Thursday, 22 January 2009 - 4:49 PM MST

Greetings--
I hope you are all ready for a great journey this spring semester!  It is nice to see you all and hope you all had a great winter break.  I would like to commend Frances for her creativity on the puzzle ice breaker.  It was not as easy as it looked but fun.  We journeyed to the Farmington Indian Center and shared conversations about ourselves and what we expect to gain from this course as future educators.  Edward Smiley was a great guest speaker who shared with us some personal experiences about diversity from his college days.  He explained the benefits visitors of the Indian Center for those in the community.  Interesting to know the politics involved and how much needed changes were made.  I am already pondering what destination to select for my field trip.  Hope you all ponder that and come up with interesting places to share.  The calendar of events looks awfully intimidating lol.....but very grateful for the new encounters we have to look forward to.  As we all know there is never a dull moment in Frances' class. See you all Thursday at the smartlab!!!!

Until next time,
Tammie

Wednesday, 28 January 2009 - 8:32 PM MST

Our first day of class was eventful. No sooner had we arrived to our first class session, we were greeted with Frances speaking  gibberish to us and asking us to INTERPRET; piecing a puzzle together WITHOUT TALKING; serving as a clue to an eventual field trip we were about to take. Next thing you know we are driving with the aid of Mapquest directions to 100 Elm Street leading us the Farmington Indian Center. Receptionist Shauna welcomed us to our meeting room and afer securing some coffee and making ourselves at home, the director Edward Smiley shared a brief history of the center and its services and resources. We continued with our class meeting after he left sharing stories about our names.

The syllabus and calendar were given out before we left. It was suggested that we each host a field trip to a special place we find in our community. The new Sycamore Community Center is on our list as well as ENLACE.

Next Thursday, Jan. 29, we will meet at Apache school at 8:15am to hear storyteller Sunny Dooley. At 1pm we will meet at San Juan College Library and then go to the Smartlab to work on creating our LLSS 315 webpages.

Looking forward to more diverse adventures together!

Respectfully highlighted..........................Frances

Sunday, 1 February 2009 - 4:28 PM MST

29 January 2009

Our class met at SJC Smartlab and we used their 'state of the art' technology to look at selected IRIS Modules (http://www.iriscenter.com/CLDE/clde_01.html)

as we considered the concept of culture. The IRIS Modules provided background for the reading of our course text PART I.

We also created webpages for our Educating Linguistically Diverse Students class where we will house our 'intellectual property' as Frances refers to it.

Our class collection is available at http://fvitali.tripod.com/315sp09.html

Check out the interview conversation between Anita Bohn and Christine Sleeter about Standards and Multiculturalism. They pose very interesting views about the use of textbooks in classrooms.

Available at Standards and Multiculturalism http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/16_03/Mult163.shtml

Remember to read your course syllabus to review next week. Harriet Tubman may make an appearance also.

Submitted by Frances

Thursday, 5 February 2009 - 5:58 PM MST

I really enjoyed meeting Harriet Tubman today in class. I was fully engrossed in the story. I was transported back to a different place and time as I listened to the stroy unfold. I was left wanting more, and in fact to notes on some of the terms and names provided so that I could do more research. Thanks for a great story!

Tuesday, 10 February 2009 - 4:08 PM MST

LLSS 315

Hello Everyone,

We had a very full day on Thursday, February 3, 2009.

We began the class with a visit by Ms. Harriet Tubman, what a story she had to tell! It was a wonderful 45 minutes spent with her. We took care of some house cleaning, see below. We spent time brainstorming with a partner about our own Chautauqua characters, and then had a few minutes to work independently on our character. Finally, we held a book talk about our anthology books.

House cleaning: On February 12, we will meet at Apache Elementary to brainstorm Chautauqua characters, with our students. On February 19, we as students will present our Chautauqua, for our Apache students. We found out that the New Mexico Endowment for the Humanities have a list of performers who will bring Chautauqua presenters to schools; what a great resource! Each of us signed up for a field trip, and for the chapter in our textbook that we will present to the class. 

Monday, 16 February 2009 - 1:27 PM MST

February 12

Today we finally started working with the children at Apache.  We are all matched up with 2-3 kids and we helped the kids brainstorm for their stories.  I think a lot of us heard some interesting stories.

Good luck to all getting prepared for your own stories that we will be telling on Thursday.

The afternoon took place at the Sycamore Park Community Center.  This was such a nice facility that many of us were unaware of its existence.  I think we all owe some thanks to Natalie Koehn for entertaining us and providing us with some great information.  The center provides lots of activities for families and a safe place for children to play.

I know that I was impressed with the Center and am interested in what other activities they may provide this summer.

Thursday, 26 February 2009 - 7:36 AM MST

Wow, that was interesting! For class on the 19th we went to ENLACE. Mabel had a ton of great information that will be helpful with teaching our diverse students. What a gem ENLACE is for our community. Some, but not all, of the topics we covered were….

·         Classes taught in Spanish

·         Reaching out to the Latino community and getting them prepared for college

·         Tracking (GRR)

·         High School and Middle School counselors

·         Letting others know what is available to them

·         Tuition for those without S.S. cards

·         Tutoring and other help available for Latinos

·         Possibly using ENLACE to help with conferences  

·         Getting the word out that ENLACE is here and ready to help. They are working on spreading their horizons, but as of now few know about the opportunities available to them

ENLACE was a wonderful experience. I am so glad I know they are here to help if we need it. Spread the word!:)

Thursday, 5 March 2009 - 11:52 AM MST

Sarah arranged for our field trip to the Riverside Nature Center. Bebbe Bluett was our docent who talked about the park's services and resources. I would encourage us all to become Friends of the Park so we can take advantage of all the membership perks.

We talked about our students who we are coaching at Apache. We had time to go outside and enjoy the balmy weather reading and sharing stories from our anthologies. Sarah provided cheesecake and Frances provided wholesome fig bars. Another great day!

Next week is Ami's birthday and we may celebrate it at Coldstone Creamery. Ice cream, ice cream, we all scream for ice cream!

Happy Birthday, Ami!

Submitted by Frances

Thursday, 12 March 2009 - 11:47 AM MDT

3/5/09

What a fun time we had this week meeting at Cold Stone Creamery for class and Ami’s birthday. Amy even served us ice cream cake. It was goooooooood! Thanks Ami.

Shelly told us a late story about her meeting with President Obama and the stimulus package. She is so influential and important these days.

We started class with a debriefing about our morning session with Charlotte’s students.

Frances gave us a mini lesson on how to differentiate our coaching time. She explained that we should help the students that need help but also let those that want to work independently do just that.

We discussed how to conduct peer conferences for next week and we partnered up for those conferences.

Midterms are due next Thursday, March 12th.

And remember also that we will be meeting at the Aztec Public Library at 1:00 on the 12th.

Thursday, 12 March 2009 - 4:08 PM MDT

Hello fellow classmates~

Today's fieldtrip to the Aztec Library proved once again inspirational to me, and I hope to ya'll as well. Angela Watkins certainly knows her business and was funny to boot. One of the things she said was something that I would like to have on my own classroom wall, "Success is not a persons title, but the steps he/she has taken to get there". This does not only apply to the growth of a business, but to each person as an individual. I have been collecting qoates like Mrs. Watkins, to place around my room to remind myself why I chose to become a teacher, and to provide inspiration to my future students. I am looking forward to visiting the other places ya'll have chosen for us to go. Have a great weekend!

Sunday, 29 March 2009 - 9:09 AM MDT

March 19, 2008

Wow! Another incredible field trip! Today we went to the E3 Children’s Museum. We met together and debriefed from our coaching experiences at Apache. Everyone seems to be progressing with their students and it is always helpful to hear what others are doing and fun to share stories. Frances discussed changes for next semester that included a meeting with the students from Apache with no pressure- like an ice cream social- and we all agreed that would be very helpful in building relationships with the students. Dr. Tryphenia Peele-Eady was our guest speaker and gave a presentation on Culturally Responsive Pedagogy. She came to use from UNM’s department of Language Literacy and Socio-cultural Studies (LLSS) and has a background in anthropology. Her knowledge, insight and genuine concern for the welfare of all children was moving and inspirational! She discussed important issues and topics that are related to linguistically diverse education including (but not limited to!!) - The Achievement Gap, Funds of Knowledge, Cultural Competency and Self Awareness. Unfortunately her time was limited and she was unable to share everything from her presentation, but she definitely gave us all a lot to think about! Thank you Dr. Peele-Eady!!! If any of you would like to contact her, her email is tbpeele@unm.edu With that, I will leave you with a quote from the Dr. herself- “Think about what a difference, difference makes.”

Saturday, 11 April 2009 - 8:14 AM MDT

Eldadiana made arrangements for us to have our class at La Michaoacana on 20th Street. We ate our way through class enjoying Mexican tacos with crispy bread, pork, cheese, lettuce; potato chips with cucumbers and chile; fruit drinks; iced fruit; even avacado ice cream!

Putting tables together we talked and sahred throughout the afternoon conversational style. We missed Valerie who was celebrating Passover with her family in Texas and Tammie was sick.

Samantha and Sarah highlighted their chapter presentations about TESOL special education (gifted ed) and technology. Rebekah led us through a Socratice seminar dialogue.

 All in all, a very satisfying class!

Next week we meet at the LDS Geneology Center off of Apache (up the street from Apache school, the impressive looking church). Park in the parking lot behind the church. Rebekah will be waiting for us inside.

Also check out our class field trip photos at http://unm-elds.ning.com/

We need volunteers to post weekly highlights for weeks: Arril 16, 23, 30.

Thank you............Frances