Friday, July 15, 2016

Assignment Six: DVD Reflection

ASSIGNMENT SIX: DVD Reflection- Included in your text is a DVD containing video clips of Regie’s conferences with writers in the classroom. There is a detailed commentary accompanying the DVD on page 336 of her text. Please watch the DVD and then look at her teaching notes beginning on page 336 (Regie suggests just watching without notes first so that you don’t miss what she and the students are doing.) After both watching and reading her notes, write your reflection and please post a copy of your DVD Reflection to the blog.

*NOTE: If you experience problems playing the DVD please refer to the Writing Essentials companion website at www.heinemann.com/writingessentials for directions for playing the DVD. Look in the upper right hand corner for the link.

10 comments:

  1. The video clips were good to watch. I appreciated the way Regie worked positively with the students and celebrated what the students were writing. She brought all of the lessons around to completion by her discussion with the students and class. It seemed to make more sense to watch what she did then to just read about it in the book. Besides just celebrating what the students did right, she also made some corrections in their papers by gently nudging them and asking them what they thought about changing this or changing that. I also liked how she helped the students adjust their language so it will help the reader. Instead of just changing it because it sounds better. I would have appreciated more of these type of examples to watch.

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  2. I loved seeing Regie in action. It really brought the concepts she shared to life for me. Being a visual learner, it was a great addition to the study. She is an incredible example and the language she uses to guide the students and bring it all full circle was great to see. I would love to see additional examples like this.

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  3. I know. We also enjoy watching Regie in action. Some students in this class have shared that they've had a residence program at their school with Regie and I've been so jealous! She's out in Seattle, so maybe you could get her to come to one of your schools??? :D

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  4. It was really great to watch these conferences in action; I understand the process much better now. She was so gentle and supportive, and seemed to be honestly enjoying the interactions with the students. I especially enjoyed Max’s poem and how he blossomed under all the attention. I was also impressed with the respectful attention of the audience.
    The one-on-one was useful as well – she has so much patience! I can see putting conferences like this one into effect, and the pre-teaching (such as editing marks) necessary to do so. I was surprised at the length of the spelling lesson, and having one child “on the spot” that whole time. While it was well done, I wonder if that much focus on one student could backfire. Some students are always more willing than others to showcase their learning! I'm looking forward to trying these in my classroom!

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  5. The poems that the students wrote and shared in the video were really well written and very sweet. It was helpful to hear her feedback to the students. The conference with AlexSandra was especially efficient and focused. Although it was also a reminder of how time consuming writing conferences can be. They only got through the title and a few lines in 5 min. I think conferences are definitely worth the time, but it also make me want to find some parent volunteers to help during writing. The conference with Ervin was also particularly useful since his work was still unfinished. I like how she had him finish telling the story in sequence and used the sticky notes to remind him what he wanted to write.

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  6. It was so helpful to watch Regie working with students. Like TheresaH above, I'm also a visual learner. So it was nice to see examples of the interaction between teacher and students. I loved how she was able to focus on the positive and share genuine compliments. You could clearly see the impact it had on the students - such a confidence builder! Plus, I feel that little bit of interaction and letting them be the focus for the whole class would go hard to hook the students on the art of writing.

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  7. Hi Shelley, Lindsey and Cindy!

    So glad you all also enjoyed watching the clips of Regie. Others have also commented in previous classes about the length of the spelling lesson. It would be neat to ask Regie about it and hear her thoughts. :D

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  8. Watching the DVD made everything click a little more. It looks seamless what she is doing while meeting with each student. However, you can tell she is seriously thinking about what she wants the student to walk away with to improve their writing. She also uses these lessons to help teach the whole class. What I loved most is how it didn’t seem like a writing lesson, it was truly a celebration with some teaching expertly woven throughout. I loved seeing how excited and proud each student was. They didn’t seem to be “corrected” at the end of the conference.
    I realized that once again, teaching writing has a lot of teachable moments. My biggest job will be to find those moments and capitalize on them. This will be a change in thought from planning my lessons the week before, because I am not sure what will pop up as we are writing.

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  9. I really enjoyed watching all of the ideas I've been learning about come to life. I liked seeing how she really did just focus on celebration in the beginning. I can see how it would be really important to celebrate without giving a lot of correction at first. I liked watching the different conferences that she had with students, especially the ones in front of the whole class because those are the ones that are most unfamiliar to me. I was expecting a little more engagement with the whole class. I guess I couldn't see the rest of the class, but I was just wondering how much they were listening or how engaged they were with the lesson.

    I am always so tempted to just give the word to a student when they are struggling to spell it. It was helpful to see some of her guiding questions, and how she was able to get the student to come up with the spelling on his own. I noticed on the flip-side, that she often wrote sentences down for students on sticky notes to take with them to their seats. It brought me back to the fact that I need to have a purpose for each conference. Sometimes it's ok to write down whole sentences for students, because the object is to get their ideas on paper, while other times, the object is to improve spelling. I really appreciate how Routman balances these two things.

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  10. Sarah,
    What a great way of saying it. They didn't seem "corrected" at the end of the conference they viewed it more of a celebration.
    Being flexible with our plans allows us to take advantage of those "teachable moments" and not stress that we didn't "get through" our plans for the day.

    Hi Marisa,

    Glad you enjoyed watching Regie and took some ideas away from the video. :D

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