Week 14

14 weeks down, 1 and a half more to go.  As I'm finishing up my student teaching experience, I'm realizing how much I've grown since I taught my first lesson my sophomore year, and even thinking about my first student teaching lesson in Indonesia.  I've grown so much, particularly with teaching my highschoolers.  This week has been a really great blessing.  As rough as the experience and planning has been, the Lord has been faithful, and His joy is my strength.

My goals for this week were to use various strategies for discussion and finish The Catcher in the Rye.  Part of the education program goals that I am working on here is practicing excellent teaching by trying to get my students to use their critical thinking skills.  For my first goal, I thought I did a pretty fair job of incorporating different discussion techniques.  It truly is an interesting kind of situation, because I can incorporate so many different types of discussion due to their age group and higher levels of thinking.  Yet, my classes are unmotivated.  Many do not do the readings or take my lessons seriously at times, so I'm not getting the full extent of their work.  This week, I incorporated 3 specific discussion activities.  The first one was a post-it discussion.  I gave the students 3 post-it notes to write discussion questions on.  I tried to emphasize that these questions should be critical thinking instead of comprehension.  Afterwards, they are to stick their post it notes on the white board, then pick 3 other questions to write 3-5 sentences about.  It's interesting and annoying to hear complaining over something that does not take long to do.  With my juniors, I've realized it's a huge issue with laziness.  The work I am asking them to do is not hard; they just do not want to put the effort in.  Overall, this type of silent discussion was a success, but I wish my students would take things more seriously.

My second discussion this week was a PollEverywhere discussion where I ask questions, and they must respond on their phones or Chromebooks before moving forward.  It gives them a chance to think about the questions, even if they don't entirely know what the answer is, but it allows us to discuss more efficiently and incorporate technology.

The last major discussion that I had in the week was using PearDeck.  I have used this before in my education courses, but I haven't done it yet in my student teaching.  Fortunately, the school I'm at right now has Peardeck, so all of the students have an account.  Technically, anyone could use Peardeck, but because it is a school wide tool, I can look back at the sessions and the answers that each student wrote.  Peardeck is really quite amazing, because you can present information (text, youtube videos, websites, etc) and include formative assessment within the presentation.  According to IPTS Performance indicator 7O states that the competent teacher "effectively uses appropriate technologies to conduct assessments, monitor performance, and assess student progress."  You can include slides that have questions which students are prompted to respond to.  Here are a couple of the different ways that I saw student understanding when teaching my lesson.  My lesson was all about comparing Holden's interpretation of the poem "Comin' thro the Rye" and the actual interpretation. Overall, these discussions worked very well, considering the lack of motivation that these students have.

My second goal this week was to finish The Catcher in the Rye.  At the end of the previous week, I surveyed my class about our speed with going through the book, because the simple comprehension quizzes weren't looking very good, telling me that the students were not caught up with the novel.  So I let Tuesday be a work and catch up day.  Many students were productive this day; quizzes were made up, study guides were worked on, and chapters were read.  It was encouraging as the week went on, because the majority of the quizzes were 10/10.  Either they all read the chapters or they all cheated.  I'm positive about the first option, but I wouldn't be surprised if they cheated on this either.  It's really hard to catch at times, because other classes could have been conferring with one another, and they have access to SparkNotes.   Sometimes, I'll hear my students talk after they have handed in their quizzes.  Immediately, I tell them to be quiet and stop talking, and eventually they do, but it's hard for one teacher to monitor 28 16-17 year olds at once.  Anyway, after that Tuesday, they only had to read 2 more sets of chapters.  I slowed down on the readings a bit, and it seemed to help my students.  Instead of finishing the book this week, we will finish reading on Monday.

In addition to the discussion, I included one more journal to end the week, which I found to be, once again, extremely successful.  The journal prompt this week was "What is the best advice that you have ever been given?"  I chose this prompt, because in the novel, Holden goes to his favorite teacher from a previous school for a place to stay and receives some valuable advice.  I even shared my own best advice that I received when I was a senior in high school about to enter college.  The best advice that I had ever received was to "Be Selfish."  It sounds pretty bad at first, but what it basically means is that if I want to do something, I should only listen to myself rather than what others and what they want for me.  As I've gone throughout college, I've stood by this advice, and look where it's got me.  I student taught in Indonesia, and I plan on going back there after graduation.  When I'm selfish in this way and listening to the Lord, He provides.  Anyway, here are some pieces of advice from my students:

Do what you gotta do, to do what you want to do.

 Spend every day like it’s your last.

 “You can do and accomplish most anything you want, as long as you accept the consequences.”

“If you lay with the dogs you’re gonna get fleas.” 

Never give up.

 

Since I've been here, I feel like I have really see my students grow.  Yes, it's only been a short 7 weeks now, I think, but it's encouraging to see their true selves through these journals.  They may not have motivation for something, but when material relates to them, they truly go all out.  Knowing my students is by far greater than teaching them content.  Both are important, but it's my personal philosophy to put students first above all else in the classroom.

In fact, this week was not just about learning, but it was about the students, in a way.  About 12 of my students were in the school musical this week and weekend, many of which are in my 3rd and 6th period American Lit classes.  The school musical was Les Miserables, and it was AMAZING.  I was super impressed with all of my students, and I even told them that I felt like a proud mom.  When I told some of my students that, they laughed a little bit, but that's truly how I felt.  I see these students in the classroom every single day for English class, in my own element.  I've realized that my real joy for teaching has a small part to do with the content area and everything to do with my students.  On Wednesday night (opening night), for the first time, I got to my students in THEIR element.  It was the highlight of my week, and maybe one of the highlights of my student teaching at this school.  The more I've gotten to know my students personally and show my interest in their interests, the more that they have shown respect and trust towards me.  Since I do track, I try to mention it here and there, because I know my own students do track and field.  The girls already had their invite, but I'm going to try to volunteer or something at the boy's invite this coming week if I have time.  I love being able to support my students in what they love to do.

The final significant occurrence this week was teaching my Senior Basic English class full time.  Class sessions with these students typically involve a journal entry and reading the book in class.  After reading a certain number of chapters, I give them a quiz that has simple but important questions.  Basically, if they have read along in class, they will get a good grade on these quizzes.  We read through Chapters 1-4 of The Kite Runner this week, and actually, one of my students kept volunteering to read the book in class aloud.  I was surprised and encouraged by this.  He struggled on some words, and some students snickered, but he kept reading.  Before I leave, I'm hoping that they can see the movie.  Maybe that will get them interested in finishing the book.

This final full week, while it's my phasing out week, will be exhausting, because I still have to finish my direct instruction on The Catcher in the Rye.  Rather than a project, my students will be writing an in class essay.  They don't know it yet, but the work that we will be doing in class on Wednesday will prepare them for the essay on Thursday.  I still have to keep teaching my Seniors as well, so it doesn't feel quite like a phasing out week on either front.  I'm just hoping I don't burn out trying to plan and do my work for student teaching.

Goals:
1. Work on classroom management.
2. Get through at least Chapter 7 of The Kite Runner.

Classroom Confidential

Schmidt Chapter 7 talks a lot about community learning inside and outside of the classroom.  At the beginning, he discusses specific facets that highlight the benefits and goals of community learning.  The few that stick out to me are "Community-based projects put kids in the driver's seat," "Teaching and learning are shared," "Life and learning are fused," and "Student work has meaning in the world beyond."  These are all important qualities of community based learning and help me to consider what I need to do to involve my students in taking responsibility in something beyond themselves.  I love what Schmidt says:  "Community-based learning catapults kids into a world that they usually only glimpse on television or from the window of a car or bus.  they experience a direct and powerful connection between their work as students and their community, as when the kids at Ochoa School struggle dot reclaim a piece of land in a neighborhood with a history of neglect" (142).  The reason why this is so powerful is that students are getting an active role in seeing the community around them and doing something about it.

As an English teacher, I can see myself highlighting community-based learning through focusing on stories.  Actually, I created my own website for my future classes called The Book Shelfies.  It's still in the process of being molded and formatted for use, but the tag line is "capturing your story page by page."  One of the biggest things that I want my students to hone in on is the idea of sharing their own stories and hearing the stories of other people.  I wanted this classroom blog to be an outlet not only for the students to reflect on their own stories but to take those different perspectives and use their voices to respond to it.  I can imagine doing different types of service learning throughout the community and having students write about what they see and the stories that they have heard.  Words have so much power, and it can become an outlet to share.