Professionalism

The first professionalism that I want to address is mine.  Brent encouraged me to look at how I address failed lesson when the students are not where you think they should be.  This week I feel that this has been my struggle and upset with my reading lesson and with my math lesson.  He asked the question, how do you address this with out loosing your credibility as a teacher.  I think doing the assessment and telling the students we need to step back and revisit this  is a good way to not loose credibility.  Earlier this year, you had that conversation about making mistakes and how it is OK to make mistakes.  I thought this was a way to address the professionalism of making mistakes in front of the students.  I am feeling that these past lessons that didn't go well has really shook my confidence.  In reflection, I need to present or look like I am presenting with utter confidence.  Confidence will help the students feel that you know what your talking about.  I can see how this is a fine line for new teachers to feel arrogant.  They have all these fresh ideas that their schooling says is the best way, but it isn't always the best ways.  When conversing with some of the new teachers, they all said to slowly try the new ideas so that you seem like you are willing to go along with the rest of the staff, but also willing to change and embrace new ideas.

When addressing the solicitation and embracing help, this is where a kind email or the meetings during planning will help feel like you are balancing this.  I noticed how much planning has been going on with emails and chat and less at lunches.  This allows the teacher who may be drowning to keep her her own time to catch up but still be in contact with the rest of the school and her colleagues.  New teachers need that mentor teacher to teach them and embrace that environment but hopefully the mentor teacher is experienced and not drowning as much.

I will continue to address professionalism observations next week as well.

Feb 4 5 6 7

1. What strategy did you use to promote student engagement in the classroom?
2. Do you think that this strategy worked well for your lesson?  Do you think students were more engaged with the use of this strategy than they would have been without it?  Explain.
3. What other strategy/strategies could have worked well in the same setting?
4. If/When you teach this lesson again, what will you do differently to increase student engagement?
5. What more can I do to support you with lesson preparation? 

With this blog, I know I communicated often to you about the different strategies that I can use for engagement.  

So far my favorite strategy to use is the white boards.  It allows me to see their work and informally assess their achievement and understanding while keeping them engaged and focused on doing the problem with the entire class. The strategy allowed more kids to practice their skills rather than calling on a student to do it at the board.  I used this strategy twice in math this past week and it seemed to work well.  Other strategies that could have worked would have been popsicle sticks in this setting.  But with popsicle sticks I can't see if everyone got it or not.  

We also used think pair share during our writing of our introductions.  I introduced what should be in a introduction and they had to think about what could make their introductions better and share with their neighbors about how their introductions could grab the attention of their readers.  This is a real quick way to keep someone engaged in the topic.  By walking around too, I could tell if they were ready to go on with their introduction or if they needed more time for learning.

Another strategy that I have used in the past was the move around the classroom.  I have not got a chance to use it lately, but I like how it forces them to get up and pay attention because they might have to defend their answer by going to one place or the other. 

During my writing lesson on sentence variation, I had them read a section of an article about sentence variation.  Afterwards, they had to turn and share with their neighbor what they took from the article about how they could vary their sentences up.  It kept them focused because they were held accountable for what their partner would not have read.  

Wait time is also one that I have been working on.  I am really trying hard to not call on the same people for questions and not call on the first person that raises their hand.  I feel that no matter how long I wait, I am still getting only the same people raising their hand.  Do you call on people that are not raising their hand?  

I am still working on choral response.  It is difficult to get them to choral respond.  I try to word things the same as you and repeat myself and it still isn't working.  This is new to me as I do not use this in the pool either.  I tried with my swim team as well and it was the same thing.  only about a fourth repeat then a third and then a half.  What can I do to make this better?  I see that you get a choral response with out saying the words repeat after me.

This week I plan to do ticket out the door and popsicle sticks as discussed in social studies.  

One more question.  How do we do clicker response.  Is this done through infuse learning?

February 3

1. What strategy did you use to promote student engagement in the classroom?
2. Do you think that this strategy worked well for your lesson?  Do you think students were more engaged with the use of this strategy than they would have been without it?  Explain.
3. What other strategy/strategies could have worked well in the same setting?
4. If/When you teach this lesson again, what will you do differently to increase student engagement?
5. What more can I do to support you with lesson preparation? 

 In consideration of preparation was my own mistake.  I  thought DATA review was today even though my calendar said it differently.  I wanted them to make flashcards, but I was going to have a template made up a head of time.  I think the flashcards and the reminders on the board help them to refresh their memory.  Good thing I was prepared a head of time on what my week would look like.

Today,  for strategy, I used walking around the classroom and moving around through out the day.  This kept the noise level down and kids were on task more.  I removed bean bag time and extra computer time and monitored which kids were on Google docs doing vocab and who was not).  I felt they were more on task and engaged in the conversation.  I knew this is what I would have to do in math since it was review.  Part of today's conversations were my pre assessment for the chapter.  During writing, we independently worked on our introduction for part of the time, and then we had to report to a buddy about our introduction giving feedback and tips to help engage the audience/ readers.   I felt this small group discussion and announcing a head of time kept them focused on their writing and engage in what they wanted to say and how they wanted to say it. They were held accountable for the work to be quality.  I used Popsicle sticks. but not in the way they are fully used. I never want to pressure someone who isn't comfortable reading to read aloud, but the Popsicle sticks still kept them focused on the reading and what was paragraph was next.  During this time, I also moved around the classroom to make sure they were reading with the class instead of fiddling around with their snacks.

Today, I feel the lessons went smoother and was respected with the directions.  I feel I wouldn't change anything today because I am still getting comfortable with the techniques.  I really want to master the repeat after me.

Jan 30 and 31

After the four snow days that we had, I really felt that the kids were going to be hard to control.  But surprisingly they were not that terrible.  I guess they needed the structure that school provides for them.  As far as preparation for these two days, I felt like there wasn't terrible amount of preparation that was different.  I do believe that I had to change things up a bit to accommodate the week off and refresh their minds.  For math, we reviewed questions and I went around asking and checking their work to see if they still understood the questions.  Most people did well on the test.  Some that usually do well, did not.  But when walking around they understood the problems and never came to me expressing the need for extra help or clarifications.  Thursday's vocab preparation was to finish their vocab.  Which is where I am struggling.  It is hard to get the students to finish their sentences or google doc.  I don't feel that it should take that long but it does.  I felt  reading and social studies was already planned and prepped because of the bio cube and you finishing up Latin America.  The one thing that did throw me off, was how much you were involved with the Essays and then the email had me teaching introductory paragraphs.  I felt comfortable with teaching this..we just ran out of time and didn't have time to work on our paragraphs.  I did have to look at resources before school and during prep to help me get to this comfort level.

Each day I am trying new things in terms of management.  I feel they look to me as the nice one (not saying that you are the mean one, but they know that you're the ultimate authority in the classroom).  I am going to implement bean bag time and not let them take advantage of using the bean bags all the time.  I am also going to monitor this a bit more closely on who is always on the bean bag. I feel quite frustrated that I can tell them to work quietly and 5 minute late the noise level remains.  It seems to be the entire class and I can't pin point just one person to punish for Mrs. Steele's recess club.  Deanne told me to hold the whole class if it is a problem,  but how does that work if it is the math groups?  I am using the positive reinforcement often but I feel the sixth graders like the idea of tickets and scrabble cards, but it isn't changing their behavior.  What more can I do to gain their respect of working silently?

I am eager to begin the book clubs, but nervous as this is my first unit that I created that I am teaching. 

Week one preparation

 I really like the idea of this reflection.  I wanted to reflect back on this as something that won't get lost or deleted from my inbox, so I decided to post it in my blog that I created for this reason, but never actually typed in it.  I would love that you post a response as a communication.

In response to the preparation, I feel that I spent many hours this past week learning and planning the material that was to be taught and even went further to explore thesis statements and topic statements in case that you wanted me to teach it this week.  I was prepared.  You mentioned how in the teacher assisting how you spent countless hours making ITIP lesson plans but in the student teaching phase you couldn't do this planning.  I felt this way since the beginning of this semester.  When talking with other teachers and asking you and Kendall's teacher about how you do you lesson plans, I have just decided to write notes and essential questions that I want to ask.  I have created examples that I would like to do on the board for math to be prepared in our conversations.  The one day that I didn't have examples, I felt lost and not prepared.  I didn't want to feel that way again.  I have prepared the first 3 lessons already for chapter 9.  The thing that threw me off this week in math class, was how well they seemed to know this chapter.  They seemed bored and ready to move on.  They were not asking questions that seemed to indicate an struggle.  I had to think on the fly twice this week.  One to create a more engaging activity which was just thought up on the fly and went OK.  Most kids seemed to enjoy the change of activity but I didn't like how competitive they became about points and how it seemed to get rowdy.  Controlled rowdy, but it wasn't the ideal classroom management.  The second time, was during review when a few kids said they lost their flashcards and I quickly made a review power point and went over these fractions at the end of review.  I loved how I was able to get this out to those kids who wanted extra practice with some of the fractions to decimals. Chapter 4 was just a nice transition lesson into teaching because I could get in the groove, with them already knowing and feeling comfortable with the material, but it was frustrating to see the lack of engagement associated with this attitude.  I am hoping with the conversions, that this does not become the same thing.  

I felt well prepared for the time line activity, but in looking back on  the week and their timelines, I wish I followed up and done a different example with them and emphasized intervals more.  It was easy for them to use intervals on their own life since it was only 12 years and their were 12 boxes, but I wish that I had done a character that was older to explain how to use our divisibility rules on their time line.

I have been working hard on the book clubs and how I am going to present the mini lessons as well.  I feel a bit nervous though with the book club discussion.  I hope I can stimulate deeper thoughts about the books, and I hope that I can keep up with the two books.

I'd like the focus of our first week of reflections-over-email to be on preparation.  Specifically, I'd like you to reflect on the following questions related to each lesson you teach this week:

1. Did you feel over prepared, under prepared, or prepared just well enough for the lesson?
2. Did the lesson go just how you thought it would?  What surprised you?
3. What did you do in advance to prepare for the lessson(s)?
4. What thinking-on-the-fly did you have to do to execute the lesson(s)?
5. If/When you teach this lesson again, what will you do differently to prepare for it?
6. What more can I do to support you with lesson preparation?

Don't feel like you need to write me a novel as you answer these questions...but please think about each for each lesson you teach, and share with me the thoughts that you think matter most.  :)

Resources to check out to day

Edutopia.org

Stem to Steam is a book about integrating Art into the main curriculum of STEM subjects

Miss Smith's incredible book is about making characters come to life while you read and being enthusiastic about reading.

Beautiful Oops is a book about how mistakes can be made into something beautiful even when we don't see it right away.

Today was the first day of class.  It was rough sitting in the same room same chair for for nearly 12 hours.  We have a wonderful cohort in the GTC program.  We have about 15 students who seem to all have wonderful ideas about their future classroom.  I feel excited to start this new journey with this group of adults.  One huge difference is the willingness and the level of engagement the adult learners have in comparison to other students who talk about their party life and who is dating who and the daily distractions of younger college days.  I feel like I am old when I am saying this but I feel this program is much more orientated and focused.  We don't have time to be dealing with the mindless chit chat.

I don't have much to say in terms of learning today since it was all syllabus stuff.  We will see how it goes.
As I write the Auto biography about literacy and am inclined to think about my own reading past. I realized I have a negative attitude about reading due to my inability to focus my eyes and not see double.  reading is so crucial to a child's development and kids need time to individually read what they want to.  This will help them have a positive attitude about reading.  I will make it a goal in my class to model positive reading behaviors and set a side reading time.  I will even need to read this time my self.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Tt7c1uG10j2tAc-IHB4y_PZWBRf6HDdXctfuwiOU710/edit

Clogg dance with Math

http://mathinyourfeet.blogspot.com/2013/05/my-tedxbloomington-talk-jump-into-math.html?m=1