Keeping the Torch Lit: Educational and Learning Interpretation Presentation

Introduction

• The knowledge passing through learning is a torch.
• The role of teacher is not only in passing this torch, but also keeping it lit, through accumulating new knowledge and experiences.
• The main phases are: igniting, keeping lit and passing on.

Portfolio Highlights – Torch Ignited

• The ignition is traced back to school years:
  • playing school with my friends in elementary school;
  • the participation in a teaching program in high school;
  • volunteer tutoring elementary students after school.

Torch Ignited

• Literacy retrospective:
  • Instructions teacher-directed instead of child-directed, using images of control.
  • methods such as rote memorization, skill-based instructions and competitive learning.

Keeping the Torch Lit

• The knowledge gained can be summarized through various courses, with each course adding to my overall experience;
  • LYST 218- modeling different areas of literacy through reading aloud, incorporated in Center Street School, Herricks School District with third graders.
• LYST 240- patience, social context, and focus on strengths in assessments and evaluation, incorporated ever since:
  • Three influential strategies of evaluation:
    • Process observation and analysis;
      • Multiple processes making writers’ decision;
    • Reader Response to Literature;
      • Focus on known information, rather than what they are unable yet to achieve;
    • Writing Document Analysis;
      • a system for accurately assessing meaningful feedback.
• LYST 241- Miscue analysis, a window on the reading process, according to Goodman, Watson, and Burke, “Those who look through the ‘window’ at the reading process have a way to describe, explain, and evaluate a reader’s control or ownership of the process:
  • Shanna’s profile – miscue analysis procedures helped in evaluating Shanna’s developmental level, and focusing on her strength will help improving reading fluency and word pronunciation.
• LYST 242 – Biographic Profile:
  • Lien Profile;
  • Applying learned concepts with Lien as a period of transferring theory into practice;
  • Period of accommodation determining the strengths;
  • Focus on those strengths.

Influential Lighters

• Denny Taylor:
  • Learning Denied (1991)– Students learn differently and at different rates, and standardized tests does not help at that;
  • From the Child’s point of View (1993) – Testing practices dilemma, “Teachers can use their informed opinion to develop narrative descriptions of the ways in which students use their academic abilities.
• Cristina Igoa:
  • The Inner World of the Immigrant Child The book is personally close to my experience, outlining the special case of the immigrant child and the need for support “to facilitate their transition between two worlds”.

Conclusion- Passing the Torch

• Passing the torch marks the beginning stage of a long journey.
• The challenge remains not in passing the torch to the students, but in keeping their torches lit, as were mine during my learning experience.
• The creation of a learning environment, in which the strengths are emphasized, solutions are found, and in which every child is satisfied with the learning process, just as much as I am.