Student success so far

I am almost at the end of my unit, and I am fairly pleased with how it went. I was able to do three different labs, which is something the kids hardly get to do in math class. I think these labs went well, especially the volume lab. In this lab, the students had to measure four different three-dimensional solids, record the values in a table, and then find the volume of each one. At the end of the lab, they were given some problem solving questions that related directly to my action research.

Although I feel my lessons and activities cover the material well, my students have seemed to struggle at times. My host teacher told me that the chapter I'm teaching is always the hardest one for the Course 3 students to learn and comphrehend. The students seem to lack some basic, necessary math skills, which could be part of the problem. They struggle with the basic operations and using simple area and volume formulas. I have been hard on myself about it, but my host teacher told me not to blame myself. All I want is for my students to learn this material and really understand it. I have provided them with graphic organizers, manipulatives, and visuals to help with comphrension, but it doesnt seem to work as well as I'd like it to. Tomorrow is their test, so I will know then whether or not they have mastered the material.

Classroom management

Over the past few weeks, I feel as if I have improved on my classroom management skills. My 8th period is the class I have struggled with the most, but I talked to my host teacher and she gave me some insight as to how to have better control of the classroom. When the students are being disrespectful, they are given an "ABC." If a student gets too many of these, they are not able to attend a reward activity at the end of the term. She encouraged me to give one out, showing the students that I will not tolerate their talking and disrespect. After I gave out my very first one, the students began to quiet down and pay more attention in class. They have been so good lately and I feel as if they see me as more of an authority figure now. I was starting to get discouraged, but my host teacher reassured me that I can effectively manage the classroom and be successful. Over the next few weeks, I want to have my host teacher to make close observations of my classroom management skills, especially with 8th period so I can improve even more!

Inquiry

My action research project has been going very well lately! I have collected most of my data and I am beginning to organize everything. I have given 2 of my three problem solving assessments and I have seen that my students problem solving skills are improving! It's great to see how implementing more problem solving and vocabulary is helping them learn and understand basic mathematics concepts well. The assessments they were given had 10 word problems and they had to highlight different words and phrases that they didn't understand. By doing this, my host teacher and I are able to implement the vocabulary they struggled with into problems during Problem Solving Friday. I hope the strategies I'm implementing are really helping the students learn how to problem solve so they will be successful in the rest of their future math classes.

First Afternoon of Teaching

 Wednesday was the first time I was able to teach for an entire afternoon. I was so excited to finally be able to take control of the classroom. My host teacher was not there, so a substitute was in the room with me. She was a teacher at Suncrest Middle in the past and was associated with Benedum, so I was left in good hands. She was able to take some observation notes for me and was happy to reflect upon my lessons with me.
The students were more behaved than I thought they would be, considering my host teacher was not there. They participated and responded to questions I asked them. I was happy to see that they saw me as the teacher and not just someone who was filling in for my host teacher.
My PDS coordinator was also able to observe me during 6th period. She had good feedback for me, which gave me more confidence as I plan for teaching future classes. One thing I do need to work on is incorporating more formative assessments during my lesson. I always ask my students if they understand, but it takes more than that to really gauge their understanding. The next lesson I teach I hope to be more aware of student comprehension in order to deliver the material more effectively.

Beginning Of Internship

The start of my internship has been slow, but very enlightening and helpful. I began a week early, returning to the middle school for meetings with all of the other teachers. I was able to help my host teacher set up the classroom and get things organized before the students came back. I was able to speak with my host teacher about my expectations and set a tentative schedule for when I would be taking over classes and how things operate in the classroom. I was placed with the same teacher that I was with in the fall of my participant year, so the transition to my internship has been very smooth because I am familiar with how she does things and conducts her classes.

I have been doing a lot of observation so far in order to get a feel for the personality of each class so I can differentiate my future lessons to meet their needs. I go over quizes and get them settled down when class is about to begin. Monday I will begin taking over my first classes and I am so excited! I feel that not just being "thrown to the wolves" during the first week and doing observation will allow me to ease into the teaching role and I will be more confident in what I am doing.

This semester I will be teaching algebra 1, geometry, and course 3, which is the basic 8th grade math course. The average class size is about 25, but one class I will be teaching has 37 students. This is a collaborative class, so there is an inclusion teacher in the room to help. I know this is the class I will have to be most patient with, not just with them but with myself. Having 37 students in a class is a struggle and I know I will learn a lot from dealing with such a large group of students.

My time at Suncrest Middle has been great so far and I am looking forward to the rest of my internship!

Reflection on Inquiry Celebration

This year at the Inquiry Celebration, I attended 1 session regarding my content area (math). These presentations gave insight to how to implement games as a review for tests and how homework affects test grades. I found these presentations to be interesting and gave me some ideas of how to incorporate these two things in my classroom. The results showed that games to not necessarily help students learn and comprehend math concepts better, but they do get the students more engaged. Also, homework does not have a direct effect on test grades. Students may copy answers or just write things down to get credit on their homework, which does not help them at all. In order for homework to be beneficial, it must be relevant and contain more in depth questions rather than just pure computations.

The second session I attended had presentations about differentiated instruction and how having a coach as a teacher affects student behavior. These presentations were very interesting and were put together very well. These presenters were passionate about their topics, which made them enjoyable to watch. I learned that having a coach as a teacher does increase student effort and reduces behavior issues. It helps not only in the classroom, but also at practice.

Characteristics of a Novice Teacher- Posting 2

Characteristic 2: We believe that the novice teacher should be an effective communicator.
In EDUC401, I created a parent letter that I would send to students in the beginning of the year. This letter introduced myself, told parents some background information, and encouraged them to contact me at any time. Letters like these show the parents that you care and want to include them in their child's learning.

Characteristic 3:We believe that the novice teacher should recognize that teaching is a professional, moral, and ethical enterprise, should understand moral issues and ethical practices in educational environments, and should have developed ethical frameworks which facilitate effective teaching.
An artifact for this characteristic can be my Classroom Management Plan. This shows how I will run my classroom, which will be in a moral and ethical way. It will give an in-depth look at my future plans and intentions once I have my own classroom.

Reflection of 2 Artifacts

Characteristic 1 is: "We believe that the novice teacher should have a commitment to skills for life-long learning." One artifact I think could be included in my portfolio to represent this characteristic is information I receive from WVCTM. In my C&I 434 class, we were required to join a professional organization. By joining a professional organization, you can acquire new information and methods that can be used in the classroom. Times are always changing, so it is important for teachers to keep up.

Characteristic 4 is: "We believe the novice teacher should be a facilitator of all learning for students." An artifact that can represent this characteristic could be the UDL lesson plan created in SPED360. This lesson plan required the novice teachers to differentiate their lesson so ALL students would be able to learn the material. Each student is different, so it is important to make learning successful for all students.

Accomplishment of Goals

I feel that I have done an alright job at completing my goals. They all turned out to be harder than I expected. Looking back through my researcher journal, I noticed that I worked towards my goals, but never succeeded in completing them as much as I wanted to. I got to know some students, but I still do not know some of their names. I think this is because I only see each class once a week because I go Tuesday mornings and Wednesday afternoons. My tutor year, I went 2 days a week and saw the students twice a week, so I was able to get to know them a little better. I know that during my Intern year I will be able to get to know all of my students and I will feel a lot more comfortable while teaching them. I feel like I have tried to learn names, but it is just really hard considering the amount of time I see them each week. Also, I have not been able to go to as many extra-curricular activities as I wanted to. I had so much stuff going on for my classes and my job, I just did not have the time. I was really disappointed that I was not able to complete this goal. My last goal was about classroom/behavior management. There is only one class that gives me trouble when I teach. Sure, every class has their moments of being rowdy, but two of the classes are very well behaved. The class that gives me the hardest time also give the other teachers a hard time, so it is not just me. I think it is worse with me, however, because I am not there as often as the others. I will have to continuously tell them to stop talking when I am talking. They will listen, but 10 minutes later is gets loud again. Overall, I feel that I have done a good job at managing my classroom, especially since I have not had any classes learning about it.

Goals For This Semester

This semester I have set some goals for myself to complete in the classroom. I felt I could do more in the classroom, considering I am there more often than I was when I was a tutor. I wanted to feel more connected to the students. Sometimes, I think students do not see Benedum students as acutal teachers, so there may be a lack of respect. I have not noticed this a lot this semester, but I wanted to be sure that I would show them that I was there to help and I needed to be treated like a teacher in the classroom. I wanted to get to know the students on a personal level and learn all of their names. I know this is a hard thing to do, but I wanted to try. I also wanted to attend extracurricular activities, which would help me be more connected to them. I remember when I was their age, I was happy to see teachers go to the sporting events, especially the ones I participated in. One last goal I had was to work on my classroom management skills. This is a major thing I am currently concerned about. When young teachers enter a classroom for the first time, the students can see that the teacher is nervous and they he or she is not much older than them, especially in a high school classroom. I wanted to be sure I could get their respect in order to operate a smooth classroom.

Federal Court System

The 3 levels of court systems are district courts, court of appeals, and the supreme court. Most cases are heard by the district courts. There are 94 district courts. If someone is not satisfied with the ruling of the court, they can go to the court of appeals. This court does not hear trials, but reviews the case. They can do one of three things: agree with decision, overturn decision, or have the lower court retry the case. 1, 2 or 3 justices can make this ruling. The highest level of the federal court system is the supreme court. This court has the right to rule things unconstitutional. They hear the major court cases in the country. This court has 9 justices who are appointed for life.

Blogging Reflection

I think that this blog is a good way to keep track of experiences that I have had in my PDS. It was interesting to look back to what I wrote during my first semester as a tutor. I didn't post a lot, but I think what I did write helped me keep track of how my year went.

It is important to keep in contact with my blogging partner, small group facilitator, and PDS faculty because these people can give me feedback on my experiences that can be helpful to me as a grow as an educator. I think having a blogging partner is really helpful because she is in the same stage of the program as me and it is beneficial to compare my experiences with hers. We both will have different experiences and it is interesting to see how different some of them can be.

I think reflecting on the changes in the classrooms we are in during our time in our PDS as a participant would be good to reflect upon. As participants, we all will be in the school a lot longer so we will be able to see more things and compare the differences with our tutor year experiences to see how much we all have grown.

Hope-  Has your time in your PDS been what you expected it to be?

Learning Goals

One of my learning goals is to be more involved in the classroom during the lessons. Last semester, I did mostly observation. I was very reserved because I was in a new place with people I did not know. They were only 6th graders, but it was still intimidating to go into a new classroom.

So far this semester, I feel that I have fit in with the class a lot better. I've been around the students for a while and they have warmed up to me and will ask me for help during class time. I taught a whole class lesson which really helped establish myself in the classroom.

I look forward to teaching more lessons and contributing more during class time. I think I have improved a lot this semester and I have enjoyed my time in my PDS so far.

Digital Storytelling

I work with the students one-on-one a lot during before-school tutoring sessions, so I think my experiences with those sessions would be good to include in my digital story. I think that it would be good to share my experiences with others and hopefully receive feedback to see if my peers have similar ones. Also, I would want to include my experiences from each lesson I teach this semester.
I think stories about the students would be interesting to listen to. Learning about the diversity of students in each PDS would be beneficial to everyone listening to the story.
I plan to use images, text, and possibly videos in my digital story. Images help the listeners get into the story and it makes it more interesting. I plan to use text to help the flow of my story. I think using videos would be helpful as well, but it depends on what videos I find and if they flow with my story.

Tutor Activity Reflections

This semester I have been able to tutor small groups of students before school starts. I have enjoyed this because I have been able to get to know students on a personal level. Now I feel comfortable approaching students to help them out during class time. Tutoring has allowed me to develop many different wonderings, such as "How do I know if I am really getting through to the students and helping them actually understand the material?" I want to make sure I am helping them comprehend the material they are learning. The students always seem engaged and eager to take advantage of my help.

There is one boy in the class who often asks me for help. If he doesn't understand something, he won't hesitate to ask. I am really happy he does this because I think students sometimes don't want to ask for help even if they really need it. It also makes me feel good that he looks to me for help and views me as an educator to some extent.

My tutoring activities have taught me a lot about the students and I have enjoyed connecting with them on a personal level.


Hope- Have you been able to tutor small groups of children? If so, have you felt as if they look up to you as someone who can truly help them learn?

Blogging Possibilities

My blog can be used to express my feelings and concerns that I may have after my experiences in my PDS, as well as get feedback from my partners and mentor teachers. It is a good way to communicate and exchange ideas with others. Also, keeping a record of my experiences from my PDS will allow me to see how much I have grown as I progress through the Benedum 5 year program.