Review Game Host

Contestant Number One, Come on Down!

In our cancer unit we worked on being “Scientist Researchers,” by researching different treatments. It went pretty well other than minor hiccups such as me giving groups the wrong research materials. We got it all knocked out today, and I like that because that’s pretty much all the time I can use for it, but I wasn’t able to allow them the freedom to present their findings in the way they want.  Last time I had them in research groups for social studies, they got to present their own way, and they did a wonderful job of it while having fun. This time, I pretty much made a template for them to fill out as they went along. It went over pretty smoothly, but was not quite as exciting. I really wish I had more time for researching treatments because there are so many, and quite frankly, I just think that some of them are really cool, and I believe they would have the same opinion if we had time to delve into the subject.

Social studies was a riot today.  Without any warning, I sprung a review game on them. The civil war unit is taking a ridiculous amount of time to cover because we probably only average about three days a week for social studies, so I figured it was time for a little review. There were a few kinks in the logistics of the game that I had to work out along the way, but other than that, it was a super success. The kids loved playing, got a good refresher, and I had a great time being the host. I snuck out during the transition from science to social studies and changed into a sweet outfit, then had my teacher play music from “The Dating Game,” to cue me to come in after he split the class into two teams. The best part was the shock on their face as I ran in high-fiving them because they had no clue what was happening. Once I announced that I was the host of the “Civil War Review Show,” they all began to cheer, and the game was on! It had a perfect balance of individual opportunity as well as group scoring opportunity, with a little strategy mixed in. In the end, it was a great change of pace, and a great learning environment in which to be.

Hard Lesson to Learn

Well, today was a hard lesson learned. We began our cancer unit today, and I found out that one student has a grandmother who has cancer that is about to take her life. There wasn’t a big scene or anything. She began to cry and when we noticed, my mentor teacher walked her out and talked to her. After he explained her situation to me, I felt absolutely horrible. I had talked to the class and given them a pretest about our unit weeks before, but she didn’t bring it up to me. It may not have even been a big issue a few weeks ago, but now that her grandmother is reaching the final stages, it’s just too much for her to deal with having a whole period devoted to talking about something that is causing her this pain. I figured out a couple of assignments for her to complete on genetics today and tomorrow. I’m now working on a project for her, but I still feel bad that things have happened this way. I feel bad for her situation at home, and now it’s just magnified, but I also feel bad for the timing. I feel like this would be a great unit for her to be a part of, but she’s just not ready for it at this point. We are going to end the unit with a cancer awareness project, and I hate that she will miss that because I think it will be something that she will be a strong advocate for at some point in time. most of all, I just hope that everything works out as well as possible in her situation.

Marathon

Whew, second day of conferences complete. It’s been so wonderful to meet student’s parents. I’ve met most of them now after a day of conferences from 1:00-7:30 without any breaks. I’ve been able to see the different levels of involvement parents have, how serious they are about their child’s performance, and how agreeable they are with what’s going on in class and the work students do at home.  It has been a pleasant learning experience, but after being at school for over twelve hours today, I see why some teachers dread it. It’s long, repetitive, and a bit draining. However, it is quite necessary to have this nearly mandated parent-teacher interaction.

Genetics is continuing to prove challenging to teach and learn. We’ve taken quizzes and the results have not been too high. I will say that each child improved greatly comparing pre and post vocabulary quizzes; probably by an average of 25%.  However, my goal is 100% passing, and we haven’t reached that yet.  Also, we took a quiz, measuring their ability to differentiate mitosis and meiosis today, and the results told me that we need at least one more day of work on those two topics. I’m trying to hit every possible approach I can to reach all students, and it’s getting to be pretty challenging for my creativity to come up with re-teaching methods, but I know it’s a necessary lesson for me to learn. 

First Day of Conferences

Our first day of parent-teacher conferences were today. It’s a very new thing for me so I am learning a lot. As far as the conference structure goes, it’s pretty much as I imagined it. We review their report card and talk about how the student is doing in each area (mostly math and reading), talk about behavior, and then hand out any information about the future while fielding any questions the parents have. We only had three conferences today, but I was able to learn about those parents and how they are supporting their child. The three that visited today all seemed to be involved in motivating their child if nothing else. They all had questions of what area the child needed improvement most, and they all already had an understanding of where their child stands before meeting with us. The really neat thing was that the three students whose parents visited today are on three different academic levels. So, it was nice to see firsthand that these parents are involved whether their child is “high” or “low.”

We scored a win for science this week! Instead of doing math for ELT this week, we will be doing science during the early release days since science is usually in the afternoon. This way, we will not fall further behind schedule in science than we already are. On an even better note, it looks like I will actually be able to begin the second part of my unit this week. However, I may take a day or two to re-teach and/or elaborate on genetics and cell division a little more. It’s really tough material, and I think I planned too short of a time to cover it. Even getting a surface understanding of this material as they are required would have been similar to my first week of genetics and cell division in tenth grade biology. I really just feel it’s necessary to go back, review some things, and tie it all together.

The Teacher is Back

Things were finally restored to a bit of normalcy today. However, the time is drawing near to where they will become off kilter once again. Parent conferences start on Wednesday. And, now that I think of it, we didn’t actually have a normal day today either. During ELT, we went to the computer lab to do “Success Maker” testing. I’m not really sure what the purpose of it is. Perhaps there is a computer program that they will take part in based off of their scores. Things are always so hectic that I don’t ever think to ask my mentor teacher questions in the midst of things. The inconsistencies do bother me. We got to do reading three days last week, and we will only get it two days this week. It’s actually going to take about 3 weeks to do my two week unit, and the only social studies I will get to teach all year will be the Civil War.  The worst thing is that I can see how the lack of consistency is hurting the kids from building strong foundations before going deeper into any topic in any subject.

I got a bit of a lesson today in the value of a well executed delivery. But, of course, the lessons I learn come from failures. I had planned out everything for us to talk about when discussing the Battle of Appomattox Court House pretty specifically.  However, I’m not quite a Civil War expert so I needed to have some notes with me. Well, right away, in my activation, I divulged some important information that I had meant to have the kids discus in groups and try to figure out the importance of it themselves.  Because I did that, the lesson took a turn in a different direction, and I was having a bit of a tough time trying to reign it all in and tie it together in a way that makes sense. Let’s just say that I found myself repeating a lot of things. I guess it was at least the most vital piece of information they kept hearing so maybe they will remember, but it certainly wasn’t a very fun period for anyone…

10-14-2011

     My mentor teacher was back for the morning today. I noticed that the morning seemed to take much longer when the responsibilities are shared. Overall, the past few days have been a great experience. I’ve received a few encouraging complements from and really got to interact with the other teachers and staff. They’ve done an amazing job all year of making me feel like an equal, but I was able to get a true sense of it when they would ask for my advice or opinion and my teacher wasn’t there for me to turn around and get confirmation.

     We did a science activity today that involved Play-Doh. It was quite the event. The kids really enjoyed it and showed a shallow understanding of the process of mitosis, but I believe I will need to do some follow-up instruction because the focus on the art seemed to override some of their focus on the science. It’s just really hard to find the balance of how much straightforward instruction they need with active, independent explorations.