Week 9
Well, I did it. I survived 2 weeks of high school. For some reason, I feel like the days are longer in high school, even though there's only 8 periods a day compared to Jakarta's 10 periods a day. So far, teaching in high school actually isn't as bad as I originally thought. It's still completely out of my comfort zone; I'll typically have high days and low days, but I haven't run away screaming yet.
Last week, I made some goals for this week, and here is where I am in meeting these goals. My first goal was to learn all of the students names. Having 90+ students compared to 60 students is a big increase, and I've only managed to successfully memorize maybe 60% of the names. I think the biggest issue for me is that there's some classes where the students just don't talk. What I've learned is that I learn names best through seeing my students' personalities. With the way that the class is structured, it's more difficult to see individual personalities. This is a goal that I will continue to work on, considering after my spring break, I take over as the full time teacher.
My second goal that I set was to establish myself as a teacher in the classroom. In some classes, this has been the case. Already, students are calling me by my name, Ms. K, and some have even asked me to go to the bathroom. Even when I taught my Gatsby lesson to three of my junior classes this week, whenever I would tell my students to calm down if they were being too noisy, they listened to me. It sure did not feel like it, but hearing reassurance from my cooperating teacher and my college supervisor encouraged me to keep doing what I was doing, but also try out some strategies to better bring that class back in. Where I struggle the most with establishing myself as a teacher is in my 7th hour Senior Basic English class. Some students listen to me without hesitation, but there are some students in that class that will make outbursts and challenge me as a teacher. Because my cooperating teacher is still in the room, I usually just keep my mouth shut or ignore their comments as I try to keep them on task. Mostly, the conflict is not with me but the students have multiple conflicts with one another. Sometimes, they will say things to me that are questionable, but not overly disrespectful. It's just enough to challenge my authority. One of the education program learning outcomes is to cultivate relational peace. I feel like I am deeply struggling in this area because of this Senior English class. As the semester progresses, I hope to grow in this area and create a safe learning environment for these students. Erin Gruwell who taught a large group of students such as these was able to make a difference in their lives and turn things around, but not everything is going to be cookie cutter easy. These students have no motivation, and it currently feels like there's no hope. If I keep working towards this goal, I know that I can begin to work with them to grow that safe, relational environment.
Besides that bump in the road, I learned a lot about the school and my own teaching this week. This week, we only had three days of school. Monday was Casmir Pulaski Day, Tuesday was Parent Teacher Conferences, and then the students came in on Wednesday.
Parent Teacher Conferences started at 12pm and went until 7pm. It was a long day, and almost every slot was filled, but these sessions were short and to the point. Each session was about 10 minutes long, and it was just enough time for my teacher to show the parents their students' progress reports and discuss where improvement needs to happen. Unfortunately, some parents request conferences when their children are receiving anywhere from 95%-103%, so my cooperating teacher was annoyed about that situation. She said that there's some students who are more deserving of those slots, because their grades are so low. But, those sessions where the students are doing well typically last about 3 minutes. I think the most interesting part of the day for me was when my cooperating teacher talked to two students that had the exact same/ similar papers. There were three students altogether, but only two parents made appointments. Since my time observing or student teaching, I haven't had a direct issue with plagiarism, so it was valuable to gain a perspective on how serious issues like that are handled in high school. With these three students, it was clear that two were the exact same paper, and one was the same paper with paragraphs moved around. My teacher knew these students pretty well, so she guessed which student wrote the original and which students plagiarized.
The way that situations like this are handled is that it gets brought up to the department head, the parents are contacted, and there is a meeting with all of the students involved in the case. Typically, a chance is given for the students that plagiarized to redo their papers although they will not get full credit. In other cases, they may just receive a zero, but in this school system, there is a lot of grace. Personally, I feel that if you plagiarized, there should be some sort of fair trial, but the students should be expected to rewrite the paper without receiving points back. Plagiarism is a serious issue, and it should be clear to the students that there are consequences to it.
When we talked to both sets of parents during the conferences and showed them the proof, they were absolutely livid at their own students. The parents of the child who lent their paper to their friends were furious, because they knew that their child worked hard on writing that paper and even went to them for draft revisions. The other parents assured my cooperating teacher that their child would never plagiarize again. In fact, the next day, the student came up to the desk and said he would rewrite the paper even if he would not get the points back. There are still more meetings left, but unfortunately, my cooperating teacher discovered another similar paper at the end of the week. So, there might be more plagiarism drama to come.
This week, I also taught my first lesson to my students. Throughout the past two weeks, my students have been finishing up The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In conversations with my teacher, the only thing left to do before a test on Friday was to review for the test. So, I brainstormed different ways to review in class that would be engaging and leave a good first impression on my students. I knew for this lesson I wanted to use technology. According to IPTS Performance Standard 2L, the competent teacher "demonstrates fluency in technology systems, uses technology to support instruction and enhance student learning, and designs learning experiences to develop student skills in the application of technology appropriate to the disciplines." This school provides all 3200 students with Chromebooks. Chromebooks are basically laptops but they are specific to Google applications such as Chrome, Docs, Sheets, etc. I wanted to take advantage of the technology that the school has and use it develop the students' knowledge of the concepts. After taking a glace at the test, I realized that there were a few different categories, and I immediately thought of Jeopardy. In looking online, I found a site called playfactile.com. This site allows you to create a Jeopardy game by creating questions and aligning them with point values. Here is a link to my game: playfactile.com/jeopardygatsbyedition.
I was feeling discouraged about it at first, because in the first period class, only a few people really participated. Also, we got through the game with 20 minutes to spare. But, my cooperating teacher reassured me that the other classes would be more engaged and for the record, that was the most engaged that class had ever been since the semester started. During 3rd period, the lesson went extremely well, and the students enjoyed the game. It helped that they were a competitive group of people. During 6th period, it went well, but it was a bit of a mess. At one point, I felt like I was losing some of them, and I couldn't fully gain control of the class. Classroom management has always been a struggle for me, but it is especially challenging with a group of new students in a high school setting.
Overall, the game was a huge hit, and some of the students even used it to study for their test the next day. Some students did exceedingly well on the test, while others' grades plummeted. My cooperating teacher said that it's difficult for her to understand their struggle on certain questions, because she had read The Great Gatsby at least 25 times. So, an idea came to my mind that it is really beneficial to collaborate with someone else, because they can see the text with new eyes. That's how it will most likely be when I teach my unit on Catcher in the Rye later in the semester.
Here are my goals for next week:
1. Learn more about Robert Frost poetry for my lessons next week.
2. Continue to learn names.
3. Work on classroom management.
Last week, I made some goals for this week, and here is where I am in meeting these goals. My first goal was to learn all of the students names. Having 90+ students compared to 60 students is a big increase, and I've only managed to successfully memorize maybe 60% of the names. I think the biggest issue for me is that there's some classes where the students just don't talk. What I've learned is that I learn names best through seeing my students' personalities. With the way that the class is structured, it's more difficult to see individual personalities. This is a goal that I will continue to work on, considering after my spring break, I take over as the full time teacher.
My second goal that I set was to establish myself as a teacher in the classroom. In some classes, this has been the case. Already, students are calling me by my name, Ms. K, and some have even asked me to go to the bathroom. Even when I taught my Gatsby lesson to three of my junior classes this week, whenever I would tell my students to calm down if they were being too noisy, they listened to me. It sure did not feel like it, but hearing reassurance from my cooperating teacher and my college supervisor encouraged me to keep doing what I was doing, but also try out some strategies to better bring that class back in. Where I struggle the most with establishing myself as a teacher is in my 7th hour Senior Basic English class. Some students listen to me without hesitation, but there are some students in that class that will make outbursts and challenge me as a teacher. Because my cooperating teacher is still in the room, I usually just keep my mouth shut or ignore their comments as I try to keep them on task. Mostly, the conflict is not with me but the students have multiple conflicts with one another. Sometimes, they will say things to me that are questionable, but not overly disrespectful. It's just enough to challenge my authority. One of the education program learning outcomes is to cultivate relational peace. I feel like I am deeply struggling in this area because of this Senior English class. As the semester progresses, I hope to grow in this area and create a safe learning environment for these students. Erin Gruwell who taught a large group of students such as these was able to make a difference in their lives and turn things around, but not everything is going to be cookie cutter easy. These students have no motivation, and it currently feels like there's no hope. If I keep working towards this goal, I know that I can begin to work with them to grow that safe, relational environment.
Besides that bump in the road, I learned a lot about the school and my own teaching this week. This week, we only had three days of school. Monday was Casmir Pulaski Day, Tuesday was Parent Teacher Conferences, and then the students came in on Wednesday.
Parent Teacher Conferences started at 12pm and went until 7pm. It was a long day, and almost every slot was filled, but these sessions were short and to the point. Each session was about 10 minutes long, and it was just enough time for my teacher to show the parents their students' progress reports and discuss where improvement needs to happen. Unfortunately, some parents request conferences when their children are receiving anywhere from 95%-103%, so my cooperating teacher was annoyed about that situation. She said that there's some students who are more deserving of those slots, because their grades are so low. But, those sessions where the students are doing well typically last about 3 minutes. I think the most interesting part of the day for me was when my cooperating teacher talked to two students that had the exact same/ similar papers. There were three students altogether, but only two parents made appointments. Since my time observing or student teaching, I haven't had a direct issue with plagiarism, so it was valuable to gain a perspective on how serious issues like that are handled in high school. With these three students, it was clear that two were the exact same paper, and one was the same paper with paragraphs moved around. My teacher knew these students pretty well, so she guessed which student wrote the original and which students plagiarized.
The way that situations like this are handled is that it gets brought up to the department head, the parents are contacted, and there is a meeting with all of the students involved in the case. Typically, a chance is given for the students that plagiarized to redo their papers although they will not get full credit. In other cases, they may just receive a zero, but in this school system, there is a lot of grace. Personally, I feel that if you plagiarized, there should be some sort of fair trial, but the students should be expected to rewrite the paper without receiving points back. Plagiarism is a serious issue, and it should be clear to the students that there are consequences to it.
When we talked to both sets of parents during the conferences and showed them the proof, they were absolutely livid at their own students. The parents of the child who lent their paper to their friends were furious, because they knew that their child worked hard on writing that paper and even went to them for draft revisions. The other parents assured my cooperating teacher that their child would never plagiarize again. In fact, the next day, the student came up to the desk and said he would rewrite the paper even if he would not get the points back. There are still more meetings left, but unfortunately, my cooperating teacher discovered another similar paper at the end of the week. So, there might be more plagiarism drama to come.
This week, I also taught my first lesson to my students. Throughout the past two weeks, my students have been finishing up The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. In conversations with my teacher, the only thing left to do before a test on Friday was to review for the test. So, I brainstormed different ways to review in class that would be engaging and leave a good first impression on my students. I knew for this lesson I wanted to use technology. According to IPTS Performance Standard 2L, the competent teacher "demonstrates fluency in technology systems, uses technology to support instruction and enhance student learning, and designs learning experiences to develop student skills in the application of technology appropriate to the disciplines." This school provides all 3200 students with Chromebooks. Chromebooks are basically laptops but they are specific to Google applications such as Chrome, Docs, Sheets, etc. I wanted to take advantage of the technology that the school has and use it develop the students' knowledge of the concepts. After taking a glace at the test, I realized that there were a few different categories, and I immediately thought of Jeopardy. In looking online, I found a site called playfactile.com. This site allows you to create a Jeopardy game by creating questions and aligning them with point values. Here is a link to my game: playfactile.com/jeopardygatsbyedition.
I was feeling discouraged about it at first, because in the first period class, only a few people really participated. Also, we got through the game with 20 minutes to spare. But, my cooperating teacher reassured me that the other classes would be more engaged and for the record, that was the most engaged that class had ever been since the semester started. During 3rd period, the lesson went extremely well, and the students enjoyed the game. It helped that they were a competitive group of people. During 6th period, it went well, but it was a bit of a mess. At one point, I felt like I was losing some of them, and I couldn't fully gain control of the class. Classroom management has always been a struggle for me, but it is especially challenging with a group of new students in a high school setting.
Overall, the game was a huge hit, and some of the students even used it to study for their test the next day. Some students did exceedingly well on the test, while others' grades plummeted. My cooperating teacher said that it's difficult for her to understand their struggle on certain questions, because she had read The Great Gatsby at least 25 times. So, an idea came to my mind that it is really beneficial to collaborate with someone else, because they can see the text with new eyes. That's how it will most likely be when I teach my unit on Catcher in the Rye later in the semester.
Here are my goals for next week:
1. Learn more about Robert Frost poetry for my lessons next week.
2. Continue to learn names.
3. Work on classroom management.
Sarah, it may sometimes seem like there is no hope for some students, but that is not really the case, and you may need to keep reminding yourself of that. You may want to think, "What happened to this student?" Maybe that student has gone through more than you could imagine and doesn't know how to respond. Just know that God placed you here and will use you in powerful ways. Know that God loves those difficult students, and you can do no less. It's great when parents support you, like in the instance of plagiarism you experienced. Hopefully these students have learned their lesson.
ReplyDeleteI like how you wanted to use technology to help students review for their test. I know it can be a mystery why some students just won't participate while others can be so engaged. You just keep doing your best and let students know you care about them.