This week was my last week of this placement. Going in to the week, it was hard to believe that it went so quickly! We wrapped up the Ancient Greece unit in the sixth grade and began the unit on Ancient Rome that they will be working on after I leave. I was very impressed with all that they remembered and absorbed on Ancient Greece! They really enjoyed learning about the gods and goddesses, and some of the students told me they had been researching them on their own at home.
On Monday I had a writing day after lunch and Tuesday I had my last observation at this school. The writing day could have been more productive, as I spent most of my time finishing up lesson plans rather than working on my project, but I thought the observation went well. I was able to ask some questions and received some helpful feedback as well.
In the fifth grade we worked on the beginning of America. They have been a challenge throughout this placement, but as starting to wind down a little (of course, just as I'm leaving) and we were able to accomplish a lot of the things I had planned. I did have to adjust a few of my lessons because even though the text I was using was at grade level, it was hard for them to grasp at times.
I think the best part of my week though was on Tuesday morning. There is a student in the fifth grade that I have been working with to help him improve his behavior. The third week of school I had to take away his new deck of Pokemon cards, as they aren't allowed in the classroom. He was upset and asked what he could do to get them back. I told him that if he could go a whole week without getting any strikes (a consequence of bad behavior) then I would give him back his cards. Typically, he would have several warnings and between one and three strikes in a week. So, starting the next week he worked at following directions and procedures and I helped keep him on task when I could, but still received two strikes and multiple warnings, and couldn't get his cards back. The next week he worked even harder and participated in class a lot more, and only had one warning and one strike! So, while I couldn't give him his cards back, I did give him some of them as an incentive to keep up all his hard work. His smile and profuse thank-you's were so heartwarming! Last week he kept improving and participating, and even started to remind his classmates to follow directions. He went through the whole week and didn't get a strike, and only received one warning, so he was able to get back his cards. I told him how proud I was of him and that he should be proud of himself for being such a good student, and he was so thankful and happy. He told me he liked "being better" and thanked me for helping him. Then, when I came to school on Tuesday (I didn't really see the fifth grade other than homeroom on Monday due to my writing day) this student had brought me flowers! He ran up to me and said he got them for me "to thank [me] for helping him to be better and now [he] wants to do 'gooder' and better!" It took everything I had not to cry! It was just the sweetest thing. If someone had told me this particular student would be giving me flowers and that his behavior would have improved so much by the end of my placement I would have called you crazy. I'm just so proud of all his hard work and really hope he keeps up with it even though I'm not going to be there to remind and coach him.
The rest of the classes were all very sweet on my last day and wrote me cards. Some of them made me pictures, and one dear student wanted me to have their new mini tree eraser that was only half used. What sweethearts they all were! While they were all a new challenge for me, I'm going miss them very much. Maybe someday I can substitute one of their classes or go back and observe there later this year.
On Monday, I'll be starting my new placement with first graders. I'm excited to start fresh at a new school, and am really interested to see how different the content that I'll be teaching will be. I'm going to set a goal start my lesson planning from day one and to ask more questions, so as not to get behind or confused on anything.
Saturday, October 24, 2015
Saturday, October 17, 2015
Senior Seminar Week 6
This week was shorter due to Monday being Columbus Day, thus school was closed. Tuesday through Friday I worked on wrapping up the Ancient Greece unit with the sixth graders, continuing their work with root words throughout the week. Additionally we worked on mythology, and looked at lasting achievements from ancient Greece through today. Due to time constraints I will be finishing the unit next week.
In the math class I continued to teach the 5th grade first hour, which included reviewing previously completed work, answering questions and doing math talks. I had a writing day on Wednesday, so I did not see the math class that day (or the 5th grade humanities class for that matter) and my CT taught all of the class. On Friday I introduced a problem of the month that I had found online that they will be using the rest of the month.
The 5th grade humanities class is still proving to be a challenge, due to their difficulties with staying on task and with transitioning from their previous class. I worked on different strategies to bring them back to the topic at hand, and one I found helpful was suggested to me by the substitute teacher I had last Friday, which involved explaining that their volume level needed to be on '0' while I was talking or another student was talking/answering a question. The topics we discussed were on Christopher Columbus and the "discovery" of America, as well as the beginnings of the United States, starting with the colonies. Next week I will be introducing them to the start of the American Revolution and the events that lead up to it.
In the week ahead, I will be completing my first student teaching assignment. I will be focusing on continuing to keep students on task, as well as work on integration of knowledge and ideas for the sixth grade classes, and working on key ideas and details with the fifth grade class.
In the math class I continued to teach the 5th grade first hour, which included reviewing previously completed work, answering questions and doing math talks. I had a writing day on Wednesday, so I did not see the math class that day (or the 5th grade humanities class for that matter) and my CT taught all of the class. On Friday I introduced a problem of the month that I had found online that they will be using the rest of the month.
The 5th grade humanities class is still proving to be a challenge, due to their difficulties with staying on task and with transitioning from their previous class. I worked on different strategies to bring them back to the topic at hand, and one I found helpful was suggested to me by the substitute teacher I had last Friday, which involved explaining that their volume level needed to be on '0' while I was talking or another student was talking/answering a question. The topics we discussed were on Christopher Columbus and the "discovery" of America, as well as the beginnings of the United States, starting with the colonies. Next week I will be introducing them to the start of the American Revolution and the events that lead up to it.
In the week ahead, I will be completing my first student teaching assignment. I will be focusing on continuing to keep students on task, as well as work on integration of knowledge and ideas for the sixth grade classes, and working on key ideas and details with the fifth grade class.
Sunday, October 11, 2015
Senior Seminar Weeks 4&5
Well, it seems that when you try to set up a blog post to be "automatically" posted at a certain time, sometimes things don't schedule correctly and you skip a week. Unfortunately, this is par for my technological course, as my laptop is still in the shop (along with 80% of my lessons and planning for my upcoming giant project) for the foreseeable future. Word from the wise: save EVERYTHING to Google drive/Docs/email things to yourself constantly. Then you won't be in my current boat. :) Please overlook any spelling/grammar/ weird sentence repeats if they happen, I'm posting from my phone, so things can get wonky.
Anyhoo, Here is my week four posting:
This week I started my lead teaching unit for the 6th grade social studies class. I was really nervous about how this would go, and was concerned about what I was going to teach becuase I wanted to make sure all (or at least a good majority of) the lessons I am teaching are going to fit in with what my cooperating teacher needs to teach her class over the year. To be honest, I 'm not nervous about teaching the students or being in front of the class at all, I am most nervous about writing the lesson/unit plans and how my teaching is being perceived/judged/analyzed by other professionals. I know at this point in my career it is good to get feedback and help in order to best learn and develop my teaching style, but it feels to me to be very personal and I take it as such.
When my seminar class met on Wednesday, my adviser suggested I change the structure and scope of my edTPA lessons, so that was both good and bad. Good, because I feel like this is a good change, but bad becuase I feel like I don't have enough time to make the changes necessary to the lesson plans themselves.
So my lesson for the second group of sixth graders was cut short due to picture day on Thursday, so I had to rearrange my teaching plans somewhat to accommodate. As for the other classes, I've started to take on more of a lead role during the beginning of math classes, and I've been continuing to do the Dictado for the fifth graders. The fifth graders are very much still learning how to get into the routine of things, and they are slowly moving along. On Friday I had a substitute all day, as my cooperating teacher was sick. I basically took the lead all day, but the sub has been in the school many times and was helpful when I asked for feedback.
In all the classes, I'm still learning better questions to ask the students to promote deeper thinking, and I feel this is really helpfil.
Next week I'll be lead teaching as well as teaching my edTPA lessons, as well as continuting to do the math talks and dictado for the fifth graders. Additionally, I'm going to be observed on Tuesday, hopefully that goes well!!
My goals for next week are to continue to try to be more open with peers and cooperating teacher, and to work on time management for my classes, so that all the things that need to be done are done on time.
Week Five Posting:
This week was a whirlwind! I have been lead teaching in the sixth grade, as well as the first hour of math and some of the humanities classes. My computer is broken, and since most of my planning and documents were on it, I've had some difficulty reworking all these lessons while without my research and the other more necessary documents and data.
In my lead teaching classes, the students are seeming to grasp this information well, but on occasion thy get of task because they are asking so many questions or making comments. (This is something I would like to work on for nect week, how to best deal with this sort of almost off the direct topic chatter.)
Monday I needed to leave early in order to get to Palos for a meeting at Trinity, but I was still able to go through and lead teach the sixth grade classes. I was impressed that many of them really seemed to understand the Greek root words that we did that day.
After my observation on Tuesday, I felt very overwhelmed and honestly somewhat defeated. I understand the necessity of teaching multiple subjects all day, but I feel like with the start of the semester being in a bit of chaos I was starting to feel better about my edTPA, as we decided that I would not need to lead teach all subjects, so I could concentrate on my project and then I would lead teach more thoroughly at my second placement. However, over the last week I have felt like the situation has completely changed course, and my lead teacher seemed to go from being more laid back and understangin to expecting me to know everything at once. I understand that things were done in a different way when she was student teaching, but this is a different state and a different program, so I feel like her expectations may be higher than I was prepared for at the beginning of this week. After my observation, I honestly didn't feel very good about my skills and abilities, and felt very overwhelmed and somewhat taken aback. After my first observation and the decisions we made regarding lesson planning and what classes I would need to be lead teaching I had begun to feel more confident and prepared to complete my edTPA since I wouldn't be writing as many additional lesson plans in such a short period of time. However now that I am going to be teaching all the classes, I'm feeling a little but like a sinking ship. With my computer not operational, I'm having to rewrite all of my documents basically from scratch, including all the tasks for my edTPA. Yes, this is something that isn't an excuse, but I feel it is something that needs to be noted as I only have a few more weeks to complete all of the necessary tasks for the edTPA. For me, I was much more comfortable with the original plan of having me only teach the sixth grade because I will have more time at my second placement and will be teaching all subjects. This made me more confident in my focus both for the edTPA and for my classes. Now, I feel extremely overwhelmed and it makes me question not only my abilities as a teacher, but honestly makes me question if this is the profession I want to be in. I feel like I'm being thrown in somewhat unprepared and do not feel like I will succeed.
On Wednesday through Friday I taught my edTPA lessons. Overall, I think they went well and the students found them interesting. The students ended up taking longer to complete activities than I anticipated they would, but because they got off-topic occasionally and asked more questions than I thought they would. The questions were very good though, and they did on occcasion lead to deeper thinking and discussion for the rest of the class. These days I also did my recordings, and well I tried to use the edTPA rubric to guide my instruction, I'm not sure I covered everything the edTPA scorers are looking for. I'll need to edit for time, so hopefully I am able to get that sorted out. On Friday there was a substitute teacher again, and he was a 20+ year veteran of Chicago schools, and he gave me some very good tips and even took a few notes in my log to help me remember some of the advice. Thanks do having a writing half day on Friday I was able to research for many of my sources that I lost with my (hopefully soon to be fixed!) broken computer and was able to find supplemental information and research that I needed. As I had a familial obligation this past weekend it was also helpful to have that extra time to work since I knew I would not have time to do so over the weekend really.
For the upcoming week, I want to find strategies to bring students back when they are getting off task,as well as continue to be more comfortable around superiors and manage time better for students and myself.
Anyhoo, Here is my week four posting:
This week I started my lead teaching unit for the 6th grade social studies class. I was really nervous about how this would go, and was concerned about what I was going to teach becuase I wanted to make sure all (or at least a good majority of) the lessons I am teaching are going to fit in with what my cooperating teacher needs to teach her class over the year. To be honest, I 'm not nervous about teaching the students or being in front of the class at all, I am most nervous about writing the lesson/unit plans and how my teaching is being perceived/judged/analyzed by other professionals. I know at this point in my career it is good to get feedback and help in order to best learn and develop my teaching style, but it feels to me to be very personal and I take it as such.
When my seminar class met on Wednesday, my adviser suggested I change the structure and scope of my edTPA lessons, so that was both good and bad. Good, because I feel like this is a good change, but bad becuase I feel like I don't have enough time to make the changes necessary to the lesson plans themselves.
So my lesson for the second group of sixth graders was cut short due to picture day on Thursday, so I had to rearrange my teaching plans somewhat to accommodate. As for the other classes, I've started to take on more of a lead role during the beginning of math classes, and I've been continuing to do the Dictado for the fifth graders. The fifth graders are very much still learning how to get into the routine of things, and they are slowly moving along. On Friday I had a substitute all day, as my cooperating teacher was sick. I basically took the lead all day, but the sub has been in the school many times and was helpful when I asked for feedback.
In all the classes, I'm still learning better questions to ask the students to promote deeper thinking, and I feel this is really helpfil.
Next week I'll be lead teaching as well as teaching my edTPA lessons, as well as continuting to do the math talks and dictado for the fifth graders. Additionally, I'm going to be observed on Tuesday, hopefully that goes well!!
My goals for next week are to continue to try to be more open with peers and cooperating teacher, and to work on time management for my classes, so that all the things that need to be done are done on time.
Week Five Posting:
This week was a whirlwind! I have been lead teaching in the sixth grade, as well as the first hour of math and some of the humanities classes. My computer is broken, and since most of my planning and documents were on it, I've had some difficulty reworking all these lessons while without my research and the other more necessary documents and data.
In my lead teaching classes, the students are seeming to grasp this information well, but on occasion thy get of task because they are asking so many questions or making comments. (This is something I would like to work on for nect week, how to best deal with this sort of almost off the direct topic chatter.)
Monday I needed to leave early in order to get to Palos for a meeting at Trinity, but I was still able to go through and lead teach the sixth grade classes. I was impressed that many of them really seemed to understand the Greek root words that we did that day.
After my observation on Tuesday, I felt very overwhelmed and honestly somewhat defeated. I understand the necessity of teaching multiple subjects all day, but I feel like with the start of the semester being in a bit of chaos I was starting to feel better about my edTPA, as we decided that I would not need to lead teach all subjects, so I could concentrate on my project and then I would lead teach more thoroughly at my second placement. However, over the last week I have felt like the situation has completely changed course, and my lead teacher seemed to go from being more laid back and understangin to expecting me to know everything at once. I understand that things were done in a different way when she was student teaching, but this is a different state and a different program, so I feel like her expectations may be higher than I was prepared for at the beginning of this week. After my observation, I honestly didn't feel very good about my skills and abilities, and felt very overwhelmed and somewhat taken aback. After my first observation and the decisions we made regarding lesson planning and what classes I would need to be lead teaching I had begun to feel more confident and prepared to complete my edTPA since I wouldn't be writing as many additional lesson plans in such a short period of time. However now that I am going to be teaching all the classes, I'm feeling a little but like a sinking ship. With my computer not operational, I'm having to rewrite all of my documents basically from scratch, including all the tasks for my edTPA. Yes, this is something that isn't an excuse, but I feel it is something that needs to be noted as I only have a few more weeks to complete all of the necessary tasks for the edTPA. For me, I was much more comfortable with the original plan of having me only teach the sixth grade because I will have more time at my second placement and will be teaching all subjects. This made me more confident in my focus both for the edTPA and for my classes. Now, I feel extremely overwhelmed and it makes me question not only my abilities as a teacher, but honestly makes me question if this is the profession I want to be in. I feel like I'm being thrown in somewhat unprepared and do not feel like I will succeed.
On Wednesday through Friday I taught my edTPA lessons. Overall, I think they went well and the students found them interesting. The students ended up taking longer to complete activities than I anticipated they would, but because they got off-topic occasionally and asked more questions than I thought they would. The questions were very good though, and they did on occcasion lead to deeper thinking and discussion for the rest of the class. These days I also did my recordings, and well I tried to use the edTPA rubric to guide my instruction, I'm not sure I covered everything the edTPA scorers are looking for. I'll need to edit for time, so hopefully I am able to get that sorted out. On Friday there was a substitute teacher again, and he was a 20+ year veteran of Chicago schools, and he gave me some very good tips and even took a few notes in my log to help me remember some of the advice. Thanks do having a writing half day on Friday I was able to research for many of my sources that I lost with my (hopefully soon to be fixed!) broken computer and was able to find supplemental information and research that I needed. As I had a familial obligation this past weekend it was also helpful to have that extra time to work since I knew I would not have time to do so over the weekend really.
For the upcoming week, I want to find strategies to bring students back when they are getting off task,as well as continue to be more comfortable around superiors and manage time better for students and myself.
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