Rock on!

I wanted to commend you for your conversations here.  I love the thoughtful responses to the CIs, and it's great that you see this as a forum to share lesson ideas as well.  Keep up the good work.

Critical Incident #3 part 2.

Sam comes in to the classroom from another literature class right as Mr. H is about to start class. He creeps to the back of the room where Mr. H is getting his morning coffee. Sam is a Chinese exchange student. I believe his dad works for the Chinese consulate and he is only at The Center School for this year. Sam does speak English but does so at a low level. He is working with another student teacher for One-on-One help. He quietly says to Mr. H that he forgot his homework and needs a note from his Advisor. A note from an advisor is usually required for all students from their advisor when they forget homework. Mr. H asks him why he forgot his homework and Sam says that he lost it.

“You lost it, don’t you finish homework and then out it back in your bag to bring to school the next day?” Mr. H asks sarcastically. Mr. H is usually VERY sarcastic with his students. Most of the students understand this sarcasm but several of the younger students see it as Mr. H very mad at them. Sometimes it is even hard for me to tell which one he is being. Quan does not understand the sarcasm and replies “yes I do” almost choking back tears.

"Well if you do that then, why is your homework not at school with you today? Get a piece of paper and I'll write this note" Mr. H yells at Sam. Sam walks to Mr. H's desk to get a piece of paper.

"Hurry up Sam, you are wasting mine, yours, and your other lit teachers time with this". Mr. H says to Sam in front of his lit class. Up to this point, the conversation has only been between Sam and Mr. H, and most of the students had not noticed what was going on in the back of the room. Sam continues to look for a piece of paper but does not see one on the desk. He then open up a drawer to get one.

"Sam, don't go through my desk. Come here and take the note I just wrote on a post-it". Sam walks over to Mr. H this time crying.

"Sam you don't have to cry. you just have to remember that when you don't do your homework it is bad for everyone, including teachers in other classes." Mr. H hands Sam a note on a post-it and sends him off to his literature class. The whole process took about 10 minutes out of a unusually short period that day.

So basically, Sam walked into the classroom, trying not to interrupt class, asked for a note and ended up taking up about 1/3 of class that day with his problem. I want to note that unlike everyone else's "Critical incidents" mine really an example of a "bad" student. I have been very lucky and very spoiled with my kids so far this semester. I have heard of 2 "fights" and "bullying" but I was not there for those. This is honestly the worst thing I have seen.

Critical Incident #3

I thought everything seemed to be going well on the first day that I taught for the entire class period. As I circulated the room to see if anyone had questions and to check that everyone understood what they were doing during partner time, I realized Brian* and his partner, Shawn*, were sitting silently looking down at their papers. The students were supposed to be peer editing their own and each other’s papers using the strategy of reading the work aloud to find errors. Usually Brian is very talkative and tends to get off task easily which is why I chose Shawn, a serious and quiet student, to be his partner. I asked them if they understood what to do and they said that had already done everything they were supposed to do for partner one (Shawn) and asked if they could move onto partner number two’s paper. I told them there was still seven minutes left to work on partner number one’s paper and suggested a number of ways they could try reading the paper to find more errors. Brian said that he wanted to work on his own paper and I told him not to worry because each partner’s paper would have the same amount of time, ten minutes, to be edited. I also noted that Shawn did not mark up his paper and that he was supposed to mark the errors and show how to fix them that way when he could easily see what needed to be fixed when he decided to revise it. There were only a few errors corrected on the two page paper. They began to work, so I moved onto other students.

After the ten minute mark when students were supposed to begin editing partner two’s paper, I walked over to Brian and Shawn again. Brian told me he didn’t want to do this with his partner now. I tried to explain to him that he was only hurting himself and his own grade by not working today because they are allowed to revise their work. Brian said he was a great writer and was very good at grammar, so he knew there were no problems in his paper. I glanced at the paper and saw a number of errors, so I told him that I found a few things that could be fixed and that he should use this time to find them himself so that he could get a better grade. After a bit of prodding and pointing out a specific sentence that had an error, Brian added a comma to one sentence in his paper, so I said something along the lines of “now that you found one mistake, I’m sure you can find more” and walked away thinking that they were now working. After reviewing the papers the students handed in at the end of the class period, I noticed that Brian only had the one comma marked on his page.

I feel as though Brian completely missed out on the lesson for the day and wonder how the outcome could have changed had I done something differently.

*pseudonym

Learning Log Reflection #2

3 Things I Learned:

1. I have learned the value of a learning log. At the beginning of the semester, I was not sure of what we were supposed to be doing with our learning log and wasn’t sure if I was writing in it when I was supposed to or if I was missing out on something because I did not record questions in my log every day. After class last night and reading Daniels et al., I have realized the learning log is a valuable tool in the classroom. I realized that not only is it a great way to keep everything organized (index cards, sticky notes, WTL activities, and teacher feedback), but it is also a tool for students to track their own learning. I think it is important for there to be explicit instruction regarding the learning log in a middle or high school classroom. The students should know what the learning logs are for and when they should be writing in them.

2. I have learned that although when creating a lesson plan, I should start by planning the objective and assessment, it is okay to have students do ungraded writing activities. Before this semester whenever I heard the word assessment, I automatically thought of a standardized test. The assessment does not need to be a test or a formal paper. Depending on the objective, the assessment may be a variety of things including WTL activities. An assessment can be an exit slip to check if the students understood, for example, the definition of satire and irony after a class focused on the concept of those words.

3. I have realized the importance of working collaboratively with other student teachers or even just being able to ask them for feedback on a lesson in order to strengthen it. During our Monday night class with Rebekah on lesson planning, we took a moment to reflect on creating lesson plans with partners. Before this, for some reason I thought I would not like creating a lesson plan with someone else. I guess I had this idea in my mind that we were supposed to create our lesson plans one hundred percent independently one hundred percent of the time. Laura and I worked together to create a lesson plan about sensory language using E.A. Poe’s “The Raven” and it was an enlightening experience for me. We were able to bounce ideas off of each other to see if they would work in a way that I can not do when I am working on a lesson plan alone. I also liked that I could share my excitement about the lesson with someone. I have not written that many lessons, but when I am sitting at home and think of a great activity or idea for a lesson plan, my sister is less likely to be as excited as Laura or one of my other classmates.

2 Questions I Have:

1. How can we help students who are only focused on the product or the final grade recognize the value of the process of their work?

2. Many WTL activities include partner work (as does pair-share or elbow partners). What do you guys think about having students sit in pairs or groups of four throughout the classroom rather than in rows? What do you think are the pros and cons of such a classroom desk arrangement?

1 Goal for the Future:

One goal I have for the short term future is to ‘test out’ at least three of the writing to learn activities that we learned about in class on Monday on my students. I plan to find a way to incorporate them into my teaching time in my cooperating teacher’s classroom.

A long term goal I have for future learning is to implement a learning log in my own classroom in the future. I like the idea of the students having a place to store all of their writing. I also like the idea of students being able to see the growth of their learning log rather than handing back exit slips to them that end up at the bottom of book bags or their WTL activities written randomly in their notebooks.

Learning Log Reflection #2

3 Things I have Learned

1) Being a teacher is much more than just reading out of a textbook and assigning homework. While taking notes and observing classes help, and each teacher I have watched has been a great model, there is much more involved. Looking through my Learning Log I think that a lot of the connections I make, and the understandings I have are because I not only watch teachers, but am learning to be a teacher. I have many different types of notes and each point I make would be another language if I did not have everything all together to connect them to.

2) I have learned (especially from last nights class) that there are a lot of "fun" ways to incorporate writing in class. Most of my education was based on product and not on process, but I am learning ways to grade on process as well as product. These are evident in my Learning Log when I write notes about how a specific activity could be more fun if the process was just as important as the product.

3) I have learned that there are multiple purposes of writing. They do not always have to be used for formal assessment and many times should be used just for students to get their ideas out on paper.

2 Questions I Have

1) How does my education of formal assessments and NOTE books differ from that of a student who uses a Learning Log and Writing and Thinking? I am learning the importance of a Learning Log over the traditional but I can't help asking, Did I Miss Out on Something?

2) I have always tried to make my notes as clean and organized as possible. After 17 years of schooling, I have my own style of note-taking that works for me. Through flipping through my Learning Log I have noticed that it is one of the most unorganized notebooks I have ever had. Is there a way to keep everything organized and still keep the "flow" of the multiple aspects? Is it something (like note-taking) that the student learns and perfects over time?

1 Goal for Future Learning

I never used a Learning Log until this Mega Class and at first I was very hesitant about using one. As time has progressed I am seeing the benefit of one but I still prefer the traditional notebook. My goal would be to incorporate a Learning Log into my own classroom. This way I can learn about my students while making sure they are learning the materials I want them to.

My other goal (I know it only asked for 1) is to try to add to my Learning Log on my own without being prompted my the teachers. Many sometimes I just need to stop and writ what I am thinking. That way I can look back and answer my older questions. I think that this will greatly benefit me as a learner and as a student.

Learning Log Reflection # 2

As I progress in my learning, I am happy to note that my questions and concerns are also evolving.  I am no longer so concerned with what can go wrong in the classroom, but rather what I can do to make the classroom a more inviting place for my students. 

Lessons:  I want so badly for my classroom to be a fun learning environment where the students not only learn, but also actually enjoy the learning.  I worry that my lessons will be boring and not entice my students to do their very best.  This has perhaps surpassed my worry of group work activities.  I am hopeful that when I have my own classroom, and am able to teach what I want, essentially how I want, that I will be able to create more interesting, interactive lessons that foster a need and a want to learn within my students.  Although I am gaining valuable insights into how to create lessons due to the very nature of the classroom I am in, I must conform my lessons to fit with the classroom environment that my cooperating teacher has created. 

My Teaching:  At the beginning of my student teaching I was very preoccupied by the notion that my students would not respect me, that I would not be able to control my students, and that I would not be an effective teacher.   For the most part, I have found that my students enjoy talking to me both inside and outside of class. They often call me over during lessons to help them, or to have me correct and look over work they have completed.  I very much enjoy the student-teacher bonds that I have begun making with some of them.  I have come to see that my students respect me as a teaching figure – something that I didn’t realize I would be so pleased by.  This respect has come in very handy for getting my students to focus and be productive members of the classroom.  I am able to give directions and corrections to students – and they actually listen.  At the beginning of my placement – I would often hear students under their breaths say things like “well you’re not a real teacher” or “I don’t have to listen to you”.  But now, I often need only look at a misbehaving student in order to get them to quiet down, focus, and mouth “sorry miss”. 

My Classroom:  I spend a great deal of time now contemplating my classroom.  In the previous weeks I have been documenting notices, posters, and rules that other teachers have up in their classrooms.  By compiling these things I have been creating a cache of ideas for creating my own classroom environment.  I have begin to understand that it is not only the teacher and the students that contribute to the classroom learning environment, but also the environment (or the room) itself.  I want my classroom to be an inviting place where the students have some control over what is displayed.  I have noticed, specifically with my students at SDC, that there is little respect for the environment.  Students leave trash and notebooks and crumpled papers all over the place with no regard for the classroom.    I am hopeful that If I allow my students to help decorate the classroom they will take more pride in the room and respect the learning environment in the same way I expect each student to respect me as a teacher, and each student expects me to respect them as a learner.  This idea of respecting the entirety of the classroom experience has become a central point in my ideas on teaching and being an effective teacher.