Inquiry Project

I am reflecting upon my experience I had yesterday interviewing one of my High School teachers in hopes to receive knowledgable feedback for my point of inquiry. It was a great experience in that I was able to not only speak with her for a long duration, but I was also able to observe her ESL class. I discovered that she is the only ESL instructor at South and she supports each of her ESL by modifying their lessons in other subject areas such as: mathematics, science, and social studies. She happens to also be an expert within the area of English and provided me with an immense amount of feedback for my questions and concerns. From that experience, I have decided to add the ESL license addition to my major, due to the shortage in educators who have their ESL license and the increasing need for experienced ESL instructors.

My project is coming along great with many ideas and plans for my final draft. I have enjoyed my time in interviews and observing experienced educators in hopes to become an expert with my inquiry focus. The on-line resources have also shed light to many of my questions and have helped tremendously with my focus and frame of reference.

LAP Progress....11/2

Thus far, I have completely enjoyed the research and time spent on completing the LAP project. I have had a chance to build a relationship with the child I am working with in noting her progress and reading abilities. I spoke briefly last blog post about my experience visiting her classroom, which gave me great insight regarding her skills with more experienced reading educators. However, I wanted a more personal conference with the child and decided to meet her at the public library in Ellettsville, IN. I not only held a wonderful and insightful conference with the child but also had the chance to browse around the library and become familiar with their great resources. The child also shared a great experience and we were able to sign her up for a membership and that evening she wanted to take books home with her [she was thrilled about reading at home!] So, we proceeded to roam around to find her a couple books to take to her home and read at her leisure. Well, to say the least, she ended up with over 15 books that she took home and read! The next day she could not find enough words to describe how great all the books were and when I asked her which was her favorite she told me, "the one about dogs." This experience enabled me to discover what types of genres the child is most comfortable reading and most importantly, enjoys reading. This has also helped our concluding conferences because I have been able to prepare books that interest her greatly and ultimately have had successful meetings.