Documentation of Learning

EDUC 4031: DOCUMENTATION OF LEARNING

By: Annastasia Salassidis

Table of Contents:

DOL Week 1 Reflection Class September 8 due September 16

DOL Week 2 Reflection Class September 15 due September 23

DOL Week 3 Reflection Class September 22 due September 30

DOL Week 4 Reflection Class September 29 due October 7

DOL Week 5 Reflection Class October 6 due October 14

DOL Week 6 Reflection Class October 13 due October 21

DOL Week 7 Reflection Class October 20 due October 28

DOL Week 8 Reflection Class October 27 due November 4

DOL Week 1 Second Semester

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Multiliteracies

DOL For September 8 Due September 16th

This week I wanted to reflect on multiliteracies as it stood out to me. In the picture above, there is a brain with two sides. One side being a brain, and the other being a heart, which represents that the brain is the heart of learning. On the left (more logical side) shows a motherboard in the background and on the right (more creative side) shows paint splatter. This symbolizes that everyones brain is different, even when it comes to learning and understanding. Some students prefer strictly reading and writing where as others might need images and music to help learn. This is relevant as a teacher because students’ brains do not always work the same, and implementing multimodal literacy allows and acknowledges that students are not literate to one type of literacy.

Being literate in a more traditional sense means to be able to read and write in your native language, which can be problematic as it limits those who are not as efficient in reading and writing compared to others.Things like print, image, music, and speech play an important role when it comes to alternate teaching methods and should not be left out of teaching language arts. Examples of multimodal literacy would be a website, where it has images, words and maybe even sound effects. This would be a great resource while teaching as it provides a helping hand for some.

Grouping Learners

DOL For September 15 Due September 23rd

I chose this picture of students working together in a group setting to emphasize cooperative learning. This type of learning allows for children to get into pairs or groups and do activities to help strengthen their ideas in, for example: a poem. One activity the textbook calls for is a type of peer tutoring. For example, one student will read a poem out loud and the group will come up with interpretations of what they think the poem means. This way, cooperative learning can be graded on a group basis rather than an individual one. This makes the educators job easier for planning and implementing lessons since the groups are usually divided on similar aspects such as skill or grades.

I thought touching on this type of learning was important because it is a fun and important way to learn in a classroom. Grouping learners helps with daily planning for a teacher, and benefits the students. Collaborative work is proven to increase the exchange of ideas (Gillies & Boyle, 2006), self-esteem (Miller, Topping, and Thurston, 2010), and confirmation of understanding (Evans & Moore, 2013) between learners.

Phonology: Phonemic Awareness and Elkonin Boxes

DOL Week 3 For September 22 due September 30

Understanding Phonemes (or sounds) will help early literacy learners about how to pronounce and write words. Using Elkonin Boxes is a great way to assess understanding and further develop an expansion of learning. In relation to books and reading aloud, this helps young learners how to conceptualize words on a page. According to Ontario Ministry of Education (2003), Phonics refers to “the sounds they hear with the print they see on the page in order to make meaning.” This helps with the students Phonemic Awareness which is auditory understanding that is developed at a very early age as long as the child is being talked to regardless of if they can speak or not, and this helps the child conceptualize sounds in relation to reading and words.

An activity to help strengthen the child’s understanding of spelling and auditory sounds is by using Elkonin Boxes which allows the child to split a word into sounds. For example, the word sheep can be split into three sounds sh/ee/pa. The student will put some form of marker into each box that is being used for sound. This can get children to become aware of words with different pronunciation and can also be good for assessment as, of, and for learning.