4th Field Experience Blog, EGL 441 Samantha Summers

In many of the classes I have observed so far, teachers utilize SmartBoards in their lessons. Also, on multiple occasions, classes I have observed have gone to a computer lab to complete some kind of web-based activity or an assignment requiring the use of a word processor. During one of my more recent observations, the teacher (who I will refer to as "Mr. G" for privacy reasons) was giving a grammar lesson. Mr. G began the lesson with a Do Now. He projected a series of sentences on the SmartBoard and asked students to choose the correct pronoun from the choices that the students were given and to indicate if the pronoun was subjective or objective. The students were first given several minutes to copy down the sentences in their notebooks and to circle their answers. Then, Mr. G asked for volunteers to come up to the board and circle their answers for the class to see. While going over the students' responses on the board, Mr. G reinforced the material by drawing a T-chart on the board that differentiated commonly-used subjective and objective pronouns. This T-chart ended up being very helpful for the students the following week when I observed, as they were taking a grammar quiz and were encouraged by Mr. G to draw the T-chart themselves on their test paper so that they could reference it while completing the quiz. The use of the SmartBoard was integrated very seamlessly into the grammar lesson, and the students seemed to enjoy being able to get up and be hands-on with the technology themselves. Also, through the execution of the SmartBoard activity, the teacher was able to assess the students' mastery of the grammar concepts, and gauge if students were ready for the quiz. I would definitely replicate this usage of technology if I were to teach a grammar lesson, because grammar rules can be quite dense for younger children (this was a middle school class). Using technology to teach grammar can not only simplify the material but can also evoke students' interest in the lesson. Also, if I were to use this SmartBoard activity in the future, I would use it to determine if I needed to spend more time on the grammar lesson depending on how well the students demonstrated their mastery of the concept. Of course, when teaching grammar, I would also incorporate the grammar concept directly into our larger unit of study after the grammar mini lesson so that students can effectively apply the concept to learning Language Arts as a whole. Additionally, I think technology can be incorporated even more deeply into a grammar lesson, such as through the creation of a jeopardy game about grammar or some other type of online game. The "Grammar Bytes" website has a bunch of interactive grammar games that students could play either on the SmartBoard as a class or independently on computers. The site also has a Twitter account that frequently posts grammar questions. Perhaps students can be advised to check out this Twitter account daily and test their grammar knowledge. "Grammar Bytes" also has handouts that can be used to effectively assess students' knowledge of different grammar concepts.

Here's an example of a question from one of the "Grammar Bytes" websites' interactive games:

Both the computer monitor and the refrigerator door have its shiny surface smeared with dog snot from our curious puppy Oreo. (I pulled this from http://chompchomp.com/hotpotatoes/proagree01.htm)

The site prompts the user to correct the underlined pronoun. In this case, the correct pronoun would be "their." The game keeps score depending on how many right answers the students records.

As you can see, grammar doesn't have to "byte" when you can use technology! :)