LLED 360

…. Will be available in LLED Ponderosa E, top floor, as of the end of the week.

Hope that your winter breaks are getting off to a great start!

Throughout the class, but particularly after reading Zwiers Chapter 8, I have been wondering about the kinds of writing I should be cultivating and asking students to complete in my discipline of Home Economics. Writing probably will play a more prominent role in Family Studies and Psychology classes. However, what kind of writing will depend on the learning objectives and context of the classroom. For example, at my practicum school, the priorities of the Psychology class are student engagement and developing social-emotional health strategies and life skills. No form of writing is an explicit prescribed learning outcome, but Chapter 8 helped me see how the writing process is formative rather than strictly summative assessment. As a student writes, they explore their own ideas more fully, and a written product allows the teacher to give richer feedback.

As I struggle with the writing process myself, I tend to hesitate making writing a large part of my summative assessment. During my practicum, I want to further explore how I can encourage reflective and academic writing, while respecting varying levels of ability and without making writing so stressful that students hate it altogether. Some ideas include assigning in class journaling activities, providing writing prompts and leaders, and limiting feedback to one or two specific things the student can work on so that the student does not become overwhelmed. I am also planning on attending some writing workshops myself. Hopefully I can learn to make the writing process less stressful, and share those insights with my students.

Reading from the text book in a Tech Ed class is generally reserved for when the teacher is away. Shop time is valuable and reducing it so students can read from the class textbooks is a waste of that limited resource. There isn’t funding for each student to have their own text book anymore. There is some reading front loaded on the course to cover safety, but once that is done reading isn’t a large part of the learning anymore. Even subjects in Tech Ed that have more of a theoretical component, other forms of learning, rather than reading a text book, are what we have been trained to use while at BCIT learning to be Tech Teachers.

Questioning students to generate classroom discussion can be an effective learning technique and also allows the instructor to assess prior knowledge or reinforce what was taught previously. The assesment of knowledge and reinforcement is something I do already, however broader classroom discussions is something I have to work on. Admittedly such discussions have limited use in a Tech Ed classroom. There are not topics that lend themselves to that form of learning. Discussion can be used effectively when dealing with design problems. Then is a time when students are encouraged to free think and find creative solutions. I can see this potentially being a problem for me wanting to correct design flaws that the students need to find themselves.

This chapter got me wondering what language might be in Tech Ed that might cause trouble. Thinking back I don’t recall ever having difficulty with any related language. That might speak to the teaching of my teachers and their scaffolding ability or my facility with language terminology. Either or, keeping in mind that the students might not grasp the language is something important to keep in mind. There are few terms that I can think of that might be difficult. There are no really abstract concepts in Tech Ed , which is perhaps the appeal for many students.

This was an interesting read and I found the information on the break down of vocabulary into the four categories useful. Useful in a general knowledge sense that is. In a Tech Ed classroom there is little choice in the vocabulary that students must learn. This vocabulary will also not help their general literacy all that much as it is rather specific. There can be a link drawn between the actions performed with a tool and the tools name and things can be scaffolded through morphology that way. The development of word consciousness is well beyond the scope of a Tech Ed classroom. I realise that every teacher should be concerned with general language development, but that is a lower priority and unrelated to the development of the skills needed for Tech Ed, including it’s specific language. That said, I would prefer to have a student be able to use a tool with a great deal of competence then be able to spell its name correctly.

This article makes me wonder about it’s relevance to teaching shop. I found nothing that could be used in this article. It is a shame that students lack academic literacy skills. Ideally they should have that, I did, but then I didn’t have today’s students access to media. This is the root of my concern: as a shop teacher I am much more concerned about their lack technical skills. Academic language is not what some students of Technology Education are looking for. The shop is a refuge for them linguistically and those students have no desire to move on to post secondary and may go into the trades. It’s not that they are not smart, they just aren’t in that way.

The language of academic thinking is something that can be used in a shop class but can also easily be avoided as it is not needed for comprehension. There are brick words related to shop class but mortar words can be avoided entirely. There are some concepts say in electronics that would benefit from the use of academic language. It can be a little abstract. Of all shop subjects it is the one that has the most theoretical subject matter. Power Mechanics has some but it is stuff that can be seen with the naked eye. The movement of electrons, however, can not bee seen even with the tools available in public high schools making it more difficult to comprehend,thus the need for academic language.

While this was an interesting chapter, I see it having little relevance for me as a shop teacher. Language acquisition is largely associated with tasks. The tasks being more important,in general, than the language. This linkage though naturally would scaffold the language and repetition of exposure as the tasks are completed, instructions are read, and procedures discussed naturally reinforce the language acquisition. Shop class is not a lecture environment, if done right.

There are some useful things in there about rephrasing students responses though.

Looking back on what we have learned in this course, I feel there are two major themes with which I can most connect: how to integrate academic language into classes so our students can develop language literacy, and how to cater to the special needs of ELLs. During my short practicum I went to an English 11 class, and I was quite shocked to find out the entire class was about a simple grammatical pattern. What was even sadder was the fact some students scored not so well in the mini quiz at the end of the class. I honestly hope that class’s literacy is not representative of literacy of the entire school. Nonetheless, the necessity of enhancing students’ ability to think, write and discuss more academically cannot be emphasized enough. I also felt that although ELLs did get some attention, they simply weren’t receiving enough support which they needed so desperately. One thing I have in mind is that during my long practicum next year I may initiate a special club/tutoring session aimed at ELLs. They may come in whenever they have difficulty with any subject and I will provide as much help as I can. I will also try to get other teachers involved so there will always be some assistance provided.