Self-Evaluation of Teaching Summarizing in the Classroom

Authors Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, and Stone (2012) argue that summarization is an essential component of student learning, as it enables students to identify, organize, and incorporate new information. This process furthers their comprehension of the material because it relies on higher-order thinking skills in order to organize the information in a useful way. To employ summarization in the classroom effectively, Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, and Stone (2012) pinpointed three strategies. The first is teaching rule-based summarization, whereby students learn the rules of summarization. The idea is that eventually students will engage in these actions automatically; however, they first need to be explicitly taught the rules in order to get to that step. Another strategy isolated by Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, and Stone (2012) is the utilization of summary frames. This strategy relies on a series of questions that highlight the essential points of the text. There are several different varieties of summary frames, each designed to work best with different types of text. The final recommendation is the use of reciprocal teaching so that students work together to summarize, question, clarify, and predict while working with a text. This strategy requires teacher modeling so that students are able to effectively engage in the process (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone, 2012).

My current performance can be assessed using Figure 6.10 – Teacher Rubric: Summarizing (Pitler & Stone, 2012). Like much of my self-evaluation throughout this course, I find that I tend to have strengths and weaknesses within each instructional strategy. For instance, I do not recall explicitly teaching my students rule-based summarization, as this is a new instructional strategy for me. So, in with respect to modeling, using consistent wording, and posting the rules of rule-based summarizing, I would rate myself a zero or one. I was more successful in my internship with the use of summary frames, as I would often use questions to guide my students’ comprehension of the text and help them identify essential information. I would rate myself a three in the use of summary frames as a type of advance organizer. When having students independently read chapters from Into the Wild on their own, I would provide them with questions to guide their reading and understanding of the text. I would do so prior to reading and go through the questions to clarify any misconceptions. However, I would rate myself a two with regard to providing the appropriate summary frame for the type of text, lecture, or video, because I had not known that I was working with summary frames and was simply creating ones specific to whatever I was doing without necessarily knowing the different formats. Reciprocal teaching is the area that I feel I was most successful with in my student teaching when evaluating for summarizing. Having learned about this strategy in a course offered last summer, I often had the students engage in reciprocal teaching. It was particularly useful because my Targeted English class only had four students, so I could easily group them into one group and rotate roles based on ability and need. By the fourth time we performed reciprocal reading, the students were easily able to perform the tasks required of their role. Therefore, I would rate myself a 3.5 for both my continual use and modeling of reciprocal teaching.

To improve my use of summarization, my next step is definitely to incorporate an explicit and continual use of rule-based summarizing. This skill is particularly important for the student demographic that I work with, as students will rely on the skill of summarization throughout their high school careers (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone, 2012). However, it will also be of use to them if they wish to attend college. Specific steps I would like to take include designing a poster with the rule-based summarizing rules so that students are able to consistently engage in the process until they no longer need to think about how to summarize in that manner. Teaching my students this process will also rely on teacher modeling, so another step will be to not only devote lesson time to teaching it but then modeling it often and revisiting it periodically (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone, 2012). Ultimately, the reason that this step is important for students learning how to summarize is that it “helps to demystify the process of summarizing by providing explicit, concrete steps to follow” (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone, 2012, p. 80). This is critical for all students, but particularly helpful for special education students who need strategies to help them identify how to engage in various academic tasks. Research has demonstrated that structured summarizing strategies are effective tools for improving academic performance (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone, 2012). Therefore, improving my ability to teach these strategies will ultimately result in improved student outcomes for my students, both in my class and potentially in other subject areas.

Dean, C.B., Hubbell, E. R., Pitler, H. & Stone, B. (2012). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Pitler, H. & Stone, B. (2012). A handbook for classroom instruction that works. Denver, CO: Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning.

Video Analysis #1: Close Reading, Grade 10

In the video, “Close Reading, Grade 10,” the teacher effectively employs various instructional strategies as discussed in this course. For instance, in regard to setting objectives, or “the process of establishing a direction to guide learning” (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone, 2012, p. 3), the teacher verbally communicates the lesson objectives at the beginning of the lesson. Her phrasing of these objectives is relatively informal; however, the specific objectives are written in an established place on the whiteboard. The objectives, “to use close reading to deepen our understanding of texts” and “to use concrete evidence in the form of quotations to support of conclusions and ideas,” are specific yet not restrictive, which is critical for successful objectives (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone, 2012). She also successfully connects the learning objectives to previous learning. She states that the class performed a close reading with another type of text (“Friday, we did a narrative text, so today we’re going to do a [close reading of a] non-fiction text.”), thus tying previous experiences with close readings to activate students’ prior knowledge about them. With regard to cooperative learning, the teacher appears to have successfully incorporated several components. For instance, the students appear to be working together in small groups of about four, which is the recommend size for optimal learning (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone, 2012). They also appear to potentially be engaging in reciprocal teaching. The video contains portions of students summarizing the actions of the character in the non-fiction text that is the focus of the close reading whereas another student appears to be clarifying. However, it is unclear if the students are engaging in all four aspects of reciprocal teaching (summarizing, questioning, clarifying, and predicting). If not, this could be a very useful strategy for the teacher to employ to guide students in their group work with the close reading. Another instructional strength is the use of teacher-prepared notes. The teacher specifically states that she made copies of the text for the students so that they could fully engage with the materials. She additionally provides a framework for how that interaction with the text should look; examples include the use of an exclamation mark for interesting things or the use of a question mark for confusing items. Through the creation of a specific format of taking notes, the teacher encourages the students to interact with their notes and models what note-taking should look like, ultimately furthering student achievement (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone, 2012).

While the teacher successfully engages in several instructional strategies, I did notice a few deficits or missed opportunities. For instance, she does not necessarily provide feedback that addresses what is correct and/or elaborates on what students need to do next. Her feedback tends to be a little bit more generic, relying on praise words/phrases like “good,” “nice work,” and “good job.” There is no identification of the next step for progress, which is an essential component of effective feedback (Dean, Hubbell, Pitler, & Stone, 2012). I also feel like there was a missed opportunity to briefly identify relationship between effort and achievement. When discussing the elements of a close reading (“taking notes to help remember, to help ask questions, to help understand meaning from a text that has multiple layers to it”), she fails to connect those actions to student achievement in college. While I don’t know that the lesson would have permitted a full exploration of the link between effort and achievement, it is critical to use those opportunities to remind students of that link while having other lesson that wholeheartedly focus on the relationship and model it. One improvement the teacher could make would be to include lessons in the curriculum that strongly demonstrated the lesson between effort and achievement and then use opportunities in other lessons to strength the understanding of that relationship.

Overall, I thought that the teacher had a strong lesson that reflected many effective instructional strategies that suited the subject of the lesson.

Dean, C.B., Hubbell, E. R., Pitler, H. & Stone, B. (2012). Classroom instruction that works: Research-based strategies for increasing student achievement (2nd ed.). Alexandria, VA: Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.

Advance Organizers: Evaluation of My Use

The use of advance organizers has been heavily documented as an effective tool for student achievement for both general and special education classrooms. The use of these advance organizers provides a framework for students about the impending lesson, activating prior knowledge and structuring new knowledge (Pitler & Stone, 2012). Effective deployment of advance organizers includes a focus on essential information in order to avoid confusion and the pairing of the correct format of an advance organizer for the nature of the lesson. This includes the use of expository, narrative, and/or graphic organizers in addition to the use of skimming (Pitler & Stone, 2012).

Using Figure 4.6 (Reflecting on Current Practice: Advance Organizers) to assess my current performance, I represent a wide range of ability levels in different areas of using advance organizers. For instance, I do help students develop an understanding of how their prior knowledge and background connects with new lesson. When teaching mythology in a Targeted English class, I opened the lesson with the use of Greek mythology in advertisements and media. Students identified various symbols and attempted to determine their connection to mythology. This activated their prior knowledge and connected it to what they were about to learn, while demonstrating the potential relevance of the impending lesson. I feel that this is also focused on what was important, because the mythology unit’s focus was how mythology continues to be used in our modern world rather than simply an overview of the history and stories. And it was aligned with the learning objectives for the lesson and unit because it focused on how myths are used today. In the final assessment, students were asked to analyze comics with mythological references and explain the connection. However, when evaluating whether or not I use a variety of advance organizers, I feel that I could improve upon this area. I do not always employ the different formats of organizers: expository, narrative, skimming, and graphic. In particular, I have not used skimming very often, particularly because the students I am teaching often have reading goals and I am focused on different areas of reading. However, I feel that this is mistake given the powerful nature of skimming and its impact on student learning and understanding. It is a critical skill that enables students to preview important information (Pitler & Stone, 2012). In addition, it will serve them well as a skill to take to college if they wish to pursue higher education. Therefore, I would like to work on incorporating skimming into my lessons at a more regular interval in order to improve my use of advance organizers.

Pitler, H. & Stone, B. (2012). A handbook for classroom instruction that works (2nd ed.). Denver, CO: Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning.

Reinforcing Effort: Self-Assessment of Internship Practice

During my internship in an EBD centered special education program at the high school level, I strongly reinforced effort emotionally but do not know that I necessarily did so in the most effective manner for student achievement. When considering the questions presented in the Figure 2.1 tool (Reflecting on Current Practice: Reinforcing Effort), many of my responses reflect a developing rather than mastery level of performance in this area. For example, the questions, “Do I continually provided students with examples of effort and stories about people who have overcome odds and/or worked hard in order to succeed?” and “Do I ask students to provide stories about effort and success?” (Pitler & Stone, 2012, p. 42) are not ones that I have many examples for. I did not include stories that emphasized that relationship and strengthened my student’s understanding of it. I also did not provide students with ongoing opportunities for monitoring their effort.

However, there are some questions that I felt I had answers approaching a more proficient level in. For the question, “Do I help students develop an understanding of the relationship that exists between how hard they work and their success?” I feel that my experiences were more confident. A student in my Targeted Reading and Writing class initially struggled with using READ 180, an intensive reading and writing intervention program. He disliked the content and the various tasks. However, as he made progress, I often called attention to how even his most minimal efforts resulted in improved reading scores. The more attention I drew to the relationship between his effort and achievement on the tests, the more his effort and achievement seemed to improve. I also always included rubrics and checklists for my students to demonstrate what type of effort is required for projects. Every project included a section for on-task work production and a description of what that looked like at each score.

One specific thing I would like to focus on is breaking tasks into smaller component parts so that students can hear about and visualize hard work. This means included a review prior to tests and working with the students to complete the review, while modeling how studying should look to improve student achievement. Overall, I recognize that I did not always explicitly teach the relationship between effort and achievement, but I often called attention to when a student experienced success. When working in an Academic Skills classroom, I often helped students study, but did not necessarily call a lot of attention to how to develop and maintain those skills. And I did not have a method by which students tracked their own effort and achievement to see if they could draw conclusion based on such observations. Therefore, in this area, I definitely have some raw material to work with, but really need to refine my practices and strengthen the connections to promote student achievement.

Pitler, H. & Stone, B. (2012). A handbook for classroom instruction that works (2nd ed.). Denver, CO: Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning.

Setting Objectives and Feedback: Theory vs. Practice

During my internship in an EBD centered special education program at the high school level, setting objectives and providing feedback was an important aspect of how I communicated with students regarding educational expectations and their progress towards those expectations. Objectives were often a struggle with students; similar to a comment in the text, they did not seem to enjoy the mindless regurgitation of the learning objectives at the start of the lesson. Attempts to have them paraphrase these objectives improved their connection with the objectives, but they still all provided feedback at the end of the quarter that they felt the time devoted to understanding the objectives was wasteful rather than helpful. As a future educator, this taught me that I will need to find creative ways to engage students in understanding the objectives: perhaps by framing them as a narrative prompt in the beginning or having students, based on the activities for the day, guess the nature of the objectives.

Feedback is an area whereby I exemplify both strengths and weaknesses. When assessing myself using the Figure 1.12 tool (Assessing Myself: Providing Feedback), I would give myself a wide range of scores. For example, I would give myself a four in “I provide feedback in a timely manner,” “I help students develop the skills necessary to provide their own feedback,” and “After providing correct feedback, I give my students an opportunity to redo their work until it is correct” (Pitler & Stone, 2012, p. 34-35). I consistently exhibit these behaviors. I provided feedback on assignments within twenty-four hours during my internship. I recognize that this may not always be something I am able to do once I helm the entire ship so to speak; however, it was useful because students were able to remember why they had done what they had done and take the feedback to make corrections. I also provided an opportunity once a week for students to practice giving feedback to others and themselves. I also always allowed students to correct their work and improve their scores on assignments.

I would give myself a three in “I establish and share well-defined criteria against which work or performance will be judge” (Pitler & Stone, 2012, p. 34) because I always provided students with rubrics but they were sometimes unclear as to what really distinguished between the different scores. I would also rate myself a three in “I provide feedback that is specific enough to help students improve by elaborating on what they already know or by strengthening a skill” (Pitler & Stone, 2012, p. 34), because I did tend to give specific feedback, but I feel like it was not always corrective as it could have been. Therefore, I would give myself a 2.5 on “I provide corrective feedback rather than praise for effort” (Pitler & Stone, 2012, p. 34). However, I do think the nature of the demographic I work with means that I do often need to use praise at a higher rate than in a general education classroom. But that does not mean I can skimp on the inclusion of corrective feedback, either. I would also give myself a 2.5 in “I provide feedback that aligns with the learning objective” because I did not often mention the learning objectives specifically when providing feedback. Instead, I generally alluded to them, thus not creating as strong of a connection between the feedback and the objectives.

Therefore, my intention is to increase the amount of corrective feedback I provide students as well as ensuring that it is directly connected to my learning objective for the lesson segment. One strategy I will employ is posting my lesson objectives visually so that students can continually reference them to understand what they are supposed to be learning. I would also like to work on connecting my learning objectives to previous and future learning: one strategy I liked was reminding students of the objective half-way through a lesson and then connecting it to the next day’s lesson at the end.

Pitler, H. & Stone, B. (2012). A handbook for classroom instruction that works (2nd ed.). Denver, CO: Mid-Continent Research for Education and Learning.