Teachers Impact on Student Learning

I began my student teaching experience at the same time that I began my new position as 6th Grade Special
Educator at Schoo Middle School in Lincoln, Nebraska. It was fall of the 2016 - 2017 school year. I was hired
to co-teach in Language Arts and Math classes. After accepting a caseload of twenty-six students and an
extra standard keyboarding class, I got right to work and what a whirlwind it has been!
Looking over my students goals and seeing that the biggest struggle is in reading comprehension (nineteen of
my twenty-six students have this goal), I decided to focus my student teaching project on various reading
comprehension strategies.

Demographics
Schoo Middle School, located in the Fallbrook neighborhood, opened its doors in August of 2009. Schoo
serves 810 students in grades six through eight, all who live in northwest Lincoln. Twenty-nine percent of
Schoo is comprised of minority students, fifteen percent are gifted, sixteen percent receive special education
services, and forty-three percent are eligible for free or reduced meals. Because Schoo shares its classrooms
and gym spaces with the Fallbrook YMCA, about 80 of our students are able to participate in an after-school
program.
The students I selected for this project joined me from five different Language Arts classes. Once a week, we
all come together to work on reading comprehension strategies. This group is comprised of seven girls and
twelve boys. I have thirteen white students, two black or african american students, two hispanic students, one
American Indian, and one of mixed race. I have one student with a hearing impairment, one with a traumatic
brain injury, and three with other health impairment. The rest of my students have a specific learning disability
and six of them also have a speech language impairment.

Strategies to Engage Multiple Learning Styles

Lincoln Public School sixth grade students still take part in the Wonders curriculum. Each week they are
introduced to an essential question. They also work on new vocabulary and a new skill or strategy each week.
With this program, students have weekly comprehension tests as well as a unit test every six weeks. The
following is an explanation of the various strategies Ive introduced to my students to help them see
improvement in their weekly scores:
1. Reading with a purpose.
a. Develop questions to answer during the reading.
b. Make predictions and see if those predictions are correct while reading.
2. Recognizing text structure.
a. Is this a nonfiction text? A narrative?
3. Activating background knowledge.
a. Videos and pictures to introduce students to new information (in this unit, it included videos to
show different eras and images to show various land formations).
4. Annotating text. These steps were taught in chunks and students have access to a visual
representation of these steps.

a. Underline what you dont understand

b. Circle powerful words
c. ! something that surprises you
d. ? for questions
e. EX for examples
f. Arrows when you can make a connection
g. 1, 2, 3 for arguments or details
h. Write thoughts in the margin
5. Monitoring comprehension.
a. Red, green, and yellow cup strategy.
6. Summarizing text.
a. Completing Getting the GIST graphic organizer
7. Learning vocabulary.
a. Heads up seven up game
b. Race to Vocabulary

Collaborative Groupings for Students

After considering my students strengths and areas that need to be fostered, I decided that when I pulled
students to work on comprehension skills, it would be best to have groups of mixed ability. So I choose some
students who have fluency goals and some students who have comprehension goals and I bring them
together. When we are reading aloud, the students who read smoothly help those who have trouble with
comprehension. They are also able to prompt those who get stuck on some words and my students seem to
like the help of their peers. The ones who comprehend well are able to begin a dialog and get our discussion
going.
The other thing that Ive had to be very mindful of is keeping the groups small and separating the behaviors
amongst the groups. I had some unproductive sessions when I had too many students or when certain
students were in the same group, but I quickly rearranged groups so that this wasnt a problem again.

Questioning Techniques to Promote Critical Thinking

After attending a staff meeting focused on created better questions (from the Anita Archer conference), I
started to reframe my questions to fall within three categories. For example, instead of asking students, Is this
a narrative?, I began asking, Why is this a narrative? Another way I reframed my questions was to use
comparisons. I might ask, Why is this [literary device] personification but this [another literary device] is not?
This requires them to make a comparison between two unlike things, helping them see appropriate examples
and non-examples. The last thing I do to reframe my questions is to make a statement and see if they agree
or disagree and then have them explain why. I might ask, The main idea of this article is [fill in here].
Then I would see if they agree or disagree. Of course, sometimes I might choose the main idea and
sometimes I might choose just a supporting detail.
Another way I develop critical thinking in student learning comprehension skills is to have the paraphrase what
they are reading. I might ask them, How would you put [fill in here] into your own words? Or Can you give
me a different example of this?

Student Learning Artifacts Reflecting Various Strategies

1. Questions and predictions were unique to each text.
2. Recognizing text structure. Images shared with the reading groups were found at Ms. Rs Class
website. (http://msrockecharlie5th.weebly.com/text-structure-lesson.html)

3. Videos and images were unique to the text.

4. Annotating text. Annotating reference guide was purchased from Life and Language Arts on Teachers
Pay Teachers.
(https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Annotated-Text-Poster-designs-and-Annotated-Text-R
e
ference-Sheet-866706)

5. Monitoring comprehension.
I chose to try a modification of the colored cup strategy. I wanted the students to be more mindful of
their thinking as they read through a text. I explained that the colored cups would help them track their
thinking. When they are reading and understanding the text, they can keep their green cup on top.
When they recognize that their thoughts stray or that they didnt understand something they read, they
can change their cup order so that the yellow one is on top. When they reread the text and still dont
understand, they can change their cup so that the red one is on top. This strategy accompanied a
lesson about why its so important to monitor our thinking as were reading.
I also explained that as they are monitoring their thinking, their cups give me a information so that I
know when to work individually with a student who may be stuck on a word or on the meaning of a
paragraph. It also tells me at which points we need to all stop and have a discussion about the text so
that we can figure it out together.
6. Summarizing text. Get the GIST graphic organizer was purchased from Darlene Anne on Teachers
Pay
Teachers.
(https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Summarizing-GIST-and-Beyond-817714)

7. Learning vocabulary.
a. Heads Up, Seven Up Vocabulary. Choose students to come to the front of the room. Call out,
Heads down, all around. Students at their seats should put their heads down and close their eyes.
Have the players at the front tap a seated student on the head. When the "tappers" have returned to
their positions at the front of the class, called out, Heads up, Seven up. The students who have
been tapped need to stand. Instead of asking the students to make guesses about who may have
tapped them, show each one a vocabulary word. If a student can define the word correctly, he/she
trades places with the student at the front of the room. If the answer is incorrect, the student
remains at his seat and his chooser stays at the front. The round is completed when all of the tapped
students have answered a flash card and heads are put down. Then another round begins.
b. Race to Vocab. Prep for this activity by making 25 strips of each vocabulary word. Place all the
strips along the front of the room. Give students a word definition and have them race to the
front to find the correct word. First person to find the words wins the round. Repeat with other
words.

Student Survey and Responses

Assessment Data
The following is a collection of data that I keep to monitor the progress of my students on weekly
comprehension tests:

Reflection
When looking back over my notes and my data collected during this unit, my first thought is that I really should
have selected just a fraction of this unit to analyze. There is so much data and its hard to make significant
connections between improved scores and specific instructional strategies. Over the nine weeks, I have
students with an upward trend in their comprehension scores; but I also have some students whose scores
have plummeted. And with such a big instructional unit, there are so many things to consider.
One of my favorite pieces of information is the results of the survey the students took to rate how well the
strategies worked for them. The results show that I have students with a variety of learning styles. Reviewing
a question and learning to annotate were two strategies that worked well for the majority of my students. I also
had many students who were supported best by the use of images and videos and by having time to get out of
their seats and move around during vocabulary practice. While I had responses from lowest to highest on the
scale for the cup strategy, it was surprising to see that it worked for some of my students. I walked away from
that lesson thinking I would never use that strategy again (I had students who couldnt refrain from stacking
those cups), but seeing that data say that some students benefited makes me want to revisit it maybe in a
modified way.

As for the weekly test results, I think I can use the data to regroup my students. There are clearly a handful of
students who are seeing success with these strategies and would benefit by continuing on this path. There are
also several students who are not yet seeing success. I think it might help if I met with them individually or in
smaller groups (groups of two or three) to fill in some gaps so that they can begin to see success. Most of the
students in this group are students who not only have a specific learning disability but who also have a
language barrier. A consultation with the speech language pathologist would provide me with some fresh
ideas for working with this population.
While working on my certification, I learned that student data is the best way to inform instruction so that I can
offer a more personalized learning experience for my students based on their individual learning styles and
comprehension levels. Its nice to see this idea in action as I worked on this student teaching project.