Progress

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. =)

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!

Observing Lincoln Middle

It's different than L-S. That's all.

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 ...

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?

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!