Wiki Tatu (Week three)

            Monday we had off for Martin Luther King Day which led to an interesting Tuesday with the students. However before we even got them we had a conference with a particular parent who was extremely upset with the “lack of communication” between us and her. Her child has thrown away notes that have been sent home from us, he has thrown away notes from his mother to us, he throws away his check in check out sheets and then tells his mom that he has no homework. This student has been throwing away every attempt of communication between us and she started taking it out on Mrs. Z. and I at the conference. Mrs. Z. started telling her that we have never seen any notes and send home multiple things to him daily and it just wasn’t registering with her. The principal finally stepped in and said that she can’t come in and call his staff incompetent because her child is throwing things away and hiding things, and he did a really good job of diffusing the situation. After that it was better but she still had a really bad attitude and was very degrading towards us. We had a conference with her on Friday as well and that went a little better.

            Now that class has started the students were really riled up from their long weekend and we had some issues with talking and interrupting us but it was nothing that posed too big of a problem. I just said that I know it’s been a long weekend but we have to get back to work, we have a short week this week because conferences are Friday so a short week means three good days of work. That helped a lot and then they went and burned some energy off in gym and we had a great rest of the day. I started by giving them their morning work continuing with time because they are really having a hard time with it. Then after that Mrs. Z taught a lesson on geometry and I graded some papers. Lunch was eaten by all. After that they had music and I explained their social studies project, then took them to the computer lab and finished the civil war webquest which leads into their project.

            Mrs. Z. let me make their final assessment for their webquest which was nice for me. I’m having them write a newspaper article on a topic of their choosing from the civil war. They have to write about the who, what, when, where, why, and how. They have the weekend to write their rough draft and then after Mrs. Z. or I go over it with them they have until Friday to write the final draft on a formatted piece of paper and draw a picture on it in the designated box. I’ve have some kids ask if they can type it up or put it on a poster board, so I’m really excited to see the final product.

            Wednesday was a really good day. I handed out their morning work and then corrected it. I taught a math lesson on elapsed time that went really well. The last week I have been trying to help the kids with it because it was a subject that was introduced to them before I got there but they have been struggling with. I had only gotten 10-15 minute windows to try and explain to them better how to calculate it and it wasn’t working. So Wednesday I took their math time and I taught a full math lesson on calculating elapsed time. I was talking to another teacher and she said she had a great method on teaching elapsed time and I could look at it if I wanted and I loved it. It was simple and easy for the kids so I printed off copies for everyone. The next thing I did was make copies of a clock face that the kids could write on. I put both of them in a plastic sleeve cover that they could put in their binders. This way they can keep them nice and in a place they can find them, but more importantly they can write on them with dry erase markers. That way they can reuse the clocks and other method time and time again for practice without needing to print more and more. It worked great and the kids are finally grasping the concept on how to calculate elapsed time.

            Thursday was a great day. After the morning work was done I started a math center lesson as a review lesson of the last few math concepts they learned. My supervisor came and observed the lesson and said it went really well. I had the kids in one station working on money and making change so they could work with decimals. In another station I had them working on elapsed time with their clocks I had given them. In the last station I had them working on geometry and drawing shapes and other forms of geometry on a whiteboard. The kids were great and not only had fun but worked hard at the centers.

            Matthew has been so much better this week. He has been coming in with a better attitude, he hasn’t had to go see the social worker once this week. He has gotten almost all of his work done on time, it’s not exactly the best quality but at this point it’s a start. One thing I think has been helping is he had a good day and then because of that received a lot of positive reinforcement. I think that helped his self-confidence and resulted in him feeling a little better about coming to school. Then he started getting his work in on time and got some more positive reinforcement which encouraged him some more. IF this is the case, and that is a big if, then it really does reinforce my belief that positive reinforcement can go a long way with students. Or it could just be he got a week’s worth of good night sleep and wasn’t cranky. Whatever it is I’m happy he was in a better mood and started to see his performance improve but we will see what happens next week.  

Next week is also when I will officially be completely taking over everything in the classroom. :)

Classroom Confidential

            In chapter four Schmidt talks about culture in the classroom. She says that when students from different cultures walk in the door teachers have two options; “You can view the cultures and practices as assets.” Or “You can view some students as burdened with deficits – not proficient in English, underschooled, poor – and by extension, burdens to you, their teacher.” (pg. 69) We as teachers have to make the right decision between the two. Obviously the first one is the one that teachers should make which was something really good for me to read because it is a belief I have always had but never have seen it in writing. So to see it written down in this book was a really good confidence booster for me. She later talked about the best way to have students from different cultures capitalize on their education. The first step for great teachers is to master a dual-curriculum. They have to master all of the academic content; the reading, writing, and math. The second is what she calls the “stealth curriculum”, which is about conduct, language, gestures, taboo words, dress, and manners. All of those things are dictated by the white majority culture, which is the majority of teachers, Schmidt says 90%. We can’t assume that what is acceptable in our culture is acceptable in any other. Which I knew but again was good to read.

            In my classroom right now all of the students but three are from different cultures. So reading this chapter I felt like it was being spoken to me. I grew up in a Christian home, went to a Christian school through 8th grade and a high school with over 2,000 students, a handful of whom were not Caucasian. So growing up I never had a multicultural classroom, I had friends who were from other cultures, played basketball with people from all over the world, even played in different countries, on different continents, but never was in a class that was multicultural. I decided to get a black studies minor in order to deepen the understanding of African American culture but that’s only one culture. Reading this chapter in Schmidt I felt like it was written for me because of where I’m student teaching now and where I plan to teach in the future.

De dos Semana (Week two)

            This week has been a hectic one to say the least. Monday started pretty slow but by the end of the week I had all but taken over the class completely. We had two RTI meetings Friday, we have a conference next week Tuesday morning before school to accommodate a parent, and have had some colossal melt downs with students this week. Because of these things Mrs. Z. has been running all over the school talking to parents, our school social worker, our principal, and anything else under the Sun, leaving me to run the classroom. Because her class is still worksheet heavy all I had to do was pass them out, go over the instructions, and let them go to work while answering questions. I think she only taught two full lessons all week and other than that I taught all the mini lessons that accompanied the worksheets. The other thing that attributed to this was the fact that Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday we barely had the kids all day so for the majority of the week they weren’t being taught any new concepts in the homeroom class.

*NOTE – I changed the names of the students I’m talking about. I thought in this case I would use names of disciples…After the week we had it was good for me to refer to some students in a positive light. J

            Monday I graded papers all day trying to get the grades in before report cards are due. I gave them their morning work which again just entailed me handing out worksheets for them. All in all Monday was pretty slow.

            Tuesday started to turn the week around. I handed out their morning worksheet. I reviewed their homework with them. Only this time I used projector which is something they don't get a lot of. So as somewhat of an incentive for them to do their work quietly I had them come up and let them write on it because more often than not they just stay in their seats. We have a student who has diabetes and he read to the class about it because apparently they have asked him a lot of questions like the difference between the types of diabetes and things like that. So it was good for him to be able to read a book describing the differences in fourth grade terms. Tuesday they have gym, bathroom break, lunch, art, another bathroom break, and then back to the classroom. So we really only have them in class for about a half hour from 10:00 until about 1:30 so that takes a big chunk out of the day. Tuesday we reserved some computer lab time and I got to teach my webquest social studies lesson which went really well. During all the down time when students are all over the school I attended an RTI meeting between the teacher, social worker, and reading specialist. The biggest thing that happened in my opinion is we moved John’s desk right next to mine so that I could keep him on task. He is a student that never gets his work done, always looking around the room not doing what he’s supposed to, but is so smart that when he does turn in his work it’s almost always 100% correct. And he’s not defiant, it seems as if he just always spaces out, he asks questions about everything you could think of, and is always smiling. So it’s not a question of not wanting to do the work, just lack of focus.

            Wednesday morning was when things really started going haywire. First thing in the morning Matthew walked in and had a colossal melt down. He has some behavior problems that root from getting spoiled at home and he is used to controlling his house as a fourth grader. So he apparently had a bad night because of an alarm clock and was just defiant, refusing to do anything, refusing to talk to me or Mrs. Z., he wouldn’t even acknowledge us. Since this is a frequent behavior Mrs. Z. sent him to the social worker and he was out of the room for probably an hour. I went through the morning work and John got it all done on time and everything was right. This was the first sign that the move for him was working. After morning work I corrected their homework with them. Then I taught a mini lesson on fact and opinion and while they were doing their worksheet I graded some papers. Again they were out of the classroom most of the day so there was really only about two hours I wasn’t in charge.

            Mornings are all the same so after morning work on Thursday I taught a sequencing mini-lesson. Mrs. Z. was in and out of the class all day again dealing with a different student. Luke is a student who just wants to rush through everything and get it done fast. He also has some behavior problems and this is what we dealt with. His mother apparently sent a note to Mrs. Z. Monday asking to call her so they could talk about conferences and RTI plans. Mrs. Z. never got a letter so when she sent home a conference note with Luke for next week Friday Luke’s mother was really upset and went over Mrs. Z.’s head straight to the principal. It turns out Luke threw away the note and never gave it to Mrs. Z. So we practically turned his desk upside down and found missing work he was supposed to turn in, re-do assignments we were missing, his homework sheet he is supposed to show his mother every night. He has been getting his check out sheet signed, ripping it out of his folder and shoving it in the back of his desk, then telling his mom he has no homework. So Mrs. Z spent the whole day on the phone with his mother, talking to the principal, and talking to the social worker because this is not the first time he has interfered with communication between home and school which is a serious problem. So with all of that I was left in charge of the class again for the whole day.

            Friday we started the morning with me making their morning work because they can’t grasp a concept. So I was hammering home what they needed. It was also too short of a time that they couldn’t do a whole worksheet so I gave them a few problems that they could do in that time and I could go over with them to check understanding. We have been studying civil rights and we brought them up to a class to watch a movie about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with two other classes. They then had an assembly because the teachers had a collaboration meeting about Charlotte Danielson’s Enhancing Professional Practice. After that was lunch, then library, then another assembly. So when we totaled it up we only had the kids for an hour all day. During the second assembly we had a meeting with one of the parents about her son’s RTI, the progress he’s made, and where to go from here. We were supposed to have another one but the parent canceled so Mrs. Z, the social worker, the reading specialist, and I held the meeting just the four of us and talked about what steps to take for him anyways. From here we just have to get the mother’s consent which is going to be a chore. John has gotten all his work done over the past three days on time and above 95%. He has told both me and Mrs. Z. that with his new seat he gets his work done, so that might be one of the most rewarding things for me all year.

            In the week ahead there are a few things I hope to learn. It’s only a three day week because of Martin Luther King Day and we have conferences on Friday. In those three days I’m excited to see how John does with his work, if he continues to do it all diligently or if we need to try something else. I’m looking forward to the conference with Luke’s mom and trying to get everything straightened out and how to best move forward. I still haven’t quite figured out how to handle Matthew other than just sending him to the social worker. There has to be something I can do to snap him into a good mood. Whether it’s just five minutes of quiet in the hall, a simple calming talk, something has to work that’s less extreme than sending him off immediately.

            One thing I hope is that when I start teaching more the practices Trinity has prepared me with are accepted by my teacher. She likes these worksheets and I just hope she’s open to trying alternative teaching methods. She has liked some of the ideas I’ve thrown out there so far but when I actually implement them I hope they are received well.

Classroom Confidential

            Eptness is the combination of all the students’ capacities and the teacher’s ability to unlock them and use them through meaningful activities. The successful teacher is one who gets all the students to perform at the best of their abilities. All of the things Schmidt talks about is all fine and dandy, but if the students don’t feel safe in the classroom environment then as she says, it falls on deaf ears. Classroom safety is something I’m very concerned with; I know that if students aren’t comfortable in the class then the whole learning process for them is hindered. As teachers our first job is to make sure the students feel safe in our class and after that everything is possible, but if they don’t not only will eptness not be effective, nothing will.

            Schmidt then talks about ten behaviors that promote eptness. One behavior I plan on using all throughout the year that has always come easy to me is encouragement. Encouragement is something that is easier than most people think. There are always some students in your class that a teacher has labeled as the “problem child” and are often difficult with the teacher academically, behaviorally, or both. Those are the kids who don’t often get a lot of encouragement because they are too busy getting criticized or getting their behavior corrected. I know in my class right now I have a few students who are indeed those types of students. However those are the ones in particular you need to encourage and sometimes encouragement can go a long ways with them. That is the reason why encouragement is one thing I plan to use most often in my classroom.

            Another behavior I like that Schmidt talks about is when a teacher does nothing for a student that a student can’t do themselves. I really like this because it gives more power to the students and can also give them a further form of encouragement. Schmidt talks about two first graders who went and talked out a problem with their assistant principal. He had made an announcement on the PA they disagreed with and so they went down and talked about it with him and all the teacher had to do was sign their hall pass. This also makes students more resourceful. If you hold their hand every step of the way then how are they going to know how to do things on their own? This is something the kids in my class struggle with. They never want to read the instructions they want me to spoon feed them how to do everything when they are more than capable of figuring it out on their own. So something I’ve been working on is every time they have a worksheet to do I make them read the instructions out loud before they start. This is a small step but I’ve gone from telling them what to do, to telling them to read the instructions and then they understand the instructions on their own. Kids are more than capable of so many things we don’t give them credit for and when you allow them to do things on their own it can give them a sense of accomplishment and encouragement.

            Breaking their bad habits goes into my third habit Schmidt talks about that I plan on using, and that is challenging old habits. She talks about a spelling test that was the routine cut and dry say the word, say it in a sentence, repeat the word. Only she realized that there was no point in doing this because most of the students knew the words by Tuesday and were just waiting for her to say them in order. So what she did was give them five minutes to write down as many as they remembered and then read the list and they could write down the ones they were missing. Nothing was lost but it was something different. I believe fourth and fifth grade are ages where they have to start breaking old habits and getting ready for middle school and that is one thing I have already started doing like with the instructions. There are a lot of things that are going to change for them and it is good to start preparing them for those things. Breaking old habits like reading them instructions, giving them little to no homework, and letting them re-do anything less than 70% are all things my teacher has been doing which won’t be an option to them in the very near future. That is why I’m going to start trying to either break those habits for them, or at least get them used to them not always being an option. It prepares them for next year in fifth grade where I know the teachers don’t give them that luxury and the rest of their life when things do indeed get harder. Because isn’t that our ultimate goal after all? That our students not only do well on ridiculous standardized tests, but ultimately to be prepared for life.

Week One

            My first week of student teaching was a great experience which I hope continues throughout the semester. This week was more of a get to know you week. I got to know my teacher, the principal, the staff, and most importantly the kids. My first day I walked in and had what was basically a question and answer session where the kids grilled me for about 20 minutes. I spent a lot of time grading papers because the quarter ended on Friday so grades have to be in within a week and my cooperating teacher said she wanted me to have something to do. This was a really good thing for me because it gave me the opportunity to sit back and observe the class and the behavior of the students while looking at multiple examples of each student’s work to get a handle on their quality of work. My cooperating teacher showed me around the school and introduced me to most of the faculty. She spent a lot of time this week with me going over classroom procedures, students’ medical requirements, students’ IEP’s, behavioral management, all of the basics I am going to need to know for the semester ahead. She made sure to let the students know that since we are both going to be in there for the rest of the semester that it is a great opportunity for the students to get extra help. Whenever a student would go up to her to ask a question when there was someone else talking to her she would send that student over to me in order to get them in the habit of asking us both questions. The students responded well to me. It is truly a great class with a good group of kids and they are very respectful and open to seeing me as a teacher and not an aid. They ask really good questions and have conversations well beyond a fourth grade level. One thing I thought was effectively done in her class was the belief that as long as a student is not disrupting anybody they are free to work how they want. For instance one student works better on the floor and since it doesn’t disturb the other students she lets him. The same thing with two other students who work better standing up, again since it doesn’t bother other students she lets them.

            My teacher is the kind of teacher who likes to use a lot of worksheets. I feel like when I start teaching and taking over it is going to take them a little bit to get used to different techniques and strategies. However once they get used to a different lesson format they are going to take to it and respond well. On the other hand any time you see something that works but isn’t what you do you wonder if there’s any point of “fixing what isn’t broken”. These kids are in a gifted class and are well above their level so if what my cooperating teacher is doing works, then why change it? I believe that Trinity has prepared us with a plethora of great teaching strategies that are effective and I plan on using them.

            There are so many things I hope to learn in the upcoming weeks. However I should focus on one week at a time because this is a learning process. I'm not going to learn everything in one week. Next week I hope to learn more about how the class works as a whole. I have seen them work a lot individually but haven’t seen them in a light outside of their homework and assignments. Everything else I learn is just a bonus.

Classroom Confidential

            In Laurel Schmidt’s book Classroom Confidential, she talks about how Gardner’s multiple intelligences have been around and in place long before Gardner came out with his theory. She says that good effective teachers have been creating “brain friendly” classrooms, attuning to all of the intelligences. Those intelligences include verbal/linguistic intelligence (word smart), visual and spatial intelligence (picture smart), musical intelligence (music smart), Kinesthetic intelligence (body smart), logical/mathematical intelligence (logic smart), naturalistic intelligence (nature smart), existential intelligence (life smart), interpersonal intelligence (people smart), and intrapersonal intelligence (self smart). Word smart kids are the kids who spend their time in the library, or raise their hands whenever the teacher asks a question. These students are often the ones to get ahead early in school. Students who are picture smart are the students who have very high spatial intelligence, or as Schmidt says, they have “eyes on steroids” (pg 5). Music smart kids are the students who are sensitive not only to the musical aspect of music, but the emotional representations as well. They are also the students who are constantly tapping, humming, or even singing in class, while some teachers see this as an annoying habit, it could just be their way of thinking. Logic smart is the other intelligence that is often seen as “smart” because the student enjoys mental math, estimating, calculating, measuring, or indulging in their own investigations. Nature smart are the students who would make the best classroom pet monitors ever. They are the students who would be first to launch a campaign to save the tigers, they love science and relish the opportunity to read about any scientific topic. Life smart students are the students who are fascinated with what happens after you die. They ask question about life, death, the afterlife, ghosts, and spirits. People smart are the interpersonal students, students who are always helping, commenting, or mediating other students. Although some teachers may see them as busybodies that is just how they are wired. Students who are self smart are the ones who have a high intrapersonal intelligence. Sensitive to their own emotions they can work well individually or in a group because they dent to be confident and self-disciplined.

            This semester it is my goal to use all of those intelligences. Each student is different and that is what makes this world so beautiful. This class in particular has so many different types of learners I think I can utilize all of the intelligences to the classes advantages. One way I plan on doing this is through a lot of group work, that way I can have students who have different intelligences working together to utilize the most of each other and through that create amazing work. There are also some students who are motivated by different activities. For instance if one student does all of his work on time he gets to move around or go get a drink. If I can incorporate the kinesthetic learning into the curriculum then instead of as a reward then I can get him to be motivated to learn by learning. That motivation technique can be used with any intelligence if applied correctly and that is what I plan on doing.

            The full brain classroom is another concept that Schmidt talks about. The full brain classroom is one in which the teacher accesses all of those intelligences through multiple different strategies that are both intriguing and challenging for the students. In my opinion this is something that good teachers should be doing in the first place. Some ways I plan on doing this are the group activities like I mentioned earlier and big idea projects that include multiple different aspects and intelligences. That way I can tap into multiple intelligences, challenge students, intrigue them, make them interested, and have them collaborate. Through those ways I can hopefully create the most effective classroom environment possible and have the students get he most out of their learning experience.