[nobe-l] question

[Anita Adkins]

Hey,

First, in response to your question, use your ears and walk around. It 
sounds as if you could be doing this. Another suggestion might be to ask 
various students questions. In the school I was recently assisting in, we 
used popsicle sticks, and I had brailled them. So I drew sticks to call on 
students, and maybe you could do this in groups. If the students know you 
will come to their table and draw names from their stick jar, they may be 
more motivated to pay attention. Also, you may observe over a period of time 
to see if one or more of these students has a habit of not paying attention. 
Then, you could develop a learning plan that includes motivation strategies 
for this student. Also, I think in many classes, not all students will pay 
attention. Even in my college class, several of the students didn't 
participate and rumor has it they were browsing the web instead of focusing 
on the instructor, and so it may not be a blindness only issue.

Here is my question for all of you

. I just did my assistantship at a public school. There are two challenges I 
am looking for sollutions for.
1. on-the-fly grading: When there, I had students verbally read their work 
to me, but in a classroom fulltime, this may prove time consuming. A few 
suggestions I have may be to choose 3 to 4 to 5 students to focus on each 
day. I could orally do their work in different classes as I will be an 
elementary classroom. For ex., if I have Jane read aloud her work in Math on 
Monday, she would read aloud her English on Tuesday. This way I would not 
have five kids reading to me, taking up quality teaching time. My other 
sollution to this is for me to simply show the answer on the board and to 
ask students to say nay if they have this exactly on their paper. Then, I 
could have a verbal cue as to if several or only one or two students are 
confused. Then, I could work with these two students before moving on, as 
that is what the teacher did when students were incorrect in the 
fourth-grade class I just had. If it were several students, then I would 
need to reteach using maybe a different teaching strategy. Either way, I 
would then ask students to do another problem independently. I am thinking 
Math here because that is what I was grading this past semester. I have not 
yet thought of ideas about how to walk around and visually check papers. One 
way is to have students handit in, but I like for students to know they are 
doing something right away rather than having them doing it wrong because 
they did not understand it for homework, though I would still assign 
homework to make sure they understood and could practice the concept being 
taught. Any suggestions are appreciated.

2. access to printed information. This past semester, I had a reader to read 
the Social Studies section onto tape, and then I took notes on it. For the 
Geometry unit I taught, my mentor teacher went over the pacing guide with 
me. Also, we all had partners this past semester, and my partner also went 
over it with me. Rather than looking it up in the book, I researched the 
topics online based on the pacing guide requirements. In addition, I had my 
reader assist me in cutting out sample lines, line segments, etc. Also, I 
had tactile pictures drawn on a raised line drawing board, which I could 
place under a document camera, which then projected the image onto the board 
for the students to see. I will be interning at the school for the blind 
this semester because my goal is to work in the field of blindness and not 
in a general education classroom, but I wanted experience in a public school 
setting, and this is why I was at a public school this past semester. I say 
all this because even some students at a school for the blind or in a 
regular elementary school if I am a TVI will have some usable vision. At 
least if I am at a school for the blind, I will most likely have access to a 
Braille copy of the textbook. I am happy to say that bookshare.org does 
provide students in grades k-12 with textbooks, if not available elsewhere. 
In fact, they are also willing to try it for college students. They are 
preparing a Teaching in the Middle School textbook for me, a requirement for 
a college class this semester. In addition, they also happen to already have 
available another one of my required textbooks.

Any thoughts or advice for me is appreciated. Anita


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Faith Manion" <faith_manion at hotmail.com>
To: "NFB Education" <nobe-l at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Wednesday, January 05, 2011 4:38 PM
Subject: [nobe-l] question


>
> Hello all,
> I am currently completing my student teaching in an 8th grade English 
> classroom.  I ran into a situation yesterday and I was hoping you all 
> might be able to provide some suggestions.  The students were working in 
> groups and I was monitoring the groups.  Afterwards, my teacher informed 
> me that about three of the students in the classroom were not engaged in 
> their groups.  How can I find this out in the future?  What's a good way 
> to ensure all the students are participating when doing group work?
> Thanks
> Faith
> _______________________________________________
> nobe-l mailing list
> nobe-l at nfbnet.org
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo/nobe-l_nfbnet.org
> To unsubscribe, change your list options or get your account info for 
> nobe-l:
> http://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/options/nobe-l_nfbnet.org/aadkins7%40verizon.net