So, lately I've been feeling like I lose it a lot in class. It's probably all just inside my head, but coming out of a lesson I usually feel flustered and stressed.
But then it was today and there was just a little hint of sunshine.
My co-op was not in the room for my lower section today. So I knew that I had to start, finish and teach the duration of the period without any mental or physical support. Perhaps it was that for the first time in a week, they were not doing group work, or perhaps because two of the key "active" students were not present, but I felt like I finally managed to get through the lesson without completely losing my mind.
Finishing the period, I felt a little overwhelmed, but mostly because someone unfamiliar to the building interrupted my class and asked me to call the office for her despite the fact that I was in the middle of teaching -- plus I still don't know the office extension. Whoops. Anyway, I was still a little -- oh I don't know -- worked up at the end of class, but I handled it much better, at least I thought so.
Like I said, my response and attitude in class is probably magnified by 100 in my head, but still, it was nice to see a bit of progress today. =)
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
Thursday, February 23, 2012
DD (No, Not THAT DD)...
I found out today that differentiated instruction isn't just awesome for learning, but it works wonders for discipline, too! I probably should have figured that out by now, but differentiated discipline (or DD as I now like to call it) has been my go-to as of late. There are students who just don't respond to a lunch detention or calling the parents, but if you pull them out of the classroom and talk with them in the hallway mono y mono, something clicks and they are the model student once they get back in the classroom. I've been doing some research on disciplining ideas that don't disrupt a class and some things work for certain students, while another method will work for a different set of students. It's really interesting to see just how different the kids are from one another through this concept. Anybody else notice this and/or try DD? Apologies if this was brought up earlier, but I was amazed by it's effectiveness today and had to throw it out there!
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Well ... here's what's been going on ...
I'm still trying to work out management issues, but I've put a few things in place and have altered my focus and goal a bit since the beginning of the semester.
I've created a new management technique that's been working a little or at least I tell myself it's been working. My co-op has gone along with t and uses it as well. It's good for the kids to have some consistency. The basic outline is that I write the word TALK on the board and when they're being too chatty or tapping or whatever I erase a line of one of the letters. If they finish the day with lines left they get minutes added to their total and at the end of the week they get those minutes to talk freely at the end of the period. If they finish the day with all of their lines left they get a letter added to their YUMMY tally. When they spell out yummy I told them I would bring in brownies for them. They like brownies.
So far they've accumulated a few minutes here and there but no yummy points. I'm afraid that they aren't getting enough positive reinforcement to make the method effective. I keep trying to come up with new ways to alter it a bit to make it more worthwhile for them but I think I'm still waiting to see if they catch on.
Currently my issue is that I need a better system of reeling them in once they start talking or even just from group work. After being sick and not having my voice in full force I'm realizing that yelling or even simply raising my voice is going to get very old very fast. I asked the kids today if they had any suggestions for me as to how to get their attention. I got some good advice from a few of them but I still need to think of a few other things. Anyone have any suggestions for me? What works for you? I'm not looking for disciple things but more for a way to bring them back together.
My other current quandary is that a lot of my students do not follow directions. They walk in the room and there's always a do now on the board, but for some reason they don't do it or they don't do all of it. Ive said something to them a few times now and still they aren't following directions and completing tasks. I'm not quite sure what to do. Today I told them I'm going to start giving them points for it as like a participation grade. I'm not sure if it will work, but I'm going to try ...
I've created a new management technique that's been working a little or at least I tell myself it's been working. My co-op has gone along with t and uses it as well. It's good for the kids to have some consistency. The basic outline is that I write the word TALK on the board and when they're being too chatty or tapping or whatever I erase a line of one of the letters. If they finish the day with lines left they get minutes added to their total and at the end of the week they get those minutes to talk freely at the end of the period. If they finish the day with all of their lines left they get a letter added to their YUMMY tally. When they spell out yummy I told them I would bring in brownies for them. They like brownies.
So far they've accumulated a few minutes here and there but no yummy points. I'm afraid that they aren't getting enough positive reinforcement to make the method effective. I keep trying to come up with new ways to alter it a bit to make it more worthwhile for them but I think I'm still waiting to see if they catch on.
Currently my issue is that I need a better system of reeling them in once they start talking or even just from group work. After being sick and not having my voice in full force I'm realizing that yelling or even simply raising my voice is going to get very old very fast. I asked the kids today if they had any suggestions for me as to how to get their attention. I got some good advice from a few of them but I still need to think of a few other things. Anyone have any suggestions for me? What works for you? I'm not looking for disciple things but more for a way to bring them back together.
My other current quandary is that a lot of my students do not follow directions. They walk in the room and there's always a do now on the board, but for some reason they don't do it or they don't do all of it. Ive said something to them a few times now and still they aren't following directions and completing tasks. I'm not quite sure what to do. Today I told them I'm going to start giving them points for it as like a participation grade. I'm not sure if it will work, but I'm going to try ...
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Reading activity for tomorrow
Tonight for homework the students will have read the folk tail "One Thousand and One Nights." It's a middle-eastern collection of stories that flow one right into the other (this is the original story of Aladdin). There's always a moral or theme to be learned from these and as a means of getting to that moral lesson we're going to highlight the aspects of the story like characterization and author's purpose and so forth. But I'm gonna do that using note cards. Each pair of students will have an index card and will write on the back of the index card how their theme or aspect of the story relates to the moral of the story. After that we will introduce the next story. It should go well. Anyone do stuff like this before? I think Kim does the index card stuff sometimes.
Substitute
Today was cool because my co-op, Susan, had a curriculum writing meeting all day. So I taught all the classes (whereas I normally teach only second period so far). I found myself being more open. I guess this is to be expected, but anyone else feeling this? I'm realizing how restricted I feel while my co-op is there and how I feel like if there's even a hint of wasted time I will be reprimanded. Now just keep in mind that this is not how my co-op is and all these feelings are brought on by my own mind. But I need to get past worrying that I'm not doing well enough or something like that. Does this make sense? Again, Susan is not a mean or oppressive co-op. This is just an in my own mind kind of thing. Anyone feeling me on this one?
Monday, February 13, 2012
A Sneak Peak into my TI tomorrow,,,
I don't want to ruin the TI I'm going to present on Tuesday by going into great detail , but I thought I would blog a just little bit about what's going on in my American lit class. My first day teaching, I had the students complete a writing sample so I could assess their individual abilities. As I started reading them, I knew right away that I was working with a very diverse group of students: some of them couldn't write in complete sentences and used no punctuation, and others were obviously really comfortable with writing and ready to take it to the next step. Without thinking, I pulled out a post-it note and grouped the students together according to writing ability. Because grammar is such an important part of our classroom, it didn't seem fair to make the high-level students sit through grammar lessons each day because their writing samples reflected their understanding of the concepts. On the other hand, some students really needed help with simple sentence structure, so it is important (according to L-S) to teach these students the basics of simple grammar by drilling them every day. I knew right away that differentiation would without a doubt be vital to my success in this classroom.
Before the second week ended, I already had confrontations with students from the high-end and the low-end of the academic spectrum. The gifted girl went home and complained to her parents that we weren't moving through the material fast enough for her; she was bored and didn't feel challenged in our classroom. I met with her parents yesterday (more about this on Tuesday). The same day, a struggling student grumbled under his breath, "I hate this class!" When I pulled him aside and asked him about it, he said we needed to move slower. He felt completely lost and hopeless in our classroom. Each day, he completely shuts down; he puts his head down on his desk and usually refuses to participate. His body language suggests that he is unengaged, and maybe has had a bad experience with school for a long time.
The pressure is on for us to come up with something that works for all of our students. The social structure of this classroom is really dynamic, even complicated. There are students that openly proclaim they hate each other, so we have to be really careful about creating groups. I will share more with you on Tuesday when I discuss my TI. I have been trying different strategies, and I look forward to hearing your suggestions!
Before the second week ended, I already had confrontations with students from the high-end and the low-end of the academic spectrum. The gifted girl went home and complained to her parents that we weren't moving through the material fast enough for her; she was bored and didn't feel challenged in our classroom. I met with her parents yesterday (more about this on Tuesday). The same day, a struggling student grumbled under his breath, "I hate this class!" When I pulled him aside and asked him about it, he said we needed to move slower. He felt completely lost and hopeless in our classroom. Each day, he completely shuts down; he puts his head down on his desk and usually refuses to participate. His body language suggests that he is unengaged, and maybe has had a bad experience with school for a long time.
The pressure is on for us to come up with something that works for all of our students. The social structure of this classroom is really dynamic, even complicated. There are students that openly proclaim they hate each other, so we have to be really careful about creating groups. I will share more with you on Tuesday when I discuss my TI. I have been trying different strategies, and I look forward to hearing your suggestions!
Friday, February 10, 2012
Whew
Happy Friday all!
It's been a draining week and a half, that's for sure! I really wanted to sit down and just throw all of my frustrations out on here last night, but I decided to wait until I had some time to spend with my new puppy so that I was in a happy state of mind for my first post. Warning: I'm very exhausted so this will probably be a tad wordy and unorganized! :)
My co-op, DYAD teacher, and I have been having behavioral problems with our lower section, the main problem being respecting one another and calling each other names. This is to be expected because of their age, but it gets to be a point that it's so distracting to us and other students that we have had to skip some things in our lessons because we run out of time from having to stop and get students to settle down and stop talking/disrespecting one another. We have tried to come up with seating arrangements so that this issue isn't as bad, but we are at the point where we can't move seats anymore because nothing really works.
Where am I going with this, you might ask? Well, the second half of the week was parent-conferences at Reynolds (as Jess and Jackie both know). Most of our lower level students came with the parents who showed up and it was a real eye-opener. There was one parent who came right out and said they were going to "whoop their child into shape." Yes, that was sadly a direct quote. I know my students have problems outside of school, I guess I just didn't realize it was an everyday thing since it's not something I would have experienced at home.
What I got out of conferences was that I shouldn't be constantly correctly students' behavior in a negative manner like we have resorted to now (and yes, I know how horrible that sounds), but rather enact a more positive spin. So instead of lunch detention, I'm going to try telling that class that if they focus for the class, they can have a certain amount of free time at the end of the day or during advisory.
I never really knew how much seeing a student with their parent during a conference could impact my view of behavior management, but realize now just how powerful that can be.
It's been a draining week and a half, that's for sure! I really wanted to sit down and just throw all of my frustrations out on here last night, but I decided to wait until I had some time to spend with my new puppy so that I was in a happy state of mind for my first post. Warning: I'm very exhausted so this will probably be a tad wordy and unorganized! :)
My co-op, DYAD teacher, and I have been having behavioral problems with our lower section, the main problem being respecting one another and calling each other names. This is to be expected because of their age, but it gets to be a point that it's so distracting to us and other students that we have had to skip some things in our lessons because we run out of time from having to stop and get students to settle down and stop talking/disrespecting one another. We have tried to come up with seating arrangements so that this issue isn't as bad, but we are at the point where we can't move seats anymore because nothing really works.
Where am I going with this, you might ask? Well, the second half of the week was parent-conferences at Reynolds (as Jess and Jackie both know). Most of our lower level students came with the parents who showed up and it was a real eye-opener. There was one parent who came right out and said they were going to "whoop their child into shape." Yes, that was sadly a direct quote. I know my students have problems outside of school, I guess I just didn't realize it was an everyday thing since it's not something I would have experienced at home.
What I got out of conferences was that I shouldn't be constantly correctly students' behavior in a negative manner like we have resorted to now (and yes, I know how horrible that sounds), but rather enact a more positive spin. So instead of lunch detention, I'm going to try telling that class that if they focus for the class, they can have a certain amount of free time at the end of the day or during advisory.
I never really knew how much seeing a student with their parent during a conference could impact my view of behavior management, but realize now just how powerful that can be.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
Great Friday!
Hi Everyone!
I was SO excited to share this story with you guys, I can't believe it's taken me all weekend to finally get a moment to sit down and share it. I had the absolutely BEST class with my honors class on Friday; it was truly the first time this whole year that I've been excited and completely satisfied with how a lesson went.
We just started doing work with The Tempest, and Friday was our last day of pre-unit learning before diving into the text. My co-ops had originally been covering Shakespearean language in the lesson, but I wanted to spice it up a little bit with one of my favorite lessons from Shakespeare that I remember from high school. The lesson started by having my kids write a silent conversation with a neighbor. We transitioned the lesson into a quick overview of the language: the "thee" "thou" "thy" stuff, along with looking at verb forms (adding -est and -st to common verbs we use today). I also let them watch the ghost scene from the Kenneth Branaugh version of Hamlet so they could hear the language being used, too. I then gave the students a list of over 200 Shakespearean common and odd words and asked them to go back to their conversations and try their best to translate them using Shakespearean words. I really didn't expect it to be such a hit. They obviously loved reading the funny-sounding words. Finally, I let them have a little crazy-fun and hit them with my favorite activity: Shakespearean insults. I told them how it worked, and then spat one at one of my students. I let all the kids yell insults at me for a while and then spend the last five minutes of class yelling insults at one another. They LOVED it and it was so nice to see a class get so active at 8:30 in the morning.
I rode that teaching high for the rest of the day and had a wonderful Friday :) I was just so excited to see 7th graders engaging in Shakespeare, and I hope it was a good set up for the rest of the unit to get them excited about reading. I also started doing "Shakespearean Scholars" of the day, which is where I post names of the students who did particularly outstanding in class the day before on the white board, which i'm hoping works as a motivation tool. Also, since they clearly loved the odd words so much, I've started doing a Shakespearean word of the day and posting that on the board too with its present day English translation. I'm encouraging the kids to use the word that day as much as possible in their conversations :)
I was SO excited to share this story with you guys, I can't believe it's taken me all weekend to finally get a moment to sit down and share it. I had the absolutely BEST class with my honors class on Friday; it was truly the first time this whole year that I've been excited and completely satisfied with how a lesson went.
We just started doing work with The Tempest, and Friday was our last day of pre-unit learning before diving into the text. My co-ops had originally been covering Shakespearean language in the lesson, but I wanted to spice it up a little bit with one of my favorite lessons from Shakespeare that I remember from high school. The lesson started by having my kids write a silent conversation with a neighbor. We transitioned the lesson into a quick overview of the language: the "thee" "thou" "thy" stuff, along with looking at verb forms (adding -est and -st to common verbs we use today). I also let them watch the ghost scene from the Kenneth Branaugh version of Hamlet so they could hear the language being used, too. I then gave the students a list of over 200 Shakespearean common and odd words and asked them to go back to their conversations and try their best to translate them using Shakespearean words. I really didn't expect it to be such a hit. They obviously loved reading the funny-sounding words. Finally, I let them have a little crazy-fun and hit them with my favorite activity: Shakespearean insults. I told them how it worked, and then spat one at one of my students. I let all the kids yell insults at me for a while and then spend the last five minutes of class yelling insults at one another. They LOVED it and it was so nice to see a class get so active at 8:30 in the morning.
I rode that teaching high for the rest of the day and had a wonderful Friday :) I was just so excited to see 7th graders engaging in Shakespeare, and I hope it was a good set up for the rest of the unit to get them excited about reading. I also started doing "Shakespearean Scholars" of the day, which is where I post names of the students who did particularly outstanding in class the day before on the white board, which i'm hoping works as a motivation tool. Also, since they clearly loved the odd words so much, I've started doing a Shakespearean word of the day and posting that on the board too with its present day English translation. I'm encouraging the kids to use the word that day as much as possible in their conversations :)
Friday, February 3, 2012
This is it!
For weeks we figured out your classroom and learned your students' names and interests. You taught a few lessons and began to get your sea legs. Now it's Show Time and you're The Big Cheese. You've been waiting for this moment for a long time. You're excited and yet you have your doubts. This blog is a space for you to air your thoughts and your fears and for you to solidify your community of preservice teachers. Let the fun begin!
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