Blog Post: Feedly articles

For this assignment, I read two articles from different educational blogs. The first article entitled, Personalized Learning with a Plan of Action by Stephanie Shaw published at GettingSmart.com blog. The article is about how Ms. Shaw; a fourth-grade teacher successfully find a way to implement personalized learning in her classroom.  Ms. Shaw’s situation is similar to what many teachers are living right now, trying to find a way to integrate technology into lesson plans when school districts are providing MacBook, iPads, or laptops to all students. Ms. Shaw uses Google Sheets as a data tracker for students to enter their own grades and identify their strong and weak skills. Based on this data tracker then Ms. Shaw can review and analyze what students need remediation and start planning. I think that this strategy is great for students because they can reflect on what they need to work on and take ownership of their learning progress. Lastly, Ms. Shaw creates a table for each skill that she needs to re-taught in different ways such as videos, online tutorials, and re-assessments. She also works with small groups during class periods.  This article includes videos for teachers to use Google Docs and examples of the tables for each skill. Overall, I like Ms. Shaw’s strategies to create personalized learning opportunities for all students. Students are able to work on the skills that they acquire to continue learning. Students feel responsible and accountable for their learning. The second article is entitled, Six Techniques for Building Reading Skills- in Any Subject written by Susan Barber and published in Edutopia. The article analyzes the importance of teaching techniques to build strong reading skills in school. The author suggests to readers some ways teachers can integrate reading skills in lessons across all subject areas. Some of these strategies include asking questions, categorizing information, making personal connections with the text. Teachers should encourage students to read with a pencil in their hands in order to write their questions as they read. Teachers can also provide students time for students to choose books from the classroom library. It is a simple yet effective way to improve student’ reading skills. These books can be from different genres and reading levels for all students. Taking the time to let students read and then having an open discussion as a way to engage students in the reading but also the content.

 

Article 1 Personalized Learning

Article 2 Building Reading Skills