SEEDS Works!
7-12 Final Reflections, April '08
by Mr. Lutt
May 08, 2008
Nuggets from SEEDS Instructional Strategies Final Reflections, April ‘08
The SEEDS Leadership Teams gleaned these comments from your final reflections and wanted to share them with all the teachers.
I have seen my students change in attitude regarding reading.
My students now expect that reading is going to be a part of the classroom.
I have seen poor readers become better at reading out loud, especially in a class that has many special education students in it.
When they (students) are confronted with a need to improve in a physical skill, or a cognitive concept, SEEDS has helped them see it from different angles.
I have seen my instruction change due to SEEDS this year by incorporating more concepts into my teaching related to reading skills. Students have had more exposure to fundamentals, rules, and fitness concepts due to the work with SEEDS. As a result, there has been better overall learning of each activity we have covered in class.
SEEDS this year has provided us with the opportunity to work with a variety of texts for students’ benefit…as I used a variety of texts, I have begun to notice even more that students truly need to be helped in an enormous way through the reading/writing connection.
Through the practices we used in SEEDS, I feel my students know better the steps to use to generate ideas from text, to write summaries, and to not be overwhelmed by writing.
I have noticed a change in my lesson planning, in my pacing of instruction, and in the readiness to respond to text of my students.
I am more purposeful in each part of a lesson to make sure students have understood before moving on.
My instruction has become more creative in my approach to a typical choral rehearsal.
I use summarizing as a way for the students to discover the emotional ideas that are in the music.
SEEDS assignments and training have encouraged me to change, expand, and create new learning materials.
SEEDS assignments are work, but the results are worth it. Changed methods have resulted in increased learning.
I have learned many strategies that have improved my ability to teach these skills…Discussions have improved as a result.
My “low student” was my success story…His first writing sample was a “0” and his final was a “3”. I was so proud of him! GIST has allowed him to gain self-confidence in summarizing.
SEEDS ties in directly with my Career Development Plan, and I find all that we do so appropriate to my teaching of language arts.
I often will act as a scribe allowing the student to capture his/her thoughts while doing a think aloud.
One student stated that this was fun to do because it got rid of the big words that he couldn’t remember anyway.
I feel that it has been one of the most worthwhile classes I’ve attended in a long time. One of the guest speakers shared a fluency drill that I started in my class. I’ve done it for ten weeks. Some of the students who really struggled with reading fluently are now reading with feeling and emotion.
Students are recognizing their own thought processes and how they read so they might be more fluent readers in the future.
I have seen carryover from other classrooms, and because we use the same phrases, the students are triggered to correct responses. We are also producing better writers, who stick to the main idea.
I have seen through the course of the past couple of years, that SEEDS, if taken seriously can have a positive impact in the classroom.
I have also noticed that the special needs students do much better when they incorporate note taking strategies into their study habits.
I hope that the time-sequencing strategy has helped my students make the connection that how they read the unique language of music is very similar to how they read information in their other classes.
My students have started using time order words in their writing for the first time.
I appreciate new ideas and information that is research-based. I am also glad that this will help us to meet our state goals.
Too often I get in a rut. By giving them different ways to organize their thoughts, it helps those kids that need a diagram rather than just a written form.
Note taking has been helpful in improving the scores of the students’ tests and raising their knowledge level.
SEEDS has encouraged me to challenge my special education student to think at a higher level. Without the push from SEEDS, I could have easily justified focusing on decoding skills for most of his literacy time. He did research on a topic of his choice, sought reference materials independently, took notes with support, summarized, created a speech with support, and then presented that speech totally independently to an audience and judges. When he gave his speech, it was an exciting moment to be a teacher.
I am more conscious about making sure everyone is included and I made more effort with those students that are having difficulties reading and understanding.
GIST has helped me to focus on the addition of trade books and outside articles to help enhance student learning.
I constantly find students implementing their comparison learning on homework and personal issues that were never called upon by the teacher. This to me is the true measure of success!
Now I focus on the opportunities for summarizing and comparison. Students are summarizing and comparing by just being asked. They are very good comparers who always come up with some comparison that I had not thought of.
SEEDS reaffirmed the importance of these skills, how to present them to students, and the results that will be found.
I have never used text as an instructional tool in art before the SEEDS lessons required me to. I assumed that kids could read because it was someone else’s job to teach them how. Once I began using reading material in the classroom, and saw for myself how some students struggle to read, I was surprised & saddened.
Poor readers seem to hang in there and try because these strategies don’t make them feel like they are going to fail before they even start.
My resistance to using text is gone. I like being challenged & try to think up a new matrix each time using a symbol relevant to the lesson. I may deny having said this, but I have enjoyed these lessons and will continue doing them because they are fun. I don’t want any students just accept that it is OK for them not to read well.
The more strategies I can teach them the better they will get and hopefully the less instruction they will need from me.
SEEDS gave the students a variety of tools to use.
I have learned how important it is to use various reading strategies prior, during, and after reading.
