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Knecht Learn More
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Find out more about my Lessons, How-To do it yourself, see my favorite References and what my data showed by clicking on the buttons to the right.
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Learn More About My Process
Struggling Readers all had one thing in common, they had trouble focusing when reading or learning about reading. Mindfulness and Goal Settings were huge helps and made drastic differences when it came to progress according to their data.
Where the Journey Began
When I started dabbing in my research through Touro Univesity, I started by researching goal setting, motivation and grit. I really wanted to know what made some students successful and why others never really caught up academically. My first agenda was to teach goal setting and make goals with each of the students with an action plan that would itemize how the students would accomplish their goals. Each morning when the students came to my class, I had them read their goals to remember why they were here and what their goals were to accomplish. To help with getting to know my students as readers I started by interviewing my them in regards to their reading likes and dislikes and what types of literature they enjoyed reading. I followed up with a Google Forms Survey so that I could collect data and collect this information as a pre-test to see how things would change through-out the year. From the results of the Reading Survey it became very clear that 80% of struggling readers admittedly had a challenging time focusing when it came to comprehension or during reading instruction. As a solution to practicing focus in the busy world that we live it I found a very talented and veteran teacher in our district to come into my classroom once a week for 30 minutes to teach and practice Mindfulness with my third grade below grade level readers. The students talked about having positive self talk and practiced mindfulness awareness. I followed up during the week with mindfulness practices of meditation and focusing strategies for one to three minutes and lessons in a workbook style coloring book to reinforce the lesson of the week. The students were antsy at first and then built of focusing stamina of the weeks. After two weeks they would ask to practice and participate in the workbook reflection and lesson follow-up. During discussions in Mindfulness, the students were asked, " What types things make you feel stress or anxiety?" 95% of the tine students responded with technology issues. It would be about: slow wifi, they didn't get enough computer time, they died in their game, they couldn't get to the next level. But almost none of the issues were with actual people. I realized that the stress of today was not the stress of yesterday for these kids. This realization changed at how I approached teaching and realizing that technology was a real motivator for this generation. I started a technology challenge for myself and committed to teaching an innovative technology lesson each week. I tried all of the tools that I was learning in my classes and created lessons that fit with my Language Arts curriculum. The kids were like sponges. They looked forward to it every week. (Check out my Best Of Video on all of my favorite technology tools after experimenting all year.) This Tech Tuesday challenge lead me to my final project, with was comparing teaching using Video versus teaching using computer games. I gave everyone a pre and post test on a topic that had not been taught yet this year in Science. I divided the class into two groups. One group was taught the Science curriculum solely through videos from Youtube and the other half was taught through computer games around the Science content on LegendsofLearning.com. The students enjoyed the style of teaching, it was clear that these would add to great lessons, but a teacher really is a must to bring the concepts home for more direct instruction, structured lesson plans and lasting retention. |
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ASSESSMENT
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Goal Setting Works!
I worked with half of the lowest third grade reading students for three months. We made goals with them and I had the students read their goals and action plan every morning. It was clear that those students that made goals, with an action plan, as to how to accomplish them made almost twice the average growth on the Reading Inventory than those students that did not.