Week in Review 2/1-2/5
Hello Beth and Julie,
Please give us a snapshot on how the last week has gone in your classrooms, a high, a low, or anything noteworthy you would like to share.
In addition to your review post, if you would also post a little bit about your classroom management system that you are developing. You are at the point in your experience now where we seem to hear about management challenges, so let us know what is working, what is not, and how you are making adjustments to your management style to adapt to your learners.
Also as an FYI, we are looking at flight options for Chris this week, and it looks like she will be in your classrooms March 15-17....so think about that week a little bit and come up with a plan that works for both of you so that Chris has a good opportunity to see your teaching in action. She will want to do one formal observation, and the rest will be informal observations throughout the day.
All the best from Pullman!
Heidi and Chris
posted by Heidi @ 2:08 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
This week has been a bit of a transition. This was the first week of the new semester so there were a few new students in the discrete class, and few that switched sections. The biggest change was for Algebra 2. We are now teaching the class 1st period instead of 3rd period, and a majority of the students are new. Fortunately, the class is still small with only 10 students (this number is not finalized yet). For the algebra class, I have been starting off the class with homework corrections.
In discrete, we have been doing some discovery lessons for the beginning of the new chapter. The students seem to enjoy it, and they also seem to be learning. They will have a quiz tomorrow, so we can check to make sure. Since we are using discovery activities, I have gotten to work a lot with students this week in small groups. Instead of the students just asking my mentor for help, they would directly ask me. This is very reassuring that they are seeing me as an authority in the classroom.
The most exciting aspect of this past week is the implementation of a portfolio in Discrete math in place of a semester exam. My mentor teacher felt that the semester exam did not accurately measure the knowledge of the students. So, we are using a new assessment, which is a reflective portfolio. The students will collect work samples, correct them, and reflect on them. At the end of the quarter and semester they will present in a conference to my mentor and myself. I'm really excited about this because I have considered using a portfolio in my classroom in the future, but I had never seen it implemented in a math class before. We have practiced some of the reflecting skills that they will need for completing the portfolio, and I have already seen a growth in the depth of their reflections.
The management question is perfect for what I am working on right now. I have taken over Seminar. This means I am in charge of all of the paperwork associated with keeping track of where all the students are. This also means that I am in charge of the class during the free work period. It has been a large challenge. About half of the students don't bring anything to work on, and spend the entire time off task. This ends up distracting the students that are trying to work. I have tried to use some of the same tactics that I use during a regular class period, but they don't work. Usually, if I walk over to a group of off task students, they go back to work without me even having to say anything. This doesn't work in seminar. I have tried separating students that are talking to each other. This has worked a few times, but it has also back fired on me. Sometimes the students just talk louder to each other. I have talked privately to one of the students that is usually at the heart of these disturbances, and I feel as though we have reached an understanding, but I can't be sure because he did not come to seminar on Friday. I think this next week I will implement the two following strategies:
1) As each student enters the room, I ask them if they are going to another teacher's class to get help. Now, if they say no, I will ask them as they enter what they plan to work on. This will hopefully get them into the mindset that this is time to work, and that they will be held accountable.
2) I will try having a structured activity for students that truly did not bring anything to work on. Even if the activity is not heavily academic, it will give them something to do so hopefully they will not distract those that are working. The problem is that I need to think of something for them to do. It would be good if it was something that they could continually work on so that I don't have to create a brand new activity for each seminar.
I sent Chris an email with my schedule for March 15-17. I also included some questions. Let me know if you have any ideas to address those issues. Thanks!
Last week went really well. I have been teaching a lot and planning most of my lessons. I am finding it to be so much fun, but at times over whelming. Sometimes I feel like I am constantly nagging students, and some consequence are not effective. A low I had last week was during a math lesson that was on subtracting by ten. On accident, I pulled up the wrong SmartBoard lesson that was for the following day where we were going to be using the hundreds chart to subtract. Both lessons intertwined so it wasn’t until half way through the lesson when I realized it was the wrong lesson. The student began to get confused and one student even began to cry out of frustration and confusion. I took away the lesson and continued by using a blank screen and I modeled by writing problems and thinking a loud. When I corrected their worksheet, majority of the students understood the concept. Carlen said I had done the writing thing by continuing with the lesson and not getting cought up in the fact I had made a mistake. The following day I reviewed the correct lesson and moved on. I think it was a good learning experience and I had to unwind after. This week I being to teach subtraction with regrouping, which is a challenging concept. I am looking forward to it, but also a little anxious to see how it will play out.
A high for me has been the idea of teaching students concept that they will remember for their rest of their lives. It is amazing to think about and be able to see the difference I am already making just as a student teacher. I am looking forward to what will come.
I am finding that as I get to know my students, I learn what they respond to well and what they don’t. Since the class is very diverse, students respond very differently. For example, when dealing with classroom management, there are some students that do well with simple reminders, motivation, and positive reinforcement. There are the few students that need stricter boundaries, routines, and consequences. I have found it somewhat challenging to enforce the harsher classroom management that these students need at times.
The classroom management strategy that the school uses is a color system. A student might have to change their color for numerous reasons, and once their color is changed there is no going back and the next day they get to try again. There are five colors, green means there where no behavior problems, yellow means they have to take 5 minutes off recess, orange is 10 minutes from recess, red is a letter sent home to the parents, and purple is being sent to the principle. At the end of the day, the students fill out their weekly report and color the box the color they got for the day. At the end on the week the parents and the teacher both sign it. This has been very effective because students don’t want their parents to know they where having behavior problems at school.
The reward system we us in the class is a ticket system. Students receive little tickets any time they do something well such as follow directions, stay on tasks, and much more. The tickets go into a little basket and on Fridays two tickets are drawn. The students who get picked get to choose a prize from a box full of neat things. The rest of tickets are thrown out and it starts over the next week. Students seem to respond well and I have found when I begin to hand tickets out to students being quiet and following directions, the rest of the class follows because they all want tickets too.
As for myself, I am beginning to develop the understanding of what are important battles and what aren’t as important. It is difficult to decide whether I should stop a whole lesson just to deal with the same students who are always disrupting the class. It seems like it adds up and takes away from other students’ learning. I have discussed it with Carlen and she says the more experience I get, I will begin to learn what is important and what can be dealt with at a later time. I have learned the importance of being consistent and not going back on what I had said. It establishes an expectation without having to describe what it is. Students are able to predict what will happen and they will understand what types of things are appropriate and what are not.
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