Free Choice Friday

One thing I want to mention is that this week I was having a hard time teaching my science lessons. I felt like they were going okay, but they didn't feel as successful as I wanted them to be. I didn't like the way the pieces of the individual lessons were laid out in the curriculum guide so I had to spend a lot of time rearranging them in my head to make them feel more natural to me. I am happy to report that I changed some things about my Friday lesson, the way I started the lesson, and I felt like if went very well. I started students out on the carpet and did a demonstration with student participation and they were very engaged. I then had students get supplies and they were excited to start their own experiments. I think I will try this format again next week while teaching science. Hopefully I continue to improve in my science teaching throughout the  next couple weeks!
I have also been reading through my TPA handbook and looking at my curriculum guide to determine what areas I can start working on now. I am starting to teach Math on Monday and we should be done with the unit I am starting by next Tuesday. I hope to give a preassessment for the new unit and start my video taping the middle of next week,  finishing before conferences on the 16th. That's my plan for now. I hope things go according to plan!!

Calling on a Variety of Students

I try to be very thoughtful and purposeful when I call on students for discussion or participation. I always try to call on an equal number of boys and girls when possible. I also try and call on as many people as possible. If I notice the same students are raising their hands all of the time, I will call on students I have not heard from before I give those students a second opportunity to answer a question. If I notice a student who usually does not raise their hand often has raised their hand, I will  call on them right away. My cooperating teacher also has a set of sticks in her room with student names on them. We use those sometimes to ensure a variety of student participation.

TPA Planning

So, we have 2 Math TPAs and 1 Literacy TPA in the works. As you move forward, here are some tips and tricks, and I apologize now for the repetition. 1. Writing up the whole TPA will be more satisfying, productive, and successful if you pick away at each part over time rather than trying to get the whole report written up in the time between your student teaching ending and the round table presentations at the end of the semester. I know you all have a lot on your plates, but if you can set aside time each week to accomplish a TPA task, you'll be a happier teacher, and one who understands the value of this requirement for helping you become a more knowledgeable, confident, intentional teacher. Consider making your "free choice" blog day a time you devote to TPA planning and preparation. Write to us about what you've accomplished. 2. Start lesson-sequence planning with your assessment in mind. The key to writing up your 3-5 lesson sequence is having learning objectives in mind, and measuring the outcomes based on the objectives. Having pre- and post-test data practically guarantee a successful TPA. You can see where kids were before you did your teaching, and what they learned as a result by examining work samples after. I think I told you about a TPA project last year in 5th grade, but I'll tell it again: One of my student teachers decided to teach a 5-lesson sequence on writing tall tales. On day one, she talked to the class about tall tales, trying to elicit their understanding of this literary genre. Then she asked them each to write a tall tale--she gave them about 30 minutes for this task. She collected the tall tales, and read each one, comparing the features of each story to the rubric she had developed that listed the characteristics of a well-written tall tale. She figured out that her students all understood that tall tales included some element of exaggeration, but they didn't set up the problem in their tales clearly, and very few of them included a magical element in their stories, which is a key feature of tall tales. From there, my student teacher had a tighter focus on what she needed to teach (and what she didn't). She spent the next three days reading lots of tall tales, and "unpacking" the characteristics of the genre that seemed less well-understood to her students. The kids used planning sheets to either revise the tall tales they'd written or to start fresh with a new story idea. At the end of the week (or maybe the kids had until Monday to write final drafts), the teacher collected their new versions and evaluated them again. She had plenty of data to see how well her teaching had "worked" based on who wrote tall tales that included few-some-all of the features of the genre. 3. Talk, talk, talk to people about your plans. I'll make sure that whenever I visit you at school from now on, we talk about your TPA progress. If you've had me for any classes, you know that I'm a big believer in talk as part of the writing process. When you have someone willing to listen to you talk about your thinking, your writing is positively influenced. But talk to your student teaching peers, too, and talk in Current Issues about the insights and challenges you're facing. The whole point of the TPA is to nurture your reflective practitioner habits of thinking, so flex those muscles whenever you can to prove that you're the most reflective teachers in existence! That's it for now. Keep up the good work. Dr. K

choice

For the choice posting today I want to write about one of our literacy lessons this week.  WE were talking about questioning the author and I had decided to find her website to see if we could send a message with our questions (we read a whole group text to model stratgies etc. and this was a book the kids really seemed to enjoy).  I found her site and the kids started spouting out questions they had for her.  They were so excited.  Then they all wanted to look up the websites of their favorite authors so they could ask questions of them.  It was wonderful to see the kids so excited about reading and asking such thoughtful questions.  I felt really good about the lesson and the kids were enthusiastic as well.  We weren't expecting to hear back, but sure enough the next day we had an email from Rosemary Wells's personal account responding to all of our questions.  Again, the students were really excited to be connecting to an author.

I just wanted to share this because I really having that whole group experience of connecting around a text and sharing a love of literature.  Sometimes the literacy lessons seem kind of dull and I can hear the groans when I call students to the front so it was refreshing to share this experience.

calling on students

I haven't been as purposeful about his as perhaps I should be.  I try to make sure I call on a range of kids as much as possible.  Whenever someone who I know is generally pretty quiet raises his/her hand, I make sure I call on that student.  We don't have sticks that we draw, although I guess I could make some. It hasn't felt like a necessity because the kids are all very eager to share and participate throughout the day.  Even the quieter ones have subjects that they like better and will raise their hands in.  I guess sticks could be useful for keeping kids accountable in subjects where they aren't as naturally comfortable.

wall painting

Hi All!
    Today I was given the task of painting our portion of the school wall.  Each class has a section to paint and they are supposed to put their handprints on the wall.  I had painted the base color on Wednesday and felt confident in my strategy to paint today.   The paint was on plates, the kids were to dip their hand and then go directly to the outdoor sink down the hall to wash their hand.   I was taking 5 kids at a time.

     The first kid takes her hand, covered in paint, and smears it across the wall, dripping everywhere.  I took the opportunity to remind the kids to keep their hands very still.  The second student had too much paint on her hands and it started to drip off her hand print.  At this point I had the students blot their hand on a paper towel to remove excess paint.  Another teacher in the building suggested propping open the bathroom door so the kids could go directly in to wash their hands.  He reminded the students not to touch the soap dispensers with their painted hands.

     Upon completing the last of the 5 hand prints, which turned out pretty well!, I went into the bathroom where I saw paint EVERYWHERE!  At this point, I walked back to the classroom and continued the cycle with fewer kids this time and I walked with them to the sink in the hall after they had all done their hand prints.  Again, paint was everywhere, but in a much smaller degree with my supervision.

     My final group of 3 for the day had perfect hand prints.  However, when I told them to wait while I gathered the supplies we had used and turned my back from them, they were gone!  They had returned to the classroom bathroom, paint and all!

      I feel like today was one of those learning experiences where I couldn't have known until I did it.  Luckily I had a good 10 minutes to reflect as I cleaned the 4 sinks my students had used!

Julie   

calling on students

Hi All!
     The strategy that I use most frequently to avoid calling on the same students is pulling name sticks.  My cooperating teacher has these great plastic pencils that are colored 5 colors.  They have different shapes on the ends of them as well.  The sticks I often use for grouping.  I strategically placed the names on the sticks by color based on reading abilitites.  When I pull the names from the cup I know based on the color of the stick that I'm drawing roughly where their reading ability is and can make sure I'm asking kids appropriate questions for their reading level.

     When I'm not using the name sticks I find that if I add a longer pause to looking for hands that I get better responses from the students.  I try to increase the wait time whenever I notice that there are only the same 5 hands in the air.   This approach takes much more thought than the name stick approach. 

TPA planning

I have done some TPA planning and I'm pretty sure I will be doing it in 2 weeks.  I want to do writing, as I've decided I would prefer a literacy focus but that reading might be more difficult to collect work samples and data for.  Based on our plans, I should be ready to do the week long unit on descriptive writing for my TPA.  We are just starting our writing curriculum this week, but the students are familiar with the writer's workshop framework from past years so I think we should be in good shape for the TPA the second week of October.  Although it is certainly not my hope to have to do this over, I think getting it done early will allow me the freedom to try again if necessary.

Subject Knowledge

So far I don't feel like I have gotten to use a lot of subject matter knowledge when teaching. I was an economics and finance major in college so when I was teaching social studies I taught a little bit about economists as one of the social scientists students will be thinking like in fourth grade but didn't go into too much detail. I felt comfortable teaching social studies because I have an interest in it, but this week I have taken over science and I was surprised to find out I am not as comfortable teaching science. The lessons have been going pretty well for the  most part, but I do a lot of prep for them.  I really liked the STEM courses, especially the engineering course, so I thought I would be more comfortable with the science material. One reason might just be all of the directions that need to be given and all the materials students have. It is a hard subject to manage with 34 students doing free discovery. I think that makes the subject a little intimidating for me.
I hope next week when I take over math I will be more comfortable with that subject matter!

TPA Plans

Last weekend I was able to map out some dates that I want to teach my TPA lessons and when I should probably be video taping. I know now what date I want to check out my camera and when I will need to return that camera so that really helps me narrow plans. I talked with my cooperating teacher yesterday about my TPA, told her the camera dates, and we were able to sort of get an idea of the curriculum guide/unit I will be using during that time. Most likely my TPA will deal with multiplication and multiplication equivalencies. That might change depending on how lessons go the rest of this week and next week. I am hoping we are done with the unit we are working on now so we can move onto the next unit. That way I can give the unit pretest before I teach and use that as additional TPA data for my write up.

**One question I have is whether we are supposed to use the curriculum materials to write our TPA lesson plans so they fit  with what students are working on, or are we supposed to create our own lessons on a concept we come up with?

 Dr. Kaback,
For some reason I was unable to reply to your comment about the substitute teacher post, here is what I wanted to write:
Jane mentioned she tried to get some of the regular substitute teachers she likes, but they were all busy that day. After she could not get any of her regulars, she put it in the Mpls electronic sub pool and the job was open to anyone in the pool. (Not exactly sure how this system works...?)

Jane understood my frustrations and we just talked about some of the differences I noticed between an experienced teacher and a inexperienced teacher and how being educated on how to teach really makes a difference. Next time if she were to be gone again she will put specific notes about subjects I am going to teach. 

Prepping for TPA

Hi All!
    So far my teacher and I have agreed that I will be teaching math for the TPA.   We haven't discussed much beyond this because we have been busy dealing with setting up for conferences and making behavior plans.  This so far has been a rough week for the both of us, so we both agreed that taking some R&R on business is what we both need.  I reminded her that we need to start planning it more closely and she agreed that we would get a firm plan by next week.

Julie  

subject knowledge

My undergraduate major was history, particularly history of Latin America.  I can't say that this has been directly useful so far, although I never really anticipated teaching much Brazilian history at the elementary level.  I am excited however to start social studies (hopefully we will be doing so in the next week or so) as this is my personal interest area and one I have the most experience with.

I have been surprised by how easily the scientific content knowledge has been for me.  I didn't think I really understood electromagnetism that well, but between the hands on experiments, the teaching guide and background knowledge from MAkin' and Breakin' I'm having a great time teaching science.  Partially I think this is because the explorative nature of the activities leaves room to encourage students to find answers on their own, or work with me to discover answers.  I am not expected to be (or at least I don't feel like I am expected to be) an absolute authority in this area.

The content area that has always been hardest for me is math.  This continues to be the case.  While most of the concepts at the fourth grade level are within my grasp, I have a hard time remembering all of the details necessary in performing algorithms and computations.  I am admitedly a bit lazy about carrying and borrowing.  To compensate I tend to be more tentative in math, which is something I'm working on.  I want students to understand that mistakes are okay, but I also want to teach them how to do things the right way.

knowledge of subject matter and college prep

Hi All!
     I'm very glad to be in first grade in the sense that none of the material is "over my head".  Had I been in 5th grade, I can honestly say that I struggle with long division. haha! That being said, the material within the lesson I find very easy and comfortable with.

     My weakness in planning is implementing the academic terms and strategies into my lesson.  I often am sticking post-it notes onto my lesson plans with things like "count from.... get to" and "comprehension"  because it is difficult for me to implement the words into my own thinking when I'm trying to make the subject matter easier for the students. 

     One area that I feel very comfortable in using the correct terminology is science. I find that I think in science terms because of the classes I have taken at St Kates when explaining the material.  I also have been very focused on making sure I support inquiry learning, which I learned the importance of at St Kates.  I know it will take time to get implementing academic language into my lessons however and I am teaching myself to do it by using the post it strategy.

Julie 

weekend preparation

This weekend I took some time to write up my plans for the lessons I'm teaching this week.  I didn't use the official format, but I read through everything and wrote notes about how I was going to delver the lessons based on what I know about our students.

I felt more prepared this morning than I have on other Monday mornings, with plans all done for the whole week.  The frustrating part was that, despite my preparations the lessons today were only so-so.  I taught literacy and science.  We are continuing on our second week of questioning in literacy, and i could tell I was loosing the students' interest during the lesson.  In science, we got through the first part of the lesson and as we were debriefing from their initial observations and explorations, it became clear that they already knew A LOT about magnets and the second half of the lesson would be a waste of time.  I ended up changing the plan and using some promethium tools to review what students already knew instead of wasting time with the activities I had originally planned.

Daily Reflection

Hi All,
     Today I began teaching my math lessons and continued on with my lessons on bullying.   Math went really well, but the kids were very rambunctious today and were difficult to keep on task/ quiet for discussions.  I was able to keep them focused for math, but the last activity of the lesson was a game, which got them even more energetic.   I knew I was up for a challenge when I needed them to get serious for the bullying conversation, but the kids just weren't cooperating.
     I started out the activity by asking them to shake off their excess energy and to take a moment to calm their bodies.   Ms Perez often uses reminders such as this one when changing topics and trying to set a class tone.   I began the conversation about bullying, but the kids were still chattering to each other.  From my last observation I have been working towards ignoring misbehavior and redirecting the kids by asking them questions when I notice them off task.   This was not turning out to be an effective strategy.
      I knew that the students weren't taking the conversation seriously by their responses to my question about what we should do when we see someone being bullied, but the kids weren't taking my requests for appropriate responses seriously.  Out of the corner of my eye I could see Ms. Perez getting more and more upset by the classes behavior- she has already commented multiple times on how talkative the students are and how they don't respond well to consequences like sitting at their desk or losing recess.  About 15 minutes into my lesson she cut me off, sent all the kids to their desks, and they spent the rest of the day (15 more minutes) with their heads down.  They have lost recess tomorrow and I will reteach the kids the lesson during that time she told them.
      I have spent the evening brainstorming new ways to teach the lesson and have decided that I will have the students remain at their desks this time and I will limit the number of responses that the original lesson plan the teacher gave me had suggested.  I think that these two changes will keep the kids from getting bored from hearing the same questions being asked a second day. 

Weekend preparation

This weekend I was able to get a lot done to prepare for student teaching. I met with Meggie after school on Friday and we were able to finalize some plans for our Action Research project and we got approval from our adviser to begin collecting data. I was also able to meet with my cooperating teacher on Saturday morning. We were able to get a lot of this week planned out and decided who was going to teach what subjects. We were also able to talk about when I need to video tape for my TPA project and what subjects I will continue to take over for the rest of my 5 weeks. This made me feel more comfortable because before we met I was worried that I had not yet taken on enough teaching to keep up with my pacing guide and I felt like I was running out of time. Now I have a more clear picture about what subjects I am teaching this week and what I am going to teach next week, etc. This weekend I also read over the science curriculum I am teaching this week and made some lesson plans for myself to follow. Tonight I plan to prepare for a short writing lesson.

Friday catch-up

My weekend ended up being pretty busy and I realized I forgot to write anything for Friday. My first four weeks of student teaching have gone well. I am learning so many new things every time I teach a lesson and it is nice to feel like I am making progresses with my teaching skills. One thing that was interesting about last week is that we had a substitute teacher for half of the day on Thursday. He was an older man and I found out that he has actually never been a teacher. I thought in the Minneapolis school district you needed to be licensed to be a reserve teacher, but I guess I was wrong. The reserve teacher wanted to teach most of the lessons that afternoon so I was mostly observing. The day did not go so well, but it was interesting to see the difference between an experienced licensed teacher and a non-licensed teacher. I think teaching really is a misunderstood profession and people do not realize that it takes a lot of education and experience to be an effective teacher. Most of the time not just anyone with a bachelors degree is able to lead a group of 35 students through math, social studies, and reading.  It also gave me some things to think about from a reserve teacher's prospective. While I am substitute teaching it is going to be difficult to go into an unfamiliar classroom and teach the students. I felt for him in that respect because he did not know the students or their routines like I did. The day was somewhat frustrating, but I think it was a good experience.

follow up from my observation last week

Dr. Kaback had asked that I write about how the companion lesson to the one she observed went, so here is a little synopsis.  When she came in last week we were working on asking explicit questions of a text as we read.  The following day we worked on implicit questions.

The implicit questioning lesson was a bit more difficult for kids, and was further complicated by the fact that as we sat down to begin the lesson, a group of electricians arrived to work on our promethium board.  Getting the board hung is our number one priority now, so we had to be flexible.  We were able to go to the computer lab for our lesson so we wouldn't be distracted by the drilling, but this shortened our time.  Additionally, the media center is not set up very well for this type of lesson so it was challenging to manage the students and keep them on task.  I was bummed that I had to shorten this more difficult concept, but I was able to do the read/think aloud portion and talk about implicit versus explicit questioning.  During work time I asked students to write implicit questions on post-its the same way they had with the explicit questions the day before.

I found during our whole group lesson and as I was going around checking the questions kids wrote, that although they are very good at answering implicit questions, they really struggle to generate (or at least articulate) the question.

Thursday we continued to work on the concept and Friday was a special day in literacy with parent visitors so we did not have a lesson.  I was impressed on Thursday that almost all the students were able to articulate the difference between implicit and explicit questions.  This week we will continue to work on questioning strategies, and look more deeply at the kinds of implicit questions readers ask.

weekend catch-up

I had a long week last week and by Friday I was absolutely exhausted.  Because of that, I want to focus my Friday blog on wrapping up my week and getting caught up this weekend.  I thought taking some days off while I was sick would have been helpful last week, it wasn't.  I came back to school Wednesday feeling out of touch with my kids and cooperating teacher.   I left school Friday feeling completely drained.   That being said, I took Friday night to just relax.  I enjoyed a dinner with the family and then hung out with some close friends and kicked back on the couch to watch some TV. 

I spent the rest of the weekend getting lesson plans together and Promethean boards made.  I plan to go into this week being over prepared- my teacher has requested my lesson plans an additional week in advance, so I am working to get that all squared away.   Overall, I needed to take the weekend to get motivated and organized and I took the opportunity to get ahead.  I am looking forward to the week to come.

I think I'll do a group reply in response to your posts about relaxation. First, if you're all telling the truth, it sounds like you have a good handle on the importance of work-life balance. I couldn't agree with Diane (Meggie's co-op) more when she says, "If teach ain't happy, ain't nobody happy" (that's true with parenting, too!). When we keep our bodies and minds healthy through whatever form of relaxation we choose, we're not only allowing time for our brains to rest and get rejuvenated, but we're serving as roles models for our students! Julie, make sure you tell your first graders stories about your hiking, canoeing and fishing on the weekends. They'd love it. Someday when you have your own classroom, I can totally see you doing a few "weekends with the teacher" when you invite kids to join you in the great outdoors. As I'm sure you know, kids' time outside is so limited, and there's a lot of research that shows nature is a major contributor to healthy development. You should consider teaching in an outdoor-ed focused school. Nicole, the value of friends and family keeping us grounded can't be overestimated. I like your idea about taking time to talk about something other than teaching. Sometimes it's nice to hear about other kinds of jobs, the people in cubicles, or healthcare professionals, or nail technicians, right? Sometimes those career choices seem so much more straightforward and contained--when you go home, you leave your work behind. That's impossible for teachers if they're doing their job well. Meggie, there are plenty of ways to get your mind-body balance without exercise. Don't be too hard on yourself about that. If you want to get some fresh air, though, you know where to find Julie on the weekends :-) I can totally appreciate your need to just be quiet when you get home after a busy day of interacting with many different constituencies. I try to remember the value of quiet when I pick up my own kids from school--they must feel the same way teachers do about the constant stimulation--and not bombard them with 8 thousand questions the second I see them. I hope the weekend brought some good relaxation strategies to each of you. It sure feels like fall. Enjoy the week (I know you have to write Friday's post, but I won't be back on our blog until tomorrow morning). Dr. K

relaxation

Diane takes relaxation very seriously and she is always reminding me to take a few minutes here and there throughout the day to sit down and breathe.  She likes to tell that 'if the teach isn't happy, ain't no body happy."

While this is usually somewhat in jest, I certainly think she has a good point encouraging me to take time to relax and not wear myself out.  In order to relax I like to come home and veg out a bit.  I often feel like after talking all day, I just want to sit and not talk to anyone.  I also try to go out with friends for dinner or happy hour at least one night a week and on the weekends.  I don't consider exersize relaxing or enjoyable, but I try to do this as well (doesn't always happen as much as it should).

relaxation

Hi All!
     There are a few things that I do to relax and enjoy myself these days.  My daily time that I set aside for myself is my dinner with my family.  I'm currently living at home with my parents, sister, and grandmother (my brother visits from college frequently).  I have found that going home and eating dinner with the family eat night is a great way to take a break between school and lesson planning.  
     The other thing that I do for myself is that I try to fit in a hike each weekend.   I have found that getting outdoors for a bit along with getting some exercise really helps me let loose before starting a new week.  I frequently go to Ft Snelling State Park.  There are miles of trails to hike on and canoe rentals are only 10 dollars for 4 hours.  Also, the park lends out fishing poles for free, they just don't supply bait!  I have found that setting some time aside to go outdoors and enjoy nature really helps my morale when trying to juggle school and work.  It also is a great way for me to set aside some time for friends because they are always willing to walk with me.

Julie

Relaxation

I try to make resting and relaxing a priority, some weeks it is easier than others. I also try to take at least an hour a night to do something that I want to do and get in some kind of exercise a few times a week. Seeing friends or family is helpful and it is nice to talk about things other than student teaching as a change of pace. The weekends are great for catching up on sleep, work and fun as well. It is hard to come back to school for the week if the weekend has been too busy or I have been out of town. Those two days become very important!! :)

Greatest Success

I saw that the topic in the book for tonight was your greatest success and I don't have anything in particular on my mind this late at night so I am just going with that.

I feel my greatest success thus far has been introducing and launching the social studies curriculum with my class. The students had been working on science since the beginning of the year and at the end of last week I got to introduce them to the social studies curriculum starting with the first lesson and continuing on. I was nervous for my first lesson, but now I feel more comfortable. We will finish chapter 2 at the end of this week already. It was valuable experience getting to work with the curriculum materials and learning how to use them to plan out lessons. I also learned a lot by talking with my cooperating teaching about what phases of the curriculum lessons could be condensed or taken out to fit the pacing of the year better. I learn well by doing and this was the most hands on experience I have had so far with lesson planning. With social studies coming to an end this week we will be moving back to science. I hope to get to have a similar experience with those curriculum materials as well.

Free choice

Today I wanted to write about interruptions.  In all our classes everyone told us teachers have to constantly be ready for interruptions and changes in the plans.  I didn't really realize how true this was until this week.  It seems like everyday this week there has been something--a guest speaker, band presentation, MAP test etc that has gotten in the way of our normal schedule.  I had a science lesson planned for Monday that I was finally able to do today, because we kept having to push back the science lesson to accommodate special circumstances.  Today, when I finally got a chance to do the lesson, it ended up being especially short and wild, because as I was beginning to teach the installation team came to do some wiring for our Prometheum board.  While the board is still not up, and it doesn't even look like any real progress was made, we had drilling and building going on throughout the entire lesson.  Finally, I cut the lesson short and Diane and I decided since it was the end of the day and there were so many distractions in the room we couldn't control, we would give in and have an extra 15 minutes of recess until it was time to go home.

I find myself frustrated by these interruptions to the flow, but I know I will have to learn to deal with them, because they will never go away.  

achievements

Hi All!
     I've been out for a few days sick and admittedly getting back into the swing of things has been tough.   Todays topic is "Your greatest achievements thus far".  I wouldn't say it is the thing that would count as my biggest achievement, but I am personally proud of myself for extending myself to other staff in the building.  I'm naturally a shy person, so I have been making it my personal goal to interact with other staff right from the start.  I feel like is is my biggest personal achievement.

     The other thing that I feel is a big accomplishment is that I feel confident in my science lessons, which I never felt during the eco-stars unit.  While I do have room for improvement, I am not getting as nervous as I have in the past.  I like getting to teach the unit everyday using the Foss kit and feel generally comfortable with the layout of the material.  I'm still working at the best ways to facilitate transitions for supplies, but the material itself I feel confident in my ability to execute. 

Julie

Here's what's been happening

Hi All, Meggie and Nicole took advantage of the choice to use their lesson reflection in place of their blog post for yesterday (Tuesday, September 18). Thanks to both for a thoughtful, honest assessment of your progress so far. It was a blast watching you both teach after having only read about the experience for the past few weeks. You're doing so well. Today it's back to "Free Choice" Wednesday, plus you have class on campus with Dr. Heacox, right? I will look forward to hearing from ALL of you (Julie included--where have you been?). Have a good afternoon. Dr. K

lesson planning/ preparedness

So far I haven't done a lot of full TPA style writeups for my lessons.  I have found that I feel most prepared if I think through every step of the lesson--especially transitions and handing out of supplies--and write down a few notes of what directions I want to give when.  I don't usually use my notes, but I feel better knowing that I've thought through how the lesson will play out and imagined it in my head.  

I think I still need to work on being a bit more prepared for my lessons, especially as I begin to take over more lessons in a day.  Right now I have the benefit of being the second teacher for most of the day so if I need to set something up or re-read my notes while Diane teaches, I can.  As I take on more responsibilities I will need to be more prepared for the whole day.

Lesson Planning and Preparedness

My lesson planning has been going well so far. I have only planned a few full lessons where I have taken the lead in teaching, but for the most part I have been pleased. The formal lesson plan template helps you to think through a lot of the lesson which makes me feel more prepared before I teach. Even if I don't always have a full write up I write out the objectives, the assessment, some of the instructional plan, including how I will close the lesson.  I have found that if I think through these things and how I want to distribute materials and explain directions that my lessons go a lot smoother. I took more time preparing for the lesson I taught on Friday and I felt like it went pretty well. I noticed that I did not have as much time to prepare for the lesson that I taught today and I did not feel as confident about it. I knew the material, but I didn't get a chance to think through how I wanted to explain the activity to students very well and I should have been more direct and concise. We ended up running out of time to finish everything I had planned and I felt like the students didn't get everything out of it that they could have. I guess I will just take that as a learning experience and make things better the next time I teach. I hope things continue to improve this week!

first three weeks

I was speaking with another St. Kate's friend this weekend who is placed at a different school.  She was saying of her experience thus far, that she feels like she is having to learn literally everything.  I kind of agree with her here, my first few weeks have been full of new experiences and learning about all of the different responsibilities and interactions involved in being a teacher.  Everything is new, and I guess I keep going back and forth between just trying to keep up and trying to soak in everything.

As routines begin to emerge and we get further and further into real academic curriculum I am feeling more confident from one day to the next, and having less anxiety about not knowing what is happening in the room.  I am really happy to have my first lesson flop under my belt as well as a few really successful lessons later this week.  I'm looking forward to continuing to take on more and more responsibilities.

Three Weeks of Teaching

My first three weeks of teaching have gone very, very fast. I have experienced  many emotions, thoughts and feelings all in three weeks. I have felt excited and enthusiastic and also discouraged and stressed. Every day brings something new, a new challenge and learning experience which has been very worthwhile. Each day there are opportunities to learn and grow as a person and a teacher. As I think back over the last three weeks I can see that I have already gained a lot of knowledge. I have started to take on more responsibilities in the classroom and have gotten to put into practice the new skills I have acquired as well. I feel like the next three weeks will bring with it even more challenges and opportunities. The first three weeks was also partially spent getting to know the building, teachers, and procedures. Things are starting to feel more comfortable and routine so there is now more time to focus on becoming a better teacher.

Just an FYI: When I come in to visit your classroom, you'll write a reflection about how the lesson went in light of the lesson plan you wrote. On these days, you'll have the choice to write this post-teaching reflection AND do a blog post, or JUST do the post teaching reflection (which you send to me--no need to post that writing on the blog)and skip blogging for the day . I'm mentioning this so that if Nicole and Meggie are waiting with bated breath for Julie's blog post, you'll know why it's not there for Thursday. Feel free to ask Julie how her first teaching-while-being-watched-by-Dr. K went :-) Enjoy the day. Dr. K

TPA progress

I haven't been thinking as much about the TPA as I probably should be.  So far I've been focusing on getting into the routine and starting to take over more and more responsibilities in the classroom.  I know I have the first pieces due next Wednesday, so I will try to talk to Diane about this tomorrow.

I am still trying to decide whether to do math or literacy for my TPA, I have more background in literacy from St. Kate's and MN Reading Corps, but I still don't have a very clear understanding of how reader's workshop will work in our room.  the math curriculum is easier to follow and implement in the classroom so far.  Anyway, I'm still thinking about it...

TPA Progress

This week I started thinking more about the TPA. I printed out the handbook so I could read through it carefully and begin to check off tasks as I complete them. Right now I think I am going to teach a math lesson for my TPA.  I also printed out the Context for Learning and the classroom/school audit that we need to complete for our Current Issues class. I started to fill both forms out, but there is some information I don't know yet. I mentioned it to Jane and we are going to talk about it tomorrow. Both of those documents are due in class next Wednesday which is sort of nice in a way because it forces me to have them complete by a certain date! I also started to think about when I need to check out a camera and when I will do my video taping. In class last week, it was suggested that students with a middle school placement should tape their lessons no later then week 6. I am planning on taping all of the lessons that I include lesson plans for in my TPA documents. This will help ensure I have a good section of video to send in. Also, I think I will tape a lesson before week six to get some practice with the camera in the room and to make sure sound quality is sufficient. It feels like a lot of steps to complete, but if I take one thing at a time hopefully it will be more manageable.

Extracurricular Activities

I am sad to say that I have not gotten involved in any extracurricular activities, nor do I really know of any currently to become involved in. I should probably make it more of a priority to learn about different ways to get involved and get to know students outside of school. My cooperating teacher keeps pretty tight hours, we only stay about a 1/2hr after school and only arrive a couple minutes early, so I am not sure if she is involved in any either. If anyone has any suggestions that would be great! I don't have a lot of extra time during the week, but could fit something in from time to time. I am also wondering, after reading Julie's post and comment from Dr. Kaback, is it okay to ask to stay after school without your cooperating teacher? My teacher has to leave at a certain time to pick up her children and I think as I take on more responsibility that I might need to stay later to go over lessons and get things ready. It sometimes takes me a while!

I also just wanted to comment on the fact that I ran into another student teacher today, not from St. Kates, in the copy room and we got to talking. I asked her how she was doing because she seemed a little stressed. She commented on the fact that her math lessons were harder to teach than she expected and that it was difficult to be still learning as a student teacher and not to just be good right away. I had actually been feeling the same way last night and felt sort of discouraged which I am sure is normal at times. It was just nice to know that someone else was feeling the same way! I mentioned this before, but it really is helpful to have people around for support especially as we begin the process of taking on different responsibilities. I think Julie had a great idea starting a happy hour with the other teachers at her school!

Follow up from yesterday

After my less than successful math lesson yesterday, I needed to do some reteaching today.  The lesson we did yesterday was about how to breakdown a difficult multiplication problem into to easier problems (the distributive property).  I had gotten flustered and confused the students about how to break down the number.  Since many of them were already confused, by then end of yesterday everyone was very lost.

I started our session today with a new approach to the same material.  Diane showed me yesterday how to access some curriculum materials online that she has found really helpful in the past to fill in gaps for the Investigations curriculum.  On that site I found a slide show that walks through how to breakdown the problem, but the site uses pictures of arrays to illustrate what is happening.  To be honest, after I saw previewed this material last night, the concept became significantly clearer to me.  I believe it really helped the students understand what was happening when we break down a number and why the process works.  Additionally, I was able to better illustrate why students should even bother learning this process, and I was able to make connections to algebra.

At the end of our session today about 80% of the kids said they understood the concept and were comfortable trying it in their homework tonight.  While that's not everyone, it's much better than yesterday and Diane told me that this concept is really complex for these kids and very new.  During work time, Diane was able to pull small groups of those still struggling while I helped the others.

I felt MUCH better about our lesson today, and more confident about tomorrow.

extracurricular activities

         At LHLC the extracurricular activities are just beginning, however none of them are hosted by teachers.   Our classroom is used for Spanish afterschool, but because of traffic my cooperating teacher has decided that we will leave each day right after school.  All class outings are specifically arranged by parents and the teachers seem to purposefully not get involved at lower campus.   I'm curious if this is the same everywhere?  Like I said in a previous post, I have organized some of the student teachers to get together on Fridays so that we can network.  In my eyes, this has been my extracurricular activity that gets me involved with other adults in the building and has been very helpful in bouncing ideas off one another and understanding what experiences my fellow student teachers are having.

Julie

Interactions with staff

As I have said before, I feel very confident in interacting with staff within the building.  It is nice to have such a small school where I get to see everyone on a regular basis.  Becca and I have organized an outing for the student teachers on Friday to the lowbrow where we get to network together and bounce ideas off one another after a long week.

My interactions with my cooperating teacher have become more difficult this week.  I get the feeling that she wants me to yell when students aren't listening and demand their attention, where I am trying to lower my volume so that they will listen.  I'm worried that she doesn't trust me to get back control of the situation and so she will interrupt in an attempt to help me.  I also know that she is a big gossiper and hope that she isn't gossiping about me the way she does other staff in the building.  Otherwise I feel very comfortable in the building and with the staff. 

Goals

     Monday was my first day leading the morning from the very start of the day.  I found that getting the  attention of the children was the most difficult part of the morning.  I wasn't sure when I should explain the morning work assignment or how I should transition kids through to the activity when they were all coming in at different times.  My goal for this week is to get a better handle on greeting the students as they enter and maximize the number of students who hear the initial instructions for the assignment. 
     Apart from morning work the other area of my teaching that I would like to learn more about is the behavior management for a student with severe behavior concerns.   We have a new student in my class and so I am getting the opportunity to work with the special ed services closely as we work to determine how best to meet his needs. 

Today...

I know that we are supposed to talk about interactions with staff, but I want to reflect on my day today.

Today I taught my first full solo lesson, with Diane observing.  I did math today.  Things were going pretty well at first but when I released the students to practice with partners, I realized the most of them were not getting the concept.  At that point I called everyone's attention back to the front (very quickly!) to practice a few more problems as a group.

The second time I reviewed the concept I did it wrong with the students.  About ten minutes in, I realized my mistake and stopped.  I told the students "I'm sorry everyone, but I made a mistake.  I'm very sorry to confuse you more, but I just realized I am doing this the wrong way."  At that point we had a brief discussion about how everyone makes mistakes and put the math away, because everyone including me was confused.
Diane and I met afterwards to debrief and are developing a plan to reteach this concept in a new way tomorrow.

I was very embarrassed to admit to the kids that I messed up, especially on my first solo lesson!   On the other hand, I am kind of relieved to have that over with, I know it will happen again, but I also know now that I can goof up without loosing the students' respect.

Goals

As I mentioned in my post on Friday, my major goal for this week is to develop a better system for redirecting students.  I began today with a morning meeting in which we discussed my new count-down approach.  I spoke with the students this morning to review this procedure and discuss the importance of quieting down quickly.
My second goal is to work on my relationships with staff.  So far I rarely see non-fourth grade teachers.  I think that as weekly PD meetings begin I will ahve more opportunities to interact with staff throughout the building.

Interactions with Cooperating Teacher, Faculty and Staff

My interactions with other people in the building continue to become more natural as time goes on. I have learned my way around and have gotten to meet some other great teachers. There is one teacher at the end of my hallway that continues to think of me when she comes across helpful resources. She just gave me a stack of some great things this week! I really appreciate her giving me different worksheets and resources that I can use in the future. Also, every time I am in the copy room I am able to meet and talk with different teachers in the building. I am meeting some of the special education staff as well. My cooperating teacher and I eat lunch with two other fourth grade teachers and their student teachers (Meggie and Diane are one pair :))  almost every day. We can all talk together about lessons and how the day is going and it is beneficial to have other student teachers to talk with as well. I am happy to be staying at Lake Harriet for my second placement so I can continue to meet more people.
My cooperating teacher is very busy during the day, but we find small amounts of time throughout to talk about things. We also met one time outside of school to plan which was very helpful because the school day is full of interruptions. My cooperating teacher is easy to talk to and offers good ideas and feedback when I ask her. She makes sure to communicate to me what lessons she is planning to teach each day so I know what to expect. We tried parrell teaching for the first time this week which was good experience. I try my best to help her with whatever she needs throughout the day and I think we are getting along well. I wish I had more time to pick her brain!!

Goals

Today I had my first experience teaching any of the curriculum. My cooperating teacher and I split the lesson and the students in half for science. Jane taught the first part of the lesson and got the students into groups. Then we each worked with four groups of students for the hands on portion. After the students did their experiments, the class came back together and I got to lead the discussion and summary portion. The students were very excited during science and got off task many times. There were some behavior issues that needed to be addressed during the portion of the lesson I was teaching. I wrote in my last post that I wanted to be more confident in my behavior management and I think I was able to practice today. I was able to remain confident when leading the lesson even though there were times I was a little frustrated and nervous about students not listening. I was able to address the behavior issues and remain direct and firm as well. Thinking back on the lesson there were some things I would do differently, but I learned from the experience and now I will be more prepared for next time.
I was also able to lead the morning meeting again today and use some of the feedback I got from my cooperating teacher last week. One goal I have is to continue to work on developing and practicing different classroom management procedures, phrases,  and techniques. I would like to get more and more comfortable with this so I can focus on my lessons and student learning. I would also like to practice developing and asking good questions during lessons.

Successes and areas for improvement

Week 2 was an exciting week in my room. I was able to see a lot of the curriculum being taught and it was fun to get into some of the material. Also, the classroom microsociety has begun to take shape and the students love it! They elected the classroom governor and senators on Friday. This week I felt successful because I was able to plan and facilitate one morning meeting and get in front of the students again. Jane has a great signal for getting the students attention after activities or work time. I used the same signal to call back their attention during the first lesson I taught and have been using it ever since. Right away the students responded to me and I was pleased that I was able to regain control in the room when needed! I thought most of the morning meeting went well, but I had to stop the activity early because it was not going according to plan. Also, I noticed some of the kids being disrespectful during the greeting. I had some questions after and I was able to talk to Jane and get some good suggestions about how to handle some of the behavior issues in the future. She had good feedback and thought I did very well!
 I was also able to talk with her about using more co-teaching strategies this coming week to get additional practice teaching and being in front of the students.
I want to work on being more confident in my classroom management and learn more techniques.

Successes and Areas for Improvment

This week was a bit more challenging than last week for me, but although I came up against some frustrations, I had a few big successes as well.  One of the biggest frustrations was our room--we never found a good arrangement for the room and midweek this week both Diane and I finally lost it and decided we needed to deal with the problem.  My big success was that after spending most of Thursday rearranging desks and organizing materials the room finally looks like a classroom and we can move around the space without having to constantly move furniture or trip on desks.  While room setup ideally would have happened before the students arrived--finding a suitable arrangement in our space (which used to be the staff lounge) was a hug accomplishment.
My second big success was that I finally nailed down a time to plan with Diane and on Friday we stayed for an extra hour and mapped out the week.  I have a pretty good idea of what lessons we will be doing each day, and what my responsibilities are for the week.  While I recognize this is likely to change as we go, it feels really good to have a basic plan.  I was able to take home the curriculum books and preview all of the lessons for the week so that I feel prepared.
The area I want to work on the most is classroom management. I still do not feel that I have the same authority in the room as Diane, and I continue to have trouble calling attention back after work time.  Diane does not use any sort of system for this, and so far I have been following her lead but it is not working very well and I am straining my voice too much.  Next week I will start using my own count down system and see if that works better.

Friday, Week 2

Hi all!
     I'm so relieved that it is finally Friday!  That being said, I had a great week filled with a lot of new challenges.  My new student today had a few violent outbursts in which my cooperating teacher and myself had differing views on how it should be addressed.  We are seeming to find a balance however between our two philosophies.  

     The area that I feel most accomplished with this week is the bond I have formed with the students.  Without losing their respect as a teacher, I have begun to form a relationship with my students as individuals.  The children are learning about me as a person (Yes, I love playing mariokart too!) and in turn are more willing to share about their personal lives.

     The other area that I feel a lot of accomplish with is my forming relationships with the other staff in the building.  I speak openly with the principle in the hallway, the social worker and I are on a first name basis along with the lunch room staff, both nurses, and the special ed staff.  I feel comfortable engaging in conversation with the other teachers in the building.  Also, the other student teachers and I have organized a happy hour on Fridays so that we can get together and talk once a week!  I am happy with the developing support system I have. 

     I'm looking forward to a quiet weekend at home making lesson plans and catching up on sleep!

Julie

Lesson Plans

Tomorrow I am leading the morning meeting. This afternoon I worked on planning the greeting and activity. I got a great book from Ms. Liepetz with activities so I was able to look through that for ideas. I also did some research online to determine a couple greetings that might work for our class. There is a student in our class that is Jewish and she suggested to me that we use Shalom as our greeting tomorrow instead of good morning so I am going to incorporate that as well. It is nice to bring part of students' cultures into the classroom when possible!  For the sharing portion, students will continue to share post card poems they have been working on that tell about themselves. It was nice to have a morning meeting as a first lesson to plan because I was already familiar with the format and it eases me into the planning process.

lesson plans

Well, as I've mentioned in previous posts, planning has been a bit of a challenge for me thus far.  Mostly, this is because we haven't had a chance to plan out a big picture for the week and identify lessons activities I will take responsibility for, rather, each day has been a bit of a scramble to put stuff together on the fly and hope all goes well.
I am happy to report, that our meeting this morning with Jane Carroll provided an excellent framework to talk with Diane a bit about my feeling that we don't ever seem to have time to really map out a plan.  I was surprised to hear that even she was beginning to feel frustrated by how haphazard things have been for the last two weeks.  We have decided to try to set aside time on Fridays to make a big picture plan for the coming week.  I think this should help me, because even if Diane doesn't want to do detailed planning for each lesson, if I know what's coming up in the week, I can take those books home and prepare myself.
We also discussed a bit about which content area I will begin taking over next week.

Week 2, Thursday

This week I added morning meetings to my list of responsibilities.  The first 2 days I played a name game in which the child said every childs name that had been said before them.  I chose to use the co-teaching strategy of team teaching because I knew otherwise the game would last too long and I'd lose the childrens attention.   The game was repeated the second day because the children were struggling so much on names the previous day.  I felt very confident with my lesson plans.

Today I chose a new game in which the children threw a ball of yarn to the person they were saying good morning to. The children became very excited and started blurting during the game.  I wish that I had added more proactive planning into my lesson plan, acknowledging that they were going to be very excited  but that I needed them to stay quite rather than trying to regain control once it had gotten loud.  I also wish that I had followed my gut instinct in not attempting to "untangle".  Initially I thought that I would be able to help them threw the process because I knew who had tossed the ball to who.  However, kids quickly let go of the string and grabbed onto it in another spot and I was unable to talk them through the process as their volume and excitement was ever increasing.  I was proud of myself for recognizing defeat as quickly as I had and transitioning into the activity without the students realizing that my activity had failed.  

Overall I feel that I have learned a lot from my past experiences and have implemented them well into my current classroom lessons. 

Julie

Tuesday

Hi all!
    My cooperating teacher and I agreed that the first thing that I should take over is morning meeting. This was my primary responsibility in my ecostars classroom, so we agreed that it would be the best subject area for me to takeover and feel confident.  I wanted to change up the flow of the meeting so I decided to use the Promethean board and found a layout that met the needs for the calendar math curriculum the school uses.

The kids were very engaged with the new technology. Everyone wanted a turn coloring and dragging objects across the board.  I noticed kids willing to participate who hadn't raised their hands thus far in morning meeting. For our greeting game I divided the class into two groups, I asked ms Perez to lead one group while I led the second in our greeting game. The game involved saying every name in the group that was in the circle behind you.  I chose this game because many of the students have not memorized their peers names.  I'm glad I used the cooperating strategy I did during this activity because it allowed for smaller circles, meaning the last child only had to attempt 11 names instead of 23. Also, talking has been a problem during the morning greetings and we found that splitting the group allowed for better management.

Overall I think my first leadership experience in the classroom went well and I feel confident as I will continue to lead the meeting over the rest of the semester.

Friday

Friday was a great day for room 107. For the first time the kiddos seemed to really be in the groove of the school day. It was great to see them sit down and get to work without consistent reminders for a whole assignment.

During the afternoon I pulled kids aside for math assessments. I am starting to be able to pick out the kids who are in trouble academically and my cooperating teacher and I have been collaborating on how we will meet these children's needs when we have a significant number of kids that are gifted that we must differentiate for as well. Our primary concern at the moment is finding some differentiated homework assignments to begin the process at home.

We finished our day with Friday fun time. It was nice to see the kids have the opportunity to let loose! However at the same time kids who had not finished their work had to use the time to get caught up. While there were quite a few that had been chattty during work time that I wasn't concerned about, there were a couple who I knew had been very overwhelmed by the size and complexity of what was being asked of them and felt bad that they had to work when they clearly needed a break.  It was a hard balance to find.

Which prompt?

Hi TCs (teacher candidates), I wasn't paying close attention to the reflective prompts and how they mapped onto your experience during a three-day weekend. Thanks for rolling with it and writing thoughtfully about one or the other, or both, in your posts on Tuesday!

week two tuesday

My experience thus far in the classroom has been a bit of a whirlwind but overall positive.  My teacher and I have basically been team teaching everything since day one.  She's great about inviting me to lead lessons/activities as I feel comfortable and jumping in to assist me (and visa versa).  I feel like a real second teacher and was so happy this afternoon when two of the boys in our class presented me with a beautiful name sign they had made for my desk completely of their own accord.  

My biggest challenge so far has been learning to work with Diane.  I really enjoy her and love observing her working with the kids, but she is a very scattered person and doesn't really plan any of her lessons.  Since she has 28 years of teaching under her belt, it is no big deal for her, but it is sometimes difficult for me to feel prepared or feel like I know what we are doing.  In some ways this is good for me, because it has prompted me to take more initiative than I might otherwise have done--bringing curriculum books home to read on my own and taking a very active role in the daily planning.  I wasn't anticipating that learning to work with other adults would be my biggest challenge in student teaching, but I am glad to get some experience with this now, especially since Diane is so supportive and open with me.  

I'm looking forward to the fall progressing and learning more and more about me students--everyday I'm surprised and impressed by how interesting they all are!

Classroom experience thus far

I was not sure if I was supposed to write about Monday's prompt or Tuesday's prompt so I decide to combine them. My classroom experience thus far has been going well. I am learning a lot from my cooperating teacher about questions to ask, ways to get feedback from students and how to transition. I started a list on my workspace table of things that I have heard her say or do that I want to remember. I have also enjoyed starting to get to know students. I am starting to feel more comfortable with the students now. It has been a little hard for me to know my place in the room at certain times. I have gotten to teach two small lessons on bus safety and one morning meeting. I have not pick-up one specific responsibility yet that I do each day. So for many lessons I observe my cooperating teacher and walk around and assist students. Sometimes I can feel like I am not sure what I should be doing. We mainly have used the co-teaching strategies one teach, one observe. We tried to co-teach a lesson and switch off leading, but that did not go very well. Today I was able to collect some data on students about how far they were on their writing projects and what they still need to work on. We may try station teaching this week for science as well. Things may be easier when I pick-up more specific responsibilities. Today was the first real day of curriculum so it is nice to observe my teacher teaching the curriculum first before I have to teach it. Today was another hot day, so I was happy to go home, looking forward to cooler weather tomorrow :)!!

Day five

I realized this morning that I forgot to post on Friday, I guess I was just too excited to have made it to the end of the week.  I decided for this reason, that my choice posting would be about tired I was last week.  I was shocked by how exhausted I was at the end of each day.  By Tuesday I was ready for the weekend.  Being with such a large group of kids all day will definitely be an adjustment for me.  I also think it will be easier once we start our normal curriculum and routine next week.  I know I can do it, but I'm definitely going to have to build my stamina!
I'm enjoying a weekend of relaxing and gearing up for another great week.

Day Five!

I am happy to have made it through the first week. It seems like so much happened this week between Monday and Friday! I am looking forward to getting into some of the curriculum next week. Today I got to take the lead during the morning meeting and during a bus safety lesson. The more I jump right in and try things with the students the more comfortable I feel. I am also getting more comfortable with Ms. Liepetz as I get to know her so that helps ease nerves.
Today during our math lesson, Ms. Liepetz was having the students pass graphs that they had made around the room and answer questions about the data. Things started to get a little chaotic at times and she mentioned to me that maybe she should have done this part of the lesson differently. It made me realize that I don't have to be perfect when teaching lessons all of the time and that this is a learning experience. That even teachers who have been teaching for over 15 years still have times where things don't go according to plan and they want to revise things next time. This also made me feel less nervous about taking over more teaching next week and weeks to come!