Elluminate Me!

Hi, Classmates!
I just want to share my thoughts on today's Elluminate session. Despite the technical difficulties of the initial set up, I am looking forward to being able to use the program to communicate with you. I think that this would be a good way to do study groups related to our assigned readings and to get your input when we are doing our assessments. Alan, I like your idea of "shared reading". It will really help to share the reading load with the rest of you.

As for the reading assignments, what stood out the most for me was Chapter 3 on the process of assessment. It makes me nervous to think what kind of impact my evaluation could have on a student. I am going to carefully go over the chapter again, to make sure that I have a better understanding of the assessment-instruction process. Chapter 2 has a lot of new vocabulary. I am going to help myself get a firmer grip on the terminology of this text by creating a personal vocabulary book of terms I am learning. I have little prior knowledge about reading and literacy because it was not the focus of my undergraduate work so a lot of the vocabulary is new to me - I have a long way to automaticity. In Chapter 1, I really focused on the perspectives on reform, reading and literacy and on the information on the section on Special Education. Chapter 4 just plains scares me. Any suggestions?

I did however, grasp that the development of reading and writing is influenced by many factors and that as a teacher, I need to be knowledgeable and cognizant of these factors and how they can affect a student's ability to learn to read and write. And as I mentioned in class tonight, attitude is a major factor that influences a student's ability to want to learn. I want to add that it doesn't only apply to the student's attitude but to the teacher's attitude, as well. I have observed many classes and I have seen many instances where the teacher's attitude was less than desirable. And yet they wonder why student's aren't interested in the assignments or in the class or why they fail. I know that none of you are this kind of teacher but let's hope that what we learn in this class will make us even better, more effective, caring and responsible teachers.
(image from Google image search)