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. 

Back At It!

Back at it again! I was warmly greeted by the secretaries, by name, on my first day back which a pleasant surprise. Everyone is being very supportive and helpful.  I attended a staff meeting on Thursday where myself and Andrew were re-introduced to the staff and were invited, along with the seven other student teachers, to partake in a lunch next week as an icebreaker. I also had the opportunity to check in with my Principle and Vice Principle and discuss the possibility of one or both of them observing my teaching and they were extremely willing.  My school is going above and beyond to make me feel comfortable. At least three teachers approached me asking if I needed resources or invited me to observe their classes, including staff from the highschool. There is predominantly a great community around me at the school.

            To get my 20% immersion, I planned with my mentor to do reading assessments on all of my students. I only got through 37 of them as it was a very busy week but it has been incredibly helpful to understand where the students are at in their reading. The biggest surprises I found were the students who got close to 100% on their reading but were very poor at critically thinking about what happened in the story. In every one of these cases, these students are classified as “good students” or “A” students but it is interesting how weak they are at deeper level thinking. On the other end of the spectrum, I had a student who was not as strong of a reader as I had thought and got a low score for her reading but was making amazing connections to the story. When I showed this data to my mentor she was equally surprised which has made me recognize the importance of teaching my students to ask ‘why’ and look closer into their reading.

            The other teaching I did this week was to take on the Health and Career class and finish up a short unit on Cyber-bullying. The students were engaged and provided great discussion for the various scenarios we discussed. I also introduced some of my classroom management strategies by having students think about the goals they want to accomplish by the end of the year. We then did a variety of strategies to narrow down these goals into rules we will abide by in the classroom. I thought that the exercise went really well. The surprises that came out of it were that once the rules were formed, some students did not agree that they were the most important. All three of my classes felt that the most important goal to have was to get straight A’s. I then lead a discussion about how straight A’s are not achievable for all students and that it is more important that they try their best and do their best work. It took some time but most of the students came to this realization. I recognize that this may be hard as the school that I am placed in is a very academic school so grades are on everyone’s minds…especially the parents. As it is part of my teaching philosophy, I intend to teach my students to recognize their potential and work their hardest to achieve to that level.

            Overall, I am happy with how the first week went. I am stressed and excited to start next week, as I will be going right to 80-100% for the next six weeks. In preparation I stayed late and did a ton of photocopying and changed up the look of the classroom. I took down a lot of posters that my mentor had up in anticipation of hanging student work as well as I changed the layout of the desks. I am now looking forward to spending the long weekend writing detailed lesson plans for the week and completing my units.

           

Setting up the classroom!

Spent some extra time after school setting up my room to be more condusive to learning! Crossed fingers that it works!