Week 4

It's crazy to think that just a month ago, I was getting on a plan to move to Indonesia for 7 weeks, and now that my time here is more than halfway over.  Last week was edTPA week, so I'll definitely be sharing my experiences about that, but I'm also about to start my second week of full time teaching.  Although it feels like I've been here much longer, time is going by way too quickly.

The last time I posted an entry, I set some goals for myself and here is where I am in meeting them.  My first goal was to successfully do the edTPA.  Although this was thus far the most stressful week of my student teaching so far, I filmed all of the videos successfully and felt really confident about my teaching.  Before teaching some of my lessons, I realized that some of the elements of my lesson plans did not have requirements for the edTPA like I had thought.  In order to receive a 5 on the rubrics, it would be necessary to show myself engaging with groups of students and show the students engaging and collaborating with one another.  So, I had to take some time to look over my lesson plans and really think about my lessons.  Fortunately, I was able to come up with a great solution.  During the popcorn reading and discussion, I asked the students questions and conducted a think-pair-share to allow them to collaborate and work with their small groups.  For my other lesson, instead of having the students present to the entire class, I had them work with a small group and present to them.  In addition, I wanted them to write down one new thing that they learned from their discussion.  Overall, this all went extremely well, including the filming.  I may have to look back at some footage, because there was a group working right next to the camera that was not being videotaped.  Thankfully, I kept my voice recorder by the small group so that I could make a transcript of the entire conversation.  The actual filming is done now, and now it's just the commentaries and assessment.  I'm confident that I will excel in these areas as long as I am diligent about it and pay attention to the rubrics more.

My second goal was to be more assertive in the classroom.  This is a skill that I know will not be acquired within the span of a week; it is a long process.  But, I will say that I am getting better about being seen as an authoritative figure in the classroom.  There have been times where I have had to raise my voice when students were not paying attention.  My students are beginning to get used to seeing a stern Ms. Sarah in the classroom, but even for me, it's very difficult.  I'm still in a mindset where I do want my students to like me, but if I'm not stern they won't respect me.

As I mentioned before, this week was my first week of full time teaching.  I was nervous, but excited.  I think I was mostly nervous, because I had edTPA filming this past week, so I felt like everything I did had to be perfect when all I really needed to do was be myself as a teacher.  This week, I taught 5 lessons.  

My first lesson was day 4 in our study of verbals.  The students had been doing a really great job of identifying verbal phrases in class, but I knew that some of them would still be pretty shaky on the subject.  But, after this class session, I realized that my students are ready for it, and they know everything that they need to know for this quiz.  They had the quiz on Wednesday of that week, and they all exceeded expectations and did very well.  I thought about what it was about my teaching that helped them understand this concept more.  One thing that could have contributed to this success was always reviewing the definitions of the terms before each lesson.  Also, I gave the students many sentences on the worksheets as well as not on the worksheets.  This continuous repetition, I believe, really helped them to succeed in their endeavors.  I was very proud of them.  

I also taught four reading lessons this week reviewing chapter 2 and 3 and reading through chapter 4 of  A Wrinkle in Time.  For the first lesson, I focused primarily on characterization and used best practices such as a read aloud and an onion ring discussion.  The read aloud was helpful for my students in listening and following along.  As we discussed about Calvin, one of the main characters, the students offered valuable insight which was then also used in the discussion of later lessons.  The onion ring discussion was a strategy that I had heard about for a while, but had never seen it implemented in a class.  So, I gave it a shot earlier in the week.  Out of all three of my classes, only one section really understood the expectations.  It was a new and effective strategy, but it was a hectic experience for 6th grade.  My cooperating teacher has mentioned to me that he typically does not let them do activities where they can get up out of their seats, because they have a strong tendency to get off task.  After setting clear expectations and directions, I discovered that onion ring discussions can be very beneficial, but classroom management is a key factor in success.  

Another best practice strategy that I used this week that was very beneficial was using arts integration as a way to engage students in the content they were learning.  For three of my lessons, I was focusing on figurative language.  My students already had a pretty decent knowledge of figurative language before, but I decided to use songs to help them better understand the concept.  It was fun for them to analyze popular songs that they like.  One thing that is big in Indonesia right now is The Greatest Showman.  I knew that my students would really enjoy it, so I included the song "The Greatest Show" in the list of songs to choose to analyze.  Other songs on that list were "Firework" by Katy Perry and "Shiny" from Moana.  IPTS Performance Standard 3Q states that the competent teacher, "develops or selects relevant instructional content, materials, resources, and strategies (e.g., project-based learning) for differentiating instruction." I specifically chose these songs, because they all have different levels of difficulty and are from different genres of music.  Therefore, I was differentiating the process for my students by level of difficulty and interest.  By the end of the learning segment, these students exceeded my expectations and were analyzing figurative language like professionals.  All of that practice and scaffolding helped them to commit the process to memory and apply it in other works and texts.

 As I've been teaching,  I realize that I definitely enjoy having the students respond to all critical thinking questions on worksheets and quizzes, because it really demonstrates to me what my students know rather then them memorizing a bunch of facts.  In previous placements that I have been in, there are multiple quizzes a week, and most of the time, they are multiple choice.  While it is a lot that I would have to grade, I affirm my perspective in teaching in this way.  Multiple choice is not a great way of teaching students or assessing their knowledge on a subject.  Their learning is more revealing in how meaningful their responses are.

Part of the education program learning outcomes is to practice excellent teaching.  To this, I feel like I should add excellent assessment as well.  I feel like last week, I tried a plethora of different strategies to engage my students and help them learn best such as using songs to learn a concept, incorporating a vast array of discussion set ups (onion ring, think-pair-share, small groups, and large groups), and connecting the content to things that my students were interested in.  As for assessment, having them think critically is an essential skill, and it factors in the whole student rather than taking the robotic route of multiple choice.

I'm glad that there were no earthquakes this week; we had a full week, and I'm very happy about that.  I love these students so much, and this experience has been a huge affirmation for my love of teaching.  

Here are my goals for next week:

1. Continue to be more assertive.

2. Finish grading on time.

3. Get to know my students more as a teacher, not as a friend.

Classroom Confidential

This chapter talked a lot about Eptness.  According to Schmidt, "Great teachers build a culture of eptness through an unrelenting search for what each student can do an dhow those abilities contribute to the strength of the group.  Eptness is a combination of capacities and meaningful activity.  Before reading this chapter, I had never even heard of that term before, but I realized that it is something that I have been striving to do everyday in my classroom.  

As a teacher, I want to be seen in the role as the educator, but also the learner.  In promoting the culture of eptness, my students get to switch roles here and there as well and are more involved int eh learning process.  Rather than the robotic routines which are carried out in a number of schools, the students get to put themselves into the content they are learning and embody growth mindset.  It's about recognizing their abilities, seeing them as strengths, and using them as a learning and growing tool.  It's about asking the question, "What can I, as a teacher, learn from my students?"  It's about thinking of things in new and exciting ways that makes the student at the center of the learning process.

Three behaviors that Schmidt lists are great qualities that a teacher should have while promoting a classroom culture of eptness are encouragement, challenging old habits, and do nothing for students that they can do for themselves.  Encouragement has always been something that I've freely given to my students, but I need to work on giving unique, specific encouragement that fits the needs, interests, and skills of a child rather than saying, "good job!"  I need to explicitly tell my students what they did "good."  In this way, my encouragement is not overused and much more genuine.  I really enjoyed Schmidt's insights on challenging old habits.  Specifically, I'm thinking about how I've been teaching my class.  Vocabulary and grammar lessons follow the same routine and can be same-old-same-old.  Maybe if I came at the concept from a different angle, it would not only challenge me as a teacher, but it would challenge my students as well.  For example, a couple weeks from now, I'm planning for a vocabulary lesson where I will give them the word and the definition, but I want them to do a picture scavenger hunt to show that they know the meaning of the word.  It might be crazy, but it challenges them to think of the words in a new way, thus learning them differently and effectively.  Another behavior I want to use more is doing nothing so that the students can show what they can do.  Since I've been here, my students have struggled to follow any directions.  So, to prepare them for what they will encounter in Senior School next year, I will give them a worksheet on the tesseract in A Wrinkle in Time, write instructions, and expect them to follow them rather than explaining to them.  They know how to do these things, but they need to be pushed and put to work.  When that happens, their learning and discovery grows.