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.
In regards to your concerns about your lesson plans being judged by others try not to worry about that as much. Whatever you submit for your CPS lessons will be a work in progress and used as just that - plans. I get the understanding that you have free range to update, change, add, etc. throughout your unit. Call me if you want to talk about what's going on in your placement. I'm sensing that there is some tension. I'd like to help you out so that you can have one less thing to worry about over the next two weeks.
ReplyDeleteWow, another change to the edTPA? Call me if you want to talk about how to get this organized in time for submission.
I'm glad you had the perspective of an outside teacher (your Friday sub) to give you some feedback.
Don't worry about my observation. You will do well... you've got classroom management under control and you're presenting lessons using the CPS requirements.
I have to send my comments in two separate postings. I had too much to say. Here's for the first half!
I'm sorry that you are feeling overwhelmed with the changes made at your last observation. Unfortunately, what your cooperating teacher is expecting with lesson planning is the expectation in all placements. The part that changed is that once I was made aware of the CPS lesson requirements that HAD to be satisfied for the administration there's no way around not using that template. FYI many student teachers are expected to use that same type of format in other districts. I know it's frustrating. When we were deciding what subjects you would teach, I should have stressed with more emphasis when I asked you whether you wanted to pick up the math and still juggle your edTPA. I apologize for not being more of an advocate for you in making the decision on your behalf that you would just teach social studies and the 5th grade Humanities. I was surprised that you said 'yes' when asked. But, I do want you to know that unfortunately what you are feeling and dealing with is the 'norm' of student teaching. That was one of your CT's concerns that I agree with... you were not getting the experience you needed to fulfill student teaching requirements. I hope you don't think that your CT is 'out to get you'. Her concerns were genuine - while you don't have to write the detailed Trinity lesson plans, if you were to be working in Chicago Public Schools you would have to write the plans in the format using the template. She wanted to make sure you at least were successful being able to do that. Her other concern that by teaching only two subjects we were not meeting the requirements for Illinois student teaching time in front of a classroom as per the Trinity time line (which is comparable to other university time lines.) I'm sensing that last week's observation and talk has caused some tension between you and your CT, and you may feel the same about me. I want to assure you, once you get past this frustration of first time use of the CPS lesson template, getting your computer fixed, and writing and recording your edTPA lessons, you'll start to feel less overwhelmed. I'll do my best to help you through the process.
ReplyDeleteStop for a minute and look back at your last observation notes from me. You'll see that you ARE doing a good job with classroom management and instructional delivery. And once you get past the change with writing lesson planning you will do just fine in that respect too! I'm sorry you feel the need for setting the goal to feel more comfortable around superiors. I'm thinking that I'm included in making you feel anxious. Once again, I'll try my best to eliminate this anxiety.
Some ideas to help when students start making comments that pull the group off task: try using your attention signal (if you don't have one, count, clap, or use something that makes a sound that lets students know they need to refocus attention to you; if student asks a question that doesn't relate, try acknowledging them for asking a question and tell them to jot it down so they can look up the answer later on their free time, "but now it's time to get back to ___."(Eventually they may get tired of asking you off-task questions cuz you're just going to tell them to look up the answer themselves.) Another thing to try - remind students before they ask questions to think about "Is this question related to what we are talking about?" If I come up with any other ideas I'll let you know.
So, Tessa, in the meantime, keep your chin up! This placement will be over soon and hopefully smooth sailing in the second placement! Call me if you want to talk!
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