Reflect, Reflect, Reflect!

What I learned through reflecting through entries on my teaching practices had a lot to do with my philosophies, my effective and ineffective teaching times and methods as a student teacher, and allowed me to keep track of my memories throughout this experience. I focused a lot of my journals on my weeks overall. I noted any circumstances and experiences through IEP meetings and conferences, scenarios with students and how I overcame the scenario or conflicts, and the communication I kept with parents, staff, and administration. It allows me to go back and refer to these times as a future teacher and see what I did in my past student teaching and how I handled a previous scenario, conflict, positive moment, or overall lesson experience.

I really am going to take everything positive away from this experience. The fantastic support from my cooperating teacher, the staff at my school, my peers, and my professors has been outstanding. My cooperating teacher has given me the world to look forward to. She was the best mentor and role model I could have had as a student teacher. You hear horror stories of people not getting the most of their experience but as long as you are open and willing, you WILL get the most of the experience and become a better teacher by the end of it.  As this chapter comes to a close there is so much that awaits me in my future. Getting a job, creating a classroom that’s mine, being the teacher of students who will hopefully remember me as a role model, and of course graduation. The ups and downs were certainly worth it, and looking back I really couldn’t have picked a better path and future for myself.

Till next time!

Ms. P

Goals For My Future

Full takeover has come to an end, and I am about a week away from graduation. I’ve learned a lot about myself throughout this experience and I wanted to share some goals I have for myself that reflect my teaching philosophy and who I am.

Goals that I have for myself for the future are to ensure positive reinforcement, include as much interactive and engaging lessons in my teaching, and ensure fairness for rules and expectations for all students and classes. The most important one to me is the first goal that I have: ensuring positive reinforcement. I had a lot of practice with this throughout my placement, as my coop was a great role model in keeping up with positive reinforcement and focusing more on the positive than the negative. I started calling home when students were doing exceptionally well (especially focusing on those students who did not always get the positive phone calls home), and I made sure that as a class they were rewarded either individually or as a whole when their behavior and expectations were great! For example, when all students in a class had brought their textbook to class and no time had to be spent finding students books to lend or escorting them to lockers, I would ensure to give the class staRRR tickets and extra bonus points in our class cup. This kept the students spirits high and encouraged them to continue following the expectation or good behaviors. The second goal is including as much movement and engagement in my lessons as possible. I noticed how well my students progressed from our first pair and group project to where I am at now when each class. It’s always a scary thing to try out for the first time. You think to yourself will they get too loud, will students not stay on task, will someone feel left out or feeling like they are doing all the work, etc. As time goes on, as long as expectations are laid out to the students and there is time to practice working in groups, creating jigsaw lessons, and playing games for a review game the students become more used to the routine. I want to continue doing this in the future and including even more group lessons and activities, technology, and jigsaw lessons. The last goal I have for myself is to make sure fairness and rapport are throughout the classroom. I want to create a safe space for each of my students. I want all my students to enter my classroom knowing they are cared about, I want them to be there, and that though everyone may not be the best of friends in the room they are respectful to each other. Creating this type of environment is something I am still working on. A lot of this semester was already laid out for me. My students had gone through these discussions and consequences with my cooperating teacher from the beginning of the year. I want to ensure the same for my classroom by laying out expectations, consequences, and rules from the beginning of the year and holding all classes and students equally accountable.

We’re All Human: Even During Student Teaching

You know the saying “when it rains, it pours”…yes…that was my week. This post is meant to take a step back from the classroom and look into the realities of being a student teacher, a role model, a planner, a student at college, and did I mention a human? I’m human and humans get sick. When you’re student teaching you think you’re invincible and that because you’ve been around so any kids for the last year and a half that nothing can bring you down. I pushed myself for a week until I realized my body needs to rest otherwise I am not giving the kids my all and that is not fair and that is not a great teacher. Aside from hand sanitizer and over the counter medications being my top items in my purse each day to school, I still made sure I had the lessons prepared, sub plans prepared for if I couldn’t make it, and that I was still giving my all. Unfortunately, there just comes a time where your body reminds you that you still need to take care of yourself despite the craziness that happens around you: teaching, homework, lesson plans, meetings, personal life, and all things college. I finally had to take my first sick day, and it was needed. Getting an upper respiratory infection and strep really just are a terrible combination and a need to stay home. So, I stayed home and I did miss my students. I missed my routine and I knew that my cooperating teacher would (obviously) handle everything just fine, I just like being in the classroom and teaching the students!

I wake up Thursday, feeling better and ready to go to placement. I let me cooperating teacher and supervisor know that I will be in! I’m feeling good, antibiotics are working, I have an interview Friday I have to miss another day of placement for, but regardless I am ready for the day. On my way to placement, 10 minutes into the car ride I think “damn, I should have just stayed home”. Driving to placement I got struck by a driver who failed to stop at a stop sign completely and try to cut through 4 lanes of traffic. Well the car definitely cut through 2 lanes…and into my car. The worst part of it all? I was really excited to be teaching the day’s lesson. All I wanted was to rewind and either just have had a sick day or have had left 5 minutes earlier so this would not have happened. I panicked and after calling my parents I immediately called my cooperating teacher. Needles to say, I knew that my kids would know about this moment and I was okay with that. My coop came right to the accident and dealt with me and my car that was destroyed. She reminded me life still has its ups and downs.

Ms. P

A Middle School Schedule: Just Call It “Always On The Go”

Some wonder what a week looks like for me. Here’s an example of what a week from a full takeover looks like with all six sections of earth science and my 150 students:

On Monday and Tuesday I teach the same thing just to different sections and I had the students create a vocabulary exploration to words such as: telescope, reflecting telescope, refracting telescope, gravity, early astronomer, modern astronomer, KECK observatory, Ptolemaic Theory, and Copernican Revolution. The students folded two sheets of paper in order to have 8 squares and the point was on one side we took M/T where the students work independently and created their own definitions to these words. It was so great to see the kids create definitions on their own, without seeing the actual definition of pictures of the words. I wanted to see where the students were individually at and how deep their exposure to astronomy is. I loved watching the students go from “how can we do this we know nothing about it!” to “wait actually if I don’t know what a reflecting telescope is, I can break down the word and figure out it!” Their confidence was through the roof, and overall I was impressed with how well they did and how much they know (even if they were educated guesses). On Wednesday we reviewed the vocabulary terms and what the real definitions were. This allowed the students to compare their answers to the real answers and see how close or off they were and correct any mistakes/add to their definitions. On Thursday and Friday I had the students practice completing projects/presentations in groups. I want the classroom to be a student directed classroom where they are organizing information and collecting the information for answers they want to answer. I offered more guidance for this lesson as it was the first project they were completing in science. The students were in groups of 3-4 and were assigned an early or modern astronomer (Ptolemy, Copernicus, Brache, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and Hubble) and were to create a poster presentation they will be presenting to the class on Monday/Tuesday. This allows the students to teach the class on their astronomer, as they are “experts” on their assigned astronomer. Each group was required to come up with a critical thinking question, which the class will be required to individually answer at the end of the presentation. This incorporated methods we have discussed in our methods courses from junior year. I allowed the students to decide how they wanted to organize the information on their presentation and asked they include the name, date of birth and death, whether he was an early or modern astronomer, what his biggest contribution was to science, 2-3 interesting facts, and a critical thinking question. The students collaborated in groups while I walked around and checked in on them, answered questions groups had, and overall was pleased and surprised with how well they did as this was their first time working in such large groups with me!

It seems chaotic, scary, and overwhelming at first. It took me a while to get so comfortable with being this flexible and interactive. Student teaching is totally the time to experiment with as many lessons, activities, units, and standards to get a feel for how you will want to implement things in your classroom.

 

Ms. P

Post Spring Break: Fear No More

The week after spring break: the start of a new chapter, tired or over energetic students, and a case of the week after spring break. This is always a tough week, on everyone. The students were overwhelmed, despite having just had a break. As a [student] teacher it is important to keep this in mind. I use this week to ease the students back into their routine and expectations. I realize that over spring break the students do as little school and as much of their own hobbies and interests. I make sure to start on a new unit so that the students are starting on a fresh note along with the wacky week. To do so I make sure to plan ahead so that I can end a previous unit before spring break and give out an assessment with enough time to reteach (if a reteach lesson must be taught). This then gives me the flexibility to start on a new section when the students are back from break.

This then leads me to just how important it is to plan. Plan ahead as often as you can. It is so easy to get trapped in everything else that needs to get done: grading papers, organizing files in the room, phone calls, etc. By the time you get home you are ready to call it a night. Instead ensure that you have planned for the next day, have all materials prepared, and everything has been practiced to prepare for any possible errors or confusions in the lesson. This has been something I see new teachers and old teachers push off to the side. It is frustrating as our priority to those students is being the person who helps keep them organized, models organization and preparedness, and expects it in return.

Overall by preparing an ease back into the week and being prepared for the week and the lessons to be taught, the week went by smoothly. It’s often you’ll hear from experienced teachers “oh no, it’s the Monday back from break…prepare for chaos.” Honestly, I witnessed very minimal chaos and most of it was from conflicts unrelated to having had been on a break. The students appreciate the ease back into their routine, schedules, and expectations, and if needed time can easily be put in to discuss and remind students of the expectations of being at school and their tasks that should be completed.

Something Borrowed; Something Gained

It surely does not matter how “old” your students may be, the more hands on the activities the better the students understand the material. Moving on with the solar system, the students thankfully had a very in-depth inquiry study on each of the planets earlier. I created a unit that allowed students, in groups, to create research questions for the planets and then become experts on their assigned planet. The students had the concept of the solar system down, but it was still very abstract to them. I would use phrases such as “we only know a small portion of space [being our solar system] and yet that is still HUGE”. The class would nod and agree but I questioned whether they truly understood just how large everything is. I found a lesson online that taught me how to take a 3-pound ball of play dough and mold it out into a scaled model of our solar system. With my cooperating teacher on board, we order enough play dough (30 lbs. to be exact) so that each student could, in groups, create the model. I did the lesson with my roommates and friends at home so I could perfect it for the students and created a worksheet to go alongside the lab.

I got the students in groups and went ahead to explain the purpose of this assignment. I started with “today, we get to play with play dough” and everyone tried to hide their excitement by saying things like “play dough!? Really??” or “we aren’t in kindergarten.” I acknowledged my students comments and just explained to them that this lab would allow them to create the solar system…right in front of them. I knew that I was using a method often used in lower elementary but I also knew it would do the trick and allow students to visualize and better understand the size of our solar system.

After we completed the lab, and made each planet step-by-step as a class and in groups students were surprised. I heard many comments like “Pluto is that small!?” or “Jupiter is HUGE” I saw that the students were finally getting it. Yes, our planet Earth is not reference for the rest of the planets because there are some planets (gas planets) that are huge! Listening to the conversations the students were having with each other and throughout the day regarding the activity showed me two things. First, it is okay to go back to methods that are intended for a young audience as long as they challenge the students. Second, when students are discussing the concepts, explaining the assessment given, and are connecting the solar system to the scaled model they created you know that your idea for teaching that day worked. And it worked amazingly!

Miss. P

Getting Comfortable In my Teacher-skin

This week I am feeling more confident in my take over. It takes a lot of time to get used to everything, have the students adjust to the complete change of teachers (though the transition was slowly introduced), and the spot light was even more on me. It was stress levels were high. University students were on spring break, edTPA due dates are vastly approaching, and my students have a talent show this week. I’d say the motto this week was give it all you got. Teaching students is no easy task. You don’t just come in and teach the information the same day you’re teaching it, and much of the information I have not read since I was in school. I was teaching about telescopes, constellations, and the Hubble Space Telescope. This content was really new to me and new to the students. I would be exposing them to different parts of the EM spectrum, discussing constellations and their history, and then explaining the Hubble Space Telescope.

I realize that I am teaching students this abstract content many have not discussed in detail, and I get to be the teacher who answers all their questions and explains the universe past Earth to them. Keeping this in mind, it is also important to review all information before it is taught and make sure it can be explained in various different ways: visually, auditory, and in various ways of each. Including models, pictures, and real-life connections is a great way to engage students, keep them understand an abstract topic in a more relatable sense, and pique their interest to further ask/answer questions.

-Miss. P

Making things from okay to better

This week has been my first official TAKEOVER WEEK! I had my first parent-student-teacher reentry conference, got to plan and lead the class with my cooperating teacher less and less in the room, and had the chance to really get the students to see me as the authority figure in the room. So with regards to my feelings about takeover, it is probably the most scary, invigorating, and exciting feeling all at once. I’m still currently in the process of finishing and editing my edTPA, completing homework for my classes, applying for jobs, the entire rest of the campus is on spring break, and I am planning my lessons and activities. I take a lot of pride in my organization skills…but this really puts everything to a test. It gives me the real world experience. Regardless of whether I am the lead teacher, a teacher aide, or designing curriculum for a district there are deadlines to meet and bosses and people to conference with.

The student reentry meeting was a meeting with the 6th grade teachers, principal, and 6th grade intervention coordinator. This really allowed me to see how to handle a frusterating situation and make it positive and helpful to all. It was with regards to a student who was previously suspended and Tuesday was his first day back. His parents were upset, the student was seeming uninterested in hearing what we had to say, and the principal wanted the best for the student for the remaining 40 some days of school. Seeing all the teachers explain to the student that he is smart, is scoring higher than over 80% of the students in the school and is in the top percentile of the nation, and encouraging/motivating the student sparked the student, his parents, and really made a rather uncomfortable situation a positive one. The reason this really stood out to me is because a teacher is responsible for teaching students but also encouraging them to be their best, serving as a role model to all, and making the best of a situation. It is about handling the situation with careful words and hands. Although a student and his or her actions cause a consequence, a teacher is there to make a situation better and encourage the student to finish off the school year strong.

 

Ms. P

It’s the little things that count

 

This week was a bit of a chopped week since I was only in placement on Monday, Thursday, and Friday. The days that I was in placement were spent as catch up days to equal out the 6 sections and get everyone ready for a new chapter next Monday.

On Monday we had the chance to finish up some assignments that were not finished or caught up on from the previous weeks. It was nice to have this day to get an even better idea of what it is like to be a teacher since sometimes you just don’t get to everything you need to in a given amount of time. I reflected back on this Monday realizing that it’s important to include cushion days in your planning. Not one every week, but one often enough to be able to have time to reteach lessons, meet benchmarks that were not yet met, and practice skills students need to strengthen in order to further succeed in the class.

My two days back after edTPA days were given to start a new unit for the students. We had finally wrapped up everything with my edTPA in the class it was the perfect time to lead into astronomy and begin the discussion on the Thursday and Friday. We began learning and wrapping up the early astronomers in astronomy and how astronomy has changed throughout the years. This is a completely new unit and topic for students; so many students are unaware to the new information they will soon be realizing. Honestly, this is one of the best feelings as a teacher: being able to be the person who exposes this new information to the students about our solar system and space and encouraging them to pursue careers in science and engineering. Having the students see me be excited about topics in science and being a role model teaching the information in an enthusiastic and engaging manner allows the students to become even more involved during discussions. I realize that I will make an impact on these students and be the reason they learned why telescopes are both on Earth and in space, that there are people in space, and that I will spark their interest to investigate how potentially someone can walk on or visit Mars.

 

Ms. P

A Little Mix of Everything

This week has been packed: I finished filming my edTPA lessons, my students began PARCC testing, I attended an IEP meeting I really was turned off by, all in a weeks work!

Starting off with edTPA filming, it’s a huge relief to have it done. I was worried with how PARCC with affect my students’ schedule and how everything would pan out in the end, but thankfully it worked out well. I was crunched for time including the final assessment, but overall I was very pleased with the outcome, my efforts put into it, and my students positive feedback regarding the edTPA. It forced me to really think about the lessons that I’m planning, are the engaging, will the students get what they should out of it, and what will I need to improve on for next time. Some of the things I really noticed I need to work on is my time management. It’s difficult to be giving time restrictions when so many students work at different paces, but obviously that’s part of being a teacher. In my opinion, every teacher is always or should always be learning. If a teacher ever stops learning, that marks the end of their era and passion.

PARCC testing was chaotic. The whole test is frustrating to see the students take because it essentially tests the skills that I feel my students most lack on. The students really have not had formal testing like the PARCC expects, and though the teachers have prepared the students the best they could have, the students need time to perfect and better those skills of writing and math. It was also definitely irritating that they only test the students in language arts and math, but not science or even social studies? How is that even fair? Science, to me, is a very important subject and the fact that students are not tested in it makes me angry. My hard work and passion should definitely be something students should be expected to know. Honestly, math and language arts are important, but its also important to teach students STEM so they can find their interests in medicine and engineering.

Attending the IEP meeting was one of the worst experiences of my life. It was in regards to a parent request on one of my students and the two “evaluators” there could not be more difficult and not on the same page. The two did not agree on the same things. One felt the student did NOT need to be evaluated for an IEP or sped placement, the other felt that the doctor of the student made an incorrect determination on what the student needed, and the whole time it was going back and forth between evaluating the student of not. It made me pretty nervous for my future students and even my future kids. I truly think one of the most important things is for everyone to remain professional when handing these scenarios in order to best support the student. As a student teacher I just sat and observed how the other teachers, principal, and intervention coordinator handled everything. I must say, the staff and peers that are at my junior high do everything to ensure each student is given all the support to achieve, and they sure delivered. All teachers and staff kept the student and the demands of his parent in mind when discussing the “next steps” and the ending was a common understanding from all perspectives.

Ms. P