What is school anyway?

This is embarrassing but I completely forgot to put my blog on the tracker last week. I had it typed up on my computer and I sick and just forgot to upload it. 

This was the best week I have had so far, mainly because it was so short. I hate to say that since you know, I'm supposed to be a teacher but sometimes you just need a break. We started an activity that I am pleased to say went extremely well. Each class excelled and did phenomenally. It was probably because this time I divided them up into Lexile groups. This made the activity so much easier for the students and I think most of them got something out of it. So my victory this short week was my students actually learning and making deeper connections. The group work they did also helped me to connect with each of them better by sitting down with them in their groups and assisting and answering questions they may have. I think that they have to know that I am human too. That sounds silly but what I mean is that they have to know that I do not expect them to be perfect. I expect them to have questions and I want them to ask them so I don't have to pull it out of them. I want them to know that they can tell me if they don't understand. For next week, if we have school, I will make sure that I express to them that I only want them to try their best and ask when they need help. My long term goal is to help students learn on a deeper level and hopefully by breaking the ice and letting them know that I am here to help them and not just grade them they will be able to ask questions and explore and discover new things for themselves. Over the break that we had, I should have spent all of my time finishing lesson plans for the rest of the semester, but I didn't and I'm actually glad. Being able to sit down with the students in their groups and show them and help them I came to the realization that my time needs to be more wisely spent on planning lessons that are going to help students learn and make them want to ask questions. So for the weeks ahead, I will be thinking of ways to help the students want to ask questions and want to speak up in class and answer questions because they have a thirst for knowledge and an interest in what is being taught so much so that they want to learn more outside of class. The logical step for next week is to make sure that my lessons that I have planned create an environment that is inviting and that my questioning makes students want to learn more and ask questions, and research. I want to take them a step farther. I actually did not analyze any data this week other than looking at some writing assignments about Voltaire. They were telling about how the student interacts with other people but not much about their school performance. It did however, give me insight to some of their personalities. 

Since it was a short week, there was not a huge pool to choose from standard wise but 1a was one that I tried to push this week. I tried to be the leader of my classroom. Everything that went on I took full responsibility for. There were times where students did not understand and I had to explain myself better and in a different way because they did not understand. I also explained to them that sometimes we need to hear things multiple times or in a different way for it to actually stick. 

What is success anyway?

My week overall: 4

I am going to give this week a four only because I felt terrible Wednesday and yesterday. Otherwise, it was a pretty great and short week. 

Observe: What I am about to say you should probably take with a grain of salt and I only say that because they tested today but yesterday, Wednesday, and last Thursday, first block did exceptionally well with the activity. They especially shined on Thursday when they were finishing up and we were going over what they had started the week before. I don’t know if they were just happy to be at school but they were responding to questions and more talkative than I have ever seen them. Anyone who has heard me talk about first block knows they frustrate me more than anything because most of the time I am like Dora the Explorer standing at the front of the room trying to find the mountain. So this week I was pleasantly surprised with their energy and willingness to participate in class. 

Reflect: Middle school students do not like to be wrong in front of their peers. This is something that I knew already but really never understood until this week with my classes. If they are not 100% sure about an answer, they are not going to risk being wrong and being embarrassed in front of their peers. I notice this more in my first and third blocks because they are the most timid about answering questions and usually preface their answer with “well I don’t know if this is right but…” or raising their hands and then changing their minds. Anyway, the point I am trying to make is that this week I learned that my job is to build their confidence in answering questions because most of them will make the first sound of the answer with their mouth but are too scared to answer aloud. I realized that I needed to build their confidence by assigning them tasks that are rigorous but make them feel like they have succeeded. The way I found this out was last Thursday I divided the students into groups based on exile levels (they had no idea). We were analyzing documents looking for Enlightenment ideas in each. There were four documents and each group analyzed a different document based on the reading level of the document and their lexile level so each group had a document that was their level so it was easier for them to read and to understand. After they had picked a few things out of that document and discussed with their group they broke into other groups where they had to “teach” the other students (who had different documents) about their document. I was so pleased with how well they did. Every single person, except for one or two, taught what they had learned with confidence and it was amazing. This showed me that from now on, starting next week, I need to bring the work to them. By that I mean, I have to find engaging, rigorous activities that are level appropriate that make them feel like they have learned and succeeded in the activity. 

Focus: My short term goal for this coming week is to make sure that each child has some measure of success with each activity that we complete. My long term goal is to make sure that I am effectively communicating information with students in a way that is more than just facts. I want the students to learn and to be able to make connections and learn on a deeper level. I think these goals are aligned because if I can tailor my instruction to help each child succeed and actually understand they will be able to make connections and learn on a deeper level than just remembering facts.  

Be productive: I could have used my time more wisely this week. I should have spent more time making sure I was planning lessons for individuals and not the entire class. It is not majority rule. I have to teach every student in the class and not just the students who understand most things. I must plan my lesson with individuals in mind and not the majority of the class because in my opinion, that is how students get left behind and the main reasons students drop out of school. They feel like it is so hard and that they are always failing. In order for students to want to stay in school they have to feel like they are doing more than getting failing grades. They have to feel like they are learning and that goes back to what I said earlier about students making connections and learning on a deeper level. They will not want to learn if they think they are going to fail. 

Have courage: This is a hard one because I feel like because I am the “new teacher” all of my decisions are made apprehensively because I wonder if when they ask me to go to the bathroom if they really have to go or if they are trying to take advantage of me. This sounds silly but this week I was more decisive about making decisions regarding leaving the room. I realized that any decision I make my CE will support so there is not need for apprehensiveness or indecisiveness because my decision stands. This week I still struggled a bit and there were times I said no when maybe a should have said yes and times I said yes when I should have said no. I have decided to be more decisive and I hope this will help me become more authoritative in the role as full time teacher.  

Begin anew: The first logical step for next week is to go in with confidence in my role and to give me students confidence in their work. I want them to succeed and I want to succeed. I need to be student focused and less worried about other things. 

Some data I analyzed this week was their work from the document activity. I saw the benefits of tailoring instruction to student needs. This helped drive my decisions about all other work we will do. I will be purposeful when doing activities that involve reading to make sure that students are grouped accordingly so that they can reach optimal success in the activity. 

Standard 1: 1a: This week I put my kids into groups multiple times that required them to interact with people they may not normally speak to and it also required them to collaborate and work together in terms of being effective communicators with their peers and later when they get a job. 

Standard 2: 2d: This week has been an interesting week in terms of meeting needs. It was my first time testing and I had to create a separate test for each of my EC children that met their needs in terms of ability and strengths. I had to communicate with the EC teacher in terms of how I would go about giving the students who need it extra time and extra support she would provide for each student. 

Standard 3: 3b: We have been talking about the Enlightenment and this week I had a girl tell me that since we have been talking about a lady who thought women should be equal she has been looking up things about women’s rights in America. It was very neat that she wanted to continue learning beyond the one lady we had talked about. 

Standard 4: 4d: This week I had my first experience with Plickers and it went great. The students seemed to really enjoy it and were amazed at how it worked. This is something I hope to continue using in my classroom and maybe find a way to let the kids check each other maybe in groups or in other ways. 

Standard 5: 5a: This was the first week I really had data to analyze. I used what I learned with the Lexile based activity to plan other activities that used the same strategy to make students successful in the activities they complete. 

Parts of my portfolio that I have started completing is the preparation for teaching my unit.

 I have also started working on taking video clips that I will use to make my video for my lesson plans and philosophy video. Support is great!

You win some, you lose some.

This week has been BUSY BUSY BUSY! It was my first full week of teaching and I am exhausted!! I also had my first observation this week so it was certainly one to remember. My kids have begun to open up to me as a teacher and not just as the lady who comes in to observe or help. I have a great bunch and I look forward to spending 9 more weeks with them.

I am going to start by telling about what we have done this week. This week we have been talking about the Enlightenment. I started teaching last Thursday so this has been our topic since then. On Tuesday I had them do an activity that was a complete disaster. They were to read a document and summarize the section they were assigned. I should have looked at it better because they didn't understand any of it. They could not pronounce the words and had no idea what it was saying. Luckily, there is a break between my first two classes and my last two classes and during planning my CE and I sat down and she helped me overhaul my lesson and the second half of the day went much smoother. We also had a mock EOG on Thursday so our schedule was messed up and our classes were shortened but I was allowed to administer the test so that was great experience for me. Now, for my favorite part. Today, with two of my classes we made memes based on the ideas of the Enlightenment thinkers. They had a blast and I was pleasantly surprised with some of the things that they came up with. My other two classes did something different. After we finished our notes I gave them about ten minutes to look over their notes on the Enlightenment thinkers and highlight or underline their important ideas, while studying. I then put them into groups and assigned each group a different colored marker. Around the room I had that big paper hanging with Enlightenment thinkers names on it. They were to, as a group, come up with one thing they could remember about that person and put in on the paper with their color marker. I gave them about 2 or 3 minutes to complete each one. After they had come back around to their original paper they had to read what the other groups had written and come up with one sentence that explained the main idea the Enlightenment thinker had. When we come back to school on Thursday, for warm up, one person from each group will come up with their paper and tell us the ideas of the Enlightenment thinker and read their sentence. The other students will be checking their notes to make sure they highlighted the appropriate things. Overall, both classes did really well and I was very pleased with my first block, who usually has the hardest time with activities.

What I learned this week is that things do not always go as planned. In fact, they rarely do. It is important as a teacher to always have a plan B, C, D, and even a plan E because something will go wrong because the rule of the classroom is Murphy's law. I have grown a lot even this week I think because I did have a disastrous lesson the day before I was being observed and it messed up my plans for the entire week but I have been blessed with a wonderful CE. She has been fabulous and I am extremely lucky that she is willing to take her time to make sure I am successful. On the other hand, I also learned that some lessons go better than you expect. Today, the memes were so great. They did so well and I was extremely proud of the way they were able to create something so funny but that related to the topic. For next week, I hope to continue down the same path and grow with my students and hopefully plan some lessons and activities that can really help them dive into the material and make it meaningful for them.