I've spent a ridiculous amount of time this week trying to send videos to colleagues so they can give me constructive feedback as part of a course I'm taking. We're supposed to get feedback on literacy strategies we've done with children. I won't go into all the things I did that didn't work. I know I've bugged the stew out of several of you trying to send you these things (Can you see me now? Can you see me now?. . .) Finally, yesterday Kim suggested I take the videos to Adrian in the LEC. He worked wonders, and I'm unspeakably grateful to him. Now, I'm going to post these things (finally, finally). This is what I need you to comment about: general observations about the strategy, engagement of the children, would you/have you used this strategy before (perhaps differently? and if so, describe the differences). Basically, I just need your comments on the involvement with the text. You're teachers; you know what to look for. After you comment, I'll print your comments for my practicum notebook. Thanks a whole bunch. (And be looking for two more videos soon. . )
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1314725286365467909&hl=en
Late edit:
Okay, I've got the other video done now. It has two segments. The first segment is a series of literacy strategies done with the same book, Big Moon Tortilla. I first had them do a Quick Write to predict what they thought the book would be about based on the title and cover illustration. Then I did a Word Splash. I showed them a list of words from the book and had them revise their Quick Write based on these new "clues" from the text. After that, I read the book up to the point where the main character, Marta, has a problem. At that point, we did and Inside/Outside Circles strategy. One student pretended to be Marta and sat inside the circle. Those in the outer ring gave her advice as to how to solve her problem. The children wanted to do more with this book than I had planned, so I let them. If you make it through the entire segment, you'll see they wanted to sing the grandmother's song to Marta.
The second segment of the video is a Semantic Feature analysis with a different group of students. We went over the features of a fairy tale, then I read The Rough-Face Girl (not a typical fairy tale in the minds of children, but has the features) and they had to decide if it had the features of a fairy tale or not.
Again, for each of the above segments, please comment on student engagement, effectiveness of strategies for giving students a purpose for listening, keeping them involved with text, etc. I know it will take a while--there's 90 minutes of footage. You're welcome to fast forward and watch only the active teaching/responding if you'd like, skipping the actual reading of the text. Thanks for taking the time to do this for me.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=3552062998362790471&hl=en
