People get stressed out about things. Sounds obvious, but I've had several examples for me of people stressing, and affecting their choices and behaviors. One person is faced with a situation that seems to me like she is being asked to do something she knows how to do, but asked to do it a different way. A stressful and frustrating situation, no doubt. However, she has chosen (in the instance to which I was witness) to deal with the stress by taking a superior and exasperated attitude and tone of voice, and demanding answers to her questions, in specifics immediately. No doubt she deserves answers, and is justly frustrated. But it seemed like the way that she went about attempting to get those answers was counter productive to the specific situations, as well as putting the person she was asking on the spot, and in what could potentially have been an uncomfortable situation.
In a similar vein, but a different situation, I know that my Co-op teacher has been under a lot of stress in her personal life, things I won't go into. I have noticed they she seems to allow this to affect the way in which she interacts with students. Now I'm sure this is unavoidable in some situations, and obviously no one can completely control themselves, nor is anyone perfect. But things that she might tolerate under ordinary circumstances she reacts more strictly to. Students whose jokes and clowning she might laugh at, not get them a trip outside the door for a minute to calm down. Let me clarify, that I don't think she is over reacting to any of these off task behaviors, on the contrary, I think it is good that she is beginning to disallow some of the messing around. But, she is making a change in the way she deals with things, which might be difficult for students to adjust to. I imagine it is very difficult to avoid doing this sort of thing to a certain extent, so we will see how I do at this next month. I already know that there is one student in particular who annoys me so much I have no paitence for off task behavior from her, that I might tolerate in another student, and i have to work very hard to combat that, and not allow it to show.
The moral of the story is to find healthy ways to deal with frustration, or to not let things get to you at all. I'm trying, but I can always use more practice.
I ran into one other big challenge this week, as I was preparing to start my unit. This one has to do with teaching cooperatively with partner teachers, etc. But first a little bit of background. We have heterogeneous math classes, meaning there is no high and low class, it's a mix of all levels. However, we are still expected to differentiate for a multitude of student levels and abilities. In order to do that, one strategy that my school is implying is some splitting of the classes. So I will have half of my kids, and half of Mr. Smith's kids for a period of time, and then we will divide again, differently, or go back to the original classes. I'm not entirely sure how the whole thing will work, I'm just doing what they say, since I don't really have any clout in the matter. One of the biggest challenges of doing this though, is the two classes must absolutely stay 100% together, and must be consistent with what they teach. When you have one teacher for a whole year, it's ok to do something a little non-traditionally, or quirky, if it's what that teacher expects. But switching back and forth every few weeks, we have to have consistency. Now here comes the issue. When I learned to perform operations on fractions, we wrote the problem out horizontally, all on one line. We then did computations below and around the original problem. The way they do fractions at Briggs, is straight up and down, with the fractions stacked, you do the work only to the right of the problem. I've never seen this before. In fact, I wouldn't know about it now except I asked Mr. Smith to look over the pre-test I wrote up (since his students would take the same test too) and he told me to change some of them to that direction. I have found that it's been really tough for me to simply change the direction that I write equations. It makes sense, I understand it (though I like my way better), but I am going to have to be keeping myself in check for the next few weeks as I write equations out, that I am consistent with what the students have already learned, and will continue to learn after my unit is done.
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Backing Up
There are two things in my notes, that I have failed to blog about. As follows:
September 30th
I observed Laura Scruggs. She was the first person at Briggs I found I really liked (she is the one who complemented my hair!). She teaches 7th grade Social Studies and Language Arts, she is the teacher we worked with for our time line, and is Melissa's cooperating teacher. She is ex-military, and Denis, our VP insisted that all of us make a point of ovserving her.
Apparantly I observed her on a good day, the students were more well behaved then usual. The group in her morning class are particularly challanging. I hear there are several IEP kids, as well as other behavior issues. The afternoon group for her is the 'Algebra class', and so there is a smaller percentage of high flying kids in her morning class as well.
The day I observed they were presenting interviews they had done with a student and were imitating that student in an effort to get the class to guess who they had interviewed. The biggest thing I notcied at first is how different this class was then my own. Part of it is that perhaps this class is just more difficult in general, there is the 7th grade Algebra class during this time period, so none of the 'high fliers' are in the class at all. On the other hand, I have heard from many people that seventh grade is the hardest, and that they are the meanest.
The activity that they were doing was presenting an interview that they had done of another student. They spoke as if they were the interviewee, and then the rest of the class had to guess who it was. In addition to the verbal information, many students also did a physical imitation of their persion. The class thought the whole thing was pretty funny and were fully of snickers and giggles. They laughed at the reason that people recieved the name that they did, and at the hobbies people put down and in general were not respectful. Mrs. Scruggs was frequently having to remind them; "Attention to the front, please".
It seems like the seventh graders are a lot more self conscious then the sixth graders. They are more nervous about presenting, and seem more afraid that what they do won't be ok. Less of a willingness to try.
When things started to get out of hand, and the kids couldn't focus at all, Mrs. Scruggs told them to stop, and take a break, but not leave the room. I thought this was a good idea. It gives kids the opportunity to stretch their legs and get some f the antseyness out without spreading the kids out and loosing track of them. When the break was over, she ws easily able to countdown from ten, and the students went back to their seats. During the break I noticed that the class immediatly split into the girls and boys sides of the room.
Later on during the interview process Mrs. Scruggs interrupted the class and very pointedly said "Some of you are being rude". This seems like the sort of tactic I would try and employ, although I'm not convinced that it was an effective one...
Soon after that they changed activities. Mrs. Scruggs had them pull out their spirals. She had a set up for the spirals that I hadn't seen before. They had a table of contents, and had numbered their pages, so there was a limited amount of space for each entry. But, they also knew exactly where to look in order to find their notes on a certain subject.
Today they were doing an activity called 'Hit the Bridge'. Using bridge words, or conjunctions. She had the acronym (fons BAY) to stand for the words, the capitals being the most commonly used. The then spent some time writting compund sentances and using examples of all of the different conjunctions.
In the middle of the explanation her overhead projector broke. She very smoothly moved to using the white board instead.
In order to integrate this lesson with the social studies she had been doing she had them use topics from the timeline that they had been making.
The lesson was effective and efficient, if not perhaps the most enojoyable for the students. And she maintained control of her classroom at all times.
September 30th
I observed Laura Scruggs. She was the first person at Briggs I found I really liked (she is the one who complemented my hair!). She teaches 7th grade Social Studies and Language Arts, she is the teacher we worked with for our time line, and is Melissa's cooperating teacher. She is ex-military, and Denis, our VP insisted that all of us make a point of ovserving her.
Apparantly I observed her on a good day, the students were more well behaved then usual. The group in her morning class are particularly challanging. I hear there are several IEP kids, as well as other behavior issues. The afternoon group for her is the 'Algebra class', and so there is a smaller percentage of high flying kids in her morning class as well.
The day I observed they were presenting interviews they had done with a student and were imitating that student in an effort to get the class to guess who they had interviewed. The biggest thing I notcied at first is how different this class was then my own. Part of it is that perhaps this class is just more difficult in general, there is the 7th grade Algebra class during this time period, so none of the 'high fliers' are in the class at all. On the other hand, I have heard from many people that seventh grade is the hardest, and that they are the meanest.
The activity that they were doing was presenting an interview that they had done of another student. They spoke as if they were the interviewee, and then the rest of the class had to guess who it was. In addition to the verbal information, many students also did a physical imitation of their persion. The class thought the whole thing was pretty funny and were fully of snickers and giggles. They laughed at the reason that people recieved the name that they did, and at the hobbies people put down and in general were not respectful. Mrs. Scruggs was frequently having to remind them; "Attention to the front, please".
It seems like the seventh graders are a lot more self conscious then the sixth graders. They are more nervous about presenting, and seem more afraid that what they do won't be ok. Less of a willingness to try.
When things started to get out of hand, and the kids couldn't focus at all, Mrs. Scruggs told them to stop, and take a break, but not leave the room. I thought this was a good idea. It gives kids the opportunity to stretch their legs and get some f the antseyness out without spreading the kids out and loosing track of them. When the break was over, she ws easily able to countdown from ten, and the students went back to their seats. During the break I noticed that the class immediatly split into the girls and boys sides of the room.
Later on during the interview process Mrs. Scruggs interrupted the class and very pointedly said "Some of you are being rude". This seems like the sort of tactic I would try and employ, although I'm not convinced that it was an effective one...
Soon after that they changed activities. Mrs. Scruggs had them pull out their spirals. She had a set up for the spirals that I hadn't seen before. They had a table of contents, and had numbered their pages, so there was a limited amount of space for each entry. But, they also knew exactly where to look in order to find their notes on a certain subject.
Today they were doing an activity called 'Hit the Bridge'. Using bridge words, or conjunctions. She had the acronym (fons BAY) to stand for the words, the capitals being the most commonly used. The then spent some time writting compund sentances and using examples of all of the different conjunctions.
In the middle of the explanation her overhead projector broke. She very smoothly moved to using the white board instead.
In order to integrate this lesson with the social studies she had been doing she had them use topics from the timeline that they had been making.
The lesson was effective and efficient, if not perhaps the most enojoyable for the students. And she maintained control of her classroom at all times.
Word Processing; likes and dislikes
Unti planning is chugging along. I wrote my pre-test yesterday. I ran into a problem that I'm sure plagues math teachers everywhere. How DO you write equations in Microsoft Word? Are there special math word processing programs that you can use in order to write these things? Now I know why my tests in calculus were always hand written by my teacher. Fortunately I have decent handwritting, so in the future I might choose to take that route. For the time being however, and the perception of proffessionalism I will continue to try and type them. The pretest required nothing more complicated then fractions and division signs. But I could not figure out any way to make the fractions be vertically aligned rather then on a diagonal from one another. Which is no big deal in every days use, but when you are teaching students the algorithms for multiplying and dviiding fractions (or even adding and subtraction) having a clear sense of top and bottom is key.
I am starting to get a clear list of things that I do and don't want in my classroom. I love the expectations from teh begining. Having the students help compile them. I even sort of like the 'give me five' thing, although I don't prefer it to just generally respecting one another. It's better then shouting. I like the use of comedy and humor that Mrs. Keener uses, she is goofy and silly and makes things fun.
Things I don't like so much, or would do differently: As I've mentioned before, if I ask for questions from students, they will not be allowed to make comments. They should know the difference between questions and comments by now. I also have noticed that sometimes Mrs. Keener makes a big deal out of things that would be less important to me. For instance she criticized one student for having doodles on her homework, or for putting the homework problems in rows instead of in collumns. Another thing that hs be driving me nuts is that there is no generic place where the keys to homework sheets we've done go. I assume this is because Mrs. Keener has been working with the same materials for many years, and she knows where she keeps them. However, when I am dong something like grading late work, and she has already put the key back, I have no idea whre to find it. I think a good play would be to have a binder where all of the keys for the worksheets done each term were kept. They would only be replaced to their fiile after that assignment was no longer going to be accepted as late. Be that the end of the week, the month or the term. I also think that in addition to graded work, I would choose to give students some sort of participation points for being present. Mrs. Keener sort of does this with the warm-up. Students get credit for simply having done the warm up, I like that, and would choose to do somethign similar. But students who are absent do not get marked down on the warm up. With participation points, it would reward those student who were in class every day, even if they didn't necessarily do well on their homework or tests. I have had classes that do this both in Middle/High school and in college and I think it is an effective way to help level the playing field as far as grades are concerned.
I am also not a huge fan of the way that the late policy works here at Briggs. It is something that has been agreed upon by all the sixth grade teachers. Management is the biggest issue with late work. How do you know when a student turned something in? I would perhaps get one of those old-school date stamps like libraries used to have, and when a student turns in some work, they would have to get it stamped, or they would recieve no credit. One day late would be one grade off, two days would be two grades, etc. Depending on the age, late work would either stop being accepted after a week or so (except in special circumstances, this policy would be for older students) or would recieve a maximum of half credit if it is later then a given date, but still be accepted (for 6th and maybe 7th graders, as the continue to try and make that transition from elementary to middle school). This isn't a perfect policy, I would have to do some polishing. If I were in a position to be teaching Pre-Calc or Calc, I don't think I would accept late work at all, except in the case of absence. But then again. I also don't like grading homework. I don't know if this would be functional with Middle School age students, unless it was perhaps with the advanced group, but I would like to assign homework questions, but not have them be turned in or required. That way students did homework if they needed to. The day homework was 'due' the students would have opportunity to ask questions, and then we would move on. Grades would be based upon participation points, tests, quizes, and projects. This was the way my favorite math classes have always functioned.
Between my Behavior Management class and the student teaching, I feel like I am starting to come up with a coherent personal policy/philosophy, which I suppose is the point.
I am starting to get a clear list of things that I do and don't want in my classroom. I love the expectations from teh begining. Having the students help compile them. I even sort of like the 'give me five' thing, although I don't prefer it to just generally respecting one another. It's better then shouting. I like the use of comedy and humor that Mrs. Keener uses, she is goofy and silly and makes things fun.
Things I don't like so much, or would do differently: As I've mentioned before, if I ask for questions from students, they will not be allowed to make comments. They should know the difference between questions and comments by now. I also have noticed that sometimes Mrs. Keener makes a big deal out of things that would be less important to me. For instance she criticized one student for having doodles on her homework, or for putting the homework problems in rows instead of in collumns. Another thing that hs be driving me nuts is that there is no generic place where the keys to homework sheets we've done go. I assume this is because Mrs. Keener has been working with the same materials for many years, and she knows where she keeps them. However, when I am dong something like grading late work, and she has already put the key back, I have no idea whre to find it. I think a good play would be to have a binder where all of the keys for the worksheets done each term were kept. They would only be replaced to their fiile after that assignment was no longer going to be accepted as late. Be that the end of the week, the month or the term. I also think that in addition to graded work, I would choose to give students some sort of participation points for being present. Mrs. Keener sort of does this with the warm-up. Students get credit for simply having done the warm up, I like that, and would choose to do somethign similar. But students who are absent do not get marked down on the warm up. With participation points, it would reward those student who were in class every day, even if they didn't necessarily do well on their homework or tests. I have had classes that do this both in Middle/High school and in college and I think it is an effective way to help level the playing field as far as grades are concerned.
I am also not a huge fan of the way that the late policy works here at Briggs. It is something that has been agreed upon by all the sixth grade teachers. Management is the biggest issue with late work. How do you know when a student turned something in? I would perhaps get one of those old-school date stamps like libraries used to have, and when a student turns in some work, they would have to get it stamped, or they would recieve no credit. One day late would be one grade off, two days would be two grades, etc. Depending on the age, late work would either stop being accepted after a week or so (except in special circumstances, this policy would be for older students) or would recieve a maximum of half credit if it is later then a given date, but still be accepted (for 6th and maybe 7th graders, as the continue to try and make that transition from elementary to middle school). This isn't a perfect policy, I would have to do some polishing. If I were in a position to be teaching Pre-Calc or Calc, I don't think I would accept late work at all, except in the case of absence. But then again. I also don't like grading homework. I don't know if this would be functional with Middle School age students, unless it was perhaps with the advanced group, but I would like to assign homework questions, but not have them be turned in or required. That way students did homework if they needed to. The day homework was 'due' the students would have opportunity to ask questions, and then we would move on. Grades would be based upon participation points, tests, quizes, and projects. This was the way my favorite math classes have always functioned.
Between my Behavior Management class and the student teaching, I feel like I am starting to come up with a coherent personal policy/philosophy, which I suppose is the point.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
Meetings and the Commencement of my unit planning!
I am having a difficult time readjusting to a busy life in which many things are badgering for my attention. Currently my personal life, and my practicum are where I am most inclined to spend time and energy, and I'm finding it difficult to give focus to my class work, despite the fact that the class work is what had eminent deadlines. Along that strain, I left my notebook with my observation notes at school, which is making it a bit of a challenge to write a thoroughly thought through reflection for the week.
One thing that is fresh in my mind is the (two actually) meetings I had on Friday. I normally don't come into school on Fridays, and had come specially for a meeting about the new curriculum that I will be teaching from. It also so happens that there was an intervention type meeting for a student in my class who has been having trouble. I sat in on that and found it enlightening to say the least. I know that I personally find that I am most dreading ( about teaching) the interaction with parents. I'm afraid I won't gracefully put up with parents who think their children are God's gift to the entire world (not just them.) Or the parents who expect me, as a teacher of a class of thirty, to change my entire teaching style/structure/whatever in order to suit their student. However, the parents of this particular kid were great. Without getting angry or placing blame on the student, they acknowledged that he had issues and challanges. They made a point of saying that they didn't expect teachers to change the way they taught, but were seeing help from the school to make the transition from elementary school to high school a bit easier on their child. The meeting was really positive, there was praise for the student as well as discussion of his problems, and after discussion from/with all of his teachers, the counselor helped to create a specific plan for how improvement could be made. I was surprised (though I suppose I shouldn't be) how much behind the scenes decision making there can be. For instance this student has some interpersonal issues in some classes, but not in others. So he is creating a list of those students he wants to sit by, and can work well with, and those students he really doesn't want to sit near, so that the teachers can arrange him in a group situation in which he can be successful. I would never have thought of straight up asking the student who he wanted to sit with. That seems so... unfair. But if this student is able to work positively in that group, then that will allow the other students to work without the disruption he was previously causing.
After that meeting, we had out curriculum meeting and I got my first taste of the headache that teachers have to go through to match their curriculum up. We have a new set of 'focal points' that we have to hit, in a certain order. And a district mandated schedule for how long should be spent on each focal point, and what your advanced and lower group should be doing, and when you should be working with both groups together etc. It was such a headache. Not only that, but the text book we are using doesn't match up with the state standards. Things are grouped differently, there are sub-chapters on things we don't need to cover. It was mind-boggling, and I can't say enough how grateful I am to have these two veteran teacher to work with on writing my unit plan. I especially appreciate how both of these teachers (Mrs. Keener, and Mr. Smith) treat me as a peer, a peer with less experience, but they don't talk down to me, or try and cut me out of things. They go out of their way to include me in all relevant conversations so that I get a true experience.We have a real pedagogical challenge in that our classes are heterogeneous, but we are expected to teach differentiated lessons to the high and low students. So there will be student swapping and team teaching, it will be really important that we stay at the same speed as we move through the chapters. Part of the focal point plan is that each subject is learned to mastery, so I am going to have to be creative to find ways to continue to work on multiplying and dividing fractions without boring the students (or myself!) After an hour or so, and a long phone call to the principal, we started to get things hammered out. I now know that I will be teaching a unit on converting between fractions and decimals, and then multiplying and dividing decimals. I will start my unit on Monday October 27th, and we plan for it to be four weeks long.
One thing that is fresh in my mind is the (two actually) meetings I had on Friday. I normally don't come into school on Fridays, and had come specially for a meeting about the new curriculum that I will be teaching from. It also so happens that there was an intervention type meeting for a student in my class who has been having trouble. I sat in on that and found it enlightening to say the least. I know that I personally find that I am most dreading ( about teaching) the interaction with parents. I'm afraid I won't gracefully put up with parents who think their children are God's gift to the entire world (not just them.) Or the parents who expect me, as a teacher of a class of thirty, to change my entire teaching style/structure/whatever in order to suit their student. However, the parents of this particular kid were great. Without getting angry or placing blame on the student, they acknowledged that he had issues and challanges. They made a point of saying that they didn't expect teachers to change the way they taught, but were seeing help from the school to make the transition from elementary school to high school a bit easier on their child. The meeting was really positive, there was praise for the student as well as discussion of his problems, and after discussion from/with all of his teachers, the counselor helped to create a specific plan for how improvement could be made. I was surprised (though I suppose I shouldn't be) how much behind the scenes decision making there can be. For instance this student has some interpersonal issues in some classes, but not in others. So he is creating a list of those students he wants to sit by, and can work well with, and those students he really doesn't want to sit near, so that the teachers can arrange him in a group situation in which he can be successful. I would never have thought of straight up asking the student who he wanted to sit with. That seems so... unfair. But if this student is able to work positively in that group, then that will allow the other students to work without the disruption he was previously causing.
After that meeting, we had out curriculum meeting and I got my first taste of the headache that teachers have to go through to match their curriculum up. We have a new set of 'focal points' that we have to hit, in a certain order. And a district mandated schedule for how long should be spent on each focal point, and what your advanced and lower group should be doing, and when you should be working with both groups together etc. It was such a headache. Not only that, but the text book we are using doesn't match up with the state standards. Things are grouped differently, there are sub-chapters on things we don't need to cover. It was mind-boggling, and I can't say enough how grateful I am to have these two veteran teacher to work with on writing my unit plan. I especially appreciate how both of these teachers (Mrs. Keener, and Mr. Smith) treat me as a peer, a peer with less experience, but they don't talk down to me, or try and cut me out of things. They go out of their way to include me in all relevant conversations so that I get a true experience.We have a real pedagogical challenge in that our classes are heterogeneous, but we are expected to teach differentiated lessons to the high and low students. So there will be student swapping and team teaching, it will be really important that we stay at the same speed as we move through the chapters. Part of the focal point plan is that each subject is learned to mastery, so I am going to have to be creative to find ways to continue to work on multiplying and dividing fractions without boring the students (or myself!) After an hour or so, and a long phone call to the principal, we started to get things hammered out. I now know that I will be teaching a unit on converting between fractions and decimals, and then multiplying and dividing decimals. I will start my unit on Monday October 27th, and we plan for it to be four weeks long.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Curriculum
I've finally gotten the book that I will be teaching out of. It is called Math Connects, by Glencoe. We are piloting the curriculum so this is a 2009 book, and the curriculum hasn't been used before. There is so much material included with the kit. In addition to the central text book and teacher editions of said text book there are two levels of horozontally alligned books designed to fulfil the needs of students who are below level in their achievement and to suppliment the regular book with investigative lessons and activities. In addition to the three sets of books, there are four cds that have software and documents on them. Each section of the book (eg. 3-4) has 6 different work sheets that are on the cds. These can be printed out and used as homework, extra credit or however you want to. They are differentated so that some worksheets are suited for below average students, some for special needs, some for English Language Learners (ELL) and some for students who are above average. A few of the worksheets are even available in Spanish. It's a great opportunity for differentiation for homework to. Some of the 6th grade teachers have expessed concern over the fact that their classes are heterogeneus as far as math levels are concerned. Without a lot of extra effort we can catagorize students based on pre-assesment and assign different homework for different students so that the advanced students are still challanged, but the struggling students still can get the extra help.
The one big drawback that I've noticed with this curriculum so far is that hte book is not arranged the same way that the Oregon State Standards are (the now core points). In the state standards, fractions and decimals are ordered based on operation. As part of standard 6.0, the students should learn to add and subtract both fractions and decimals. Then during 6.1 they learn to multiply and divide both fractions and decimals. The books organized by catagory. One chapter on performing operations on decimals, followed by a chapter on converting between fractions and decimals, and then there is a chapter on perfoming operations on fractions. While this drawback creates a little more work for techers, and means that teachers must coordinate more in order to keep several classes in the same place, it is not a huge hurdle to jump over.
This is of course my preliminary impression, I have yet to begin my untit planning since Mrs. Keener and I need to me with Mr. Smith, the other 6th grade math teacher, and plan out which chapters we are doing in which order.
Monday, October 6, 2008
One of my student's projects
I was totally impressed by this kid's science project. I was impressed with a few others too (especially a couple from some of the boys who are really quiet or often off task in class). But this student's video was really clever and funny. The assignment was to present their [abstract] 'vision' of science. I would love to share lots of student's work, but since this guy put his video on youtube.com, I feel ok linking to it. This is the same student that asked me the question about evolution.
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