As you gear up for Spring Break, keep reflecting on your experience! What do you have for me this week? Parent meetings? Disciplinary issues? Troubles/Concerns with the content? ...
Behavioral issues continue to be a frustrating problem for me that I feel are overshadowing the areas I have been succeeding in. The students are constantly trying to test their limits. Because of this, I’m realizing that I made a mistake in allowing leniency to start off my teaching, and then trying to tighten the rules as I need to.
I’ve tried starting a new discipline system last week. I had a 3 strike policy before, but found that it itself was disruptive when administered, or failed to create any change when administered in a less direct manner. The new system I’m trying is very similar, except that it involves silently handing a student a colored card when I feel their behavior is disruptive to the class, or they are not making an effort to do their work. So far, this new system has had but a marginal effect in improving classroom behavior is my two most disruptive classes. Students still often complain when they receive a card, just like they did when I would verbally tell them they had a mark. This system has also brought up the issue of discipline fairness. I’ve been inconsistent with the cards, usually because there are just too many problems for me to accurately judge who deserves a card at what time while simultaneously delivering a lesson. This problem existed before, and has seen little improvement in this new system.
Switching away from discipline, I had a bit of a strange realization last week. I realized that I felt the least connected to my class of sixth-grade high ability students. This seemed strange to me, as I have done the most creative activities with them and have had no discipline problems with them so far. The lack of discipline problems may be the reason for this. I haven’t seen most of their personalities shine through anywhere but their writings. The students come to my class to do school, so talk about their personal lives has only come up vaguely in the class. I just felt that this was very strange, and always thought it would be my most well behaved class that I would feel closest to.
Finally, I had the joyful experience of calling my first parent this week. The student had received three cards so I decided I would speak to his mother about his disruptive behavior in the class. I ended up speaking to his grandmother and found out a lot about the student and the difficult home life he had to deal with. A teacher really doesn’t know about their student until they find out about who they are outside of the school. Not only was the phone call beneficial for me and my ability to help the student, but I also ended up being an ear for the grandmother to vent about life. Being able to listen to a parent ended up being a very uplifting thing for me.
Ok. Week 5 totally rocks. I got to start Anne Frank this morning. I did the end of WWI up to the point that the Franks went into hiding through pictures and sounds. Basically I did all of the talking and had around 50 slides of pictures to help clarify everything that I was talking about. The kids seemed to LOVE it. Honestly, in all of my time spent at school I have not seen the kids even half as attentive as they were today. They were literally quiet the entire class period and were extremely open to some of the discussion questions I proposed. I was blown away at their participation and I truly that my “pep,” talk with them yesterday had some affect on them based on their behavior today.
I was kind of blah the past two weeks with student teaching. I felt that I was not doing as much as some of the other teachers and I felt that my CT was still hesitant to turn everything over and to step back and truly give me all of the control. I think that today was something we both needed. Today made me excited about student teaching again it made me look forward to the opportunities that will come in the next 5 weeks. I also think that today was necessary for my CT. She realized what I am capable of. I think that she just to see in complete and total control for an entire day to really make her realize what we can both get out of this experience. We had an amazing talk after school and during our prep periods and she told me, like a proud mother, that some people have it – and some people don’t. She assured me that I had it. I am so looking forward to the rest of the week.
Week 5 has proven to be a good week for me to reflect on my experiences so far as a Student Teacher. Matt, you are not alone in terms of the behavioral department. I began my Student Teaching too lenient. As a result of this I feel as though I have been playing catch up in terms of discipline. I have been working to break my students of their first impressions of my discipline, and have found some success. Many of the students have readjusted to my more strict form of discipline. I have been working on having a classroom where learning can take place free of disruption. I am continuing to have discipline problems with a few students; these students have been labeled as the “trouble makers.” I am beginning to learn how to deal with these students, and often they are simply trying to seek out attention. I am learning to pay some attention to these students, but not to focus on them.
Week 5 has also been extremely beneficial in terms of my mental state. After having my mid-term evaluation I know places where I can strive to improve. I feel more comfortable in the classroom knowing where I stand. I am also realizing to not take everything as a criticism, but instead to understand why things are said and reflect on how it can benefit me in the classroom. I now have more of a positive attitude in the classroom, and am looking forward to bringing in my own ideas after Spring Break.
The students are beginning to get crazy as Spring Break approaches, and I completely understand. Spring Break? Yes, please!
Ok, so apparently this blog is not a fan of me, because I am now on the third time writing, need to remember to cut and paste!
The past week was really interesting for me, especially last Wednesday. During lunch I got a call from the graduate school I have been set on for a very long time, and they said I had earned not one, but two positions, but after office movement they were eliminating their orientation graduate assistantship, which was the one I earned, and no longer had a spot at the school until someone dropped. Needless to say, there were quite a few years and when I was walking to the restroom one of my students definitely saw my red eyes and told the whole class. After I returned to class a lot of them came up to me and said "sorry Mr. K", or "We'd pick you over those other kids anyday" which was nice to hear, becuase it's hard for me to tell if I'm getting through all the time. I felt this was an overall indication that it's okay to let yourself go once in a while to share with your students, especially since we ask them to share so much with us after we come into their environment 5 week into the semester.
I do have a student teacher conference the day we get back to school. We received the request last Friday morning, so we said the parent could come in any time and she wanted to come in at 2:30 on the Friday before Spring Break. I think my cooperating teacher and I both agreed waiting would be better so we were more focused for the overall meeting. I think though, that it being the end of nine week grades had something to do with it.
In other disciplinary news, my students seem to love the word "gay" and "retarded", which I personally am not a fan, and neither is my cooperating teacher. To work with this we also ask "what's a better word choice" and usually we will get an apology in the process.
Final thing to mention, is the week before break was crazy, as Sarah said. Kids who never acted out were, focus was minimal, and we even caught someone plagiarizing. Now that I'm on the teaching end of things, it's funny how easy it is to catch things like that (I typed the first line in google and it popped up).
I'm still enjoying my time in class, and look forward to starting new things after break!
Week 5 was a good week for me, a bit boring but still good. The students were working on one of their major paper/projects for the trimester so we spent about half of the week in the computer lab, and then two days presenting and discussing their projects. It was a bit discouraging to see that some students did not even make an effort on their paper/project, but it was rewarding when some of my more challenging students worked hard and put a lot of effort into it. You never know who will surprise you. Although overall it was a good week, I'm looking forward to next week when we start Antigone. It will be difficult to keep the students focused because it's the week before Spring Break but I think it will be a good challenge.
I am not struggling with discipline a much as I am with content. My CT has given me full freedom to teach whatever I want, which is awesome, but the difficult part is keeping the students engaged. I am trying to find ways to make the material relevant, and conversational rather than just giving them 'study questions' or worksheets, but it is difficult to try new activities (that sometimes fail horribly) with a rowdy class. I want to have the students modernize the scenes of Antigone and act them out, but I am nervous to try this with my more rowdy class. I guess I will see how it goes.
Even though I am on spring break this week, I have found that I am still constantly thinking about student teaching. At this point, I feel that I sometimes struggle to come up with ideas. I had the whole units planned out before I started, but so many of my ideas need to be tweaked to fit individual classes that I feel like I have to start all over again. But I am still very thankful that I have so many great classes. The Friday before spring break was one of my best days yet. In my last class we all sat in a circle and had a group discussion about Sherlock Holmes. The kids were all really engaged and answered my questions thoughtfully. But one problem I am encountering is teaching my kids how to be decent to one another. In one of my classes, I can't do group work without the students being mean to this one student. I feel really bad for this student because she always gets left out when I assign groups. Once, I even saw a a group of girls practically attack this student when she joined their group. They even pushed her books off her desk! I was really mad, but my mentor teacher was teaching this day so I didn't want to take over the class by getting mad at these girls. I had to settle for glaring at them, which made me feel a little immature when I thought about it later. For now I have decided to stop group work all together until I figure out what to do. I'm not sure how to teach my students how to be kind to one another.
Well I am on spring break this week. Apparently all the stresses have finally gotten to me because I spent the first four days of spring break on the couch. I am rarely ever that sick. The first few weeks of student teaching were physically exhausting to me. My body seems to have adjusted, however, because I am not nearly at tired as I was. I have created loose outlines of my units for each of my classes. I find that having an outline works better for me than having structured lesson plans. Each of my classes are so different and my personality is so laid back that an outline allows me more freedom to adjust the lesson depending on the moods of both the students and myself. I am luck that my supervising teacher allows me the freedom to be myself in the classroom. She is ok wiht anything I want to do but she's willing to help me if I ask. I feel comfortable with the classes I am working with and the students have great personalities. My last class to teach is the 11th grade. I feel slightly more intimidated by this class. I have been teaching the 8th graders since the beginning. I started teaching the 7th and 8th grade gifted and talented two weeks later. The junior high age students usually react well to my personality but juniors are different. I have do problems with the personalities of the students but I am not sure they will be as interested in the way I teach. I can be goofy and sometimes students at that age find me too strange. I guess we'll find out. I am teaching several texts that explain the characters in the movie League of Extrodinary Gentlemen. Then I am going to teach the movie. I hope they will find all the small jokes in the movie that are only understood if you know the literary history of the characters.
I know what I know but how do I know what my students know or don’t know so I know what I should teach them? Assessment, I need an assessment of their knowledge as well as their maturity levels. Sometimes students surprise me with their insight and other times the fact that they didn’t bring a pencil to school. Example: “This is writing class and you didn’t bring a writing apparatus?” Asked the student teacher incredulously. “What’s an apparatus?” Inquired the adult-child (well the adult-child would have inquired if the adult-child had known what that word meant) Correction; the adult-child asked. “Look it up in the dictionary.” Replied the student-teacher. “Teach a man to fish…” the student-teacher quoted a few lines of the proverb. “Can I just look it up on my phone?” “Sure.” Principal walked into the classroom and saw the technological contraband. The student-teacher’s heart stopped. The principal did not actually walk in but based on how this week went it wouldn’t have been out of place. This week was tough. It was good but tough. I even had my first tears this week. I lasted longer than I thought I would. So I suppose this means I won the bet against myself…yea? I have a lot of work to do this weekend. I don’t know how to balance everything. How do I balance the need for a life, relaxation, time to clean, and speak with other people who are not in their teens with the amout of work I have to do. Praise be to all of my former teachers who put up with any of the nonsense and/or insensitive thing I ever said. I think that I will write some of my former teachers and thank them for putting up with me. Now, just where do I find the time?
It's finally Spring Break time for me! That means I get 5 days off to grade midterms (why did I decide to include essays on my midterms again?). I just finished my first day before Spring Break as a teacher, and must say that it went much better than expected. I think the reason for this was that I was missing around 3-5 students per class. That may not seem like much, but it really gave me the opportunity to focus more on individual students. In 5th hour especially, certain members of social cliques were missing, which meant there was less talking and trying to impress each other overall. It made for a much laid back atmosphere in the classroom. As I'm finding out from other teachers, apparently there is one student in particular in my 5th hour class who is the alpha male of the school that everyone goes out of their way to impress. Even though he isn't a particularly troublesome student, it just amazes me how far out of the way students will go to impress him.
Behavioral issues continue to be a frustrating problem for me that I feel are overshadowing the areas I have been succeeding in. The students are constantly trying to test their limits. Because of this, I’m realizing that I made a mistake in allowing leniency to start off my teaching, and then trying to tighten the rules as I need to.
ReplyDeleteI’ve tried starting a new discipline system last week. I had a 3 strike policy before, but found that it itself was disruptive when administered, or failed to create any change when administered in a less direct manner. The new system I’m trying is very similar, except that it involves silently handing a student a colored card when I feel their behavior is disruptive to the class, or they are not making an effort to do their work. So far, this new system has had but a marginal effect in improving classroom behavior is my two most disruptive classes. Students still often complain when they receive a card, just like they did when I would verbally tell them they had a mark. This system has also brought up the issue of discipline fairness. I’ve been inconsistent with the cards, usually because there are just too many problems for me to accurately judge who deserves a card at what time while simultaneously delivering a lesson. This problem existed before, and has seen little improvement in this new system.
Switching away from discipline, I had a bit of a strange realization last week. I realized that I felt the least connected to my class of sixth-grade high ability students. This seemed strange to me, as I have done the most creative activities with them and have had no discipline problems with them so far. The lack of discipline problems may be the reason for this. I haven’t seen most of their personalities shine through anywhere but their writings. The students come to my class to do school, so talk about their personal lives has only come up vaguely in the class. I just felt that this was very strange, and always thought it would be my most well behaved class that I would feel closest to.
Finally, I had the joyful experience of calling my first parent this week. The student had received three cards so I decided I would speak to his mother about his disruptive behavior in the class. I ended up speaking to his grandmother and found out a lot about the student and the difficult home life he had to deal with. A teacher really doesn’t know about their student until they find out about who they are outside of the school. Not only was the phone call beneficial for me and my ability to help the student, but I also ended up being an ear for the grandmother to vent about life. Being able to listen to a parent ended up being a very uplifting thing for me.
Ok. Week 5 totally rocks. I got to start Anne Frank this morning. I did the end of WWI up to the point that the Franks went into hiding through pictures and sounds. Basically I did all of the talking and had around 50 slides of pictures to help clarify everything that I was talking about. The kids seemed to LOVE it. Honestly, in all of my time spent at school I have not seen the kids even half as attentive as they were today. They were literally quiet the entire class period and were extremely open to some of the discussion questions I proposed. I was blown away at their participation and I truly that my “pep,” talk with them yesterday had some affect on them based on their behavior today.
ReplyDeleteI was kind of blah the past two weeks with student teaching. I felt that I was not doing as much as some of the other teachers and I felt that my CT was still hesitant to turn everything over and to step back and truly give me all of the control. I think that today was something we both needed. Today made me excited about student teaching again it made me look forward to the opportunities that will come in the next 5 weeks. I also think that today was necessary for my CT. She realized what I am capable of. I think that she just to see in complete and total control for an entire day to really make her realize what we can both get out of this experience. We had an amazing talk after school and during our prep periods and she told me, like a proud mother, that some people have it – and some people don’t. She assured me that I had it. I am so looking forward to the rest of the week.
Week 5 has proven to be a good week for me to reflect on my experiences so far as a Student Teacher. Matt, you are not alone in terms of the behavioral department. I began my Student Teaching too lenient. As a result of this I feel as though I have been playing catch up in terms of discipline. I have been working to break my students of their first impressions of my discipline, and have found some success. Many of the students have readjusted to my more strict form of discipline. I have been working on having a classroom where learning can take place free of disruption. I am continuing to have discipline problems with a few students; these students have been labeled as the “trouble makers.” I am beginning to learn how to deal with these students, and often they are simply trying to seek out attention. I am learning to pay some attention to these students, but not to focus on them.
ReplyDeleteWeek 5 has also been extremely beneficial in terms of my mental state. After having my mid-term evaluation I know places where I can strive to improve. I feel more comfortable in the classroom knowing where I stand. I am also realizing to not take everything as a criticism, but instead to understand why things are said and reflect on how it can benefit me in the classroom. I now have more of a positive attitude in the classroom, and am looking forward to bringing in my own ideas after Spring Break.
The students are beginning to get crazy as Spring Break approaches, and I completely understand. Spring Break? Yes, please!
Ok, so apparently this blog is not a fan of me, because I am now on the third time writing, need to remember to cut and paste!
ReplyDeleteThe past week was really interesting for me, especially last Wednesday. During lunch I got a call from the graduate school I have been set on for a very long time, and they said I had earned not one, but two positions, but after office movement they were eliminating their orientation graduate assistantship, which was the one I earned, and no longer had a spot at the school until someone dropped. Needless to say, there were quite a few years and when I was walking to the restroom one of my students definitely saw my red eyes and told the whole class. After I returned to class a lot of them came up to me and said "sorry Mr. K", or "We'd pick you over those other kids anyday" which was nice to hear, becuase it's hard for me to tell if I'm getting through all the time. I felt this was an overall indication that it's okay to let yourself go once in a while to share with your students, especially since we ask them to share so much with us after we come into their environment 5 week into the semester.
I do have a student teacher conference the day we get back to school. We received the request last Friday morning, so we said the parent could come in any time and she wanted to come in at 2:30 on the Friday before Spring Break. I think my cooperating teacher and I both agreed waiting would be better so we were more focused for the overall meeting. I think though, that it being the end of nine week grades had something to do with it.
In other disciplinary news, my students seem to love the word "gay" and "retarded", which I personally am not a fan, and neither is my cooperating teacher. To work with this we also ask "what's a better word choice" and usually we will get an apology in the process.
Final thing to mention, is the week before break was crazy, as Sarah said. Kids who never acted out were, focus was minimal, and we even caught someone plagiarizing. Now that I'm on the teaching end of things, it's funny how easy it is to catch things like that (I typed the first line in google and it popped up).
I'm still enjoying my time in class, and look forward to starting new things after break!
Week 5 was a good week for me, a bit boring but still good. The students were working on one of their major paper/projects for the trimester so we spent about half of the week in the computer lab, and then two days presenting and discussing their projects. It was a bit discouraging to see that some students did not even make an effort on their paper/project, but it was rewarding when some of my more challenging students worked hard and put a lot of effort into it. You never know who will surprise you. Although overall it was a good week, I'm looking forward to next week when we start Antigone. It will be difficult to keep the students focused because it's the week before Spring Break but I think it will be a good challenge.
ReplyDeleteI am not struggling with discipline a much as I am with content. My CT has given me full freedom to teach whatever I want, which is awesome, but the difficult part is keeping the students engaged. I am trying to find ways to make the material relevant, and conversational rather than just giving them 'study questions' or worksheets, but it is difficult to try new activities (that sometimes fail horribly) with a rowdy class. I want to have the students modernize the scenes of Antigone and act them out, but I am nervous to try this with my more rowdy class. I guess I will see how it goes.
Even though I am on spring break this week, I have found that I am still constantly thinking about student teaching. At this point, I feel that I sometimes struggle to come up with ideas. I had the whole units planned out before I started, but so many of my ideas need to be tweaked to fit individual classes that I feel like I have to start all over again.
ReplyDeleteBut I am still very thankful that I have so many great classes. The Friday before spring break was one of my best days yet. In my last class we all sat in a circle and had a group discussion about Sherlock Holmes. The kids were all really engaged and answered my questions thoughtfully.
But one problem I am encountering is teaching my kids how to be decent to one another. In one of my classes, I can't do group work without the students being mean to this one student. I feel really bad for this student because she always gets left out when I assign groups. Once, I even saw a a group of girls practically attack this student when she joined their group. They even pushed her books off her desk! I was really mad, but my mentor teacher was teaching this day so I didn't want to take over the class by getting mad at these girls. I had to settle for glaring at them, which made me feel a little immature when I thought about it later. For now I have decided to stop group work all together until I figure out what to do. I'm not sure how to teach my students how to be kind to one another.
Well I am on spring break this week. Apparently all the stresses have finally gotten to me because I spent the first four days of spring break on the couch. I am rarely ever that sick.
ReplyDeleteThe first few weeks of student teaching were physically exhausting to me. My body seems to have adjusted, however, because I am not nearly at tired as I was.
I have created loose outlines of my units for each of my classes. I find that having an outline works better for me than having structured lesson plans. Each of my classes are so different and my personality is so laid back that an outline allows me more freedom to adjust the lesson depending on the moods of both the students and myself.
I am luck that my supervising teacher allows me the freedom to be myself in the classroom. She is ok wiht anything I want to do but she's willing to help me if I ask. I feel comfortable with the classes I am working with and the students have great personalities.
My last class to teach is the 11th grade. I feel slightly more intimidated by this class. I have been teaching the 8th graders since the beginning. I started teaching the 7th and 8th grade gifted and talented two weeks later. The junior high age students usually react well to my personality but juniors are different. I have do problems with the personalities of the students but I am not sure they will be as interested in the way I teach. I can be goofy and sometimes students at that age find me too strange. I guess we'll find out.
I am teaching several texts that explain the characters in the movie League of Extrodinary Gentlemen. Then I am going to teach the movie. I hope they will find all the small jokes in the movie that are only understood if you know the literary history of the characters.
I know what I know but how do I know what my students know or don’t know so I know what I should teach them? Assessment, I need an assessment of their knowledge as well as their maturity levels. Sometimes students surprise me with their insight and other times the fact that they didn’t bring a pencil to school. Example:
ReplyDelete“This is writing class and you didn’t bring a writing apparatus?” Asked the student teacher incredulously.
“What’s an apparatus?” Inquired the adult-child (well the adult-child would have inquired if the adult-child had known what that word meant) Correction; the adult-child asked.
“Look it up in the dictionary.” Replied the student-teacher. “Teach a man to fish…” the student-teacher quoted a few lines of the proverb.
“Can I just look it up on my phone?”
“Sure.”
Principal walked into the classroom and saw the technological contraband. The student-teacher’s heart stopped.
The principal did not actually walk in but based on how this week went it wouldn’t have been out of place. This week was tough. It was good but tough. I even had my first tears this week. I lasted longer than I thought I would. So I suppose this means I won the bet against myself…yea? I have a lot of work to do this weekend. I don’t know how to balance everything. How do I balance the need for a life, relaxation, time to clean, and speak with other people who are not in their teens with the amout of work I have to do.
Praise be to all of my former teachers who put up with any of the nonsense and/or insensitive thing I ever said. I think that I will write some of my former teachers and thank them for putting up with me. Now, just where do I find the time?
It's finally Spring Break time for me! That means I get 5 days off to grade midterms (why did I decide to include essays on my midterms again?). I just finished my first day before Spring Break as a teacher, and must say that it went much better than expected. I think the reason for this was that I was missing around 3-5 students per class. That may not seem like much, but it really gave me the opportunity to focus more on individual students. In 5th hour especially, certain members of social cliques were missing, which meant there was less talking and trying to impress each other overall. It made for a much laid back atmosphere in the classroom. As I'm finding out from other teachers, apparently there is one student in particular in my 5th hour class who is the alpha male of the school that everyone goes out of their way to impress. Even though he isn't a particularly troublesome student, it just amazes me how far out of the way students will go to impress him.
ReplyDelete