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.

Here I Go Again on My Own

For the past two days, my mentor teacher has not been at school. So, it’s been completely up to me to make sure things are running smoothly and productively. The day flies by so much quicker when you are completely in charge of everything. I used to just kind of sit back or interact with students when we were transitioning in the morning, and people are leaving the room and people from other classes are coming in to our room. However, I’ve found that when in charge of everything going on, there are a thousand things running through your mind, and those transitions feel like you only have five seconds to have everyone where they need to be, and everything set up for the next lesson. Luckily, the students in my class are responding well to me being THE one in charge on these days. I feel like we have established a pretty good mutual respect for each that makes this possible. Really the only snag we hit was during ELT on Wednesday when students from the other home room were mixed in with us. They had a little bit of the “sub mentality.” However, I believe we got things smoothed out because ELT ran smoothly today and was quite productive.

Speaking of ELT, it has been a wonderful learning experience over these past two days. This week is the first time meeting with this specific group since we do flexible groups based on pre and post tests. So, I did not know a lot about these kids, other than the fact that they scored in the range that placed them in our ELT class. Well, come to find out on Wednesday, half of them did not know how to find the GCF of two numbers, and many of those didn’t know what a GCF is. So, after noting who all needed remediation/re-teaching, I allowed the other half of the class to move along with the activity while I gave a mini-lesson on GCF.  I then made modifications last night to today’s lesson and worked out a way to get the class on the same page by the end of the lesson.  I gave another quick mini-lesson on GCF as an activation, and then allowed the kids who did not need remediation to explore some tougher scenarios and word problems with finding the GCF, while I got the others started on finding GCF by themselves, and showed them alternative methods to finding the GCF.  Eventually, I allowed the kids not needing remediation to begin working on what was originally planned for today by themselves to see if they could figure out the connection between finding the GCF and putting fractions in their simplest form, while I reviewed the problems the others were practicing with them. By the end of the lesson, I was able to give them a lead into tomorrow’s lesson that everyone could now begin to understand.

GAPS Review

     At our school, we practiced for the GAPS review today. During our planning period, we met with administration, got checklists, and then split into teams to go and evaluate the third grade teachers.  The main focus of the GAPS review seems to be to check and see if the classroom and lessons are standards based.  Pretty much every question was asking if a standard is used in a certain way, if a standards based work is posted, if the child can give you an answer that sounds like the standard when you ask him what they are doing during their lesson, or simply if the standard is posted.  There wasn’t really any rating of delivery or appropriateness of activities; pretty much just checking for a standards centered environment.  After doing the walkthroughs, which took about fifteen minutes, we met back in the conference room and discussed what we saw, and how we scored our rubrics.  The rating options were: apparent, not obvious, or not available. Most of the ratings were either “apparent” or “not available.”  Later on, we were on the other end of the process. Two administrators came into our room during our reading period, which is one of my subjects.  We had entered into the “student work period,” so there wasn’t really any teaching to score, but I had prepared my students during the activation/mini-lesson as usual by cueing them with the standard and essential question. I also had the standard and essential question posted, and when we gave students individual work, we made sure to refer back to the standard that is being addressed. It was pretty normal, everyday stuff for us so I believe everything went well.

    We entered into a pretty deep discussion in social studies today. I posed an activation question (which ended up encompassing the student work period and summary) of whether or not there are certain things that shouldn’t be done during a war. The student’s opinions and discussion funneled almost perfectly into the issue that I wanted to raise of which wins when in war, “good strategy vs. good morals.”  The kids were having a great debate, and were giving plenty of supporting reasons for their arguments. I believe when we get into more details about the Atlanta Campaign and Sherman’s March to the Sea tomorrow, they will be ready to evaluate the strategic vs. moral decision that was made by General Sherman at that point in the war.

Assessments

The students began bench-mark testing for the first quarter today. I feel bad for them. I knew there was a lot of pressure for the CRCT, but I didn’t know they were having to take these high pressure standardized tests at the end of every quarter.  It’s not like its set up to be a low pressure situation.  The kids know they have to constantly take these tests, and they realize the implications that come with it. In my elementary school experience, all I knew was that we had to take the ITBS at the end of the year, and had no clue about what the significance of it was.  So, in my day, I simply looked forward to standardized testing days because they only lasted for a few days at the end of the year and we got snacks and extended recess. Now, the kids are having to miss three mornings of instruction three to four times a year on top of all of the mandated pre and post unit tests that are they typical pen and paper multiple choice, fill in the blank type assessment (un-fun).

     I did what I feel was a pretty useful and fun assessment with my kids today. They were to create their own animal, and then they had to classify it. I gave them the frame for how it should be classified, and they had to use their knowledge of classification in order to complete the task. By the end of the class period, I was able to get an idea of who has the concept and who doesn’t, as well as what areas will need to be taught again. The kids have no clue that they are being assessed, and I am finding out who needs attention in what area. They were having fun doing it, and I was having more fun evaluating them as they worked than grading papers. The best part is, they are still learning while they are performing. If it’s something they did not understand before the task, they can actually continue to learn while creating their animal.

Bird Banquett

When doing my reading mini-lessons, I’ve began to notice that creating my own stories can be such a useful thing to do. I hate trying to sift through and find short stories for mini-lessons so I just decided I would start writing my own. I feel like it’s such a useful tool. I can tailor the story to the element we are covering, as well as tailor it to my class. So far, they have enjoyed and gotten a lot out of the three stories I’ve read so far. The first two were really entertaining, and the one I just wrote about a new student for “theme” was very meaningful, and I believe most of them got the message.

I also did a pretty involved activity in science today. It definitely went the way you would expect a very active activity to go the first time. The kids were excited and jittery, and I have not had the experience with it to be able to prevent some problems from happening. I was catching onto things as the period went on that I could fix for next time, and ways that I could instruct better. Luckily, my supervisor was there to reinforce things that could be improved on and point out other things, otherwise, they could have slipped my mind or gone unnoticed. I’m really glad I did that activity, which I will now refer to as experiment, while she was there because, even though it’s a risky thing to do while a supervisor is there (if you worry about that), I believe it’s a great experiment and I wanted feedback so that I could continue it in the future and make it even more powerful. 

10-4-2011

     I’ve completely taken over writing now, and have started to take over math. I’m not able to completely take over math right now because we are kind of in data grouping limbo until next week because we are doing benchmark testing this week. So, yesterday, I was just able to run a center rotation for math. I believe it is the subject I am most afraid of teaching. I pretty much have zero experience teaching any math above third grade. And most of the math I have taught in the first place has been in kindergarten.

     Taking over writing has been fun. I’m finding that I really enjoy writing and teaching writing myself. I’ve been collaborating with the two writing coaches as they plan and using those plans for the most part, but the delivery is all me. So, when it comes to writing time, I get to take those plans and make them mine, and I get to discuss what my class needs at the time.

     We learned about invertebrates in science today. We began by watching a video that was going to take about ten minutes. Well, we ended up watching videos for about 25-30 minutes. The kids were so enthralled with what they were seeing; all these cool insects, aquatic creatures, animals that look like plants, giant squids, jelly-fish…they were hooked. So, after the activation, we found some more video for them to watch and I just made a small assignment out of it. They had to list three things they learned, as well as three more things they learned that they thought was really cool. I condensed the remainder of the lesson, and we got through it, but I just couldn’t go to something else when they were so excited about seeing the new things we were learning about in the video. 

PLC Day 2

      No kids today.  Today was another Professional Learning day that consisted of only teachers, meetings, and planning. It was pretty nice to have a little extra designated time for planning. I was able to tie up a lot of loose ends today.  It also gave me a great opportunity to talk to my mentor teacher about my upcoming two week unit. I wanted to plan it further ahead of time, but one thing I have been learning is that you have to play it by ear a lot as far as time frame goes. So, with inconsistent opportunities to meet for particular subjects, and finding time to meet and discuss it with my mentor, it’s been hard to get ahead on it. Luckily, I was able to speak with him today with the extra time we had, and I was able to confirm that I will be able to start it on time since we should have science (the main time I will be doing my unit) consistently this week.

      Another great aspect of today’s Professional Learning was learning about, and planning for, student data notebooks. These will be notebooks with goal sheets, checklists, rubrics, and reflection sections for the students to keep up with. So, it will largely be their responsibility to plan and track their own progress. With these student notebooks, we will be instituting student lead parent conferences. Basically, the students will use their notebooks to review with their parents where they are and where they want to be in their progress. The teacher will be there to facilitate as multiple meetings are happening at once. I think it is a great idea because what some students lack is a sense of responsibility and self-efficacy, and I think this will be a way to motivate them in both areas. By being a part of planning for their learning progress, I think the kids will value themselves more, and in turn, take more initiative in doing what they should be doing in class and at home in order to make the progress they want.