Describing the Data: My digital artifact is a piece of student work, a student’s personal dictionary to be exact started on an Excel spreadsheet.
My students were asked to create personal dictionaries in their ESL class. We started out by including words from their everyday use that they spell incorrectly. They then included about 30 words that I gave them which included words that were commonly spelled incorrectly. After that we placed in words that we might want to spell correctly associated with our theme of study. Currently we are studying the play “Fiddler on the Roof” for an upcoming ESL field trip. Therefore, most students not knowing the word fiddler included that word into their dictionary.
Making sense of the data: I really wanted to look at students' spelling/communication skills as the way it is being taught in my school right now is not working for my students. It has always bothered me that I always feel a little helpless in helping them with this. I wanted to search for a solution for at least some of my students who do not progress with traditional approaches to the teaching of spelling. I thought that using a personal dictionary might be a good solution. Yet, I have recently questioned starting the personal dictionaries on Excel, as I feel that this may not be the best use of technology. Why did I choose Excel? Excel does not have an automatic spell check feature, and therefore as some of the students are including words and spelling them incorrectly without the spell check warning I fear that they will learn how to spell them incorrectly. My partner, in class, has also noticed that in the data the student spelled parallel, paraalel. I have selected this piece because it is from a lower leveled ESL student, and these are the students that I am attempting to target the most in improving their communication skills.
Interpretation and Implication: I am starting to wonder if using a notebook type personal dictionary might be just as useful for some of my students. Notebook type personal dictionaries are portable, and very tangible. Whereas, the Excel spreadsheet is lacking in these areas it definitely makes up for in other ways. The reason I wanted my students to start out using Excel is because they are older. I wanted them to have a document saved to their district files that they could use not only throughout middle school but into high school too, if they so chose. Some of them are not going to find this useful beyond our use, and I recognize this. These are my students who are already somewhat apt readers and spellers. One student in particular that I am thinking of, is having a difficult time finding words to add into her personal dictionary. There is another challenge with her…How do I make this meaningful for her? It has still become useful, as her being an ESL student, we are including newer vocabulary words that she comes across for her. I think that personal dictionaries are useful tools, but at the middle school level, how do I get the students to buy into this idea when some of them clearly associate it with a younger age level?
My students were asked to create personal dictionaries in their ESL class. We started out by including words from their everyday use that they spell incorrectly. They then included about 30 words that I gave them which included words that were commonly spelled incorrectly. After that we placed in words that we might want to spell correctly associated with our theme of study. Currently we are studying the play “Fiddler on the Roof” for an upcoming ESL field trip. Therefore, most students not knowing the word fiddler included that word into their dictionary.
Making sense of the data: I really wanted to look at students' spelling/communication skills as the way it is being taught in my school right now is not working for my students. It has always bothered me that I always feel a little helpless in helping them with this. I wanted to search for a solution for at least some of my students who do not progress with traditional approaches to the teaching of spelling. I thought that using a personal dictionary might be a good solution. Yet, I have recently questioned starting the personal dictionaries on Excel, as I feel that this may not be the best use of technology. Why did I choose Excel? Excel does not have an automatic spell check feature, and therefore as some of the students are including words and spelling them incorrectly without the spell check warning I fear that they will learn how to spell them incorrectly. My partner, in class, has also noticed that in the data the student spelled parallel, paraalel. I have selected this piece because it is from a lower leveled ESL student, and these are the students that I am attempting to target the most in improving their communication skills.
Interpretation and Implication: I am starting to wonder if using a notebook type personal dictionary might be just as useful for some of my students. Notebook type personal dictionaries are portable, and very tangible. Whereas, the Excel spreadsheet is lacking in these areas it definitely makes up for in other ways. The reason I wanted my students to start out using Excel is because they are older. I wanted them to have a document saved to their district files that they could use not only throughout middle school but into high school too, if they so chose. Some of them are not going to find this useful beyond our use, and I recognize this. These are my students who are already somewhat apt readers and spellers. One student in particular that I am thinking of, is having a difficult time finding words to add into her personal dictionary. There is another challenge with her…How do I make this meaningful for her? It has still become useful, as her being an ESL student, we are including newer vocabulary words that she comes across for her. I think that personal dictionaries are useful tools, but at the middle school level, how do I get the students to buy into this idea when some of them clearly associate it with a younger age level?
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