Winding down

It is hard to believe that the semester is starting to wind down already!  My final observation is on Monday and then I start to phase out of teaching my classes.  Where did the time go?  The one thing I am excited for this week is to go observe in other classroom other than my own.  It's going to be nice just to see some other things that teachers do that can be helpful in the future.  The one observation that I am most excited for (if we can get it worked out) is going to Culler and seeing how they use one-to-one in their classroom.  I have a very little idea of how one works, and my future classroom is going to that way.  Looks like I may have to take a lot of notes while I am there.  I'm also excited to go observe in some block classes at Southeast.  In my practicums and student teaching, I've just been in either a regular or diff classroom.  This opportunity will be nice just to get a little experience in a class like that just in case I were to teach one in the future.  

Professional Developement

I think that the one thing that I need to work on would definitely be my classroom management.  The one thing I need to do in order to be better at this is to follow through with my disciplining.  I usually give the student a warning and the next time that they talk they will get a detention.  The first warning usually quiets them for the rest of the period.  There have been some times where the student has talked and I haven't given any discipline for it.  I can definitely tell that that has had an effect on my classroom after that.  My warnings aren't carrying anymore weight and the kids.  They'll just keep talking.  I have given a couple of detentions but that hasn't quite worked either though.  So in the future I need to be more consistent with my disciplining and carry out on the punishments.  If classroom isn't where I want it to be, I need to be a more assertive and get it where I want it to be.

Another area I need to work on is the diversity of the ways I teach my lessons.  Right now I usually have just one way of explaining things to my students.  If a student doesn't really get it right away, I have have a hard time of trying to explain it in a different way.  I do think that this will just come with more time teaching and experience.  Another thing that I can do to get better at this also is to do a little research on the topic before I start teaching it.  This could get a couple more ideas in my head for that topic so that all the students can learn from the lesson. 

Revisit: Classroom management

This past week I subbed for three days for one of my CTs.  Out of all the classes that she supervises, the hardest one for me to do was a study hall.  One reason why this was the hardest class for me was because it took forever to get over.  The other reason why it was hard for me was because it was all classroom management, and this is the biggest thing that I need to work on.  In the class aren't the type of students that will just get out work and start working on it.  I constantly had to tell students to turn around and stop talking, or to get something out and work on it.  Still no matter what I told them they would just go back to messing around and not being productive.  I had no idea what to say to them that would make them get to work.  Looking back at it, I should have disciplined one student at the beginning of the class to make them realize that I was serious and put some weight behind my words.  This is actually the one thing I need to do with all my classes when they are getting out of hand,  I think that as time goes on and I become more comfortable with disciplining, my classroom management will get a lot better.    

Inscribed angle lesson

The past couple of days, I have been teaching a lesson on inscribed angles.  The lesson was something that the PLC had planned out already.  So I didn't know how well that it was going to do with this.  For this, we had the students use a circle with 36 dots on the circle evenly spaced apart.  First, we had the students draw an equilateral triangle in the circle.  Then we had them find the relationship between the inscribed angle and the arc that it makes.  Then to make sure the pattern is true for a couple of other cases, we had the students do the same with a square and hexagon.  The one thing that I was worried about was if the students were going to be able draw an equilateral triangle other than by "it looks like one."  Luckily, there were a couple of students that I could call on to explain how they did it.  Then after that the rest of the lesson went pretty smoothly.  This was way better than a lesson that I taught in my practicum on the same subject.  In my practicum lesson, I had the students use protractors to find what the arc measures were.  The protractor skill of some students aren't really up to par.  So it was nice to have the circle where it was easy to tell what the measure of the arc was.  This is definitely a lesson I will use in my geometry lesson next year.

And in the spirit of the event that happened this week, I'll end this post with a motto from Wahoo Schools...
IT'S A GREAT DAY TO BE A WARRIOR

Job Search

Since we didn't have school this week, I thought about writing about my experiences with the job search.  During spring break, I had my first interview.  I had no idea of what to expect when walking into the interview.  I tried to tell myself not to be nervous, but no matter how hard I tried, I was still really nervous.  Luckily, I was provided the list of questions I could look at during the interview in the order that they were going to ask them.  This was very helpful because I could kind of prepare my answers in my head while the interview team was writing things down.  Hopefully this is the case for every interview I have because I don't know what I would have done without it.  The other thing that I didn't like about having my first interview was that I didn't know how well I did because I don't have any other experiences to base it off of.  So when people asked me how the interview went. I didn't know what to tell them because I had no clue on if I did good or bad.  I didn't think I did too well in the interview.  I was a nervous wreck and thought I could have done way better.  Luckily, someone I know is good friends with one of the interviewers and they said I didn't do too bad, so fingers crossed that this will be the only interview that I have to do!

Parental Interaction

I haven't seen that much parental interaction with my CT.  One thing that my CT does is at a certain point in the chapter that we're on, she'll send out an general e-mail to parents of students that are missing more than 4 assignments.  From what I've seen, I'm not sure that this does too much to get the students motivated.  It may do something with just the kids because it seems like it's something that my CT said she has been doing for a while.  I also think she wouldn't do it if she doesn't see an impact that comes from it.  There is also one student whose parents are very involved with their kids learning.  My CT is in contact at least once a week and telling them how he is doing in the class.  There have been a couple of times where my CT has had to call home to parents.  Once was about a kid who wasn't paying attention in class and would just look at a calculator the whole class period.  She had to call home and tell the parents what was going on.  She found out some information on why the kid was struggling in class.  From this, I think that it is best to call home when there are behavior issues that are going on in class, and not necessarily when the student is falling behind on work (unless it's really really bad).

Hearing Impaired students

The topic for this week is the accommodations for students with special needs.  I am very fortunate to get to work with a couple of kids that are hearing impaired.  One of the students is partially deaf, so he can hear and talk but usually uses the translator.  Then the other hearing impaired student is completely deaf.  They're both in the same class together so we have a translator in my classroom for them.  The one thing that is hard for me is when I am giving a lesson and I'm trying to speed through some stuff to get it all in, the translator has to stop me and tell me to slow down.  That can kind of screw with the pace of the class.  The other hard thing is that you can't communicate with them yourself.  I think sometimes with the translator, some things may get lost in translation and may not get to the student the way you wanted it to.  Luckily the translator that they have is pretty good at math so she does a good job of trying not to change what I am saying up a whole lot.  With that being said, I really enjoy having those students and their translator in there.  They are all teaching my how to sign, so they're are a couple of things that I can sign now.

Assessment and paper load

First there are a couple of great things that one of my CTs does for a students self-assessment.  One is for the homework.  She usually has them up a one sentence summary of of how they felt about the assignment.  Usually, students just write it was fine.  However, there are sometimes where a students writes "I really didn't get this" or "This was hard for me."  I think even that little of a statement is very useful.  If they say either of those, we can pinpoint who's getting and who isn't getting the material.  We can then look out for them while they are in class.  One other thing that my CT while going test is have the students fill out a chart on the problems they got wrong.  Some of the choices are "silly mistake" or "I didn't understand what it was asking for" etc.  I think this helps us especially with when we take the cumulative.  This also helps us pinpoint what we need to go over before they are tested over it again.

One thing that we do to reduce the paper load isn't really reducing the amount of paper at all.  We reduce the amount of work for grading.  What we do in our classroom is that we grade 6 random questions in the assignment.  We grade them on accuracy.  Grading this way usually takes only about 10 min.  I think that this is a good balance of getting students feedback and not spending the whole night grading one homework assignment. 

Pacing

Pacing is something that I have trouble with.  First off, it would be helpful if I could read a clock.  In one class, I looked up at the clock and thought that I had 10 min left, bur in reality it turned out that I had about 3.  So that's one thing that may be helpful.  But in all seriousness, I think that it is better to be over prepared and have too many things to go over.  It also isn't that hard to come up with things to do.  For example, if I'm done with a good chunk of time left in class, I'll have the students work on the first homework problem or so and see if they have any questions.  This is a good way to use the last 3 or so minutes in class where students won't start doing their homework on their own.  One other thing that helps me with my pacing that I need to start doing more is using a timer.  I have used one a couple times in the past but always forget to use it more.  I like using it because it sets a deadline for the students when they need to get their activity done.  But then if I didn't give them enough time I can give them more and then adjust that for the next lessons coming up.

Tech Edge Conference

Going to the Tech Edge Conference was a great experience for me.  It was cool seeing what Aurora is doing with their 1-to-1 classrooms.  Even though it was a conference on one-to-one classrooms, I think that I learned a lot that I could use in a classroom that isn't.  Especially in the first classroom that we went into.  I thought that the heads up game was a great way for students to review vocabulary and sayings that will help them with assignments and tests.  I also thought that the QR reader for the students to see the answers to the review questions was smart.  It's a way for the students to complete the problems without having the key to them right in front of them.  I also thought that the ebackpack was a really good idea.  I wonder if that could still be effective in a non 1-to-1 classroom?  Because I would definitely use that now that I am seeing how unorganized some students are.  One question that I have is how the administration got the teachers that I have been at the school a long time to buy into becoming 1-to-1.  Those teachers have been teaching without it for a long period of time, so I wonder how hard it was for them to accept it.  After this conference I would definitely enjoy teaching at a 1-to-1 school.  The opportunity for every student to have technology in their possession, and using that to supplement their education would be an awesome opportunity.  

Cooperative Learning

For my two teachers, they are on the opposite ends when it comes to group work.  In my advanced algebra classes with my other CT, we do not do any group work at all.  Most everything in that class students do individually.  Then, with my other CT, we usually do group work everyday.  I think the group work is the most effective when we are using a discovery activity in class.  Sometimes we try to have the students try to answer each others homework questions.  When they do that they usually don't do it or just copy off of each other.  In the class, the students sit in groups of 4.  Usually, the group work will be as a table, or with your table partner.  Usually, the purpose of the activity is a discovery activity where the students have to do a task to find what they are learning for that day.  We usually sometimes assign them roles.  For example, we were having the students build triangles and "impossible" triangles with Anglegs.  We had them work in pairs and we assigned one person as the builder and one as the writer, then they changed roles.  This kind of makes it so that one person isn't going to do all the work while the other sits there and does nothing.  We really don't have any type of accountability for the students.  The only sort of accountability we have is just asking them what they found when we bring it back as a group.  With our groups, the main role of the teacher is to keep the students on task while they are doing the task.  I think without this supervision and push to complete the task, the studetns would never complete it on their own.

Lesson Planning

This week I am starting to do my own lesson plans for a class.  One form that my CT gave me uses the 5 E's.  The five E's are engage, explore, explain, elaborate, and evaluate.  My CT said that this is the one that the department uses when they have to do evaluations.  I like using this one because it gets you to think about what can come up during the lesson, more than what is actually in the lesson.  At our school our lessons and activities are very similar for each teacher.  So this lesson plan template gets you to anticipate what is going to come up and questions that the students may ask.  I don't think that I am the best at planing these those because I just haven't had the experiences designing them for students.  However, I do think that when I get more experiences with actual students, my lesson plans will get exponentially better.

Student Teaching Week 1

One of the classrooms that I am in, the desks are put into groups.  This, I think, helps build a sense of community among the students.  They are always working in pairs or in groups.  In the other room that I'm in the class is in rows.  This doesn't really build a sense of community in the class.  However, the teacher seems to know something about every student in the class.  She has something to talk about with each students and that helps build that community.  One thing that is going well is that there haven't been any kids that have been misbehaving.  They seem to all be well behaved and won't cause that many problems in the future.  One idea that I have come up with is to use my iPad and notability for the notes when I eventually take over the classroom.  Both my teachers write under the doc cam or just on the board.  This will make it easier to upload onto the website for the students and it also may be easier for the students to see because the doc cam is kind of hard to see in my classrooms.  There aren't that many special rules that are in my classes.  Both of my teachers haven't really communicated what the consequences of breaking the rules are to the class.  

Tests

The past couple of week our class has had a number of tests.  So during the time the students are taking them I have gotten to think about if I like the way LPS has the standardized test that the district writes.  The positives that come out of the district writing the test is that you don't have to write it, so you can spend more time on grading for other classes or just time relaxing.  Another positive from this is that you get help form other teachers if you have a question on how to grade a problem if you have trouble with something.  The negative (and I think it's a pretty big one) is that it limits your individuality in designing a lesson plan.  Having the pre-written test makes you have to teach to the test a little bit.  Our CT does this in his lessons.  He has to make sure he has examples that are going to be on the test so the students get to see it at some point.  After weighing the positives and negatives, I think I'm still indifferent about it.  I would be fine with it if the district I teach in in the future does either of these.

Cussing

There are a couple of kids in my class that have the mouths of a sailor, and they usually say a couple words that maybe shouldn't be said during class.  Our CT just tells the students to watch their mouths.  This is way different from when I was in high school.  If we ever said a cuss word there would be some sort of punishment for it.  This got Logan and I discussing about how we would handle it in our classroom.  We talked about how we would handle it on a case to case basis.  If a student just uses one in normal conversation I don't think that they should be punished.  If they use it in front of the whole class I think that is a different story and something should be done.  One student always asked why cussing is bad in school when it is everywhere else, and my response to that (and the reason I will use in my future classroom) is that it's about respecting your classmates.  You never know what the other students think about those words and you don't want to offend them.  Another thing I like that my CT said was that there are thousands of words in the English language, there are plenty of other words to use other than those 6 or 7 words that have been deemed bad.

Classroom Management

My CT tries to start the day using the same routine.  He usually has a warm up on the board for the students to work on once they get in the room and get settled in.  Then we starts the day going over the warm up problems.  That is followed up by a quote and then a estimation on estimation180.com.  Next is the lesson and some practice problems.  There aren't any rules in the room that my CT put up.  However, there is the SOAR rules that is the rule guidelines that Southwest puts in place.  The biggest problem he has is students talking.  When a student is talking, he usually stops the lesson to tell them to be quite and that they need to pay attention.  If the whole class is having a side conversation, we does a countdown to get them to stop.  Another problem is cell phones.  He give them a warning if they are using them in class.  If they get caught using it for a second time, he takes the phone away and keeps it at his desk.

One disciplinary rules that Southwest has is to send the students to the office if they are acting up.  Our CT hasn't needed to do that in our time there.  The norms that our CT sets is that students should come to class prepared, on time, and ready to work.  The students also know that when there is a warm up on the board, they should get to work on it right away.  One norm that he is trying to work on is having the students writing notes and him not having to tell them that they need to write things down.

1. Routine for how students will enter the room
Students should walk in and go straight to their seats and get started on a warm up problem that is on the board.

2. Routine for how students will be instructionally engaged while attendance is taken and for how opening business is conducted:
I will take attendance when students are working on the warm up

3. Routine for dealing with tardy students:
I will ask them for a pass, and if they don't have one then I will mark them down as tardy and tell them to get started on the warm up

4. Routine for dealing with students who come to class without necessary materials
I will warn them that they need to be prepared for class next time, and then have them borrow the necessary materials from me or a neighbor

5. Routine for dealing with students returning after an absence:
I will talk to the student while they are working on the warm up and catch them up on what they missed and what they need to do

6. Routine for dealing with student bathroom breaks
Students will able to go to the restroom when we aren't doing something really important

7. Routine for returning student work:
Students will get their homework right when they get in the door and sit down

8. Routine for students when engaging independent work:
Students should be focused on the task and doing it by themselves if that is what the task asks for

9. Routine for students when engaging in partner/small-group work:
They should get into their groups in a timely manner and then get started on the task when they all get settled down

10. Routine for students when engaging in whole-class discussion: 
If students want to contribute to the discussion, they need to raise their hand and wait to be called on.  If they aren't talking they should be quiet and listening

11. Routine for wrapping up at end of day/class:
Students should complete the closure task that is given to them

12. Routine for dismissal:
Students should not pack up until the bell rings or I tell them that the lesson is over and can pack it up


Policies & Procedures for Managing Student Work:

1. Policies & Procedures for assigning classwork and homework:
Homework will be given at the end of the lesson for them to leave with

2. Policies & Procedures for collecting completed work:
After the homework, students will pass their homework in to the end of a row or somehow together so that it's easy for me to collect

3. Policies & Procedures for keeping records and providing grades and feedback to students:
Grades will be kept in whatever grade system that my school has.  Grades and feedback on the student's work will be written on the assignment too

4. Policies & Procedures for dealing with late and missing assignments:
A small point total will be taken off for each day that an assignment is late

5. Policies & Procedures for dealing with absent students:
Students that are gone will have 2 or 3 days to complete the assignment that was assigned that day

Finding a Balance

My CT creates his own seating charts for his class.  He tries to put students in a way where students sit by other people that they work well with each other.  I do like this strategy that he puts in place.  It lets the students be more comfortable with talking to their neighbors about a problem that they have.  This helps students learn and helps the teacher so that they have less questions to answer.  However, since he likes to put students that work well together, those kids are most likely pretty good friends also.  This means that they talk all the time during class.  He constantly has to tell a couple of pairs to stop talking and pay attention in class.  Since I do agree with the concept of doing this, I kind of want to put in use in my classroom.  However, after seeing the results of what actually happens, I'd much rather have a calm classroom environment and having all my students not distracted.  I wonder if there is any way to find that balance of great partners but ones that pay attention during class.

Instructional/Curriculum Materials

DATE	Materials w/ Description	Teacher interaction	Student interaction
10/22	Anglegs -          Use anglegs to visualize impossible triangles Homework -          14 problems for the students to do	-          Gave students directions to make impossible triangles -          Assigned to students by teacher	-          Students built the impossible triangles and look at the side lengths -          Students have to complete it individually
10/23	Homework -          8 problems for the students to do	-          Assigned to students by teacher	-          Students have to complete it individually
10/24	Homework -          11 problems for the students to do	-          Assigned to students by teacher	-          Students have to complete it individually

Link to pictures

The anglegs that the students use I would say use procedures with connections.  In the activity this week they were told to make a triangle using 3 certain sides.  They then had to come up with a reason on why they couldn't make a triangle out of them.  This activity was a concrete representation of the triangle inequality.  The homework would be doing mathematics.  The problems follow some sort of pattern using the materials they just learned.  There isn't that must complex thinking that is going on. 

My CT says that they barely have any control over the curriculum.  He usually sets the schedule in plenty of time in advanced.  He also gives the students the materials they need through notes.  Usually, the only thing that students use to create themselves is when they use the anglegs.  My CT does use Geogebra quite a bit, however the students aren't really involved in creating them.  The textbook is usually only used for the student's homework.  They aren't ever out when he is giving his lecture in class and doesn't refer to it that often.  About the only manipulative that the students use is the anglegs.  He likes these because it lets the students create shapes and make the discoveries on their own.  

From my observation, I think that I would want to use some sort of manipulative in my class whenever I can.  I like that it gets the students engaged and involved in their learning.  I would use this especially if I teach at a school with a block schedule.  From my observation, I have noticed that activities like this take up a lot of time.  I don't know if in a normal schedule it would be possible for me to use them.  Also, I think that if I had the same book as Southwest, I would do the same thing my CT does.  I think the book is only good enough for if students need a couple of examples for them to try to learn the materials a little bit better.

Homework

Homework is the one thing that my CT says is the one thing he can't find the right to do during his time teaching.  Usually his homework is review of the lesson that they just when over the previous day.  Then at the end of a chapter, he will give a review sheet that the students have to do for homework.  The homework assignments usually have 15 problems and the review will have about 25 problems on it.  Most assignments will be a lot like the practice problems that they go over in class, so the students should not have too much trouble doing them.  As for going over the assignments, he spends very little time going over.  He usually sets time aside to go over questions, but he usually just skips it to get to the more important parts of the lesson.  Even when he does fit it into his lesson, it usually only takes about 10 min.  The kids only ask for about 1 or 2 problems and then my CT goes over them pretty quickly.  Homework for the chapter is turned in all together right before the chapter test.  Every assignment from every student gets checked.  However, it is only graded on completion.  

My CT says he tries to assign homework everyday.  However, he said when he doesn't get through a lesson he will wait to assign it after he finishes the lesson.  He said he tries to create assignments that give the students a little bit of a challenge and also problems that help them on their tests.  He said he would love to go over every problem and give the students feedback on every single problem, but he just doesn't have the time to do that.  So he goes over every problem and sees if the student put in effort to work the problem.  He doesn't give any of the students projects for the students to do.

My ideal way of going over homework is to give students assignments with 8 or 9 problems on it.  I would assign something for every lesson and the students would turn them in the next day.  I would then grade them on the completion but give them comments on the actual work.  I think that grading them on completion and not the work is because homework is for practice the problems so the students are probably going to make mistakes on it.  Then the feedback will help the students see their mistakes and they can learn from them.  Hopefully I will be able to actually use this system and I don't have to skim back on it due to lack time.

Steve's motivation

Through my 4th week of practicum, there is one kid that I can't quite figure out.  For this post lets just call him Steve.  Steve has a huge problem with his motivation, and the problem is that he doesn't have any.  He never gets out his stuff when they have a warm-up or takes notes in class.  Also, when we are doing board work, he always is off goofing off somewhere in the classroom.  My CT always has to get on him to stay on task and do what he is supposed to be doing.  The thing is that when he is on task he knows most of the material.  You would think that if he put a little more effort into his school work he'd know pretty much all the material.  Logan and I have even talked to our CT about Steve.  He's trying a way to find to get Steve to get motivated to learn the stuff, but he hasn't figured out a way yet.  He also said that his mom cares way than Steve about his grades.  You would think an extra push from both his mom and teacher would light a spark under him to try in the class, but that's not the case.  It's kind of hard when I'm in the classroom to try to get him on task, yet he still ends up goofing around 5 minutes after I say something to him.  He sure is good practice for motivating students for my future.