that we could discuss it
afterwards. After we both read it we talked about the different concepts that were in
the article and also discussed some of the language used. I found this strategy to be
very useful in identifying the main points of the article. This way I not only knew
what the article was about, I also understood what the author was trying to say.

2. What help or support did you need while reading your partner's
article?

The only help I really needed was identifying some key terms that I did not
understand. When I came across concepts that I had never heard of, I reread that
part of the article a few times until I could put together what the author meant by
these concepts. Once I figured out what all the concepts meant it was much easier
to read and it flowed very smoothly. I find this very helpful for heading into the
teaching profession. I could use research articles just as we did for this portfolio and
have students go through and read the articles and then highlight or circle the
concepts they are struggling to understand. After they have identified these
concepts we would come together as a class and discuss what each of the
questioned concepts means. Using a group discussion students could answer one
another as to what the concepts mean with myself as their teacher guiding them
along.

3. How will you address these reading needs in your classroom?

Basically my plan is to use all the strategies that help myself in reading literacy. For
this assignment I used strategies such as: group learning and collaboration,
selective highlighting, and also the use of skimming over an article and then
rereading the parts I didnt understand. What I found to be the most essential and
beneficial strategy was the use of group learning. When I have my own thoughts
and concepts I tend to just stick to those, but when I combine my own thoughts with
the ideas of others it helps guide me along to a better response and understanding.
I really like the idea having students highlight or circle certain concepts or ideas that
they dont quite grasp when reading something so that we can discuss it as a group
the next class period. Personally, from a students perspective, I tend to learn a lot
from the combination of my own thoughts and the new thoughts I hear from my
classmates. Using all the students knowledge of the readings I give them, I believe
they will be able to learn best from hearing their classmates responses with my
professional understanding of the content guiding them as they find their way to the
answer.