Guest speaker: Dr. Donna MaharMaking Textbook Reading MeaningfulSER/VE Meeting 6 March 2012

Roll Call: Christopher Allen- physicsTamara Miles- biology- documenterKarla Nelson- biology

What do you do if it is your first year teaching and you have a text passed

down from the previous teacher that is a terrible text with significant errors- how do you develop dedication to a subject

then?

Well, we could make the necessary corrections and

use it or we could supplement with other

sources.

Yes! As Dr. Mahar said, “effective teachers go

beyond the textbook and use a variety of materials”!

Karla, Christopher, and I could all barely hear over the seagulls- but we could all speak!

All students should be able to read scientific articles, but

where do we begin presenting this information

to them to increase their self-efficacy?

Dr. Mahar suggests that we should “supplement text with outside readings

as often as possible because creating questions out of curiosity motivates

students to do more reading and makes them think like a scientist!”

.

- “you just can’t take a text and think you are

giving students the analysis skills

necessary to be college ready!”

How do you assess what motivates them in

order to use what motivates them?

Dr. Mahar says it is important not to “dummy down the text” or be too critical and use real-world

examples!

In terms of using social motivation…

To motivate students we should match the text to their reading levels and supply different media to link to the text. Dr. Mahar says this is particularly important for ESL learners.

Dr. Mahar says that effective teachers will set up opportunities for assessing text, or thinking of ways they choose to utilize the information.

It was suggested that we supplement texts with outside

reading materials, but what do we do if we are in an environment or

community that is very restrictive of what these readings can be?

We could run into some really big fights with parents about evolution

for example.

Some schools have a suggested list of texts, what is a good way to

deal with outside controls?

Students should have an opportunity to read deeply

about topics they are interested in.

We could use demonstrations…