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Emerging Teaching Philosophy Paper

By

Jenna Gallichio

EDRD 732

November 2021

Dr. Victoria Oglan

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Coming into this course, I already knew the importance of diversity in the classroom.

Each student has their own intersection of identities that influence their academic self. However,

I had no idea how these identities could directly influence student comprehension due to literacy

factors. I learned how literacy is different for each content area, as they each have their own

unique discourses, and students may understand one, but not another, even if they are closely

related. As I learned about the importance of content literacy and why teachers should try to

incorporate reading strategies into their lessons, as well as activities that would work well in

different content areas, I realized that they were not applied to my own schooling career. Over

the course of the semester, I discovered five pillars of my own educational philosophy that will

give every student the chance to succeed in each content area, and that I believe are critical in

every classroom:

 Vocabulary is key to comprehension

 Teachers should integrate reading strategies into their classrooms

 Diverse learners have diverse needs

 There should always be some form of collaborative learning in the classroom

 Assessments are key, when used correctly

Vocabulary is key to comprehension

Before students can really grasp the main ideas of a text, they must understand some of

the vocabulary they will see in said text. Each content area has its own discourse: “’Vocabulary

is as unique to a content area as fingerprints are to a human being’” (Fisher & Frey, 2012, p. 49).

That is why it is so important for students to develop an understanding of the vocabulary for

those different discourses. Vocabulary is the first step into comprehensively reading texts as well
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as developing content literacy. Thus, teachers should try to model finding different definitions

and evaluating which definition applies in a given context, but they should not just provide their

students with definitions if they want their students to actually learn the material. After all,

learning only happens when students can make connections between new material and prior

knowledge. Teachers should provide space for students to make their own vocabulary terms and

provide them the time to research and define those terms themselves. In class we talked about

how vocabulary lists do not help students learn and retain any information, but making meaning

themselves will help students develop understanding for the concept before applying a term to

that definition.

Because each discourse has its own set of vocabulary (words mean different things

depending on the context), students need to develop strategies for understanding the vocabulary

for any given content. Specifically, content teachers should incorporate “strategies for dealing

with vocabulary so that they [students] can read pertinent texts independently” (Feathers, 2004,

p. 65). Only by starting with vocabulary can students become excellent readers in different

content areas.

Teachers should integrate reading strategies into their classrooms

Just as I suggested that vocabulary strategies should be taught in each content area, so

should reading comprehension strategies and other literacy instruction. Rapp Ruddell highlights

the importance of literacy instruction and vocabulary in each content area in their article on

literacy: “For most students, the primary focus of literacy instruction should be in their subject

area classrooms because to think deeply in any subject area, students must learn the language of

that subject area and be able to read and write fluently in that language” (2004, p. 9). Therefore,
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without a solid foundation in the vocabulary and discourse of a given subject, students will not

be able to truly comprehend the materials they interact with within their classroom. But what is

good literacy instruction? Zemelman et al. wrote about a study and how it “recognizes that kids

need less telling and more showing, that they need more time doing literacy and less time

hearing what reading and writing might be like if you ever did them” (2005, p. 243). They

explain that literacy instruction should not just be lecturing and modeling to your students on

good comprehension strategies, but instead getting students actively engaged in the strategies.

Students are not passive learners by any means, so they should be actively partaking in

these strategies as they read through texts in the content area. Students need to practice these

strategies because “reading comprehension does not simply happen through lots of reading: it is

developed through activities designed to teach students about what good readers do” (Fisher &

Frey, 2012, p. 6). If my students do not actively engage in the activities I create for them to

develop reading and comprehension strategies, then there will be no progress made in their

understanding. Once students can read through texts and utilize different strategies to assess their

own comprehension, I will not need to spend as much class time reviewing the content from

texts I provide or assign, which means there will be more time for students to do hands-on

activities and collaborative groupwork. But I cannot just stop teaching these techniques and

strategies, as students are diverse learners and different strategies will help each of them in

unique ways.

Diverse learners have diverse needs

All learners are actually diverse learners: “within every classroom, teachers find students

who are diverse in intellectual ability, social and emotional background, language proficiency,
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racial background, cultural background, and physical attributes” (diverse learners, n.d., p. 31).

Even if I think my classroom looks homogeneous, each of my students will have a different

combination of external factors that contribute to who they are as a person and as a learner. Like

I mentioned before, each of the literacy strategies I teach in my classroom may have different

effects for the diverse students. Some students may need more time to read texts before they feel

as though they comprehend the material; we even explained in class that many of our students

will be reading below grade level, which means we need to have activities and materials

accessible to a diverse range of readers. One of the many ways to support my diverse students

within my classroom is to ditch the old school way of teaching around the textbook and instead

replace the text book with a text set, as “text sets serve as a research-based solution to meet the

challenges of virtually all students in the classroom, including low level readers, English

language learners, special education, and even gifted and talented students” (Utilizing Thematic

Collections, n.d., p. 3). By incorporating a text set I can support all my learners through many

modes of information. The text set can include picture books, graphic novels, photo-essays,

graphs, charts, articles, songs, movies, documentaries; pretty much anything you can think of. By

using the text sets instead of the standard textbook, I can also further engage my students and

push them to dig deeper on a subject that interests them for higher-level thinking.

There should always be some form of collaborative learning in the classroom

I always knew that collaborative grouping can really help students develop their

understanding of content when it is used in the right way, but I didn’t realize just how important

it was, especially in a high school setting. The literacy and comprehension strategies that are

critical in each content area classroom will also be further developed when students have the
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opportunity to work collaboratively and share their thinking and usage of the techniques and

strategies. I suggest either grouping students in pairs or small groups, or even using a whole class

discussion to summarize some of the information the students used to solve a problem or work

through a section of text they were struggling to understand. This summary and evaluation of

techniques is huge in a math class: “When students share summaries of the problem, all students

benefit as the repetition reinforces comprehension and students have a chance to ask clarifying

questions” (Miller & Koesling, 2009, p. 69). I have seen this directly in my role as a

supplemental instruction leader, being able to work with students that are taking a calculus two

course and helping them find techniques and strategies to develop their own understanding of the

material. I have seen firsthand that small groups are insanely effective in developing group

understanding of a problem, as students have to justify and evaluate their own understanding to

help develop their peers’ understanding.

Not only is collaborative grouping effective in a mathematics setting, but it was also

super beneficial to me when we paired or grouped up in this course to discuss our assigned

reading for the day, while coming up with some main ideas and key takeaways each of us had

from said readings. When someone wasn’t sure if they got the right idea from the text, we

worked as a group to explain our own takeaways and how each of us interpreted the text. The

collaborative groupwork is useful in any content area, as each area has its own discourse and

types of texts, so “when individual students talk about how they resolved a particular difficulty,

all the members of the group expand their repertoire of comprehension strategies” (Feathers,

2004, p. 99). Because collaborative group work is so beneficial to development of student

understanding of materials, it is easy to implement in the classroom, and teachers can easily

check for understanding by walking around the room and listening to the different conversations;
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collaborative group work is a must in every content area and should be used in some form every

day.

Assessments are key, when used correctly

As a supplemental instruction leader, I have seen firsthand how students can be at

different levels in the curriculum at the same point in time, and how one day they can feel

confident in their ability to work with the material, but the next day be completely lost. This is

where assessment comes in. Assessment takes on many different forms, from informal to formal,

from writing to presenting, from solving a problem to making one on your own; but they each

have an individual purpose which is invaluable if you use it in the right way. As an SI I have

learned just how important informal assessment can be, as I cannot use formal assessments in my

sessions since they are not part of the course. That being said, I have learned of the many

different ways I can use informal assessment to check for student understanding: sometimes we

discuss as a class, sometimes they work in partners or groups to solve a problem, sometimes they

even create a summary of the lecture or a process. We do surveys, multiple choice, KWLs, and

casually talk about what we think we know and what we don’t feel comfortable with. This type

of assessment should be present in every content area every single day through multiple modes

of assessment: Fisher and Frey explain that “In well-organized classrooms, informal assessment

happens throughout the day as teachers use questioning, discussions, and assignments to measure

progress” (2012, p. 159).

There should always be a variety of assessments as teachers will need to assess different

things. After all, assessments are only useful when “the type of reading or writing assignment

selected .. [matches] its intended use” (Fisher & Frey, 2012, p. 159). You don’t want to assess a
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student on their artistic skills if you assign them a project to draw a political cartoon about the

civil war if you really want to know if they understand what a political cartoon is or what some

of the reasons for the civil war were. In the same way, I wouldn’t want to have students practice

solving right triangles with trigonometric ratios in class but give them a bunch of word problems

on the exam without teaching them how to critically break up a word problem to find a solution.

Instead, I would want to have a fishbowl discussion about potential causes of the civil war where

students use evidence to back up their claims, and use the team teach strategy for students to

practice solving word problems in a group to then present to the class how they solved said

problem.

I think assessment is critical in each content area classroom and should be used whenever

the opportunity arises: “all differentiated instruction is based on informal and formal 24-7

assessment. We can’t teach in a vacuum” (Wormeli, 2006, p. 20). Teachers cannot just lecture or

do the same basic activity for the entire lesson without checking for student understanding as

they will be “teaching in a vacuum,” and they will be bound to lose many students along the

way. Assessments are crucial to check for understanding, but they need to have a purpose behind

them, and there should be a variety of low stress writing, speaking, and creative assessments for

students to develop their understanding.

In conclusion, consent literacy is critical in every classroom and teachers need to teach

vocabulary, reading, writing, speaking, and other literacy strategies for their specific course

discourses. Before this class I had no idea that math classrooms do not only need to be in a

lecture, model, practice, assess format, but they can instead rely on collaborative groupings and

differentiated groupings to develop and enhance student understanding. I had also never

personally seen a need for vocabulary development in the math setting as long as I knew the
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mathematical logic and procedures behind each problem, but now I have realized that students

need to develop this discourse to discover and explore different topics that intrigue them in the

mathematical (and other) fields.

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Works Cited

Chapter 2: Supporting diverse learners in content classrooms.

Feathers, K. (2004). Infotext: Reading and learning (2nd Ed.). Toronto: Pippin.

Fisher, D., & Frey, N. (2012). Improving adolescent literacy: Content area strategies at work. (3

ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson Education.

Miller & Koesling (2009). Mathematics teaching for understanding: Reasoning, reading, and

formative assessment.

Rapp Ruddell, M. (2004). “Literacy in middle and secondary schools” in Teaching content

reading and writing. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons.

Utilizing thematic collections and informational text sets to boost students reading achievement.

(n.d.). Perfection Learning.

Wormeli, R. (2006). Chapter 3: Principles of successful assessment in the differentiated

classroom. In Fair isn't always equal (pp. 19-42). Portland, ME: Stenhouse.

Zemelman, S., Daniels, H. & Hyde, A. (2005). The seven structures of best practice teaching.

Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.