Mon 3/29: More observations back at the Middle School today: -Linnea Stevens (8th grade LA), -Donna Hickerson (7th LA), -Denise Black (7th Science), -Meredith Kehoe (6-8 Remedial Reading & LA) for 2 hours, -Mr. Fodness (7th Social Studies)
Tues 3/30: Today was not a good day. I was supposed to spend the day at an all-day Knowledge Bowl meet with Ms. Luby, but on Monday night my boyfriend was in a car accident. I took today off to be with him and help.
Wed 3/31: Last day of observations: -Mr. Waller (8th LA & Social Studies), -Mary Kobilka (8th Math), & -Valerie Olson (8th Social Studies)
Thurs 4/1: Last day of Student Teaching. Mixed feelings today. While I'm eager to be finishing my undergrad degree, I know that I'll miss the students and staff at BMS. I spent today observing Ms. Luby & saying goodbye to the students.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Monday, March 22- Friday, March 26
Monday 3/22: Revised Letters to Will were due today. The students did a superb job with this assignment. Despite their complaints I think that the majority of them enjoyed, or at least didn't mind tolerating, this assignment. After our conferences, most all of the students submitted revisions & the letters which I sent off to Weaver were pretty darn close to perfect.
The students began presenting their Final Projects today too. I adored checking out some of these. I requested that some of the kids allow me to keep their projects so that I may use them for future assignments, and I was so happy when they agreed to my favor! The highlight of the day included a movie created by 3 of the students. Such a good chuckle!
Tuesday 3/23: Ms. Luby asked me to conclude my teaching a bit early, and so after having finished the Memory Boy unit I spent this day and the following day talking to the students about violence prevention.
I decided to construct this lesson plan in honor of the forth anniversary of the school shooting which occurred at the Red Lake High School in 2006. Knowing that many of my students were personally affected by this event, and that every student in my class has been affected by school violence of some form; I chose to spend a day focusing on character education and, specifically, violence prevention I scheduled numerous activities for this lesson, each one focusing on a different skill which could help to empower students while they may work to prevent school violence and bullying. I utilized a number of educational technologies during this lesson; I began my lesson with a video clip which showed a short news interview with a young lady named Missy Jenkins. Missy was a high school freshman when, in 1997, one of her classmates opened fire in her Kentucky school cafeteria. Missy was left paralyzed after the shooting. However, Missy’s charisma and spirit motivated her to use her experience as a lesson for students. This video clip encourages students to take a stand against school violence, help students who may show signs of loneliness or bullying, and to show respect and tolerance to others. This video served as an excellent start to the day’s lesson as it prompted discussion and questions from the students. I led students in an intriguing discussion after the Missy Jenkins video. Students asked about the Kentucky school shooting in 1997, other school shootings, and especially the shooting which took place in Red Lake. I allowed this discussion to continue on for as long as the students desired it to, since I felt that knowing the facts about school violence could help students to eradicate it from schools
Moving our lesson along, I showed the class a PowerPoint presentation which I’d previously created The PowerPoint presentation introduced to students an organization and program which I served with during my time in Middle School and High School. The specific program, STOP the Violence, empowered me a great deal during secondary school and motivated me to participate in over 200 hours of volunteer service which was geared toward violence prevention. I utilized this PowerPoint to lead students into an activity called “The Bullying Ladder.”
During this first activity, the students were divided into groups of five. Each group was given a bag which held ten slips of paper. On each slip of paper was an act of violence. Groups were instructed to work together to rank the acts of violence in order of what act hurts the most and what act hurts the least. After completing the activity, the groups were asked to share their decisions. Once everyone had shared their reasoning, I led the class in discussing the importance of tolerance and respect. I questioned the students about their thoughts concerning differing opinions and interests. We spoke about tolerating difference and respecting individuals regardless of their different beliefs, gender, sexuality, race, disability, or various eccentricities
Wednesday 3/24: We continued with our "STOP the Violence Training" today. Our second activity was called “Add a Word.” This activity encouraged students to work together to create the “world’s longest sentence.” The catch to the activity was that for the beginning of the game, groups could not talk to one another. After participating in silence, I allowed the teams to speak during the final round of our game. Naturally, the ability to communicate with group members helped the teams to find more success. This activity then led into a lengthy discussion about the value and importance of respectful interpersonal communication skills. The class discussed as a group how techniques such as including everyone in a conversation and practicing active listening skills could help to encourage tolerance and respect
One of our final activities of this day involved exploring a website called “PacerTeensAgainstBullying.” This website is geared toward Middle School students and it offers students a plethora of information about identifying the traits of a bully or victim of bullying, why people bully, the effects of bullying, and how to intervene or prevent the situations. By exploring this website, the class explored interactive activities which encouraged positive peer relations and respect for everyone
Thursday 3/25: I spent today doing a full day of observations. I observed at the Middle School -Paula Maki (7th grade LA), -Nancy Benson (EBD) for 2 hours, -Mr. Merschman (7th LA), & -Amy Skala (6th LA)
Friday 3/26: I spent all of today observing at a local charter school called Trek North. I really enjoyed this experience. The small school atmosphere was familiar and refreshing to me, and I enjoyed the school's laid back and nature-oriented focus.
The students began presenting their Final Projects today too. I adored checking out some of these. I requested that some of the kids allow me to keep their projects so that I may use them for future assignments, and I was so happy when they agreed to my favor! The highlight of the day included a movie created by 3 of the students. Such a good chuckle!
Tuesday 3/23: Ms. Luby asked me to conclude my teaching a bit early, and so after having finished the Memory Boy unit I spent this day and the following day talking to the students about violence prevention.
I decided to construct this lesson plan in honor of the forth anniversary of the school shooting which occurred at the Red Lake High School in 2006. Knowing that many of my students were personally affected by this event, and that every student in my class has been affected by school violence of some form; I chose to spend a day focusing on character education and, specifically, violence prevention I scheduled numerous activities for this lesson, each one focusing on a different skill which could help to empower students while they may work to prevent school violence and bullying. I utilized a number of educational technologies during this lesson; I began my lesson with a video clip which showed a short news interview with a young lady named Missy Jenkins. Missy was a high school freshman when, in 1997, one of her classmates opened fire in her Kentucky school cafeteria. Missy was left paralyzed after the shooting. However, Missy’s charisma and spirit motivated her to use her experience as a lesson for students. This video clip encourages students to take a stand against school violence, help students who may show signs of loneliness or bullying, and to show respect and tolerance to others. This video served as an excellent start to the day’s lesson as it prompted discussion and questions from the students. I led students in an intriguing discussion after the Missy Jenkins video. Students asked about the Kentucky school shooting in 1997, other school shootings, and especially the shooting which took place in Red Lake. I allowed this discussion to continue on for as long as the students desired it to, since I felt that knowing the facts about school violence could help students to eradicate it from schools
Moving our lesson along, I showed the class a PowerPoint presentation which I’d previously created The PowerPoint presentation introduced to students an organization and program which I served with during my time in Middle School and High School. The specific program, STOP the Violence, empowered me a great deal during secondary school and motivated me to participate in over 200 hours of volunteer service which was geared toward violence prevention. I utilized this PowerPoint to lead students into an activity called “The Bullying Ladder.”
During this first activity, the students were divided into groups of five. Each group was given a bag which held ten slips of paper. On each slip of paper was an act of violence. Groups were instructed to work together to rank the acts of violence in order of what act hurts the most and what act hurts the least. After completing the activity, the groups were asked to share their decisions. Once everyone had shared their reasoning, I led the class in discussing the importance of tolerance and respect. I questioned the students about their thoughts concerning differing opinions and interests. We spoke about tolerating difference and respecting individuals regardless of their different beliefs, gender, sexuality, race, disability, or various eccentricities
Wednesday 3/24: We continued with our "STOP the Violence Training" today. Our second activity was called “Add a Word.” This activity encouraged students to work together to create the “world’s longest sentence.” The catch to the activity was that for the beginning of the game, groups could not talk to one another. After participating in silence, I allowed the teams to speak during the final round of our game. Naturally, the ability to communicate with group members helped the teams to find more success. This activity then led into a lengthy discussion about the value and importance of respectful interpersonal communication skills. The class discussed as a group how techniques such as including everyone in a conversation and practicing active listening skills could help to encourage tolerance and respect
One of our final activities of this day involved exploring a website called “PacerTeensAgainstBullying.” This website is geared toward Middle School students and it offers students a plethora of information about identifying the traits of a bully or victim of bullying, why people bully, the effects of bullying, and how to intervene or prevent the situations. By exploring this website, the class explored interactive activities which encouraged positive peer relations and respect for everyone
Thursday 3/25: I spent today doing a full day of observations. I observed at the Middle School -Paula Maki (7th grade LA), -Nancy Benson (EBD) for 2 hours, -Mr. Merschman (7th LA), & -Amy Skala (6th LA)
Friday 3/26: I spent all of today observing at a local charter school called Trek North. I really enjoyed this experience. The small school atmosphere was familiar and refreshing to me, and I enjoyed the school's laid back and nature-oriented focus.
Wed March 17- Fri March 19
Wednesday 3/17: Memory Boy Tests. Students were allowed to use their study guides, and things went relatively smoothly. Most of the students didn't pretty fair on the test, I was content with the results.
Thursday 3/18: I corrected tests, students worked on letters to Will Weaver & their final projects.
Friday 3/19: Letters to Will were due today. I conducted one-on-one conferences with each student. During the conferences we proofread the kids' letters & I then offered the students an opportunity to revise their letters before I would record a final grade.
Thursday 3/18: I corrected tests, students worked on letters to Will Weaver & their final projects.
Friday 3/19: Letters to Will were due today. I conducted one-on-one conferences with each student. During the conferences we proofread the kids' letters & I then offered the students an opportunity to revise their letters before I would record a final grade.
Tuesday, March 16
Tuesday 3/16: Last visit from university supervisor today & things went well. I've grown to look forward to hearing from Mr. Coe. His advice is typically relevant to my current concerns and his demeanor is oh so relaxing. I also utilized this day in the classroom as somewhat of a work day, but first I introduced to students the final Memory Boy project today. With this project I decided to construct a lesson which would require the students to culminate all of the lessons and reactions they gained during their reading of the book and apply it toward a variety of projects. This project idea would require students to both utilize prior knowledge but also construct new lessons as they worked to express their knowledge in a visual project.
Knowing that the interests, strengths, and weaknesses of my students vary tremendously, I decided to have the students choose their own academic path with this project. I provided for the students twenty five different project options which they could choose to complete. I assigned specific point values to each project; based upon the length of the project, the effort required to complete the project entirely according to its directions, and the level of creativity which the project required. This allowed the students the freedom to choose the type of project they’d most like to complete. The project options varied from traditional essays, research papers, art projects, homemade movies, oral history interviews, children’s books, comic books, wildlife related assignments, and science centered projects. While designing the project, I kept specific students in mind and did my best to gear a project toward the individual interests I’d seen my students exhibit.
Having assigned varying point values to each project, I explained to my students that I expected them to complete forty points’ worth of assignments. Some of the suggested projects were worth forty points alone, others were worth as little as ten. Some of the proposed projects included independent work, while others required that students work in groups. This allowed students the freedom to, again, create their own grades and decide their own fates.
Knowing that the interests, strengths, and weaknesses of my students vary tremendously, I decided to have the students choose their own academic path with this project. I provided for the students twenty five different project options which they could choose to complete. I assigned specific point values to each project; based upon the length of the project, the effort required to complete the project entirely according to its directions, and the level of creativity which the project required. This allowed the students the freedom to choose the type of project they’d most like to complete. The project options varied from traditional essays, research papers, art projects, homemade movies, oral history interviews, children’s books, comic books, wildlife related assignments, and science centered projects. While designing the project, I kept specific students in mind and did my best to gear a project toward the individual interests I’d seen my students exhibit.
Having assigned varying point values to each project, I explained to my students that I expected them to complete forty points’ worth of assignments. Some of the suggested projects were worth forty points alone, others were worth as little as ten. Some of the proposed projects included independent work, while others required that students work in groups. This allowed students the freedom to, again, create their own grades and decide their own fates.
Monday, March 15-
Monday 3/15: We worked on finishing up Memory Boy throughout this week, and on Monday we followed our normal routine for this unit. The students met with their Lit Circles, got a new Lit Circle sheet & then we read the last couple chapters of the book. I read the chapters out loud today, which I've done a couple times throughout the course of reading this book. I've noticed that the kids seem to definitely prefer when I read a book out loud to them rather than having to read the book to themselves. And I have no issue with reading to the students, but I want to be sure that when I'm doing so it is in order to help students to more easily understand and comprehend the content of the reading. I recognize that some readers do require that words be processed audibly in order for comprehension to occur. But I worry at times that the kids instead ask me to read out loud to them because they simply don't want to exert the effort involved in actually read a text silently. The students' behavior is typically superb when I read out loud, which isn't always an easy accomplishment for me; yet I want the students to be capable of silent, independent reading because of the importance of this skill... so until I determine a more perfect remedy, I shall continue to alternate my techniques and hope that in the meantime I'm accommodating everyone at at least some of the time.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
Monday, March 8th- Friday, March 12th
Another condensed week-long summary:
We continued reading Memory Boy this week. The kids have adjusted, finally, to the Lit Circle discussion formats. The students have adjusted to our new routine: each day they talk for 5-10 minutes with their Lit Circles about the previous day's reading, they get a new worksheet from me, they complete the worksheet while reading the day's assignment, and then they prepare for discussions the next day. I've also prepared study guides for the students to complete which they are allowed to use on our upcoming test. These study guides and reading worksheets have once again reminded me of the achievement gap which exist among my students. I find myself struggling between assigning additional work in order to remedy the non stop chatter of students who get through their reading assignments and worksheets quickly- these are my high achieving students and I want to present each of them with a challenge. But on the other hand I have plenty of students who are doing their best to just barely keep their head above water. Ms. Luby suggests offering more assignments to fix this problem, but what do I do about the students who can't keep up?
Another new lesson which I was introduced to this week was in regard to Knowledge Bowl. I volunteered and judged at this Thursday's Knowledge Bowl, which Bemidji hosted. I haven't found myself extremely interested in the activity throughout the last few months, it's fun but not necessarily an activity I'm passionate about, but watching a meet in action helped to light a spark for me. I enjoyed watching the kids compete, challenge themselves, and often unveil unknown strengths as they advanced from round to round. It was definitely a worthwhile evening.
Monday, March 1st- Friday, March 5th
I'm behind on posts, so I'm going to condense some news here:
We began a new novel this week. The book is called Memory Boy and was written by a local author named Will Weaver- one of my former English professors! In the novel a family races to escape natural disaster by traveling from Minneapolis to Itasca State Park. I aimed to draw the students in to the local relevance of this novel, so I created a bulletin board which I titled " 'Roadtripping' Across Minnesota with Memory Boy." I put a map of MN up on the board and on Wednesday, after the students had read some of the novel, we mapped out with tacks and yarn the start of the characters' journey. The kids seemed to get a kick out of this activity, and were competing to volunteer information about the cities which they recognized. I enjoyed their genuine interest in the board and activities. On numerous occasions I even caught the students sneaking over to the map to point out to classmates where their home was located on the board- it goes to show that these guys really do pay attention to the decor of a classroom.
I also included on the board an "Author Spotlight" section where I posted pictures of Will Weaver & information about his writing and life. We talked about the author before starting the novel on Monday, and I utilized the bulletin board as my visual. The kids seemed to listen contently and I appreciated their interest here. I'd say that the board and the introduction to Memory Boy were a success!
Other highlights from the week:
- Students started the "Lit Circles" which I have planned to use for the rest of the book. We began with a rocky start as a lot of the kids seemed to be put off by this change from their normal read & take a quiz procedure, but by the end of the week they'd adjusted to the change and had begun to take advantage of the discussions.
- More lessons in classroom management were acquired this week as I struggled to get students to adjust to many changes: a new unit, a new style of covering reading concepts, and a new "group" seating arrangement. The start of the week was rough, but after frequently explaining my expectations and behavioral consequences to students we shaped up by the end of the week.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Monday, March 1st
"Long" weekend came and went already. Today I began the kids on a new project- a novel called Memory Boy. I hope that the students enjoy the book, and I think that many of them will. The book is a recent one, it was written by a local author, it takes place in Minnesota- some of it even mentions Bemidji, and there's a lot of action throughout the plot.
The nature of having the students read during class time proved beneficial to me today. I was able to accomplish quite a few little tasks. I adore productive days!
Tomorrow Mr. Coe comes to visit.... Observation #3- the time is going by so quickly!
The nature of having the students read during class time proved beneficial to me today. I was able to accomplish quite a few little tasks. I adore productive days!
Tomorrow Mr. Coe comes to visit.... Observation #3- the time is going by so quickly!
Thursday, Feb 25th
The students weren't in today, as all day the school hosted parent-teacher conferences. Our first session was pretty quiet; only 3 sets of parents in 3 hours. After lunch things picked up. We ended up seeing, if I remember right, 40-some parents. Not a bad turn out. I found it a little comical how some parents seemed so shocked by their student's grades. No one seemed mad at me or Ms. Luby necessarily, but at the same time there were many parents who certainly didn't leave their conference smiling. I guess that I came from a home with relatively strict parents who kept fairly close tabs on my school happenings. It surprises, and saddens, me to see how little some of these parents pay attention to their kids' academics. I recognize that lives become busy and with work, family, and other activities it can be a challenge to keep tabs on a student. But I wish for my students that more parents would.
Wednesday, February 24th
Today was somewhat of a work day for the class. I had the students take a practice test for the MCA test which they will be taking in April, we completed the last portion of February's Positive Peer Relations unit, and then the last portion of the hour was utilized to wrap up any last MLA Works Cited pages.
Tonight also marked my first experience with parent-teacher conferences. I unfortunately found myself slightly disappointed by the parent turn out at conferences tonight, though I surprised myself with how much I ended up enjoying speaking with the parents about their students. I especially liked it when the parents brought the student along with them. I felt as though I left tonight knowing some of my students much better. I adored that feeling.
Tonight also marked my first experience with parent-teacher conferences. I unfortunately found myself slightly disappointed by the parent turn out at conferences tonight, though I surprised myself with how much I ended up enjoying speaking with the parents about their students. I especially liked it when the parents brought the student along with them. I felt as though I left tonight knowing some of my students much better. I adored that feeling.
Tuesday, February 23rd
After two days out of the classroom, today was a bit of a jumbled game of catch up for me. Parent teacher conferences take place at the end of this week, and with little time to spare I devoted every free moment of today to ensuring that I had all of the persuasive papers corrected... not an easy feat.
The kids seemed to do pretty well with the persuasive papers overall. Some didn't hand in a paper at all, some didn't put forth the effort to make sure that their preparatory steps were taking care of, and unfortunately they lost points for this. I put a lot of emphasis on time management with this assignment as I required the students to have certain pieces of the assignment completed by certain dates. This worked well for some students, challenged some, and defeated others.
The kids seemed to do pretty well with the persuasive papers overall. Some didn't hand in a paper at all, some didn't put forth the effort to make sure that their preparatory steps were taking care of, and unfortunately they lost points for this. I put a lot of emphasis on time management with this assignment as I required the students to have certain pieces of the assignment completed by certain dates. This worked well for some students, challenged some, and defeated others.
Monday, February 22nd
Today was a day of misery for me. I didn't head into school. Instead, I spent my day locked in my bathroom wishing to God that my stomach would stop torturing me. Food poisoning bites. Hard.
Thursday, Feb 18th & Friday, Feb 19th
Thursday 2/18/10:
We worked on wrapping up work on papers today. The students are slowly but surely coming along with developing their papers and Works Cited pages. I'm happy with the effort which most of the students are putting forth, and more than ever I'm realizing the differences in ability which exist among these students. I recognize that the nature of a traditional classroom requires a teacher to construct lessons which cater to the "average" student, or an ability level which rests somewhere in the middle of students' achievement. But as I spend more time in the classroom, I wish so badly that I could divide my classes into smaller groups of students with more similar ability levels. The students who easily grasp concepts find themselves often bored during class. At the same time, I have numerous students who struggle to keep up, and many who can't. What's the solution?
Friday 2/19/10:
Interesting is the only word I can think of to describe this day. Prior to our arrival, the Middle School Principals decided that the student teachers would spend Friday Feb 19th out of the classroom for an entire day. Instead, it was decided that we would spend our day tallying preference votes for the Middle School's Career Day event in May.
I appreciated the opportunity to help out with a fantastic event like Career Day, it seems to be an annual event which truly benefits the Middle School students. For the chance to help out with such a wonderful event was great. However, I felt a bit cheated to be pulled out of the classroom for an entire day. I don't feel as though as a secondary ed major at BSU that I've been allowed much time in the classroom, especially not time spent actually teaching. Being that I've so badly wanted to have this experience, and that I'm paying a tremendous amount of money to take part in this experience, I would have liked the chance to decide whether or not I would shorten my student teaching experience by an entire. But none the less, I gave the folks who worked to organize Career Day my best efforts. I did my best to make the best of the day. Hopefully the students will be able to enjoy another beneficial Career Day because of it.
We worked on wrapping up work on papers today. The students are slowly but surely coming along with developing their papers and Works Cited pages. I'm happy with the effort which most of the students are putting forth, and more than ever I'm realizing the differences in ability which exist among these students. I recognize that the nature of a traditional classroom requires a teacher to construct lessons which cater to the "average" student, or an ability level which rests somewhere in the middle of students' achievement. But as I spend more time in the classroom, I wish so badly that I could divide my classes into smaller groups of students with more similar ability levels. The students who easily grasp concepts find themselves often bored during class. At the same time, I have numerous students who struggle to keep up, and many who can't. What's the solution?
Friday 2/19/10:
Interesting is the only word I can think of to describe this day. Prior to our arrival, the Middle School Principals decided that the student teachers would spend Friday Feb 19th out of the classroom for an entire day. Instead, it was decided that we would spend our day tallying preference votes for the Middle School's Career Day event in May.
I appreciated the opportunity to help out with a fantastic event like Career Day, it seems to be an annual event which truly benefits the Middle School students. For the chance to help out with such a wonderful event was great. However, I felt a bit cheated to be pulled out of the classroom for an entire day. I don't feel as though as a secondary ed major at BSU that I've been allowed much time in the classroom, especially not time spent actually teaching. Being that I've so badly wanted to have this experience, and that I'm paying a tremendous amount of money to take part in this experience, I would have liked the chance to decide whether or not I would shorten my student teaching experience by an entire. But none the less, I gave the folks who worked to organize Career Day my best efforts. I did my best to make the best of the day. Hopefully the students will be able to enjoy another beneficial Career Day because of it.
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Tuesday February 16th & Wednesday February 17th
This week we continued our persuasive essays. The papers are due this Friday and I've been doing my best to work through each step with the students. I want them to come away from this assignmend with a better understanding of the writing process, and especially the ability to create and support a solid arguement. So, in hopes of building those skills, I've asked the students to analyze rhetoric strategies, discuss the pieces of a good thesis, think through their thoughts by creating an outline, research their topics in order to locate strong supporting facts, gain feedback on rough drafts from both classmates and their teacher, and then learn to document resources through the outrageously confusing format of MLA.
I don't know how well I'm doing. Some of these students are really nailing the tasks, but others just aren't getting it at all. Today (Wednesday) I began to introduce MLA through a video & power point, but even before starting I knew that a good portion of these kids were never going to get it. I feel as though I need to continue teaching the concept of documentation since I have included it in this assignment, and I truly think that this knowledge will prove helpful come high school, but is it worth confusing the kids even more?
I don't know how well I'm doing. Some of these students are really nailing the tasks, but others just aren't getting it at all. Today (Wednesday) I began to introduce MLA through a video & power point, but even before starting I knew that a good portion of these kids were never going to get it. I feel as though I need to continue teaching the concept of documentation since I have included it in this assignment, and I truly think that this knowledge will prove helpful come high school, but is it worth confusing the kids even more?
Friday, February 12
Holy behavior problems Charlie Brown! I think that the kids were outrageously excited about heading into a three day weekend because all day it was a constant wave of "Shhh" "Guys quiet down" "The volume level needs to come down." Over and over, I couldn't get folks to cooperate today. You'll encounter those days, I understand that, but geez was it frustrating!
We wrapped up the last of the outlines today and worked on rough drafts, so another work day overall. I had one unfortunate incident today that left me unhappy. One of our new females students, who had recently transferred to the middle school from a nearby charter school because of a major disciplinary issue (she was selling booze to her classmates in 8th grade) had a falling out with me today. The student refused to participate in the day's activity of working on rough drafts because "this assignment is dumb, this school is dumb, and you're dumb." We had a lovely little heated talk in the team room which rests in the center of the classrooms in the pod, which resulted in Aria screaming at me, tearing her paper, and me writing her up for misbehavior.
I felt crummy after the situation because the student holds so much potential. She's extremely smart and so very articulate- during our "conversation" (read "argument") she blew me away and easily could have pushed me into a corner with her verbal intelligence- but her attitude and poor decisions need to undergo a major overhaul in order for her to ever find some academic success... or any success really. I learned later from Ms. Luby that the young girl is the product of a rape, and so she's obviously never had a father figure in her life. Her mom plays a very hands-off role in the girl's life and whenever problems arise at home, the young girl is sent to the local teen shelter for the weekend. I can't entirely blame the girl for having a crummy attitude, and especially because she's an EBD student with an IEP, but I wish so badly that she would let me reach out to her... connect with her. I'm not giving up on her yet. I recently made of goals I'd like to accomplish during this experience, and connecting with this girl is now one of them.
Thursday, February 11th
My university supervisor visited during my first hour today. He got to watch the class and I complete the weekly "Positive Peer Relations" activity, a "Reading Practice Quiz" activity, and then for the rest of the hour the students and I worked on writing the rough drafts of our Persuasive Essays.
I tried a tactic today, though not while my supervisor was here, to create small work groups within the classroom. I rallied all of the students who were behind on finishing their essay outlines and had them cluster their desks together. We all worked together, at relatively the same pace, to finish the outlines. This seemed to prove pretty effective with most of the kids. While we were working on outlines I took the time to check in on other students in order to be sure that they were working forward with their rough drafts and to see if they needed any help. It all ran relatively smoothly, outside of the fact that we seemed to run out of time as usual. We're making progress.
Wednesday, February 10th
Today the kids and I began their outlines. I thought that since they'd created outlines for their how to speeches during the week prior that modifying the same type of outline to highlight info for their persuasive papers would be a relatively easy transition. I was wrong. I'm quickly discovering that this is the most difficult unit so far, and definitely the most labor intensive. But I'm doing my best to remain optimistic.
I'm finding myself continually surprised by the tremendous difference in ability and work ethic that these kids have. Some zip through my assignments and earn near perfect scores on almost everything they do. I'd love to have the opportunity to challenge those kids, show them more, and see how far they could go. But then I have another significant group of students who need extreme amounts of assistance with each step of an assignment; and don't get me wrong- I actually prefer helping these kids. I feel most accomplished in the classroom after helping a student to finally reach that "Ah ha!" moment. But the trouble is that I struggle to provide these kids the adequate one on one time that they need while still manage and push the other students. I feel bad because more often than not I find myself pulling up beside some of the students who require the extra help, getting completely engrossed in aiding them, only to look up at the clock and discover that most of the hour is gone and I've yet to help the majority of the class. I need to discover the secret to balancing my time between kids. In my perfect world, I wish that I only had a class of about maybe 10 students, so that I would be able to spread myself out more adequately among them all.
Tuesday February 9th
Today I explained all of the criteria for our persuasive writing unit. I'm having the kids construct a two page persuasive paper. They need to create an outline, develop a working thesis which includes three reasons to support their argument, find three resources, learn to make a works cited page to document these sources, and then present an overview of their papers in a one minute presentation.
You should have seen the jaws drop as I walked through the requirements for this assignment. I just may have gone a bit too far with this one... but then again I thought the same things with the 6 page journaling assignment and I was happily surprised to see that most of the students were willing to meet the challenge. We shall see what ensues...
Monday, February 8th
After introducing the students to the "Thinking Persuasively" activity, we spent Monday reviewing the info we learned last week. I was pleased at how well the students had begun to understand the definitions of rhetoric terms- logos, kairos, pathos, ethos, etc. I had the kids analyze magazine articles through the lens of rhetoric, and identify which persuasive strategies were being used by the ads. The students did really well with this activity, but come Monday when I began to ask them to apply those concepts to persuasive writing topics they drew pretty significant blanks. Time to bridge the gap.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Week #4: Monday, Feb. 1st- Friday, Feb. 2nd
“Let us think of education as the means of developing our greatest abilities, because in each of us there is a private hope and dream which, fulfilled, can be translated into benefit for everyone and greater strength for our nation.”
John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
Monday, Feb 1st:
Monday marked the beginning of our "How To" Speech presentations. Overall, the students did well. Some impressed me, some disappointed me, many were in the middle. I had asked the students to follow some specific criteria with their speeches: A- the speeches had to be at least 3 minutes long, B- The students had to physical demonstrate the process which they were explaining, C- Another visual, in addition to the props which were used during demonstrating, had to be present (though I said that this second visual could be as simple as some steps written onto the board... nothing elaborate was required), and D- the students had to speak for at least 3 minutes. I would say that maybe a tenth of the students followed all of the criteria. Many students did well during their speeches, but most were not 3 minutes long and the majority did not have a second visual.
Talking with Ms. Luby about how speeches typically go, she said that usually she's content with having at least the majority of the students present, which they did. Out of the 100 students broken into our four classes, only 10 chose not to present. So I'd consider that a pretty good success rate. I just wish that these kids would care more about their school work. I find myself frequently being disappointed by their lazy work efforts. I won't contribute that habit to every student in the pod, but definitely the majority. My biggest goal during my time student teaching has become to challenge these kids. I refuse to lower my standards and expectations simply because the students refuse to meet par. So far the pushing has worked well. Most of the students completed their "Mini Essays" assignment and the majority even wrote the 6 pages which I asked for. I impressed Ms. Luby by getting most of the students to present speeches as well, so perhaps I'm making progress afterall.
Tuesday, Feb 2nd & Wednesday, Feb 3rd:
We finished our speeches up, with the last of the students presenting on Wednesday. What I learned most from the speech unit was not that these students need to work on their public speaking skills (though many do), but that these students lack common respect. I began the presentations on Monday by sharing my expectations for students in the audience. Audience members were required to complete peer evaluations for each of their classmates. Questions were to be saved until the end of presentations, and questions would be politely asked after raising one's hand. No talking was permitted during speeches and I kept tallies of those students who had to be asked to stop talking, and their grades reflected their audience skills. I told the students that it was not appropriate to tell a presenter to slow down or hurry up, as the first priority of these speeches was not to help the class members to create ten different types of paper airplanes, but rather to help their classmates to improve their speaking skills. In every class, I had to repeatedly restate my expectations, and numerous kids lost points due to speaking during presentations. I was shocked by the kids' audience etiquette. I expected more out of 8th graders.
Thursday, Feb. 4th:
On Thursday I introduced the students to Persuasive Thinking in preparation for our Persuasive Paper Unit, which I'm beginning this week. I had the students participate in some activities which introduced the concepts of rhetoric, the strategies of logos, ethos, pathos, kairos, and big names, and I had the students analyze magazine ads through the lens of the rhetorical strategies which we covered. Most of the students seemed to do well with these activities, and I was happy to see that my teaching occassionally sinks in with these guys.
Friday, Feb. 5th:
On Friday I allowed the students primarily a work day. Ms. Luby read the kids a story about Empathy as part of Kindness Month, and we completed one of the Reading Practice Quizzes which are meant to prepare the students for their Basic Standards Test in April. For those classes who ran out of time Thursday, we completed the Persuasive Thinking activities. Outside of this, the students used the class time to work on an extra credit opportunity, catch up on the their Accelerated Reading, or write the Journals which are due Monday.
Friday night I attended the 6th grade Family Night at the Middle School. Having been required to attend the event, the other student teachers and myself were present to aide in the three hour event which was meant to allow the family members of 6th graders a time to hang out with their kids. I worked in the coat room, though to say that I "worked"is not accurate. The 6 or 7 students who had volunteered to work in the room were undoubtedly capable of maintaining the tasks of the facility. In fact, when I tried to help, I found myself getting in the way. So I spent most of the evening gossiping with two other student teachers. The greatest lessons of the night? - Student Teachers = Free Labor for School Administrators, - 7th graders are more than capable of hanging jackets without adult supervision, & - It feels wonderful to vent to individuals who are experiencing the same difficulties as myself. Phew.
Monday marked the beginning of our "How To" Speech presentations. Overall, the students did well. Some impressed me, some disappointed me, many were in the middle. I had asked the students to follow some specific criteria with their speeches: A- the speeches had to be at least 3 minutes long, B- The students had to physical demonstrate the process which they were explaining, C- Another visual, in addition to the props which were used during demonstrating, had to be present (though I said that this second visual could be as simple as some steps written onto the board... nothing elaborate was required), and D- the students had to speak for at least 3 minutes. I would say that maybe a tenth of the students followed all of the criteria. Many students did well during their speeches, but most were not 3 minutes long and the majority did not have a second visual.
Talking with Ms. Luby about how speeches typically go, she said that usually she's content with having at least the majority of the students present, which they did. Out of the 100 students broken into our four classes, only 10 chose not to present. So I'd consider that a pretty good success rate. I just wish that these kids would care more about their school work. I find myself frequently being disappointed by their lazy work efforts. I won't contribute that habit to every student in the pod, but definitely the majority. My biggest goal during my time student teaching has become to challenge these kids. I refuse to lower my standards and expectations simply because the students refuse to meet par. So far the pushing has worked well. Most of the students completed their "Mini Essays" assignment and the majority even wrote the 6 pages which I asked for. I impressed Ms. Luby by getting most of the students to present speeches as well, so perhaps I'm making progress afterall.
Tuesday, Feb 2nd & Wednesday, Feb 3rd:
We finished our speeches up, with the last of the students presenting on Wednesday. What I learned most from the speech unit was not that these students need to work on their public speaking skills (though many do), but that these students lack common respect. I began the presentations on Monday by sharing my expectations for students in the audience. Audience members were required to complete peer evaluations for each of their classmates. Questions were to be saved until the end of presentations, and questions would be politely asked after raising one's hand. No talking was permitted during speeches and I kept tallies of those students who had to be asked to stop talking, and their grades reflected their audience skills. I told the students that it was not appropriate to tell a presenter to slow down or hurry up, as the first priority of these speeches was not to help the class members to create ten different types of paper airplanes, but rather to help their classmates to improve their speaking skills. In every class, I had to repeatedly restate my expectations, and numerous kids lost points due to speaking during presentations. I was shocked by the kids' audience etiquette. I expected more out of 8th graders.
Thursday, Feb. 4th:
On Thursday I introduced the students to Persuasive Thinking in preparation for our Persuasive Paper Unit, which I'm beginning this week. I had the students participate in some activities which introduced the concepts of rhetoric, the strategies of logos, ethos, pathos, kairos, and big names, and I had the students analyze magazine ads through the lens of the rhetorical strategies which we covered. Most of the students seemed to do well with these activities, and I was happy to see that my teaching occassionally sinks in with these guys.
Friday, Feb. 5th:
On Friday I allowed the students primarily a work day. Ms. Luby read the kids a story about Empathy as part of Kindness Month, and we completed one of the Reading Practice Quizzes which are meant to prepare the students for their Basic Standards Test in April. For those classes who ran out of time Thursday, we completed the Persuasive Thinking activities. Outside of this, the students used the class time to work on an extra credit opportunity, catch up on the their Accelerated Reading, or write the Journals which are due Monday.
Friday night I attended the 6th grade Family Night at the Middle School. Having been required to attend the event, the other student teachers and myself were present to aide in the three hour event which was meant to allow the family members of 6th graders a time to hang out with their kids. I worked in the coat room, though to say that I "worked"is not accurate. The 6 or 7 students who had volunteered to work in the room were undoubtedly capable of maintaining the tasks of the facility. In fact, when I tried to help, I found myself getting in the way. So I spent most of the evening gossiping with two other student teachers. The greatest lessons of the night? - Student Teachers = Free Labor for School Administrators, - 7th graders are more than capable of hanging jackets without adult supervision, & - It feels wonderful to vent to individuals who are experiencing the same difficulties as myself. Phew.
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