Housekeeping Items and new posting
Hello everyone!
The semester is flying by, the Cougar Men's basketball team continues to win and is ranked 10th in the nation and best of all beat the UW last night 65/61! All the snow is gone and we are getting rain and fog. Life in the Palouse in February.
I will send a note to each of your teachers but I need to finalize my travel plans so that I can buy a ticket and get the itinerary started. Here is the bare bones plan so you know observation days: March 19-20 with Christina and Katrina in Heidelberg; March 20 after school travel to Wiesbaden and observe Susan March 21 and March 22 in the morning; March 22 afternoon travel to Vilseck; March 23 observe Katie; March 25 fly to Naples and meet with Robert; observe Robert March 26; fly to London March 27 and observe Sarah before returning to WSU. I need confirmation at this site from each of you that these dates will work.
All student teachers are expected to show evidence of having positive impact on student learning. I need you to do the following: Evidence of Positive Impact on Student Learning.
Collect the following from each student teacher in hard copy or scanned onto a CD. Positive impact documents do not have to be from a formal PPA observation. Student teachers may select a lesson of their own choice. For the lesson selected, the student teacher must include:
Classroom and student characteristics (use PPA format) adapted for the lesson.
Instructional Plan
Work samples from three different students showing learning has occurred. Select a low, middle and high performer.
Written reflection of the assessment results.
I mentioned that there would be 4-5 major topics for Blog discussion during the semester but I also want this site to become a resource for each of you. You should be keeping a reflective journal. If you haven't started, start now for this week. I would like you to choose two things at the end of every week that you would like to share with the others and post before Monday of the next week. The idea is to summarize from your journal a couple key issues. A few paragraphs will suffice and will give others a chance to respond. These postings can be about a funny third grader or a difficult discussion in 8th grade social studies class. The hope is that this forum will give you a virtual seminar and foster good communication so obviously I expect you also will talk to each other. To be clear...you are expected to post and respond to at least one other person each week. I will read the responses that are already posted and respond so you get the idea!
Here is what I need from each of you:
1. confirmation on the dates I have suggested to visit you
2. two issues you would like to share from your experience thus far (since this is the first one)
3. respond to at least one other person's posting
4. where are we with the webcams? Can I at least set a time to talk to you, if not you and your teacher?
Lots of information in this posting. Thanks for stepping up to the plate! Questions, let me know.
Warm wishes,
Chris
Have a
posted by Chris @ 11:10 AM
16 comments
16 Comments:
This is Katie in Vilseck. I will have to speak with my mentor teacher to make sure that date will be fine. We have been having major issues with the laptops in the classroom. The kids have found ways to lock them up and it has messed up the internet. The man in charge of the school's technology has been busy with that and the stolen laptop from another classroom. I will see if he has time to look further into if we are even allowed to install a webcam in the school's system. I can use the webcam at my house though.
At first I was very nervous about student teaching. I think I was afraid of being intimidated. My first day in the classroom, my mentor teacher was out sick and the substitute had me take control. I think that just putting yourself out there is the first step, and then realizing that you are the teacher and have control of your classroom is the next step. My students may not all be the perfect angel straight A students, but if you ask them to stay in line or listen, they usually will stop what they were doing and get on task. They are nothing to be intimidated by.
Every single one of my classes has extremely low or no motivation. I think this will be the biggest challenge over the semester. Many of the students talk about college. Another good portion of the students talk about joining the army. Either way, these students need to be motivated in life to be able to go places! I hope that I can make biology fun, since most students may not enjoy this at all.
We have a student in Anatomy and Physiology and her boyfriend is also in the class. Her boyfriend has a disability, and I have heard that she tends to do the work for him. Since he is dyslexic it is hard for him to express things in writing. During their groups presentation of the website, he was able to use a skeleton and explain everything verbally. He did an excellent job and I was so happy to hear him explain things in detail. It turns out he used to volunteer in a physical therapy clinic back in the states and has a real interest in these topics. That is a some kind of a motivator!
I think with being in a military community it is important to remember where these kids are coming from and the motivation they are getting from home. The students were all discussing different things about their parents and one boy said that his mom was still in high school when she had him and never graduated. He said it as thought he wasn't proud, but it also wasn't the highest priority. In the schools they look for the people who will care about them in their life. My mentor teacher has some students who come up and try to hug her everyday. The students want the affection anywhere they can get it. Taking a more personal interest in the students might also help their motivation.
I am starting a new chapter this week and will be teaching the entire chapter. I wanted to give the students a type of pre-assessment before starting the chapter, and then before the test ask the exact same questions. Can I use this to show my learning? The chapter will be about three weeks so it should be completed by the time you visit.
Katie Standlea
This is Christina in Heidelberg. The dates are great Chris. The webcam will need to be set up by our tech guy, and he is super busy at the moment, but I will continue to remind him that Katrina and I need this done.
This past week I had the unfortunate experience of getting food poisoning while I was over here. I missed a day of school for the first time since I began school in the college of ed. I was in charge of teaching the entire day, and felt really guilty for leaving my teacher to teach my material. Luckily she and I have been discussing the majority of my lessons and my lesson plans were prepared enough, activity cards, overheads, questions, and all for her to teach without any questions. It was awesome to come back to school the following day, knowing that I hadnt lost a days worth of teaching. It just goes to show that however tedious and particular our lesson plans are, they help because at a moments notice, we may not be there to teach our lessons.
Going along with the lesson plans, during that same week, quite a few of my students were struggling with the earth science material that I have been covering. I decided to scratch the book lesson at the last minute and pulled out a unit that I had created back at school on Mt. St. Helens. Unfortunately, I did not clear this with my mentor teacher ahead of time and she was left in the dark about what I was teaching. The lesson ended up being amazing for my students and really helped them grasp some concepts that they were confused on. However, Yvonne was totally clueless about what I was doing. She was really kind about reminding me to inform her about changes ahead of time. She agreed that the lesson was necessary, but urged that I go about changing lessons in a more timely manner.
Lastly, Katrina and I have started our own weekly seminar with two other people from our base. We have been making some ground on questions that we have and its been a great way to express frustrations, accomplishments, and goals with one another. There have been points when I felt like I was hitting the wall with some students, but after discussing issues within our small seminar, I was able to get outside perspective on how to go about the issue in a new light. I am excited to see where our discussions will lead us.
This is Katrina Packer from Heidelburg. Those dates for observation are fine for me. It should be interesting timing because the students will have just finished their standardized testing the week prior.
I do have a couple of things that I would like to bring up for discussion. The first one has been affecting a lot of my lessons. I have been having a hard time keeping the students engaged. I have tried giving them manipulatives, chants together, repeating directions and having them write them down. But there are some students in my class that just tune out so completely that I have to do everything short of dancing on the table tops to get them to pay attention to a word I am saying. It is really frusterating. I've even tried warning the student a few moments in advence by saying, "I am about to call on you 'Timmy' so pay attention to what I'm about to say." And they still look at me blankly after I ask them a question. Ugh. Any suggestions would be great.
There is a lot going on in my classroom. My teacher has a lot of energy and has been teaching for awhile so he has a lot of extra things in place. Is it okay that I have control of all the curricular things (math, language, science, etc.), but he is still helping with some of the extras like a math day for the school, and a Rainforest Cafe for the parents. Is that okay? The classroom would still be an active learning environment without them. Being so new to full-time teaching, I don't think I can take them on along with getting the lessons taught. I think he also wants to keep them because he really enjoys doing them. What do you think?
Overall, I really enjoy the classroom. It is an active and creative classroom.
1. The dates for flying into Naples works well with the schedule at Naples High School.
2. Due to the fact so many of my students are gone at any given time I am really forced to follow the text (verbatim.) This really limits my creativity and I do not really like the textbook. I feel that the text is for an eight or ninth grade classroom. I could not imagine many of these students passing the 10th grade WASL to graduate.
The first issue that I have is that I am “chained” to a textbook that I do not like and my second is that I have to work from a textbook that only about 75% of my students bring to class. My second issue is that the low performing students do not bring there book to class (its heavy) of course they do not bring pens, pencils or paper either.
3. I will respond to another post
4. As for the web cams, I have not received the software from WSU. Heidi said it was sent out on 7th of January 2007 but I never received it. I am having problems getting mail from my mother as well, but mail has been delivered to me (so the address does work.) But as soon as the software does arrive, I will see that it goes through the proper channels. The computers in the school are leased to them by a third party commercial contractor. They have administrative control (located in Germany.) Although there is a faculty member at the school who interfaces with these people (i.e. to get me a password so that I could log onto the computer at school), he does not have the authority to install software. This means that as soon as I get the software, I can submit it to him and from there he can mail it to Germany (maybe they will install it or not.) I can not check my e-mail from the high school (gmail, hotmail, yahoo accounts etc, are blocked so I have to go to the Library on base to communicate with the outside world.) I have not heard if any of the other student teachers are having problems similar to mine in regards to the computer issue. I am used to being much more “connected” than this, I am not happy with the situation either.
Hey everyone,
I wrote this wonderfully long, detailed blog on Friday but didn't get a chance to post it before I left school. I promise I will first thing tomorrow. Life has been kinda difficult lately because I have been real sick. I have still been attending school but I can't talk very much (as I am constantly coughing and loosing my voice). I am going to try to go to the doctor here if it doesn't clear up soon. Anyways, I just wanted to give an update and I promise more classroom information tomorrow.
Sarah
Hi everybody,
I checked the dates with the special ed teacher that I will be working with. The middle school is on block days and the so the classes rotate everyday. The teacher said that the best time to see me was in the afternoons, but since I haven’t even started yet I am not sure how much teaching I will be doing and what my schedule will look like when you come, but I'm sure we'll be able to figure something out.
This past week was interesting and crazy to say the least. My teacher was out all week with a back injury, so we had subs in all week. I did all of the teaching with the exception of one hour that I spent across the hall observing another teacher. It was interesting to see how many the kids changed with the subs, even though I was there and teaching. They really act differently when their teacher is in the room.
The kids also had a hard time coming back to school after the three day weekend. This combined with having a sub made Tuesday a rough day for just about everybody. The kids were really not paying attention to me and the sub, even though she wasn’t teaching at all, felt very free to jump in and yell at the students. By the end of the day we were all ready to go home. Wednesday started off rough as well. The tension was high from the day before and we had the same sub, who I think put the kids on edge. I left the room around 8:30 and when I came back the kids were doing really well. I have a mom who comes in to volunteer about once a week, who used to be a teacher and she had jumped in while I was gone and had been giving out table points to the kids like crazy. I have started a system where the kids can earn points for their table, at the end of the day the table with the most points wins a certificate of good behavior; if the class all together earns 30 points then the kids get to go out for extra recess. This system really works! My kids have been so good for the past week that its sometimes hard to believe that they are the same group of chatter boxes that I was complaining about a couple of weeks ago. It’s really amazing!
Susan
Hello everyone,
First and foremost, I believe that the dates that you mentioned will work for your observation. I should be really, really comfortable teaching my classes by then since they will have had me in charge of them for several weeks. At least I hope, the kids have been going to a lot of extra events lately and we have testing in two weeks.
Though it was both good and bad, I got a jump start on teaching very early in this experience. My supervising teaching informed me that she would be out for a week having surgery in Feb., just two weeks after I had arrived here. She expected to leave me behind, with the sub of course, and let me run the class. I was scared and honestly, felt completely unprepared. But Mrs. Nehr really helped me get to know the students and get involved in the routine enough in the first few days that everything went smoothly while she was gone. That being said, I think that one of the biggest problems that I have had, personally, has been classroom management. The students haven’t been really problematic but I have found that I sometimes have a hard time keeping that stern teacher voice and personality that seems to be expected of me. I am feeling that I am doing a lot better; when it comes to my teacher voice and authoritative personality, but I am constantly have to evaluate how I am presenting myself. I am sure, the more that I teach, the more natural that voice and authority will feel.
As for my students, I have a wide variety of learners. There are some classes in which student motivation and achievement is really high and other where giving/collecting homework is like pulling teeth. I have several students with IEP plans, some for behavioral issues and some for different learning disabilities. I just keep trying to get these student motivated and involved with the lesson in any ways that I can. Which often time means constantly attempting to re-focus them on the work that they are doing.
As for webcams, I am sad to report that I don't think I will be using it here at the school. They are really strict about what can be put on these computers and having the students photographed.
PS: The last post was by me!
-Sarah
Christina, I know what you mean about coming up with something last minute. I think as a teacher, with our own classroom, it would be very beneficial to come up with a new lesson to help our students learn the information. At the same time I could see where your mentor would be confused. I am sure teachers change things last minute all of the time to reach their students.
My teacher has been teaching for twelve years, and there are times when I feel like she doesn't want me to try something that she used and it didn't work for her. Different tools will work for different teachers and also for different students. I was hoping to try things out for myself in my student teaching that would help me learn what works best for me and what I am most comfortable with.
Chris - are we supposed to keep posting new things and responding on this page? Can we have a webct threaded discussion to use? It seems like that has worked really well in my classes before and it might be really fitting for this type of thing.
I had a question to ask of everyone. My teacher had mentioned letting her students grade, and to be honest with the kids we have, I wouldn't trust them to grade papers in class. She sharply corrected me that they would not switch papers, but grade their own. She has already given a zero for someone changing their answers. It just seems like it is not the best solution. I, personally, would rather grade them myself or have our TA grade the papers. My mentor teacher said there was a lawsuit about students trading papers and grading other students papers. Has anyone else heard about this? Is it not allowed to do this anymore?
Katie Standlea
This last week has been really good in the classroom. I learned an important lesson about teaching. Rest is crucial. My teacher has been so supportive and he encouraged me to take a weekend away in Switzerland with some friends. When I came back on Monday, I was rejuvenated! I was more effective in my teaching and much more patience with the students. I couldn't believe it! I've seen how Europeans have A LOT more vacation time in their schedule and maybe there's something to it. While I'm not about to just take off from work and fly off on a moments notice; I am starting to give more thought to taking care of myself so I can take care of my students.
With this new-found energy, I've been enjoying the "meat" of teaching, also. We are really starting to dive into our unit on the rain forest. I have been full-time teaching for some weeks now and am finally beginning to feel like I know what I'm doing. Mostly, like I know what I'm doing.;) It has been really great to work through some of the "how to" questions like, "how do I give extra attention to the kids that don't get it without neglecting the class?" or "how can I take a topic like past tense verbs and make it interesting for the students?". It has certainly been challenging and I"m glad to finally be building some momentum as we start into this new unit.
Quick question, in what we need to do to show learning and a positive impact. When we are writing a reflection on the assessment, what is the assessment? On our impact on learning or on the quiz or test or something assessing the students?
Thanks!
Katie
Wow, so this has been a tough week so far. A student was killed in a fatal head on collision on his way to class in the morning. He was running late is the story, and when trying to pass a car an on coming car was coming up too soon and when he tried to get back over he was wedged between the two cars. It is unknown exactly how the other drivers/passengers are doing. They are donating his organs and today they are having his body for viewing for two hours with the chaplain at the hospital. My locker partner died my sophomore year of high school. I went to a high school with 1800 kids though. Here there are only 280. This was a senior student with a soccer scholarship to college next year! Most of the kids are taking it really hard and some of the faculty too. The second half of the day yesterday when everyone found out was pretty much just kids sobbing everywhere, and then chaplains came and prayed with the students in the cafeteria. Today first period half the students eyes looked red and puffy from crying so much. So my mentor teacher decided to make paper with the students. Half of the students didn't participate and it did put us back a day on our chapters material. I had a really fun activity planned so I was a little bummed. I got to do the activity with the next two periods, and the kids were more upbeat and things were going great. Then one of the office assistants came to give a letter to the students to give their parents about the student who passed, and she was crying, then a few students in class were crying. Anyone with advice on how to deal with this type of situation? I have never been in a leadership role when such a sad event like this has happened.
Katie
Wow Katie, that is horrible. I am so sorry for you and your students. I guess the best thing that you can do is continue to let them express their emotions. I mean, if they hold them in, they are just going to be worse, and ultimately it will delay the healing process. It's gonna take a while for them to adjust, especially in such a small school. But at the same time, I think that you could probably cotinue on with your lessons. Maybe just acknowledge that you know they are still hurting but explain, as nicely as possible, that you are going to help them try to focus on something new today. I hope something in there is helpful. So sorry Katie; I wish I could help more.
As for my week, I am in full control of my 7th grade English class here in England. We just started a new novel and are also about to begin a unit on 5 paragraph essays. Overall, the group is fairly well behaved. I have had to learn to be more of an authoritarian than I am use to. This group of students is use to a firm hand, so I have been trying to model myself after the teacher and follow her discipline style. Overall, I am really enjoying getting the opportunity to implement my own lessons. I am also working on beginning to find ways to show student growth and am excited to see if I can help my students (even the lowest achieving) students learn.
PS. That last blog was from me! Sorry for not signing it again guys.
Sarah
Wow, I am so sorry to hear about that. Was it one of your students? This subject has actually come up between my cooperating teacher and I and this is what I have learned: you are not their counselor, but you are a gentle guide. The first thing I would do is make sure you are on the same page as the counselor. I'm not sure if the principal has had a staff meeting about it, but I would talk with the counselor about programs or anything he/she has planned. How do they want to handle it? What are their policies, if any? Then I would allow the students to express what they are going through. Maybe some writing or creative projects. AFter that, help them to walk into and through the daily routines of school. I'm no counselor, but from friends that have lost people in their lives I've heard that the day-to-day routines were a comfort. At least those stayed the same. I hope this is helpful. Blessings as you walk through this difficult time.
Post a Comment
<< Home