Foot: Firestone

I think the Firestone experience was a good one because the students got one-on-one attention from the tutors.  I just wish I could have helped him more.  My students’ biggest problem was social studies and I don’t know much about social studies.  I think helping students with reading comprehension will help them in all aspects of testing.  I think if my students are having problems with social studies, besides talking to their social studies teacher to make sure they get extra help in that class, I can have my students read non-fiction books paired with fiction books to get them interested more in social studies.  I think test prep needs to be fun for students.  I like the idea of playing some kind of game with my students, like Jeopardy, to get them to remember information.

I think schools emphasize test prep too much.  I think it overwhelms students because all they are worried about is “cramming” for the test.  I don’t think they should feel like they are cramming for a test.  I think the material teachers teach should make students feel prepared for tests.  I think teachers need to make the content more interesting for the students.

While I was at Firestone High School I observed one English teacher while she taught the Crucible.  The class read the play out loud and they had to answer questions about the play on worksheets, they watched the movie, and then had a test at the end.  I think the students were bored.  While they were reading the play I couldn’t understand most of what they said.  I don’t think the students got a lot out of it.  I wish the teacher would have had student break into groups and act out scenes.  I think they would understand the play more if they had the time to study scenes and really get into the material.  They could have done a class project about the play and made a newspaper with articles about things that happened in the play.  Students need to be interested in the material and I could tell none of the students cared about the play until they started watching the movie.  I like when students see the movie version of a play or a book but they need to understand the text version first before they see the movie version.  They could have done a paper comparing the two versions too. 

I think standardized test preparation can be merged with multi-modal literacies.  I don’t know if it would be an easy merge because everyone is so used to the way they prepare for tests now.  I think using multi-modal literacies will make the information more accessible to students because students now have grown up with different types of texts.  They know how to use computers, and phones, and games.  Those things just need to be included in schools so students understand the information easier. 

When my student told me he was having problems in social studies I asked him if his teacher was helping him prepare for the OGT’s at all.  He said she gave him part of a OGT practice test.  I think teachers need to do more than just had a student a practice test and say have at it.  I think teachers need to sit down with their students to find out exactly what their problems are.  I gave him a larger practice test and went over every single question with him and whenever he had a question we looked it up on my smartphone and I explained everything I could.  I let him keep the test and the answer key so he could study.  He is lucky enough to have a computer at home and he said he would look up anything else he had questions about.

Social Studies must be a really hard subject to teach because the students need to memorize a lot of information.  I think reading non-fiction books in an English class will help students be more interested in social studies. 

I also go the opportunity to sit in on a math class while I was at Firestone last semester and that math teacher spent 50 minutes on two equations.  I don’t know much about math but I think they should be able to go over more information than that in 50 minutes.  I’m not sure what could be done for students to prepare better for the math part of standardized tests, but I had a math teacher that played math games.  I think math based video games might help students.  Learning reading comprehension will help students with word problems in math.

I think reading is very important and I don’t think students read enough.  Students need to be given the opportunity to read more books that interest them.  Reading will help in every subject and it will increase their vocabulary.  I think students should read everything they can get their hands on.  Not just fiction.  They need to read non-fiction, newspapers, magazines, blogs, anything else that interests them.  The more they read the more they will know.

I hope to get my students interested in reading.  I want them to read because they want to…. Not just because they have to.  Students also need the opportunity to write too.  Writing will help them find their own voice and to respect the things other people write.  The only class I saw any students write anything was in Mr. Parks English class.  I think students should write in most of their classes but especially English class.  They should be able to write more than just papers.  That is why I want my students to have some kind of newspaper project because writing an article is different than writing a paper.  Different kinds of writing are important because students will need to read different kinds of writing for standardized tests.  If they get to write different things it will be easier for them to read them and understand them for the test.