Alabama Math Science Technology Initiative
During my student-teacher experience, I attended a AMSTI workshop for second graders. AMSTI workshops are unique. I expected to listen to a presenter discuss with teachers about how to use AMSTI strategies. But Its was not like that at all. The AMSTI trainer came to a second grade classroom and taught the class. She taught a whole lesson on representing and interpreting data. First, she introduce the lesson with identifying story stickers. Then , the students would have to match the story stickers to the number on the number chart. After four exercises, the trainer presented a chart with two columns and two rows. The first column had pictures of geometric shapes. The second column had the number of sides of each shape. The students had to complete the chart with the number of sides on multiple shapes like a 2 hexagons or 2 trapezoids. For example, how many sides does three hexagon has? or how many trapezoids it will take to equal three hexagons?
Alabama Reading Initiative
During ARI training, the presenters discussed different ways to engage children into reading. Its is important for students to be active listeners. When students are actively listening, the more learning takes place. The presenters demonstrated a repertoire of engaging activities such as 3-2-1, gallery walk, annotating passages before discussions, turn and talk, and cooperative groups. When using 3-2-1 strategy, students will write at the end of their reading 3-things they learned, 2-things that were interesting, 1- question about the text. During a gallery walk, the teacher place questions posted around the room. Using post-its, students will respond to the questions by writing a response for each question then posting it under the appropriate question. Before a class discussion, students would be divided into a group. Each group will be assign a passage to highlight important details in the selection. The students are allow to discuss what is important and why its important. Then the groups will present their information to the class.
Common Core Training
Common Core State Standards are higher level of rigor based on the deeper understanding of a pared-down number of curricular aims. One way to meet the challenge of the Common Core State Standards for unmotivated or struggling students is to help them see how the grade-level content they are studying can be used in their future efforts to make money and pursue their dreams. I had the opportunity to receive common core training. Common core training demonstrated a variety of ways to implement the standards in the classroom. The goal of common core is to expose students to more informational text. Since the training, I am more skilled on ways to assist students on how to interpret and decipher informational text.