Posting for March 28-31, 2011
Finish the month of March with what happened of note last week. Share a strength and a stretch and talk to each other.
posted by Chris @ 12:29 PM
8 comments
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Contributors
Previous Posts
- The Ides of March
- Week in Review and the 3-Day Weekend
- Week in Review, It's almost Valentine's Day!
- Week in Review, February already?!?!?!
- Welcome to Germany
- Final Posting
- Week in Review, Nov 29-Dec 3
- Classroom Mangement Continued
- Classroom Mangement Reflection
- Week of October 25 Response
8 Comments:
There are two students in two separate classes who said something positive about my teaching. I have had a difficult time connecting with either of these two students. This is the most notable thing for me in the last week--reaching two students who I thought were untouchables.
As a strength for last week, I was able to get the symphonic band to focus and make some real progress. The downside is I had to clamp down and kill the chatting. I think sometimes you just have to do that, but I don't like getting results from negative energy. My stretch will be to do the same with positive energy. I will try lowering my voice instead of raising, etc.
Good luck to all of you.
Eric
Well one positive note, I am alomost done with the TPA!! YAY!! I'm hoping to have that in the mail by Tuesday or Wednesday. OKay, in the classroom, it was in general a good week, it ran smoothly. I don't have a huge high or low part it was pretty steady throughout the week. I started a new unit in math with measurement and the lessons are going really well. I'm trying to find as many active lessons for math because the students really respond in a positive way. They loved the measurement lesson, it was an active classroom but all students were engaged and having a good time. For my stretch, I have two boys who are wrestlers and friends. They are being pretty disruptive lately and I have been asking them to flip their cards. They usually act as a duo, I continually talk to them, ask them to separate, warn them and nothing is working. They are my stretch for the week because they really sucked the energy out of me. I think first thing Monday morning I am going to sit down with them together and talk to them and maybe make a plan together, they are just receiving so much attention for this bad behavior.
First of all -- Eric,
I had a similar high! I thought I was having trouble connecting with a student who actually gave me very positive feedback about my teaching! Also, it is annoying to have to "get results from negative energy," but like you said, sometimes it is an appropriate method. It shouldn't happen all the time, but every once in a while that look that says "i'm going to kill you" (as my cooperating teacher puts it ;)) is very useful.
I've had a very strange week. My high has been that I've been getting praise in nearly every direction for my teaching style and "the success I'll have in my future classroom." This has been incredibly wonderful and uplifting to hear. My students are warming up to me more and thus putting better effort into their work, especially my Junior class!!!! HALLELUJAH! That class has been such a roller coaster ride for me... But we've started Catcher in the Rye and they are responding to it so well! Discussion has never flown better and most students respond without me having to pull teeth in the progress. It has certainly been a positive week in these respects.
My biggest stretch is the amount of work I need to complete... There are a lot of contributing factors, but as Chris e-mailed, my cooperating teacher left on emergency leave because she found out that her mother's body is shutting down on her and she may not have much longer to live. Allie left and said she would not be back until after Spring Break, which leaves me two weeks by myself and with a sub. On top of now two preps with no cooperating teacher, I must still finish the TPA. I am making progress, but my days feel endless and I feel like I'm trapped in a sea of work. The end of the quarter is the day before Spring Break, so I ALSO have an insane amount of grading to complete before the semester is up. So if I'm not prepping or working on the TPA, I'm grading. All the work combined is just giving me a royal headache.
The good does outweigh the bad though! My classes have not run better and my relationship with the students is always growing.
Hope you are all finishing strong and uplifted!
My teacher also emphasizes all the time, "WSU REALLY prepares their students! My best student teachers have come from WSU." So know that we are representing the Cougs in all are hard work! :D
Pahaha... I just noticed I wrote "are" instead of "our" in my final sentence... Can you say ironic? :P
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My classes are going alright. I am doing pretty well at managing my classrooms and doing a much better job of just taking preventative measures instead of having to put out fires. Also, I’ve definitely gotten to a point where I’m getting better at looking at what is working during one lesson and making changes for the second lesson.
For example in my first class I had a tough time getting them to start on the warm-up because it was right after the weekend and something that they have only half learned. So with my first class they had a lot of questions and they were off task, I tried to remedy the situation by giving them some suggestions on the board and walking through the first question with them. It worked alright, but they had already started getting off task so I had to wait until I was done walking around grading papers to reel them back in. However, for the second class I had the direction and some hints already written out for the first problem when they walked into class and I gave them some simple suggestions before I started walking around to check the homework and it ended up working much, much better.
I’m struggling to keep up with the paperwork this week though. I know I don’t have nearly the amount of work the people working on the TPA have, but paperwork is not really my forte, and I struggle to keep on task so it is creating some late nights for me as I try to reach my goal of having a formal unit plan written by Friday.
My stretch for the week is that during my review I was having trouble keeping them on task. I had planned out a couple different activities for the day, one being a competition on the board and the other was a board game. The problem was that they were far too off task and while about half of them were participating there were about half of them who were consistently off task. I kept redirecting them with the hope they’d stay on task but in retrospect I knew I should’ve switched mid-lesson and had them do some individual work. It was just tough because at the time I had just put a lot of effort into the lesson and so I had a little bit too much invested in wanting it to work. I am not saying the lesson was a total waste because I know a lot of students got something out of it, but the classroom was just a little overly chaotic and I should’ve just cut it short and told them that they could try again next time.
My success is that I feel like after just a little over a week of teaching the discrete I’m feeling like I’m doing a good job of connecting with them and many of them are learning what I’ve taught so far. Some of them feel like I don’t explain things as well as my mentor teacher, but many of these students are the same students who didn’t seem to be doing too well while she was teaching them so I’m not taking it too personally. It’s a little frustrating because I definitely feel like some of the seniors are starting to check out, and my teacher said that with the coming of spring students naturally get a little more squirrelly.
Sorry for the delayed reply! Happy to hear all of you are relating well to your students! I think it is something we can always try to improve as teachers. I've also learned that sometimes you aren't going to reach every student the same way. Just as it depends on the teacher's style/personality for how they connect to kids. This past week has taught me a great deal on that.
The highlight of the week was finishing the TPA, but also seeing positive results from a student who has been struggling. I've tried to be more positive about my interactions with him instead of focusing on what he's doing wrong.
Overall, I've had a hard time going from a negative state of mind to an enthusiastic attitude (sometimes immediately)because of dealing with disciplinary issues. Like most of you have mentioned, it's not fun getting what you want out of students in a negative way, but at the same time, you may not get results at all by always doing it in a positive manner.
Therefore, my stretch for this next week is to continue focusing on the positive and trying alternative methods for correcting malbehavior. I also want to exude more confidence in my teaching and this may be the key to more of my success- especially with difficult students, but the others as well.
Thanks everyone!
You are at that time in your experience where you are in charge and finding your comfort level with what you will and won't accept. It's a stretch all of you are working on so you are in good company! As you have stated, most of you are getting results from being firm and consistent. It does get easier with time and experience.
Chris
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