Observations: May 31

The big event this week was videotaping myself teaching. Last week I had my observed lesson which was a little nerve wrecking. However, I’m building up my confidence as time goes on. The real problem this week wasn’t nerves but just legal red tape. I had discussed the assignment with my teacher and she informed me that the school didn’t have a videotaping policy so I would need written consent from parents. I had a permission slip ready to go the previous week and even offered an incentive (ice cream) if the whole class returned the slips on the following Tuesday. Only three students returned with their slips. I blame myself for giving out the permission slips before a four day weekend. I now had to do my videotaping on Thursday. To make matters worse, I had scheduled to teach my lesson that day and couldn’t back out of it. The whole school had a late start that day for a faculty meeting so I was short on time and didn’t get a chance to go over the assignment in detail. Because my assignment was large enough to be considered a project, I decided to do a sort of review day the next time we met. On Thursday, eight students still did not have their permission slips. I planned on having them sit in the back of the classroom and just crop them out of the video but my teacher thought that was still too risky. She decided to take those eight students out into the hall while one of my students recorded the lesson. I felt terrible that some kids might be left out and I did my best to fill them in on everything we discussed. The idea just occurred to me that I should have just shown them the video. It’s such an obvious solution and I just now thought of it. Anyways, I was pleased enough with the lesson/review. My biggest problem was consistency with my instruction. I had written this assignment using the general language I was familiar with but I had forgotten that the students had a very specific method to writing. I told them to write an outline but they use something called a Fey method to organize their paper. They accomplish the same end result, but that small difference in language was enough to confuse them. The next day I brought in an example to show what the completed assignment should look like. There were some long pauses in my instruction and questioning that served as good wait time. And I noticed that students felt more comfortable asking questions at the end of my instruction rather than during. So when students asked questions afterwards, I redirected the questions to the whole class. Involving the whole class includes students that might be too shy to ask questions and allows the students to explain an idea better than I can. I ended up answering most of the questions myself, but I thought it was worth trying.

Observation May 24

I had my observed lesson this week. It didn't go as well as I had hoped. For starters, my cooperating teacher was gone for the day. The class didn't behave as well as I hoped but I managed. I told my observer that I have to sometimes "yell" to get their attention and I think he misinterpreted what I meant. There are times when teachers needs to redirect the class's attention by raising their voice. It seems to work for my cooperating teacher, but I don't seem to have the same effect. I think my supervisor interpreted "yell" as an angry outburst. There have been times in class that I felt frustrated or annoyed but never angry. I'm going to keep researching management techniques until I find one that works for me and the class. My lesson plans still need some work. From now on, I'm going to stick to the rubric and meticulously cover each section. I think lesson plans are the worst part of teaching. I understand their importance and value, but I still don't like it. The only other problem my observer noted was my illegible hand writing on the board.  I don't take great pride in my hand writing, but I always thought it was legible. I was writing too quickly and could only use a small portion of the board so it stands to reason that my hand writing was sloppy. I felt pressed for time because the school was on a shortened schedule. Originally I had planned a two hour lesson, that got reduced to one hour, and then reduced to about forty minutes. I think the students enjoyed the lesson. I still need to grade their assignment but from the few that I've seen, I think they did well. The length and difficulty seemed ideal for an in-class assignment. I taught from the graphic novel Kampung Boy and was pleasantly surprised to see how engaged the class was with the story. Even the students that don't like reading, seemed to enjoy this book. I think it's important for students to find their niche in reading. Comic books, Harry Potter, and the Inheritance series got me into reading. Eventually, I learned how to appreciate a good story. That's one of the reasons I wanted to become an English teacher. 

Observations May 17

I did a little bit of everything this week. On Tuesday, I monitored the class so my cooperating teacher could work one-on-one with students in the hall. The students were to use this free time to catch up on their reading. However, one student in particular was completely off task. She would mess around with other students, talk loudly, and at one point even threw carrots. I told her to pick up the carrots and she tried to blame someone else. I said that I didn't care. She proceeded to pick them up while still talking loudly. She wasn't responding to anything I said and I was thinking of what to do next. I threatened to take her to my cooperating teacher and that did the job. It was a brilliant short term solution but won't work when I'm a teacher. I think there's only so much you can say before you just have to remove a student from the classroom. I also did more grading this week. My cooperating teacher is in the process of clearing out her classroom because she has to switch rooms next year. We're still working on organizing everything including the students' work. I had to enter their homework into the grade book and that took nearly two hours. I had to separate the work into four piles. That doesn't sound too bad but 60 students times four papers equals a big mess. I noticed that only five students turned in all of their work. The kids are losing interest as the year winds down. I find myself daydreaming of summer as I write this. Hopefully my lesson next week will be both fun and educational. On Friday, my cooperating teacher asked me to go over the students homework with the class. I was a little hesitant because I was only half-paying attention when she went over it with the previous class. It went rather smoothly. I still get the occasional cause of nerves, but that soon passes once I get into it. I think I've made good progress in a short time. I'm feeling optimistic. 

Observations May 10

Well, this week had more MSP testing. Luckily, I got to teach my first official lesson of the quarter. On Thursday my cooperating teacher asked me to find a news article for the students to read on Friday. I found an interesting piece on the recent disaster in Bangladesh. I'm surprised how little media attention the story is receiving. I first heard about the on a brief two minute report on a national news program. At any rate, my teacher suggested that I teach the lesson and design a powerpoint jeopardy game. I also found two video clips with very different opinions and purposes. I wanted students to be skeptical of the news and to think critically. I wanted to spend more time discussing the article and surrounding issues but I think the students' interest was fading. The jeopardy game was fun and engaging. I noticed that the students argued with my judgment on some of their answers. I was glad to see that the students weren't afraid to speak out and make compelling arguments. For instance, students were supposed to define a word in the article. They used and quoted the correct dictionary definition but the students forgot to look at the context surrounding the word. I had some management issues throughout the lesson. One class would talk during the individual reading time. I moved a student that continuously remained off task and that seemed to work out well. Another class talked during the jeopardy game. I couldn't hear the responses and they couldn't hear my ruling. Eventually, I just stopped the game if the class wasn't silent when I needed the class silent. It worked but I'm not sure if this is the most effective way of getting their attention. I tried several different techniques but they didn't respond well. Another problem I encountered was completely uncooperative students. About four of them refused to read the article and complete the assignment. I told them to get to work and even offered to help them read and summarize the article. They would just give me the stink eye. My cooperating teacher intervened and got them working. I didn't know exactly how far I should push them. I didn't want to start huge confrontation. If students are that unwilling to learn I'll say "it's your grade on line. Not mine" My teacher told me that they are reluctant readers and they need that extra push. With some time and experience, hopefully, I will be better at gauging how far to push students. 

Observations May 3

This week the seventh graders took the MSP writing test. So, naturally, I spent a great deal of time doing very little. The whole class felt prepared, but tensions were still high. I spent some time grading more essays and noticed a drop in the quality of writing. Some students neglected to finish drafts and were short a few paragraphs. The cause has to be frustration or exhaustion because they know the process; I have seen their previous essays. I hope they fared better on the MSP.  On Friday, they finished MSP testing so things were going back to normal. The history class had both periods to complete a group project. Students had to answer questions, provide textual evidence, and provide an illustrations. I had to make sure everyone was on task which proved difficult. I had received criticism from my observer that I was too stern with students. I needed to be friendlier and more energetic. So I made an effort this quarter to be friendlier. This is all well and good, but I don't think students see me as an authority figure. I saw one group off-task so I walked over and just stood there. When that failed, I asked them to get to work and reminded them that this was due at the end of the period. One student worked diligently but the rest of the group went back to joking around. I then joked that the hard working student was carrying the group. They all worked together for five minutes but went right back to talking. Realizing that this wasn't working, I decided to take a firmer stance. I made a vague (but appropriate) threat using a very stern tone. I don't know if it was physical intimidation, but it seemed to work. I think it's important to find that balance for classroom management. There are times for being friendly and there are times to be firm. I'm going to continue working on management and being more assertive in the coming weeks. 

Observations April 26

This week feature more MSP practice. I understand the weight behind this test, but I think it’s taking its toll on the students and teachers. Suffice to say, I will be relieved when testing is over. In the history class, we compared two youtube videos concerning the Hanford nuclear site. One was released by the government assuring the public that the cleanup efforts are making progress. The other video was released by an environmental group that states the site is impossible to cleanup. It took the class a long time to even realize the videos were persuasive and not expository. I wish to teach a lesson on conducting and identifying biased news. I read a recent article in which a government official is questioning the legitimacy and necessity of peer reviewed journals. This came from the GOP that recently faced criticism over a budget proposal from a non-peer reviewed journal. A grad student reviewed the proposal and found a grievous error in the spreadsheet that disproved the proposal. Everything is becoming politicized and the need for educated discerning citizens is greater than ever. On a lighter note, I’ve learned a great deal about the grading process. Grading has become easier as I now have a better understanding of what criteria students are graded on for daily work. I realize that this assessment is formative and is graded for completeness, capitalization, and punctuation. I also learned how to enter grades, create assignments, and take attendance on the school district’s program. I might sound crazy, but I enjoyed grading assignments. Perhaps I was just bored with all of this MSP testing. On Friday I watched students take a practice session of the actual test and I was not impressed with the program. My main criticism was the character limit on student responses. A section wanted students to provide textual evidence and it was impossible to properly do so without omitting words. Are we preparing kids to become proficient writers? It’s hard to make good writers when the schools are adopting the rules of twitter: 140 characters or less.  

Assessment Article Response: Assessment Formative and Summative Some Theoretical Reflections by Maddalena Taras

While the general focus of this article is on formative and summative assessment, I found the thoughts on assessment in general to be far more interesting. The article begins by clarifying and defining assessment. My definition of assessment is some type of measurement of a specific skill or knowledge. The definition I used was vague and not very detailed. Taras defined assessment as a judgment using a comparative or numerical rating based on data-gathering instruments, weighted goals, selection of goals, and justification of the judgment. This means that students will know exactly how they will be assessed (the parameters and value of each assignment). As a student, nothing is more frustrating than putting a lot of effort into an assignment and then receiving a bad grade because it wasn’t what the teacher was looking for. Giving students the rubric or criteria in which they will be scored, will result in more accurate assessments. It’s also interesting to note that teachers act as judges. While teachers strive to be fair and impartial, there are a variety of factors that influence how teachers grade assignments including implicit and explicit parameters. Implicit parameters are implied based on the norm of the classroom. For example, a teacher assigns an essay to the class but doesn’t include a parameter for spelling on the rubric. However, throughout the year the teacher lectures students on the importance of spelling when writing an essay. The implicit parameter is that each student use correct spelling. If the teacher had included spelling on the rubric, then spelling would be an explicit parameter. An argument can be made for either parameter, but it is up to the individual teacher to make the final judgment. Taras goes on to say that assessment, while necessary, can be detrimental to students. Society is quick to make judgments but often fail to reflect and question. Teachers can fail a student without taking in the psychological impact this will have on the student for the rest of his/her life. The byproduct of student assessment is teacher assessment. If the majority of the class is performing poorly, the teacher should be reflecting on how they can improve as an instructor. I believe that teachers and students have a shared responsibility for the outcome of education. When a student is performing well, it’s easy for teachers to take the credit for student success. But when a student does poorly, it’s the student’s fault. I am beginning to understand that teaching is more of a partnership. Teachers and students need to work together to be successful.