Authenticity Works
View PDF | Print View
by: 195695
Total views: 18
Word Count: 833
Date: Thu, 18 Aug 2011 Time: 8:21 AM
Authentic and student created work promote student learning and academic achievement by developing real-life texts for real-life purposes in a literacy learning classroom. It will help develop student interests as well as their attention span in which will increase comprehension and composition scores. It is imperative in developing high-order thinking, problem solving skills, and communication in students while working together towards the same educational goal which would benefit the child in and out of the classroom.
Teachers have been indifferent on student produced assignments because of the more traditional methods of teacher-directed instruction and photocopied worksheets. Noisy nontraditional classroom environments, lack of time (for planning and producing work), adhering to a curriculum and lack of supplies, have many teachers up in arms when it comes to authentic produced work. The majority of teachers feel that drilling students with paper and pencil is the only option they have due to abiding guidelines, when interpreting student growth by administering tests and data. Teachers follow a more conventional strict teacher lead instructed classroom rather than a “free” student engaged environment where real-life experiences and texts expand student learning.
The question arose when I noticed that the students in my class quickly finished their class work. I felt the students weren’t being productive and intuitive. The work became redundant and not enriching. The higher and lower academic achieving students in my class were all suffering the consequences. The students that were high were not growing intellectually and the struggling students weren’t able to apply their creative strengths in their work. The entire class was losing interest in the work and behavioral issues arose. Along with my observations the data collected from the mid-year Kindergarten assessment, demonstrated that my low students, were struggling with letter/sound recognition and writing skills. The findings brought up many debatable questions and concerns and it was one that piqued my group’s interests.
I wanted to make learning fun and connect it to real life experiences, where it would be challenging and motivate students. I wanted works of art created by the students where they would work cooperatively and where I was able to incorporate multiple academic subjects in one lesson. Creative class work where all the students would be able to express themselves and show various levels of progress.
How will incorporating authentic reading and writing activities help increase scores for all students performing below mastery level?
According to research found in Real-Life Literacy Instruction, K-3 Handbook for teachers, preplanning is key when it comes to introducing a lesson/activity. Authentic activities should consist of performing a task, real-life experiences, construction/application, and student structure. The students were also administered a pre-test to help determine piqued student interest on what hands-on activities they preferred. According to the results, students enjoyed working with various art supplies such as: paint, scissors, and yarn. They enjoyed creating and constructing pieces and writing about them afterwards.
The pre and post tests were written tests based on letter recognition and letter sounds.They also had to read and write using sight-words. Though pre and post tests were used to collect data, the students were also assessed weekly to evaluate their progress through teacher observation and tests. Teacher journaling was substituted due to time consumption and a Student Engagement Inventory Chart was created instead. After students learned the upper and lower case letter and its sound, they would self monitor it on a chart and place a sticker underneath the letter. The students and I were well aware of the number of letters they've learned and need to work on. The students participated in authentic learning activities numerous times a week for a total of a grading period (9 weeks). The activities consisted of student made flip books, constructing story characters and writing about them, making lists, writing letters to guest speakers, drawing insect life-cycles, detailing/sequencing/editing, etc.
The authentic learning study proved to be a great success. The students excelled in more than just academics but also socially by working cooperatively. I was able to incorporate the curriculum and real-life exercises promoted learning and fortified respect among the academically diverse groups of students. The students were eager to work with creatively and responded well to the activities. It just proved that hands-on activities enabled the students to collaborate and use higher order thinking skills instead of circling or writing on a worksheet. I extending the duration of students attention spans and their interests and they were able to learn, raise test scores, and produce incredible work. The hardest time I had with this was planning out the activities. I had to get very creative and found myself having to organize supplies and lessons ahead of time. But it was all worth it!!
About the Author
Nidia Cotera a Director/owner/ teacher of an Educational Center
