Kimberly Boloven

MATC Synthesis Paper

TE 872 Sumer 2017

Michigan State University

Learning to Teach

Throughout the last four years, I have learned alongside my students in the classroom

and through the Michigan State community that has allowed me to evolve into a teacher who has

continued to grow as an individual and a lifelong learner. Teaching as a profession is

tremendously rewarding as it allows oneself to commit their lifes work to instilling knowledge

in others while deepening their own passion for growth and learning. Even though I have

become more confident in my subject matter, and more able to manage a classroom of thirty

teenagers, what I have taken from my experience in front of students is that a teacher doesnt

stop learning. The challenge that comes from the day to day routine of the classroom is not

learning to cope with the same hour by hour schedule, but learning how to challenge myself to

reach students through different mediums, pose tougher questions, and stretch the conversation

into unchartered territories not knowing where the discussion will lead. My last four years has

consisted of teaching three main demographics of students: freshmen, English Language

Learners, and AP seniors. All of these students vary in age and skill level, but the content that

connects all of them to me is World History. One of my greatest challenges has been trying to

find a way to bridge my instruction to comfortably support and challenge each learner in the

room in every different class that I teach. Starting the day with my ninth grade World History

class, transitioning to my Language Support World History class, and rounding sixth hour out
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with my seniors in AP European History, I have had to closely study the tasks I was assigning,

the skill level embedded in these tasks, and the big idea I wanted my students to walk away with

each hour all while making these ideas relevant, meaningful, and interesting to teenagers.

Throughout my coursework from my MATC, I have also been challenged to find a way to

streamline the content, tasks, and skills in each of these courses and have begun to understand

how to differentiate instruction to develop and support all of my students potential. I did not

know how this was going to be possible when I began, and I dont claim to have it all figured out

nearing the end of my fourth year, but I have grown to understand how my students learn, and

what I can do to develop their curiosities to keep questioning the big ideas that takes us to the

end of the hour. This unknown becomes very exciting knowing that I have the ability to take my

classroom along for the ride. As a teacher, I have learned that the greatest gift in education is

being allowed to dedicate your life to learning, and challenge yourself to find new directions to

travel down the road of teaching. Even though as teachers we are designed to teach the students

in front of us, I know that the person who has grown the most throughout their time in the

classroom has been me.

One of the most important goals I have as an educator that is just as beneficial for me as

it is for my students is creating an environment where students have the opportunity to find,

engage, and reflect on issues, individuals, and events throughout history that have been

influential and inspiring to them, and to provide a platform to their voices to bring meaning and

relevance to that conversation and its connections to the real world and why it matters for the

class to have these discussions today. Throughout my time in the classroom I have learned the

power behind allowing students to better understand the past and its significance to the present

by making connections that are supported by my students beliefs and experiences in society.
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These classroom conversations have been invaluable to guiding my students to own and

appreciate the relevance of their learning, and to develop their voices to be confident, persuasive,

and backed with facts, which has created an empowering environment driven by change,

compassion, and transformation.

Another goal I have had throughout the MATC focuses on content in curriculum as the

vehicle that drives meaningful discussion. This goal can only take flight if critical thinking skills

are incorporated into the classroom, which will allow connections to be made between relevant

meaningful content and the modern, global world. The binding factor between the learning and

meaning making are the voices of the students in the room who drive the discussion to areas of

interest and inquiry that are personal to them. As a teacher, it is my job to make students

comfortable enough to find their voice, and confident enough to speak their mind and voice their

opinion on topics were learning the classroom and connect those ideas to the world that we live

in today. In these moments, students practice and engage in deep thinking to reflect and add to

the discussion what theyve learned and what they have come to understanding about the world

around them. This connection has become very empowering to witness as an educator, as all

students, no matter their age, skill-level, or language proficiency are able to apply learned facts

to real emotion, which allows all individuals in the room to learn from and with one another. By

getting to know my students and their areas of interest, I have developed a learned database that

streamlines language, skill, and content instruction built around critical thinking skills that allows

students to engage in knowledge and with one another as they develop into twenty-first century

learners and doers that are able to communicate and compete within and amongst a network of

global citizens.
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In TE 807 (Professional Development and Inquiry), I became more aware of the necessity

and importance to include and connect literacy and critical thinking across all skill and language

proficiency levels. Throughout the semester of learning, my knowledge of what it meant to be

literate evolved from believing that reading and writing were essential skills that students should

know, to understanding how literacy encompasses the core knowledge needed to function and

engage in society. The class centered around different assignments that asked one to consider

What is literacy? The goal of the course was to recognize and implement the importance of

building literacy into the curriculum. Instead of making sure my students were reading and

writing on a daily basis, I realized that I need to be conscious of what I ask my students to read

and how I want my students to be able to interpret what it is they are reading. I realized that

being literate in the twenty-first century requires an individual to be able to go beyond decoding

a text from a printed source, and be able to analyze and evaluate propaganda, or political posts

on social media (Goal 1).

As a teacher, I realized I need to change my focus of instruction to include time and

opportunities for my students develop cultural literacy and know how to evaluate and understand

that the meaning behind the message lays at the origin of the source. Instead of asking my

students to read and interpret the meaning of the text, I need to teach my students to by critical of

the text, and not to take everything for its surface value. This lesson on literacy that I learned

from my growth in learning from Professional Development and Inquiry was especially

interesting when posing these questions, lessons, and ideas to my ESL students in my LS World

History I classroom. I wanted to support my students and their background by providing them

with multiple, diverse texts, that connected content to their home countries as well as current

events in order to increase engagement (Standard 1). This artifact shows my dedication to
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understand the importance of supporting literacy development in the classroom and allowing that

developing to support and challenge all learners. This artifact also highlights the challenge that

my ELL students have given me as these immigrant students carry different cultural values that

has stretched my own teaching practice.

From the discussions I would have about content and current events in my LS World

History I, I would bring their perspectives and opinions to add context to the same content and

current events that I would discuss in my ninth grade World History class as well as my

European History class. This cycle of extending the conversation throughout classroom, context,

and class periods allowed my students to become more engaged in global affairs, and more

conscious of the way the world evolves and responds to every news cycle. My students were

able to see the perspective of their peers, and I was able to appreciate the importance and

struggle of incorporating literacy in the classroom. Even though my ESL students were limited

in their vocabulary, they were extremely motivated to be engaged and a part of the conversation,

as they could see how their ideas and opinions had meaning and value in the greater discussion.

Both myself and my students were able to appreciate how literacy goes beyond being able to

read, and necessitates ones ability to engage and respond to new ideas.

In my first semester of the MATC program I was challenged to re-create ways to assess

student skill and understanding through differentiating instruction and modifying assessment

tools based on student performance (TE 892). The student population that I targeted was my LS

World History class that is composed of students who share an L1 of Arabic and have limited

reading proficiency skills. This assignment was challenging and motivating because I knew that

I could apply these lessons learned with my ELL students to my general education students who

also struggle with reading comprehension or motivation to learn, but still had to design lessons
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that were at the instructional level of my students who vary in their language proficiency. This

assignment challenged the way that I approached reading tasks, like summarizing, by modeling

strategies that students can use to become more autonomous learners, rather than relying on

Internet search engines to come up with the answers on their own. As an educator, it is hard to

support technology in the classroom, and limit the use and application of technology at the same

time.

My work with the Application to Practice incorporates teaching summarizing strategies

by applying the BURN reading strategy. Students were able to tackle a challenging reading

passage but applying a four-step process that allowed them to still rely on technology to translate

challenging words. This process involves using technology to translate words to a simpler

meaning in English, or to the students L1 in Arabic if they are able to understand the text.

Instead of having the summary consist of the point values that students were awarded, I assigned

credit for completing the reading process alongside the text. This also supported independent

work as students must write down their own thoughts and opinions to the text, which they would

not receive credit for using the ideas of their peers. By focusing the purpose of the assignment to

the strategy and process instead of the final product, students were more comfortable with their

only ability and skill, and didnt feel the need to rely on technology or their peers to translate and

summarize the text for them (Standard 2). This artifact shows a myriad of different instructional

strategies and assessment tools that I designed to use and understand how students engage in

material. I tested how both formative and summative assessments affect performance and

assigned multi-media presentations to analyze how students perform and explain their

understanding of content.
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Another component of the Application to Practice that helped me understand how students

learn and what supports student engagement is the role of using technology to enhance student

performance. After students successfully completed their summaries, students were tasked with

presenting their information to their peers using a technology platform to support their

presentation. Giving my ELL students the opportunity to speak in class is essential to supporting

their speaking proficiency skills. However, when speaking live in front of the classroom

students would get nervous, goof around, and not take the task seriously. The Application to

Practice encouraged me to re-think the way I integrate speaking into an assignment. In addition,

this assignment helped me understand how students respond to performance tasks instead of

multiple choice assessments. Instead of tasking students with a multiple-choice assessment

regarding the summaries they created, I tasked students with using technology like GoAnimate to

record their learning in a cartoon style presentation. Students were excited to use technology to

broadcast themselves, and felt comfortable that their presentation was pre-recorded and they did

not have to speak out live in front of their peers. Students also felt motivated to create a final

product that they were proud of as they knew this would be viewed by their peers. This learning

allowed me to compare how students can be motivated to perform by applying content

knowledge and integrating language proficiency skills in reading, writing, and speaking into

performance tasks.

Using GoAnimate as a platform for presenting, instead of a tool to find the answer rerouted

student motivation (Goal 1). Students were very eager to use the content knowledge

appropriately in order to make their cartoons accessible and meaningful to the assignment task,

and the technology did not replace the students own ideas and direction of the assignment,

rather the technology amplified the students ability to present and express their creativity that
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they may have been limited to do before by speaking and presenting on their own. By

understanding how ELL students learn and respond to performance tasks I have become more

aware of how other lower proficiency native learners may struggle and find support in the

classroom. I have also recognized a new way to incorporate technology into the classroom to

enhance learning without losing student autonomy and individual creativity in their performance

tasks and productive language skills.

I experienced the greatest personal and professional growth during my second semester at the

MATC program in the TE 896 Practicum. At first, I was reluctant to begin the requirements that

the ESL Practicum: K-12 required for successful completion of the Teacher as Leader Project.

How was I going to fit in the time to complete sixty hours of field experience on top of my

classes that I currently teach? Not only did I learn a tremendous amount about teaching and

learning in ESL classrooms across the district, I made invaluable connections to other

professionals across my district, which has helped me to feel like a valued member of the ESL

community in the city and district. Prior to this class, my experience teaching ELL was in my

own Language Sheltered classroom of high school students. These students lacked literacy in

their L1, were predominately from the Middle East, and shared an L1 of Arabic. In this class, I

got to know ELL teachers across my district, and shared classrooms with middle school and

elementary learners. I also become more aware of how students in ELD learn across the district

through grade level and classroom environment. At the elementary level, ESL support is

provided by a pull-out method various times a week depending on the student need. This allows

younger learners to be exposed to as much English as possible by keeping students in their

classrooms. In addition, newly arrived students can become acclimated to the American culture

by interacting with American peers. At the middle school level, ESL support is provided in
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English Language Arts classrooms that are specific towards English Language Development in a

reading and writing block. Students spend the rest of their day in the classroom with their

American peers. These models of support are very different than the ESL support at the high

school, which provides ESL support in English classes, as well as content area classes like World

History and Biology.

It was interesting to see how ESL support and student needs vary once the student is older

and may not have had as much exposure to the English language, or may have had areas of

interrupted schooling. I was able to see how students that receive ELD support are not

necessarily from the country that their L1 originated, but instead many ELL families have been

in the district for a long time. I was able to compare how instruction is very different depending

on the demographic and background of the student, and the necessity to support English

language development before any other objective fact in content. Instead, content is the vehicle

used for language instruction (Goal 1). By seeing how and learning why ESL support is

provided to my students at the high school level, I became more aware, understanding, and

appreciative of the support that my high school offers to ESL students, and am more committed

to delivering that support despite challenges faced by student needs. I also saw how ELD

instruction looks like in a classroom that is not content specific, and reaffirmed my own

questions on whether I was spending too much time on language and less time on content (Goal

2).

This class brought me so much knowledge, but I feel the greatest benefit and my own

learning came from working with other ELD educators at the middle school and elementary

school level (Goal 3). This collaboration has been invaluable, and I am so much more aware of

the supports and challenges embedded in my district. I am a stronger educator in ELD, and have
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a renewed passion with a sharpened focus on where I want to take my students in my classroom,

knowing where my students have come from having visited their previous elementary and

middle school classrooms (Standard 3).

Another great learning experience took place in my second semester of my MATC program.

Along with learning alongside middle school and elementary aged learners, I began to look more

in depth at students in my own class to understand how I can best support their literacy

development (TE 846). The Literary Learner Analysis Case Study Project was a semester focus

that challenged me to closely follow a focus student to understand the affordances and

constraints of instructional strategies and assignments. This project helped me to narrow my

focus on how individual students respond to different interventions, and keep close track to

behavior, engagement, and motivation in the classroom. I chose to focus on a student who spent

the first semester in my LS World History class, and was now in my ninth-grade World History

class second semester. By keeping track of my students progress in class I developed a greater

awareness to how students respond to the work and expectations in my classroom. I was also

able to approach this assignment and consider my ELD student like all students, as being

language learners.

My primary focus was directed at analyzing how students respond to increase critical

thinking strategies, and if these students would produce an increase in written language if they

were given an increase in written language support. This project allowed me to consider best

practices and apply those theories from an ELD angle. This focus was very beneficial to me as

my district is one of the most diverse cities in Michigan. In addition to Language Support ELD

content specific classes, like LS World History, my general education classroom has many

students who are FELP (Formerly English Language Proficient) so the inquiry and direction of
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this project was very applicable to real challenges that teachers in my district face on a daily

basis.

Strategies that I incorporated were modeling and peer-to-peer discussion. Instead of giving

students the task of analyzing the order that two documents were written in on their own, I

decided to model how I would approach the text in the source, and showed students how to talk

to the text by making annotations and asking questions as I read the information. I gave time

for students to discuss their thinking with their peers, and had students complete the text of

putting the documents in chronological order based on their assessment of the context of the text.

The student produced written language output that was strong and included both evidence from

the text and their own reasoning based on the modeled annotations in the think aloud. Based on

the students work, and other student work in class, I noticed students were able to complete the

task successfully. When the assignment was given last semester, I was less conscious of the

benefit that incorporating peer-to-peer discussion would have on my students, but wanted to be

sure to give my focus student this opportunity to be sure that her language needs were met and

answered by other peers who share the same L1 as the focus student. Not only did this

interaction benefit the ELD student, but other students appeared to be engaged in the content and

confident to answer their claim-evidence-reasoning performance assessment (Standard 4).

A very important observation that I made during this semester of learning was how my focus

student responded to increased opportunity for peer interaction, as well as observing tasks

modeled by the teacher. Given these scaffolds, the student was able to perform with just as

much accuracy and success as native English speaking students. Upon being placed in my LS

World History class first semester, the student scored a 2.6 out of 6 on their W-APT, English

language proficiency test. Based on the students performance in my class, the student exhibited
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higher than a 2.6 level of proficiency (Goal 1). From this observation, I began to consider how

language is used and also measured by various tests, and have come to the conclusion that

language that is tested by separate skills is not an accurate way of determining ones overall

ability. When this student was given opportunity to observe a learning task, and discuss ideas

with peers, the student was able to develop their own independence and learning autonomy that

well exceeded their language proficiency score. This project allowed me to consider my current

ambitious outcomes and learning objectives that are required of general education students, and I

have modified them to support and challenge ELD students as long as the strategies that were

successful when implemented during the Literacy Learner Analysis are supported and embedded

throughout all units. This focus has been very applicable in that it can be related to many other

standards. By keeping the goal of content and skill in each lesson and classroom, I have

modified the extent of the skill and breadth and depth of content to be accessible for students

who have lower language proficiencies. I have also learned the affordances and constraints of

providing too many (or too few) scaffolds, and have become more focused on providing usable

input for students to generate meaningful, authentic output, instead of providing other scaffolds

like sentence starters or vocabulary boxes (Goal 2).

As teachers, we spend so much time focusing on how our students are growing and developing

throughout the year that we fail to realize how much personal growth we as individuals have made

alongside our students, too. The MATC program has made me more aware of the growth and confidence

I have gained in my subject area as well as in English Language Development due to the ELD angle I

have taken when approaching many of the assignments throughout the coursework of my degree program.

As an individual, and an educator, I firmly believe the more we know, the more we realize we dont

know. Tasked with the responsibility to educate secondary level students, I have an overwhelming

responsibility to deliver instruction, content, and curiosity to my students who sit in front of me every
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day. When I think of this enormous responsibility I begin to doubt my capabilities and knowledge in

comparison to what other teachers may be able to do. Looking back over the coursework Ive

completed, I can see the progress and development that I have undergone throughout the past year. After

observing, recording, and reflecting on my focus student in the Literary Learner Analysis Case Study

Project, my Recommendation Letter encompasses my progress and experience from learning alongside

my student and integrating coursework to make recommendations based on my observations and

application of theories to practice.

This artifact summarizes my learning and guidance that I have acquired and will

contribute to other students and educators across my district. From my experience working with

ELD students, I have come to the conclusion that to support advanced written output and increased

development, students benefit most from seeing expectations clearly modeled, in addition to having time

to discuss information with a peer, small group, or class discussion (Goal 2). This practice is essential to

provide students with limited English proficiency the confidence and direction they need in order to

complete these tasks independently. Instead of providing sentence starters or a word bank, my experience

with my focus student suggests that providing a rubric, or clear expectations, can direct the student

towards what is expected to receive full credit on an assignment. Sentence starters and word banks are

strong scaffolds, but may inhibit a students creativity or natural output if some of the thinking is already

in place for them. As a student progressing in her English proficiency, the student didnt always produce

complete sentences, though the writing produced included academic language that showed a transfer of

content knowledge from the lesson into her working vocabulary. The student also shows increased

academic speech, and produces less text when writing.

By following a rubric that requires complete sentences and a specific amount of sentences, the

student, and others who experience similar strengths and areas of growth, can develop an increased

written language proficiency and begin to monitor these strides in their development on their own, instead

of relying on scaffolds to ensure that these requirements are done for the student (Goal 1). This
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Recommendation Letter is a reflection of my own growth in development and English Language

Development expertise that I will share to other teachers, students, and parents, that seek insight

on how to grow as an individual in the classroom, while providing appropriate support to

challenging content (Standard 5).

A visual reflection of my own learning through working with teachers and students

across the district to better understand how ELD students learn across age, content, and skill

level can be seen in my Teacher as Leader Project. This artifact was shared with other teachers

and curriculum specialists in my district and helped to provide a platform to view how ELD support is

given and received across all ages and stages of learning (Standard 6). This presentation outlines the

relationship between student age, language proficiency, and communicative and critical thinking skills

that are supported and developed throughout curriculum and learning materials across all levels of

education and English Language Development. In the presentation, I consider how visual learning helps

ELL students develop and use academic language to engage with content, as well as looking at how

handwritten language versus technology assisted output supports productive language proficiency

development.

In an effort to provide students with opportunities to engage with comprehensible input, I

recommend incorporating current, world, and cultural events relative to students in order to engage

interest amongst ELLs. Examples of multi-dimensional supports can include narrative and informational

texts that share a common subject, video clips or songs that are related to the content, as well as visual

images that are displayed and referred back to repeatedly throughout a lesson in various texts, forms, and

fonts. By increasing the diversity of medium used in the classroom students will deepen their knowledge

of text, and understand the layers behind content and their connections to real life events and issues. This

connection will help to deepen and solidify learning as well as increase focus and engagement as students

are accustomed to seeing new forms of teaching the same information. This is also useful to help students

synthesize their learning across medium which will support critical thinking skills. By providing multi-
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dimensional ways to view and connect content, students will be given multi-dimensional supports to

access an increasing amount of comprehensible input throughout lessons and units that become accessible

and conducive to learning across all language and proficiency levels in the classroom.

In addition, I wanted to consider the impact that technology can have on language acquisition,

especially when considering written language output. Does technology provide a platform that makes

language output more accessible for a student to produce, or dos technologically generated output reduce

the amount of input a student has to add on their own, and therefore lessen the students ability to produce

language? This question became increasingly important and interesting to me as I noticed how students,

both ELLs and native English speakers, rely on technology to translate or google the answer, instead of

having students go through the mental challenge of thinking about the answer, and possible wrong

answers, on their own. Though technology, like Google Translate, can help ELL students understand a

text by translating certain specific words, as I mentioned in my Application to Practice, technology should

not be encouraged to replace the process of thinking necessary for a student to complete the assignment.

If a student does rely on the technology to replace their mental processing, the teacher should consider

providing additional scaffolds to support the student during the task, as the student is usually reaching for

technology to lessen the load of the current task. Teachers should aim to use technology to heighten the

ability for students to see and contribute to visual thinking in order to deepen learning. Technology can

assist in deepening learning by adding dimension to the way students engage with content and each other.

Multi-modal literacies, enhanced by technology, provide a greater platform to learn and grow. By

incorporating technology in a multi-modal way, teachers will use encourage students to develop media

literacy which is accessible and necessary to students, regardless of their language proficiency.

Through my research, experience, and learning I found that the learning environment and the

opportunities for spoken interaction play a large role in how students internalize, acclimate, and respond

with their own understanding of newly learned language. This visual learning can be supported by the

physical classroom environment and teacher displays, in addition to viewing how an assignment is

completed by observing a teacher model the instruction and performance task.

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I hope to use this presentation to share with other individuals and continue the

conversation of how ELD instruction can be best supported in my district, region, and state. As

teachers, we should practice what we teach in the classroom. One focus that I have had this year

is to make my teaching more visual. Having many ELD students, I have found the best way to

generate meaningful output is to provide meaningful input. Students with very limited language

proficiency will be able to engage in discussion, to the best of their ability, if they are able to

connect with the ideas that are being learned around them. For some students, learning through

emotional, subjective content is more meaningful than learning through written, objective

content. This artifact displays what I have learned about ELD and students as language learners

in a visual way that I hope is meaningful to all learners who view the presentation. By focusing

on visual learning, I have found that students are more attentive, aware, and engaged with the

meaning behind the ideas being discussed, as opposed to simply listening to them. By

visualizing these ideas, learners can better connect and relate to these ideas, which helps the

learner internalize and apply these ideas to their own life. This application allows the learner to

connect their understanding to the idea and apply their knowledge to themselves, their peers, and

the world.

This artifact reflects the connections and relationships I have made with other teachers

and curriculum specialists across the district. From sharing my ideas with others I have made

my own contributions to this community of educators, and feel empowered to take these ideas to

new places in the future. This artifact provides a platform for presenting my learning that I hope

to use to support other individuals like myself who want to learn to make an impact in their schools

and communities through their own knowledge and experiences (Goal 3).
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Throughout my yearlong learning through my MATC I have become more aware and

committed to creating an environment where students have the opportunity to engage, share, and

reflect on their learning. The discussion that surrounds this on-going conversation is where

students develop confidence in their voice, consider the opinions of their peers, and push to find

meaningful answers that can further their curiosity. As an educator, I have learned that

providing a platform to support their ideas and to bring meaning and relevance to that

conversation and its connections to the real world is essential to the learning process that will

keep students motivated to learn. Throughout my time in the classroom, supported by my peers

and colleagues in the MATC, I have found ways to incorporate and to make accessible, the

challenging ideas of the present, and to ensure that students are aware of the world around them,

not just the world their textbooks paint for them. The coursework in the MATC provided me

new ways to support all of my students, despite their language proficiency. This revelation has

allowed me to be a better teacher for all of my students, as all students are language learners.

Another goal I had throughout the MATC centered around using on content in curriculum

supported by critical thinking skills, that allow for connections to be made between content and

the outside world. The difference between learning and meaning making are the voices of the

students drive the discussion to their own areas of interest. I was able to support this learning

opportunity and engagement for all students, especially for my ELLs, by using multi-modal

literacies as a platform that enhanced student ability to connect and respond to the conversation

around them. These moments of learning, though not written into the curriculum standards, are

crucial to allow time in the day to develop, and will ultimately be what provides students with a

lingering curiosity that keeps students engaged in the discussion after the house is over. This

revelation has become very encouraging to witness as an educator, as all students, no matter their
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skill or proficiency, are able to apply learned facts to connect to real life issues that are relevant

to what is being taught in the classroom, as well as what is meaningful to them in the real world

if provided with the right support and meaningful opportunities to engage with and contribute to

discussion. The coursework from the MATC has allowed me to bring purposeful direction to in

instruction that streamlines language, skill, content and critical thinking skills that enables

students to develop their academic knowledge and with one another as they grow into twenty-

first century thinkers that are prepared to take the lead as global citizens.