Summarizing information is a skill I find my sixth grade students struggle with.  It stems from their difficulty synthesizing the information they read, therefore they are unable to put the information in their own words since they never really understood what they read to begin with.  

In brick and mortar school it was easier to activate background knowledge, review reading strategies, and check for understanding.  In virtual school it is much more difficult to teach and model good reading strategies and determine where the breakdown in comprehension is occurring.  

One of the first assignments this year for my sixth grade Language Arts class was to write a summary of a short story they read.  I found the students struggled with this despite very logical and well-written directions in the lesson on how to complete this assignment.  Students had trouble pulling out the important information and would often get distracted by the details.  

I like the Two Column Think Sheet strategy headed with “What the Piece is About/What It Makes Me Think About,” found on page 188 of Strategies
That Work (Harvey, 2007).  This strategy requires students to document not only their understanding of what was read, but their thoughts about the piece as well.  

As a virtual teacher, this strategy works well because it does not require them to mark the text (which they are unable to do since all the reading in online) and it provides insight to which reading strategies (predicting, making connections, questioning, etc.) the student is using as they read which would work well with our asynchronous instruction.  
   
                                                 Reference
Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension
      to enhance understanding. Portland, Me: Stenhouse Publishers.

Chapter ten in Strategies That Work by Harvey and Goudvis is very relevant to my virtual world of teaching.  This chapter, “Determining Importance in Text: The Nonfiction Connection,” is so important for my students to understand since there is no direct instruction provided and they are responsible for reading the lessons, completing practice activities and submitting assignments on their own.  I am a resource for my students but they ultimately need to learn how to extract the important information that will aid in their learning of the subject.  

The introduction to this chapter talks about students who have “highlighting disease” and highlight everything on the page.  I find my students have “printing disease” and try to turn their virtual class into a textbook by printing every page of a lesson.  My
students are able to use their notes during their tests and oral exams, but I often find them without any notes or too many notes to quickly find necessary information.  

Last week I had the opportunity to meet with a handful of my 6th grade Language Arts students face-to-face.  I used this time to review how to extract the important information from a lesson to take effective notes and discussed many of the strategies mentioned in this chapter. I always stress to my students to use complete sentences on all assignments, so when I told them they did not have to do this while taking
notes, they were pleasantly surprised.  I encouraged them to sketch pictures, use abbreviations and symbols to make their notes personal to them.  We also looked for features in the lessons that signal importance such as bolded fonts, signal words, headings, and graphic organizers. 
 
Since the objectives are clearly stated at the beginning of each lesson and this is what quizzes and my oral exams are based on, I am trying to teach my students that the objectives are the study guide for the assessment and they just need to know how to extract the important information to be successful.  Harvey and Goudvis mention, ‘teaching with the end in mind,” but I find myself training my virtual students to teach themselves with the end in mind.  
 

                                                      References

Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension
      to enhance understanding. Portland, Me: Stenhouse Publishers.


 

Building knowledge is the goal of education.  However, according to Stephanie Harvey in Comprehension Going Forward (Keene, 2011, p. 117), children’s curiosity and list of questions are replaced with the notion they are in school to answer teacher’s questions, not ask them. 

I read this chapter coincidentally the same week a good friend recommended I watch Sugata Mitra: Build a School in a Cloud TED Talk. The video is only twenty-two minutes long and not only entertaining but thought-provoking.    Mitra speaks about an experiment he conducted with children in the slums of India to see what they would do with his “hole in the wall computer.”  The results of the experiment are quite amazing and lead to his vision for Self Organized Learning Environments (SOLE) where the students are responsible for their learning, ask their own questions, and work together to solve problems creatively.  

A similar vision is also reflected by Harvey who states, “Curiosity and thoughtfulness are at the center of engaged teaching and learning.”  Curiosity is what lead Mitra to conduct these experiments in the slums of India and also what propelled the children to figure out how to use the computers and learn about complex topics without any instruction or guidance. 

Reading this chapter and watching the video made me evaluate my virtual teaching environment which is currently very different that the SOLEs envisioned by Mitra.  However, I do think we are slowly shifting towards a more student-centered learning
environment where student questioning and curiosity is encouraged to build knowledge.              

                                                       Reference

Keene, E. O., Zimmermann, S., Miller, D., Bennett, S., Goudvis, A., Buhrow, B.,
       Cervetti, G., & Larner, M. (2011). Comprehension going forward: Where we are  
       and what\'s next. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.   

In the virtual school setting, asking students questions during Discussion Based Assessments (Oral Exams) takes place 2-4 times per semester to ensure academic integrity and student mastery of content.   To prepare for these discussions, I review the objectives for each lesson and use it as a guide for my conversation with my students.  In Chapter 8 of Strategies That Work (Harvey, 2007, p. 123) it discusses authentic questions versus assessment questions. This got me thinking about my questioning strategy.  Although my conversation with my students is dynamic (I can steer them in the right direction or ask the question in a different way, they can ask for clarification, etc.), I realized I ask assessment questions the majority of the time.

Example assessment questions I ask in my Language Arts and Photography courses:

- What is the theme of the story?  
- What was the conflict in the story? 
- What comes after exposition on the plot pattern?  
- What is the rule of thirds? 
- Why does the image appear upside down in your pinhole camera? 
- What are aperture and shutter speed and how are they related? 

These types of questions are necessary to monitor comprehension and academic growth, but I wanted to explore more authentic questions in my Discussion Based Assessments.  

To do this, I invited my high school Creative Photography students to attend a live
virtual lesson that allowed for group discussion through a photo critique to encourage new thinking and prompt new insight through authentic questions.  I posted the photo below and asked the following questions:   

- Discuss how this photo demonstrates one the photographic principles you learned in   this module?
- If you had to make one change to this image, what would it be and why? 

Student responses included:
    - The image follows the rule of thirds because the woman is not centered but    
       positioned in the right third of the picture.  
     - I would change the composition so the woman was pictured in the left third of the 
       frame so the active space is in front, rather than behind her. 
     - I would convert this to black and white to draw more attention to the subject in the
       photo. 

We also practiced more formal photo critiques using the following questions and photos:
- Observe – What do I notice first?
- Analyze – Describe the photo in detail using art and photography vocabulary?  
- Interpret – What do you think it means?
- Evaluate – You are the judge now. How would you rate this artwork overall? 

This questioning strategy allowed students to consider the technical and emotional aspect of photography, elaborate on their classmate’s answers, and pose questions of their own.  Overall, I found it to be a successful sessions that both the students
and I enjoyed.  

I am currently working on a website just for my photography classes that will allow me to create a teacher and student photo gallery.  My goal is to post photos weekly and have a poll or comment section available to promote authentic questioning and encourage student participation and interaction. 

Activating background knowledge is one of the strategies I included on my professional development plan as it is something I find challenging to accomplish virtually.  When I previously taught in a brick and mortar school, I would tell an anecdote, ask questions,
read a short story, or show a short movie clip to help my students activate prior knowledge.

I like the strategy “Rethink Misconceptions: New Information Changes Thinking,” in Comprehension Going Forward (Keene, 2011, p. 98).  The teacher poses questions about a topic and the students write down answers based on what they think they know.   As the students read the story they fill in the “New Learning” column and can see if their views on the topic have changed.  

This strategy could be implemented virtually in a couple of ways.  I could create the chart and send it to the students to complete independently. Even better, students could attend my virtual class where we could discuss and share our thoughts on the topic. Students could even be separated into break-out rooms to share in small group setting and then we could complete the chart whole group.

Activating background knowledge is important to prepare students prior to reading a text, aid comprehension, and hopefully pique student interest as well.  This is why I am developing a plan to create and implement virtual strategies to use virtully so I am better able to assist my students in activating this prior knowledge. 

                                                         References

Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension
       to enhance understanding. Portland, Me: Stenhouse Publishers.

                                                      

While reading the texts and thinking about my role as a virtual instructor, I find myself wondering if technology promotes or prohibits my ability to monitor student comprehension.   When I taught in the classroom, I used computers for testing,
differentiation, and occasionally to provide brain breaks.  Now, my students rely on the computer for the majority of their direct instruction, practice, collaboration, and assessments.

With the new school year in full swing and our student enrollment doubled in size from last year, I have encountered students with varying levels of basic computer skills.  
  
 In the middle of reading the chapter “Thinking and Talking Our Way Through the Words” in Comprehension Going Forward (Keene, 2011, p. 106), I was intrigued by the example of the teacher who fostered authentic thinking in her classroom.  Students came to class prepared with their own questions pertaining to their book club novel allowing the teacher to be the facilitator for the student-led discussion.  To get to this point, the teacher spent the beginning of the year modeling reading strategies through think alouds.

I do have the ability to meet with students in a group setting via a virtual classroom.  Currently it is difficult to effectively use this resource to model reading strategies due to technology barriers.  In the virtual classroom it is possible for students to respond in a whole group setting, to participate in small group break-out sessions, and to take quizzes individually.  The technology is quite amazing, but not if the student are so focused on how to use it rather than on the message I am trying to convey.  

To try an overcome this technology barrier, a co-worker and I planned to do a joint virtual lesson face-to-face with our sixth grade students. I know this sounds like an oxymoron, but our goal was to have one teacher presenting the lesson, while the other teacher could walk around guiding students in using the program as well as reminding them of virtual classroom rules (no off topic discussions in the chat box, raising virtual hand to participate, not writing on the whiteboard unless directed to do so, etc.).   

In my idealistic virtual teaching environment, I see students learning at their own pace, using extra resources as needed to enrich their understanding of lessons, and students coming together in virtual classrooms to share ideas and practice new strategies; students would be interacting with their texts and each other allowing true comprehension to take place as defined in Strategies That Work (Harvey, 2007, p. 14).  
I believe this is possible and will continue to work through the technological obstacles until I am able to better serve my students by effectively modeling reading strategies and monitoring comprehension.  
 

                                                      References

Harvey, S., & Goudvis, A. (2007). Strategies that work: Teaching comprehension
       to enhance understanding. Portland, Me: Stenhouse Publishers.

Keene, E. O., Zimmermann, S., Miller, D., Bennett, S., Goudvis, A., Buhrow, B.,
       Cervetti, G., & Larner, M. (2011). Comprehension going forward: Where we are  
       and what\'s next. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.