I'm Here!

After a stressful number of weeks, countless emails back and forth, and a full truck (complete with my car on the flat-deck trailer) of my stuff, I have arrived in my new town. It took a whole week of 8+ hour days for me to de-clutter and set up my classroom, but I am pretty happy with the results.

Now for the planning to begin.

The first program that I am working to learn is Words Their Way. It is a fantastic diagnostic spelling tool where you give your students an assessment without letting them study the words before hand. You then mark the test according to the break down of the words. For example, in the word "coat," you check if they got the beginning consonant (c) the ending consonant (t) and the vowel blend (oa). You then tally the results based on the mistakes made and group your students based on the word grouping they need to work on. Its very cool and I look forward to implementing it into my classroom. 

Adventure Time

I'm Moving! I officially have been given permission to alter young people's minds (for the better?) and its going to happen in a town far away from the one that I currently live. So I need to pack up all of my crap and transport it 1,154 km away. Yes that means setting up a place to live as well as a classroom and yes I am incredibly stressed about it.

Because I am bossy and stubborn I knew I would not be happy with a Teacher on Call position. I need to be the head honcho of my classroom. But as my teaching practicum came to a close and the BC Teacher's strike began (it was nice of them to wait for me to be finished) I understood that a TOC position was going to be my reality. It is just what happens around here. But to my dismay, NO ONE was hiring. So I applied everywhere. Long story short, I was offered a continuing contract for an intermediate class in small town Dawson Creek.

Although I am not there yet, the community has been absolutely awesome. Some of the teachers have emailed me a welcome and offered support and help as I get started and the principal has gone above and beyond in helping me find a place and organize my curriculum...something I should be doing right now instead of this... but alas, this is where I find myself. There are so many funny moments in a classroom that I know I will have to write down immediately or else they will come and go with the wind so I've decided to keep the ole blog going!

Wish me luck!

Spring Break Came Just in Time

I had heard stories and myths about the last week before Spring Break from other teachers and my week was comparably crazy. My TM and I got the formal observations “out of the way” early in the week because there was going to be so much going on. Monday was a normal day of classes, Tuesday was the deadline for report cards and a lockdown drill- as well as my midterm due date, Wednesday and Thursday were speech days, aka assessment bonanza for me, and Friday was wrap up and St. Patrick’s Day Spirit Day. I am exhausted.

            A number of interesting things happened that made an impact on my teaching. The first was the final processing of my midterm. I found that writing the midterm was trickier than writing the final for 490 as I knew I needed to show progress in my examples of certification ready. I also felt a little pressured to have most of my goal areas certification ready as I really only have 3 weeks left after spring break. On that note, I am already thinking about the final as I need to start writing it shortly after spring break. Overall, the process was great as it helped myself and mentors narrow down exactly what I need to work on as I near the end of this journey.

            On Friday last week, my TM and other mentors received an email from a parent notifying us that she and her husband had recently separated. She was explaining why her daughter had been missing more school than usual as it was obviously making an impact on the family and wanted us to be aware in case we were noticing a difference in her demeanor at school- which we had. This came as a sort of relief as this student who was normally bubbly and bright had seemed quite depressed recently. The parent arranged a meeting with all of us and this took place on Thursday. On Wednesday, the student performed her speech, which was on the health risks of smoking, and in her conclusion added some very personal information that her dad has been recently diagnosed with cancer that is in four different places in his body. She also mentioned that the smoking “makes him a little crazy.” This didn't alarm the students because we had covered smoking in our addictive substances unit but my TM and I exchanged looks. When the meeting came around on Thursday the parent started with saying she knew that we know most of the story now because of this speech. It turned out that the student was being very secretive in her school work and had not shared her speech topic with her mother, who then was bombarded with questions from other parents as the kids had gone home and said “guess what’s wrong with ____’s dad!” The parent then explained that the dad had left about a month ago and then came back and threw a lot of emotional information at the whole family- very detailed- and the kids were very affected, understandably. The mother asked me if she could see a copy of the speech as her daughter had not shown it to her. Overall, this situation was very humbling because it showed me how involved we are, as teachers, in students’ lives. This girl had not been comfortable expressing her feelings to her mother but felt that the classroom was a safe outlet to let the pressure off. She did it in a respectful manner as it made her speech very powerful and the mother respected it as well, just wanted to be informed. As I move forward from this, I now have a very strong relationship with the mother as well as the student.

           

The last big thing from this week was our St. Patrick’s Day celebration. I had contacted the Leadership team teacher whose students are in charge of making announcements on the PA system and the director of the student council to get the whole school involved in a spirit day. Andrew then had students make posters for the halls in his fine arts class and I designed a scavenger hunt for the afternoon. We ended up combining schedules for the afternoon so all of our grade 6’s played a grade wide capture the flag game- it was awesome! It all went off pretty well, but just added to my exhaustion! Spring Break came up just in time!

Report Cards

I look back on my daily reflections for this week and they are all written in red pen because that was my life this week. Marking. Endless marking. I can easily say that this was my most frustrating week, both on the teaching end of things as well as the background noise. I challenged my students with activities they had never done before and they met my expectations. It was fantastic. The frustration came in when I turned to my marking, gave them feedback and the number of students who wanted to settle with the bare minimum, not take my suggestions and fix their work for a better grade. I need to think of a new incentive system over Spring Break as this is part of my teaching philosophy; student based learning. I have a lot of faith in this group of kids, I know they will be malleable and rise to the challenges I give them.

The other source of frustration this week was realizing that my TM and I had not communicated clearly the expectations we had for one another when it comes to assessment. I had done exactly what my professors had said; plan the units, explain the units (assessments included), get feedback, make changes and start teaching. All of that went reasonably well yet when it came to start inputting marks for report cards, my mentor was expecting more assessments. I was flustered as I did have several assessment FOR’s all finished but I thought she was aware that the majority of my big assessment OF’s wouldn’t be until the week before spring break, too late for the Term 2 report cards. To be flexible, I turned some of the assessment FOR’s into OF’s for the sake of marks but my mentor was expecting more. By the end of the week, on our design and assessment day, we figured it all out and are on somewhat on the same page but it shouldn’t have been needed as we should have communicated the expectations clearer to each other.

The report card process itself has been interesting. The program that my mentor uses is amazing and very user friendly. You input all the marks by subject and can weigh the participation, assignments, projects and tests all however you want and the program does all the math for you. The other really helpful thing is you input all of the comments into a comment bank with prompts such as “Fname” and “he/she” and when you click to add that particular comment to a particular student, it inserts their name automatically. At first I thought that this was lazy and it didn’t allow for the comments to be personalized or fitting to a particular student but as you add them in, it still allows you to review and change as you go, making it flow. I understand now why my mentor wanted me to do all 90 students as it does make sense using the program. On our design and assessment day, we sat down and wrote about 8 general comments together and discussed which students would need more specific ones. I still have to do a lot more work on my own, more than I think I am expected to do in the eyes of the university, but I am now feeling a lot more supported by my TM in this and have accepted it.

Next week is going to fly by. Monday is the absolute last day for students to hand in missing assignments, finish rehearsing their speeches and Wednesday-Friday is assessing the speeches. I have also began organizing a school wide spirit day for St. Patrick’s day. It is not taking a lot of planning on my part, just talking to the right teachers in regards to the student council and leadership teams to then promote it from there. It will be a nice way to end the week before spring break and gives me more evidence for goal 14, school culture and community. 

Piles and Piles of Marking

This was a very busy week at my school. The end of the Olympic Games brought a sense of urgency into the classroom. I am now more than halfway through all of my units which make assessments the thing I am constantly thinking about. The pile of novel study duo tangs I have in my office is also a nice reminder of what I need to accomplish. This week my students concentrated most of their efforts of putting their speech together. I gave them two full blocks in the library to begin typing and find any other information they need for their speeches and they are expected to have their rough draft done for Tuesday.

            The speeches have caused me a lot of stress. This is the unit that in the beginning, my mentor wanted to teach herself but the timing of my full immersion would not allow for that. She gave me the resource she uses to supplement the unit and sent me on my way. It was later, from one of the grade 7 teachers who is also doing the unit, that I found out that there is a package from the district for teachers as the final assessment of this unit is a district competition. I was a little miffed that my mentor did not even mention this to me and when I asked her if I could have a copy it took over a week and more than three reminders for her to eventually open the bottom drawer of her desk and pull it out (yes I am still a little bitter). I put together the unit and showed it to my mentor, got approval and began teaching. As it has previously been discussed, I have ended up not teaching from my planned units but more from a week by week basis as everything changes. Each week I then present my ideas for the week, with the specific worksheets and direction and my mentor and I discuss it. At first this was going well as I was heavily leaning on the resource she gave me but it then turned differently when I started to add in my own direction I wanted to take this unit. Understandably she disagreed with some, had great insight into why some would work and others not and then other times specifically requested me to “stay on track” with the resource. This frustrated me because it doesn’t feel like I am teaching my unit, or even me teaching her plans. It feels like she is teaching it but I am the puppet. I have stood up for myself a number of times so I do feel that I am still doing the work but it hasn’t been without struggle. I am confident that the outcome of this unit will be successful, but because there are deadlines involved, I just feel a little rushed.

            I view this week as successful. Monday I had a fabulous observation with the Vice Principal and he gave me really good suggestions to improve. Friday was our Quebec Winter Carnival and it was so much fun. I led a craft where the students learnt about Bonhomme and his origin in the Carnival and then made a marshmallow version of the loveable snowman. They then were given hot chocolate in my room and we played Canadian themed music and had a great time. This was also a challenge to my classroom management as I brought the entire middle school through my craft…180 students. Overall, I am counting this week as a win as I was pushed in many different ways and still came out standing.

Olympic Pride

This week was very successful. I was challenged in many ways such as changes in the schedule, last minute lesson plans, Olympic interruptions and surprise observations. I am well into my addictive substance, independent novel study and public speaking units and can confidently say that the students are engaging well.

            One of the most powerful moments this week for me was the feeling of community that is present in the school and in my classroom. On Thursday morning while the Canadian women were playing the gold medal game, our class was a little distracted as the crowd forming in the front foyer was getting louder and louder. After I finished up my post conference I went back into the classroom to get ready for the afternoon but was drawn to join the crowd. When the ladies scored the winning goal in overtime, everyone went wild. When my students came back into the classroom some were more excited than others so we held a medal ceremony and I drew a popsicle stick to see who would get to change the number on our medal counter bulletin board. The students all stood and sang the anthem and we discussed what this meant for Canada, linking it with terms of society and nationalism which they are discussing in Andrew’s socials class. Reflecting back on the afternoon I wished I had started more Olympic discussions earlier because I found that not all of the students were as into it as I would have thought. I then remembered that the students would have been either 6 or 7 when Vancouver hosted the Olympics so they may have not caught the “Olympic Fever” that many did during that time.

            This week I depended on my mentor more than I have before. As she does not favour communication over the weekend there were a lot of late afternoons spent at the school and early morning meetings. I am finding that the further I get into my units, the more I change them to adapt to the students’ needs. I recognize that this is all part of the process and it was very humbling. In this sense, I am realizing the value of reflection and feedback as it is reducing my stress and planning time.

            At the end of the week I was also observed by my Principal. I was very nervous as it was a last minute addition to my week but it was certainly welcomed. I was also nervous about the nature of the lesson that he was observing as I knew it was going to cause a lot of interesting discussions between the students. The theme of the lesson was the second half of alcoholism and I was finishing drinking and driving and covering foetal alcohol syndrome. As the students have not done their puberty unit yet, I knew there may be some awkward questions asked. Luckily nothing was asked that I couldn’t handle and the observation went smoothly. My post-conference with my principal was equally successful as he was overall pretty impressed with my classroom management and the level of engagement of the students. He also complimented my use of technology as I had implemented something he had just learnt about that week at his principal’s meeting. Overall, I had a pretty solid week and look forward to starting my third week of full immersion!

Full Immersion

   

            Oh my goodness I am tired! Week one of full immersion is over and I’m still standing! I started three units this week; addictive substances in Health and Career and an independent novel study and public speaking unit in Language Arts. So far so good, the students have been engaged and have transitioned well.

            Last week I started to set my expectations for classroom management with the classroom rules assignment. This week I combined the three classes’ rules and posted them on a bulletin board at the front of the classroom. Throughout the week I referenced these rules as often as I could to establish my presence, show how the rules were not merely an assignment but the foundation of our classroom, and to get the students used to referencing them themselves. The students were very receptive to this exercise and seem to have accepted the rules as their own. I feel like the upcoming weeks will be the real test if these rules are effective.

            I had many successes this week with my students and mentor. All of my lessons went over really well, a high percentage of the students handed in the work that was expected and my introduction of “brain breaks” to incorporate more DPA in the classroom was welcomed. There were also a lot of frustrations that I faced. As this was the first week of full immersion on my part, I noticed that it was not easy for my TM to fully give up the classroom. This is fine as I only need to have control of the class 80% of the time but I am finding that my TM is still exhibiting her classroom management while I’m teaching. For example, I assigned a worksheet for the students to work on while I completed some more reading assessments and I allowed the students to chat quietly while working on it. Every once in a while I had to remind certain students to stay focused but overall I was happy with the noise level and work being done. A number of times though, my TM interrupted the work time to scold the students for talking. This is something I am going to have to watch because although I respect that this is still her classroom, I need to be able to have my own classroom management in place. I am hoping that she will let go more and more as the weeks go on.

            The biggest element of my teaching that I am reflecting on this week is my assessments. My TM and I have changed my units up as we go as expected but I am ensuring that I have a variety of assessments included. It is so easy to get caught up in procedural activities in Language Arts as there are a number of PLO’s that focus on writing but I recognize the importance of strategic competence and conceptual learning. The times this week when I lead a ‘different’ lesson than the students might be used to I had a number of students come up to me and say thank you as they went out the door. At the time I credited to them just being polite and friendly but then I thought about it a bit more and noticed that fewer students said thank you when I had a heavy procedural lesson. This shows that the students recognize when a lesson is different yet they work just as hard with whatever the format is. I am very lucky to have the class I have as I am going to be able to push their thinking and try new things in my time at LFMSS.