G’Day Goodreads!
When I started on my Goodreads journey I decided to focus, again, on how I could have improved a lesson I did in my second grade placement on Australia. In the lesson, I taught students about the seven territories of Australia, and to engage students in learning about Australia I read the story Alexander and Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst. Although this story wasn’t based in Australia the main character, Alexander, wants to escape from his surroundings and be in Australia. Although this text didn’t offer students facts or pictures of Australia, it started making them think about Australia and why the main character would want to escape to Australia. After I finished reading the text, I asked students “Why do you think Alexander wanted to be in Australia?” To my astonishment, their answers were so well thought out and they really put themselves in the character’s shoes. After completing this read aloud the students were engaged in learning about Australia and I learned the value of text.
With this in mind, when I registered for Goodreads I searched for books about Australia. One of the best features about Goodreads was once I found one text; it offered me a list of books that were similar in topic and age group. This made searching for more text on Australia simple! After reading excerpts and searching through multiple texts I finally have a list of good reads titled Australia-Unit that includes fiction and nonfiction. My Australia-Unit list was created to be used as a place to organize the text that I would want to use throughout the unit. After researching these books, I could make a list and check them out from my library. I would want my students to have access to the texts so that they could read during their free time, and so that they could use them for daily writing.
When I first read about Goodreads I wondered how the site would work, and what good it was to list books that I have read or want to read. After spending some time on the site I now understand the potential value for teachers in using Goodreads. How often do teachers run around the library and ask librarians for a text that would support their lesson? Goodreads allows teachers to search text, review them, and search similar texts. Going into my student teaching semester, Goodreads can help because texts are commented on and recommended by other teachers that have wisdom and experience. Also, I can join a discussion group and ask questions about text. Teachers could use Goodreads in the instructional setting to categorize books, for instance by genre, unit, etc, and students could then have access to the teachers site. As a future classroom teacher, I would probably use Goodreads to selects books for read alouds that focus on different comprehension skills. I could categorize the lists by questioning, inferring, etc. This way I always have a running list of books that I personally know are great for different comprehension skills. For students, Goodreads could help them keep track of the texts that they read and their review. Students can keep lists and communicate with one another to review different texts.
Goodreads engages teachers in professional growth and has them reflect on what they know about reading. Additionally, Goodreads meets the NETS Standards for teachers. One particular NETS Standard that Goodreads meets is number five, “teachers continuously improve their professional practice, model lifelong learning, and exhibit leadership in their school and professional community by promoting and demonstrating the effective use of digital tools and resources.” Under the Nets Standards 5.a “participate in local and global learning communities to explore creative applications of technology to improve student learning.” Lastly, Goodreads meets 5.c “evaluate and reflect on current research and professional practice on a regular basis to make effective use of existing and emerging digital tools and resources in support of student learning. Goodreads meets these NETS Standards for teachers because teachers are constantly reflecting on their instruction with their text choice, and Goodreads provides an abundance of text choice through a social catalogue site. When teachers are reflecting on text in Goodreads they are sharing with a global community of teachers that want to choose text that supports their lessons.
Overall, Goodreads is a great tool for both the teacher and students. While students use it to keep track of what they are learning, teachers can use it to organize everything from lessons to favorite books. As stated in the beginning of this log, I learned a valuable lesson about the value of a good read aloud in engaging students. That said, I think the best part about Goodreads is that it creates an enjoyment for reading and lifelong learning.
Sidenote- I could not for the life of me embedd the shelf, and Goodreads had a note that WordPress.com did not work with it so I just added the link before the post.
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