Reflection
While
I consider the reciprocal teaching strategies moderately successful with two
students, B and C, I question if more individual sessions with Subject A would
bring about a more stable performance. She
will continue to practice these strategies in her academic support classes.
Hopefully, she will achieve a more consistent performance and transfer
the use of these strategies to her content-area classes. I anticipate that
students will find reciprocal teaching strategies useful and will incorporate
them into their learning
strategies, once they feel successful.
As
a teacher, I learned that it is important to allow the students some flexibility
in choosing their materials and timing of sessions.
There were some days when the demands of their class assignments required
their full attention and time. I
was pleased to see the attention and curiosity of students increase.
Subject A was more concerned with how to phrase questions and required
more encouragement to attempt questioning and summarizing independently.
Subjects B and C realized that using strategies and being more active
with reading has been helpful. That
has been gratifying.
The
design of the project was easily incorporated into the structure of the academic
support sessions and study skills classes.
Of some challenge was the four by four block schedule, which permitted
access to one student every other day. I
was able to adjust the schedules of two subjects to have daily sessions.
I plan to repeat this project with other students during their academic
support sessions. When working with
special education students, the individual or small group settings are more
conducive to acquisition of new skills.
I
hope that the information gained from this research will encourage other
teachers to try the reciprocal teaching strategies with secondary students on a
consistent basis. Secondary special
educators and reading tutors could add this practice to their repertoire to
enhance student learning. Patience is key to success for both teachers and students.
The efforts of the teachers need to be supported in order for them to use
curriculum time to teach comprehension strategies and to allow students the
opportunity for practice. Students
need encouragement to take risks and control their own learning, especially
those who feel unsuccessful. As a
teacher with some research experience, I can assist them more confidently.
It
is true that "what we water with patience and wisdom will grow": student learning
and teacher competence.