And it is finished. I walked out of Central Middle School today with a bitter-sweet taste in my mouth. All of those hours of experience, frustration, planning, implementing, and joy are all wrapped up and finished. On the one hand I am so excited to be done, do have my day a little freed up, but I am also already missing those students. One student told me today, "You better come back!" an offer I could hardly refuse. It is so interesting to see just how attached a student is to you. They wouldn't otherwise say a word to you about it but when you're halfway out the door their true feelings about you rush forth.
Tuesday I presented a peer editing lesson that would be later coupled with a peer editing activity but unfortunately the activity never came. The biggest struggle that I had with my class was to motivate them to finish their work. Every single student had missing or late assignments. A big theme that I was working over in my mind was how to motivate and encourage students to finish their work. Frivolous assignments not being turned in was understandable but large essays and projects was unthinkable. Challenging students to develop good work ethic and demonstrate importance is all on my shoulders as a teacher.
There was not a day that went by during this experience that I thought to myself, "why am I doing this?" Every single day was an affirmation that I want to become a teacher and make lasting impacts academically and emotionally on all of my students. Thank you so much to Central Middle School, Ms. Danger, the 4th period Language Arts class, Ashley Jorgensen, and all of those who helped encourage me and challenge me throughout this whole process.
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Sunday, October 7, 2012
Week 5: The end is drawing near
This week I had my first experience correcting papers. The class assignment was to write a narrative, which is extremely broad. All of the students chose a topic of their choice but were given strict guidelines in their rubric about formatting, style, and description. For the most part the assignment was centered around using description in the story.
After correcting the class' narratives I found out that they did not do very well at the objective, actually the completely failed it. Although they failed that one aspect of the rubric their narratives were excellent stories. Trying to grade creative writing, because after all that is what the assignment was, is quite challenging. I absolutely enjoyed all of their narratives. I could tell that the students enjoyed the assignment but they neglected to look at their rubrics.
So what have I learned from this experience? Personally I will not assess an assignment that is creative in nature with strict guidelines about content but rather format and style. Something like a creative writing project is tough to grade because a writer puts out their own emotion into the writing. It is a tragedy to grade it, to write on it.
After correcting the class' narratives I found out that they did not do very well at the objective, actually the completely failed it. Although they failed that one aspect of the rubric their narratives were excellent stories. Trying to grade creative writing, because after all that is what the assignment was, is quite challenging. I absolutely enjoyed all of their narratives. I could tell that the students enjoyed the assignment but they neglected to look at their rubrics.
So what have I learned from this experience? Personally I will not assess an assignment that is creative in nature with strict guidelines about content but rather format and style. Something like a creative writing project is tough to grade because a writer puts out their own emotion into the writing. It is a tragedy to grade it, to write on it.
Sunday, September 30, 2012
Total Class Engagement
All right, Level II's are slowly winding down as I have only 4 more scheduled class visits. These experiences are going by so quickly and so is this semester. It is so exciting to think that only in a few more short semesters I will be have a class of my own.
This past Thursday I got the privilege of teaching Ms. Danger's 8th grade Language Arts class a lesson over autobiography and biography. In class the students are currently working on a biography project in which they will generate questions, very much like an interview, for another student in class and write up that particular student's biography. The biography encompasses many aspects of language arts and other various district learning goals like writing, editing, revision, and public speaking.
For my lesson I presented the class with a question about what they knew about autobiographies and biographies. We next broke down the two words into their original Greek suffixes and prefixes to further understanding of the two words and to help future reading of like words. After our discussion I presented the class with various autobiographies that were presented in many different formats: graphic novels, epistolary, and chapter books. I swayed the lesson about autobiographies to teach about self-expression and generating quality reflection, after all that is what the authors of the autobiographies.
The night prior to this lesson I went out and bought 12, 70-paged, notebooks, one for each student for their personal journal. The class struggles with writing, their writing feels forced or is completely lacking major details or even quality thought. I assigned the students to write about the 'real you' in their journals for the first time. I emphasized that they were NOT writing for me but for themselves. The goal with the journals was to critically reflect on the events of their lives and how those events shaped them into who they are today. This went so swimmingly and they were all intently focused on writing in their journals for the rest of class. You could hear a pin drop in that room plus 12 pencils and pens diligently writing.
The lesson had a several goals in mind, one to foster expressive writing, critical thinking, develop a relationship between the teacher and student, and help generate questions for their biographies. Not to toot my own horn but it was an awesome lesson. I built an excellent rapport with all of the students in this class. It seems that they actually care what I have to say and give me their respect.
This past Thursday I got the privilege of teaching Ms. Danger's 8th grade Language Arts class a lesson over autobiography and biography. In class the students are currently working on a biography project in which they will generate questions, very much like an interview, for another student in class and write up that particular student's biography. The biography encompasses many aspects of language arts and other various district learning goals like writing, editing, revision, and public speaking.
For my lesson I presented the class with a question about what they knew about autobiographies and biographies. We next broke down the two words into their original Greek suffixes and prefixes to further understanding of the two words and to help future reading of like words. After our discussion I presented the class with various autobiographies that were presented in many different formats: graphic novels, epistolary, and chapter books. I swayed the lesson about autobiographies to teach about self-expression and generating quality reflection, after all that is what the authors of the autobiographies.
The night prior to this lesson I went out and bought 12, 70-paged, notebooks, one for each student for their personal journal. The class struggles with writing, their writing feels forced or is completely lacking major details or even quality thought. I assigned the students to write about the 'real you' in their journals for the first time. I emphasized that they were NOT writing for me but for themselves. The goal with the journals was to critically reflect on the events of their lives and how those events shaped them into who they are today. This went so swimmingly and they were all intently focused on writing in their journals for the rest of class. You could hear a pin drop in that room plus 12 pencils and pens diligently writing.
The lesson had a several goals in mind, one to foster expressive writing, critical thinking, develop a relationship between the teacher and student, and help generate questions for their biographies. Not to toot my own horn but it was an awesome lesson. I built an excellent rapport with all of the students in this class. It seems that they actually care what I have to say and give me their respect.
Friday, September 21, 2012
Hey! I'm halfway there, sort of.
Wow, this level II teaching experience is flying by so fast, it doesn't feel like I have been in my class for three weeks already but I suppose time flies when you're having fun. The experience has been an eye-opener on many levels and I am so thankful for my coordinating teacher, she has been so helpful and her willingness to let me take over the class is awesome.
Although I have only been in class six times with the students I have already been able to create and develop a relationship with the majority of students, that is to say I have made a effort to engage in conversation with each and every one of them. Whether or not I am making a lasting impact on every student I do feel like that I have with a few. With those that I have they are always the first to say hi to me when they walk in class and I can attribute that to the fact that the role was switched during my first week. Taking the extra time to know all the students' names and say hello when they first walk into class really does a lot for that delicate student-teacher relationship.
What I have enjoyed this week was my position in the class. I was able to see the interaction between the teacher and the students when it came to punishment for breaking the class's rules. Slowly but surely I am developing my own way of dealing with student behavior that isn't positive toward class function. Not to say that the way my teacher handles students is wrong but I glad that I am forming my own methods of teaching, instruction, and classroom management.
One of my greatest joys this week was an interaction that I had with a student who would be labeled as a trouble student. Instead of going in with the expectation that he/she was going to be troublesome I envolved him/her as much as I could, as he/she gets very bored in class. When I give him/her positive attention, which is really what most 'trouble students' want he/she was engaged in the class with the best behavior that I have ever seen him demonstrate.
Although I have only been in class six times with the students I have already been able to create and develop a relationship with the majority of students, that is to say I have made a effort to engage in conversation with each and every one of them. Whether or not I am making a lasting impact on every student I do feel like that I have with a few. With those that I have they are always the first to say hi to me when they walk in class and I can attribute that to the fact that the role was switched during my first week. Taking the extra time to know all the students' names and say hello when they first walk into class really does a lot for that delicate student-teacher relationship.
What I have enjoyed this week was my position in the class. I was able to see the interaction between the teacher and the students when it came to punishment for breaking the class's rules. Slowly but surely I am developing my own way of dealing with student behavior that isn't positive toward class function. Not to say that the way my teacher handles students is wrong but I glad that I am forming my own methods of teaching, instruction, and classroom management.
One of my greatest joys this week was an interaction that I had with a student who would be labeled as a trouble student. Instead of going in with the expectation that he/she was going to be troublesome I envolved him/her as much as I could, as he/she gets very bored in class. When I give him/her positive attention, which is really what most 'trouble students' want he/she was engaged in the class with the best behavior that I have ever seen him demonstrate.
Friday, September 14, 2012
Steady As She Goes
Ah, another week of my level two experience has come and gone, but it was hardly uneventful. In my coordinating teacher's language arts section the students complete a daily editing paragraph with the goal being that they become aware of grammar, spelling, punctuation, capitalization, and a list of other potential writing errors. The task seems simple enough: students sit down when the bell rings and immediately begin their tedious corrections. Roughly after five minutes of editing the teacher prompts them to switch papers and puts the answers on the board for them to correct and revise the other student's previous revisions, while the teacher explains the answers. I decided to take over that small section of the class period each day after talking with my coordinating teacher because I wanted to have more face time instruction with the students so that they would be more comfortable with me and my authority. The task, on both sides, is rather easy but from my lens both the students and I are getting much more out of the ten minute activity than editing skills.
Tuesday, September 11th our class did a small unit about the World Trade Center attacks, which in and of itself was very deep for the students, who were less than 3 years old, to have empathy for those who lost their lives in the attacks. I believe from what I've learned in my education psychology classes empathy is a phenomenon that occurs right around 8th and 9th grade. There was a division in the classroom, while some were fully engaged in the material and others did not want to be there let alone learn about something that happened along time ago (of course I am paraphrasing what I saw and the impression that I got from some of the students. The 9/11 attacks were really not that long ago as I can still remember that day very vividly).
At the very same time during the 9/11 videos and discussion I had my very first run in with technology that wasn't working properly. I think it is just my generation, but I felt like I swept in and saved the day, at least in the eyes of my teacher because the result of a few clicks here and there we were back up and running. That one seemingly small event reminded me of how technologically literate a teacher must be in order to use technology in his or her classroom. Staying a leg up on the competition is going to require all of us to constantly use and integrate technology into our lessons and classroom.
Tuesday, September 11th our class did a small unit about the World Trade Center attacks, which in and of itself was very deep for the students, who were less than 3 years old, to have empathy for those who lost their lives in the attacks. I believe from what I've learned in my education psychology classes empathy is a phenomenon that occurs right around 8th and 9th grade. There was a division in the classroom, while some were fully engaged in the material and others did not want to be there let alone learn about something that happened along time ago (of course I am paraphrasing what I saw and the impression that I got from some of the students. The 9/11 attacks were really not that long ago as I can still remember that day very vividly).
At the very same time during the 9/11 videos and discussion I had my very first run in with technology that wasn't working properly. I think it is just my generation, but I felt like I swept in and saved the day, at least in the eyes of my teacher because the result of a few clicks here and there we were back up and running. That one seemingly small event reminded me of how technologically literate a teacher must be in order to use technology in his or her classroom. Staying a leg up on the competition is going to require all of us to constantly use and integrate technology into our lessons and classroom.
Thursday, September 6, 2012
Week 1 - Level Up!
I see myself as a very relaxed person and it usually takes a lot for something to rile me and this first week of Level II teaching experience was no different. I went in with the best intentions, rolled up my sleeves, and jumped right in to the flow of my class. It really doesn't take long for someone, or at least it shouldn't, to identify and feel the groove of the class. Right away I could see I had some of those typical rowdy boys and girls in the class but a quote that I heard recently says that if you only can see what is bad then it is a direct reflection of yourself. You have to opportunity rather than opposition. That is my goal for now and forever to understand my students rather condemn them. We were all in there shoes at one point in our lives and we can't expect them to perform at our level of thinking or maturity.
Thus far, after only two days of classes I can say that I know 95% of my students' names. All that I want to do these first few weeks is to develop a relationship with them so that I can better teach them. As of now it is going along swimmingly. The only things that I am worried about is maintaining authority and control in the classroom to guide their discussion but I know that I will have be patient with all of these students.
Today our classes discussed the Emmett Till tragedy while exploring the concepts of prejudice, discrimination, racism, and hate crimes. I was glad to see that my class, which was primarily made up of a mix of all races, didn't just list of examples of discrimination done unto them by another race, but rather discrimination done unto other genders, sexual orientations, and classes. It was so cool because went against my own stereotypes of teenagers, that they are all self-oriented. This field experience will be very moving for all parties.
Thus far, after only two days of classes I can say that I know 95% of my students' names. All that I want to do these first few weeks is to develop a relationship with them so that I can better teach them. As of now it is going along swimmingly. The only things that I am worried about is maintaining authority and control in the classroom to guide their discussion but I know that I will have be patient with all of these students.
Today our classes discussed the Emmett Till tragedy while exploring the concepts of prejudice, discrimination, racism, and hate crimes. I was glad to see that my class, which was primarily made up of a mix of all races, didn't just list of examples of discrimination done unto them by another race, but rather discrimination done unto other genders, sexual orientations, and classes. It was so cool because went against my own stereotypes of teenagers, that they are all self-oriented. This field experience will be very moving for all parties.
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