Not so epic smiley faces

A fun teachable moment this week was when the students were assigned a writing task where they had to write a "How to" paragraph, describing how to make something. This student was writing on how to draw an 'epic' smiley face.

He approached me and asked me to check his rough copy over to see if he could begin his good copy. I started editing and realized that a fun way for him to see where he needed to add more detail in his writing was to have him read aloud his paragraph to me and I would draw according to his instructions.

This was the first copy of my smiley face and when I showed it to the student he burst out laughing and realized he needed to make a few changes- evidently this is not what the drawing was supposed to look like, then again, I am not exactly an artist.

This moment made me realize that it is easy to step back and let the student recognize where they need to improve and that it can be done in a fun way.

Starting to Use my Teacher Voice

The way I am measuring the success of this second week of school experience is the noticeable absent anxiety I had at the beginning of this practicum. I have finally settled into a ‘groove’ of sorts and am feeling the connections I am supposed to be making with my students and teacher mentors- connections that weren’t quite there last week. This week I spent 90% of my time in Ms. B’s classroom. For my observations, I taught one 20 minute lesson of an introduction to verbs three times to all three classes, was observed helping students accomplish a worksheet after it had been assigned for all three classes, and taught one 50 minute lesson to one class on the difference between fact and opinion using technology with the document camera. All three observations went really well and left me with lots of things to improve and reflect on.

            I may have interpreted the school experience calendar incorrectly, but it said to complete an extended observation of a student so I closely observed Sammy. Sammy is a ‘grey area’ student according to the school’s resource teacher. Tests have shown that he has a low IQ and problems interpreting oral instructions making him a slow learner. When put on task through prompts, Sammy is able to complete an assignment, albeit slower than the average student. Another factor in Sammy’s learning is he has poor fine motor skills which makes his writing very hard to read. Although he has many struggles, Sammy is a very social student. His group of friends are the ‘cool kids’ and he easily socializes with them and he is seen as their equal. Because he is deemed a ‘grey area’ student, Sammy does not qualify for one on one time from an aid. The resource teacher told me that teacher are encouraged to send him to the resource room where she has a program set up for assignments to be scanned in and read aloud to him which allows Sammy to understand the expectations better. In the two weeks I have spent at the school, I have not seen him be sent to the room once.

            As I move forward with this class, I need to be aware of Sammy and the other grey area students as there are many. The hands off approach of the school can be attributed to the “fundamental” learning that is going on but also may be that it is still early in the school year. I need to make sure to adapt my lesson plans so that they accommodate Sammy in a way that he will be successful in his learning.

            Another thing to reflect on this week is the feedback from my mentors. I realized quite quickly how easy it is to plan a procedural heavy lesson and the weight of it is noticeable when standing in front of students.  I need to break up the timeline of my lessons to integrate more movement and discussion of tasks between students. I really liked having the students work in groups and was surprised that classroom management was still easy to maintain. The students have done some group work with their teachers this far but have not been given the tools and instructions on how to work effectively as a group. This is going to be a challenge for me to consider as I move forward with this class. Some other feedback I got was to give specific time restrictions to the students before I send them off on a task. Letting them know that they only have ten minutes to accomplish something lets them know that they need to manage their time appropriately in order to have a result to share back with me and the rest of the class.

            As I look forward to the next week I know I will face some challenges. The teacher mentor I will be under has not had much one on one time with myself and may not be as comfortable letting go of their students or in completing observations of me. I want to integrate more technology into my lessons as it was extremely successful with my previous lesson but I know that may be intimidating for this teacher mentor as they do not use much technology. I plan on going into this week with a very open mind and lots of back up plans in my lesson plans so that the students are the ones who benefit most from my teaching.

 

*All student names have been changed for their protection*

Reflecting on the First Week

Week one of School Experience has opened my eyes to many things in many ways. Coming from a background of special education, where I was in front of several classes from time to time, I was quite surprised at how nervous I was to begin the week. I recognize that much of this anxiety came from not knowing the role I was going to be playing in my classes and not knowing exactly how my practicums would be set up and I am thankful to reflect that both of these anxieties has been solved. I feel a lot more confident moving forward with the year. The goal I focused on in my first observation was goal two, strong connection with students; more specifically, using the student’s names during the game we played during DPA. This goal is something I carried out during the week in trying to get to know my students. The approach I took in memorizing names was when the teachers had assigned the students work and I was walking around helping, I had my class list in hand and would ask each student their name and then look at the name on my list- connecting names to faces. This worked pretty well and by the end of the week I was able to call most students by name without my list.

                I really appreciate the assignment of talking to specific members of the school staff as I know I would have not branched myself out so fast. A real “ah ha” moment for me is when I introduced myself to the middle school janitor. She was hesitant to give up time in her busy schedule to sit down with us but reluctantly agreed to let myself and Andrew into a classroom afterschool to talk as she swept out the room. We let her know this was truly appreciated and we did not want to put any pressure on her. I opened the informal meeting with letting her know that we were here to find out how we, as student teachers, can make her job easier: what procedures the teachers go through in classroom clean-up, what time she aimed to leave each room by and such. She seemed genuinely surprised with these questions and expressed that she thought we had other intentions in setting up an interview. She happily let us knows what we can do and thanked us for giving her the attention we did. Every day, usually twice a day, since that interview, the janitor has greeted me by name and asked me how my day was going. Although some of the other interviews I participated in generated more “useful” information, this was my favourite as I can tell our presence has more meaning for her than if we had not sought her out.

                Something I have taken from this first week of observation is recognizing the similarities and differences in the teaching styles of my teacher mentors. Although I disagree with some practices and agree with others, I have been able to take away something from each mentor. Overall, I have picked up the importance of reflective practice. This is not only as a teacher reflecting on what has worked well and what you could do differently, but allowing the students to reflect on these same questions in their learning. For example, in a physical education class where the students were learning specific skills in volleyball, the teacher clearly explained, modelled and set out guidelines for each skill. The students were given an adequate amount of time to practice and then were expected to move on to the next skill. This worked well for the majority of students but there were some that struggled. I realized that if the teacher had halted the exercise before moving on to the next and asked the students to describe what was working well, the students who were struggling might have been able to pick up some pointers from their peers.

                Other things I have taken away from this week are specifics about students and routines. I realize that I will need to request gym, library and tech room schedules for future lesson planning. Other routines I still need to learn are how the teachers upload homework assignments and worksheets to Edmoto and how the attendance is taken on BCeSIS.

                I can easily say in reflecting this first week that it was a success. I began with a bucketful of anxieties and finished the week feeling exhausted but relaxed with how the future will look. I got to know many of my students, pick up on the small things in running an effective classroom, make connections with several staff members and sort out the rest of the year. As someone who needs to have an idea of what their future looks like, being able to sit down and talk schedules and expectations with as much detail as we did was amazingly uplifting. I feel confident, prepared, and excited to continue my school experience and open to the other emotions I know I will go through.

Time Flies When You're Having Fun

What?!? It's the middle of October?!?

Tis the eve of School Experience and it seems like all of my ducks are in a row....except for the mountain of assignments I have yet to finish. But for the most part, I am basically on track.

Looking back a year ago, I would have never guessed I would have accomplished so much thus far in the Teacher Education Program. I am both overwhelmed and exhilarated with the work I am doing and I'm all set up for my first week in my school. It took a while to realize that I am not going to get an elementary school experience in  middle school. The rotation of classes and multiple teachers is going to make it tricky for observations and lesson plans, but so far it looks like it will work itself out.

For the first observation, we were supposed to be working with one or two students on a short task, but instead I am going to lead a more informal lesson to the whole group of students- Chuck the Chicken. I feel that this will allow me to be easily accepted by the students as it is a light, fun game as well as it will be fairly easy for my teacher mentors to observe, letting them get used to the system as well. Then my wonderful Faculty mentor plans on stopping by on Friday to check in on us. This wasn't a required meeting but she insisted because she is awesome.

Overall, although I have a ton to do still for my classes, between my placement buddy and my wonderful mentors and faculty, I am confident that this first week will be a fantastic start to my School Experience.

10/15/13