I had been warned several times when I started school that I shouldnt be surprised if students made me cry. It's hard and emotional I wad told and that kids can be mean. This didn't happen this semester, no child was so mean to me that cried. I always just remember that they are children and more importantly that it is nothing personal especially with middle school kids.
I finally did wind up crying though because of a student the last two days. One of my students and her friend who are notorious for messing around and playing in the hallway, got tripped up and fell face first onto the concrete in the stairwell and busted half of her front tooth off. At the time I was helping another student get her locker open, and then I turned around the teacher across the hallway was running toward the stairwell along with several of the girls and I heard someone crying and yelling. I assumed a fight so I was trying to get all the students back into the classroom. Then I went down the hallway and the teachers holding a student looking in her mouth as tears were pouring down her face. I realized it was her tooth. So one of the girls and I got on our hands and knees looking for pieces of tooth and barricading the hallway from the barrage of tiny creatures from the elementary school trying to enter. We found a few pieces, put them in milk, then took the girl and her friend to the nurse, they were both crying. We got some sugar free gum and put it on her tooth because her root was completely exposed. I felt so bad for her.
So, I had this period as planning and my co-teacher was in an observation, so I sat with the girls in the nurse office and talked to them and just tried to be supportive while they were both crying. The interesting thing about these girls, and what really impacted me the most, is that it was a stunning reminder of how vulnerable young people are at this time in their lives. These girls are tough, they are the girls that other students are afraid of, they are somewhat behavioral leaders in their classes, and they are known by all the teachers for good and bad reasons. The fact to have both of them sobbing and actual hugging and wanting to be comforted was a really powerful experience. I have had girls and boys cry several times over the past months and sometimes we have those students who always have a problem and cry very often, but that is not these students. It was very emotional and very powerful.
I did tear up in front of them but it wasn't until I was alone in the classroom that it really impacted me and I just couldn't hold it in anymore.
These are trying times for kids.
It is always interesting how things seem to be so connected in little but enormous coincidences. Our guest speaker for my last class of Educational Alternatives last night said something that really reasonated with me. She said "You're bad day could be this kid's lifetime memory. Remember we are there for them, this is their school experience, this is just our job. You will forget this a week from now or maybe a year from now, but these kids are going to remember this forever."
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Reflections on Myself
Teacher Reflection
by Margaret Roth
Written December 14, 2011 at 9:11pm in the JHU SOE Building, Homewood Campus, Baltimore, MD
There are many things that I have learned from working through the complete process of designing and creating a complete unit from thought to actualization. I have personally learned that I am a driving force in a group and that I tend to manipulate others into the things that I want them to do. I will thank my outdoor leader training for that, however I also realize that it is something that I have to use with care and caution so that I do not discount or miss the opportunity to learn from the thoughts and processing of others. On the flip side of that and in addition to the fact that one of my group mates and I were both working with middle school students, we choose this novel and this age group because it is the novel that I will be working with when I teach my full thirty days of lessons in April. Therefore, I welcomed being a driving force because it was designed with my students in mind, the resources available at my school, and the novel that I would be working with at that time.
Through this process I was reminded several things about working in groups. To use a strategy and summarize - it sucks at times. I found myself having to do a significant about of extra work because one of the group members was unable to self-manage and keep up with the work and their personality is attracted to the technique of procrastination. I will by no means say that I was perfect, if I were to do it again, I would like to start earlier and involve myself in more research, however I find that I was driven to be even more on top of my responsibilities because of the group member who was consistently falling behind. I believe that this experience was extremely reflective for me, and was my responsibility alone. I choose my group mates knowing their strong points and their flaws and this caused me to deeply reflect on how group works and assigned groups impact the learning of students. I feel that our experience was an exemplary model of what can often happen in groups of our students themselves. They work with their friends, they have fun, they fight, but ultimately, at least for us, we all cared and we wanted to get it right. I know that as I leave this assignment and as I look forward to tweaking it and altering it prior to its implementation in April, I will carry the thoughts of group dynamics with. However, I will leave the students with their group choices for it is an integral part of learning how to collaborate and function under the pressure and expectations of others.
Frustrations aside, I really loved working on this project and immersing myself in such an emotionally involved group of people whose passion shines through in every element of their work. We never for a moment thought that we were just doing this as an assignment, we never treated it as just an assignment. I truly hope that shines through in our final product, I know that it will shine through as inspiration for me as I design unit plans in my future. When I implement these lessons in April, my group mates will be by my side for any of the days they can come join me, my door will always be open to the collaboration and ingenuity of my friends and my colleagues.
Before we created this unit plan, I was in all honesty completely unsure of what the process would look like. I never seen a unit plan really let alone thought about what would go into the creation of one. I initially approached it as though I was writing a very long term paper, we identified our theme of identity and then I started outlining. Then, I realized that this was the entirely wrong way to approach designing a unit plan. I look back now and think why would I ever plan something in the exact way that most students dread. I know well enough that the idea, form, and function of an object, whether physical or conceptual, are intertwined too deeply to separate, thus this was surely the wrong approach. However, we kept a few elements of this outline system. Each week focuses on a literary element and a thematic element. This is probably the best thing that we did to ensure continuity and effective scaffolding throughout our unit plan as a whole. Now that the plan has been completed, I am fairly certain that I will never not teach in my own classroom through a thematic unit plan design. I believe that it is so essential for students and teacher alike to have one major element that everything is connected to, I’d like to consider this immersive learning. And with all the endless distractions - emotional, physical, psychological, that our students are usually immersed in, it is essential for us as educators to provide an environment that plays to that distraction and fully drowns everyone involved so that we can learn to breathe in a new way. I will see how I feel about this after I actually teach these lessons and this unit plan as a whole.
The process of thinking and designing a thematic unit on the theme of identity for middle school students took a lot of personal reflection and a process of returning and trying to capture the feelings I myself had as a middle school student. I remember these years more clearly than high school in an extremely emotional way. I feel that we truly attempted to harness those experiences good and bad that our students face on a constructive and cognitive level. For myself, I learned that the theme of identity is endless, that the topic itself is so extensive that it can only be captured in snipets, snipets specific to each person it touches. I think that is why it was so important for us to focus on arts integration in the way that we did and I hope for evidence of its success. When I started working on this plan I thought that I knew what identity was and I thought that I could define it, I thought that I knew who I was myself. However, that is the key, that this process forced me to question and attempt to both identity and redefine my identity simultaneously while I worked. This unit plan has and will continue to help me to consider this as a process - one where both teacher and students are learning together and are learning about each other. Remembering that in my future is invaluable and is something that will surely have a lasting impact on my teaching, for I will never fully define myself and my own identity.
Again, there are many things that I have learned from working through the complete process of designing and creating a complete unit from thought to actualization. Ultimately, the most important thing that I learned from this process, I suppose from the assignment directly, is that I still have the capacity to be driven enough to truly care about the content and completion of an academic assignment. I feel that for the past four years I have been in somewhat of a rut in regards to my academic pursuits. Yes, I completed my undergraduate work and loved every minute of it, but it was in all honesty the people that I loved, not the work itself. Occasionally, I would find myself in a class with a professor that I was driven to reach my full potential and to excel in effort and performance, however these classes and in more usual cases single assignments were farther between in time and interest than I now realize I would have liked them to have been. This assignment and this class as a whole truly have rejuvenated my personal drive to work harder and more intently than I have in a long time. I learned that I still have the capacity to organize, to structure, to care about the neurotic little details, and most importantly that I can deeply personally respond to something because I care. I am very fortunate to have had such a driving force this semester. I look forward to exploring this drive in the next semester and from where I sit now, in my future teaching career. This was more than just something that I learned this is a gift that I was granted, and I intend to keep it.
by Margaret Roth
Written December 14, 2011 at 9:11pm in the JHU SOE Building, Homewood Campus, Baltimore, MD
There are many things that I have learned from working through the complete process of designing and creating a complete unit from thought to actualization. I have personally learned that I am a driving force in a group and that I tend to manipulate others into the things that I want them to do. I will thank my outdoor leader training for that, however I also realize that it is something that I have to use with care and caution so that I do not discount or miss the opportunity to learn from the thoughts and processing of others. On the flip side of that and in addition to the fact that one of my group mates and I were both working with middle school students, we choose this novel and this age group because it is the novel that I will be working with when I teach my full thirty days of lessons in April. Therefore, I welcomed being a driving force because it was designed with my students in mind, the resources available at my school, and the novel that I would be working with at that time.
Through this process I was reminded several things about working in groups. To use a strategy and summarize - it sucks at times. I found myself having to do a significant about of extra work because one of the group members was unable to self-manage and keep up with the work and their personality is attracted to the technique of procrastination. I will by no means say that I was perfect, if I were to do it again, I would like to start earlier and involve myself in more research, however I find that I was driven to be even more on top of my responsibilities because of the group member who was consistently falling behind. I believe that this experience was extremely reflective for me, and was my responsibility alone. I choose my group mates knowing their strong points and their flaws and this caused me to deeply reflect on how group works and assigned groups impact the learning of students. I feel that our experience was an exemplary model of what can often happen in groups of our students themselves. They work with their friends, they have fun, they fight, but ultimately, at least for us, we all cared and we wanted to get it right. I know that as I leave this assignment and as I look forward to tweaking it and altering it prior to its implementation in April, I will carry the thoughts of group dynamics with. However, I will leave the students with their group choices for it is an integral part of learning how to collaborate and function under the pressure and expectations of others.
Frustrations aside, I really loved working on this project and immersing myself in such an emotionally involved group of people whose passion shines through in every element of their work. We never for a moment thought that we were just doing this as an assignment, we never treated it as just an assignment. I truly hope that shines through in our final product, I know that it will shine through as inspiration for me as I design unit plans in my future. When I implement these lessons in April, my group mates will be by my side for any of the days they can come join me, my door will always be open to the collaboration and ingenuity of my friends and my colleagues.
Before we created this unit plan, I was in all honesty completely unsure of what the process would look like. I never seen a unit plan really let alone thought about what would go into the creation of one. I initially approached it as though I was writing a very long term paper, we identified our theme of identity and then I started outlining. Then, I realized that this was the entirely wrong way to approach designing a unit plan. I look back now and think why would I ever plan something in the exact way that most students dread. I know well enough that the idea, form, and function of an object, whether physical or conceptual, are intertwined too deeply to separate, thus this was surely the wrong approach. However, we kept a few elements of this outline system. Each week focuses on a literary element and a thematic element. This is probably the best thing that we did to ensure continuity and effective scaffolding throughout our unit plan as a whole. Now that the plan has been completed, I am fairly certain that I will never not teach in my own classroom through a thematic unit plan design. I believe that it is so essential for students and teacher alike to have one major element that everything is connected to, I’d like to consider this immersive learning. And with all the endless distractions - emotional, physical, psychological, that our students are usually immersed in, it is essential for us as educators to provide an environment that plays to that distraction and fully drowns everyone involved so that we can learn to breathe in a new way. I will see how I feel about this after I actually teach these lessons and this unit plan as a whole.
The process of thinking and designing a thematic unit on the theme of identity for middle school students took a lot of personal reflection and a process of returning and trying to capture the feelings I myself had as a middle school student. I remember these years more clearly than high school in an extremely emotional way. I feel that we truly attempted to harness those experiences good and bad that our students face on a constructive and cognitive level. For myself, I learned that the theme of identity is endless, that the topic itself is so extensive that it can only be captured in snipets, snipets specific to each person it touches. I think that is why it was so important for us to focus on arts integration in the way that we did and I hope for evidence of its success. When I started working on this plan I thought that I knew what identity was and I thought that I could define it, I thought that I knew who I was myself. However, that is the key, that this process forced me to question and attempt to both identity and redefine my identity simultaneously while I worked. This unit plan has and will continue to help me to consider this as a process - one where both teacher and students are learning together and are learning about each other. Remembering that in my future is invaluable and is something that will surely have a lasting impact on my teaching, for I will never fully define myself and my own identity.
Again, there are many things that I have learned from working through the complete process of designing and creating a complete unit from thought to actualization. Ultimately, the most important thing that I learned from this process, I suppose from the assignment directly, is that I still have the capacity to be driven enough to truly care about the content and completion of an academic assignment. I feel that for the past four years I have been in somewhat of a rut in regards to my academic pursuits. Yes, I completed my undergraduate work and loved every minute of it, but it was in all honesty the people that I loved, not the work itself. Occasionally, I would find myself in a class with a professor that I was driven to reach my full potential and to excel in effort and performance, however these classes and in more usual cases single assignments were farther between in time and interest than I now realize I would have liked them to have been. This assignment and this class as a whole truly have rejuvenated my personal drive to work harder and more intently than I have in a long time. I learned that I still have the capacity to organize, to structure, to care about the neurotic little details, and most importantly that I can deeply personally respond to something because I care. I am very fortunate to have had such a driving force this semester. I look forward to exploring this drive in the next semester and from where I sit now, in my future teaching career. This was more than just something that I learned this is a gift that I was granted, and I intend to keep it.
Monday, December 12, 2011
Always have something ready, because you always have to be looking forward.
As I sit in the classroom on my last week of my first semester, I have come to a couple of realizations and a conclusion that I would like to hold on to.
I realized that I quit counting the days until this semester and this whole year long internship thing would be over. I am not sure when this happened, but I distinctly remember that for about the first month of being in the classroom I would come home and consciously count down the weeks until graduation. I think that I stopped doing this somewhere around the beginning of November. In the middle of November I quit being just a figure in the room, I believe that I began to develop a sense of purpose and realized that I did not have to be so stark and standardized with the students - that I was allowed to have a personality. This is what I needed. I need to be able to be a person in the classroom not just be there. Even though I was helpful before, I was just an assistant, not an individual. How could I encourage students to be themselves and be individuals when I was not expressing myself.
I realized that students whine about school but they love staying after. I realized that any time that a student is in a classroom of their own will in their own time is a good thing. Students might act a little crazier on their own time, but at least they are being constructive and being dedicated in a positive environment. I really enjoy working with students after school because it reminds me of how much I love it when things are less structured. By the time I had created a scheduled system with the students of snack time, homework time, writing time, they were really getting something out of our after school group. I understand how important it is for students to have constructive and safe free time at school. I also understand now, based on the students that always came, how important it is to provide the option of this time to those students who have less of a safe structure system at home.
I realized that I finally was able to get a system together for myself and still have a life. I do not spend every moment of my free time working on preparation for my classes or on my homework. I know that this program is supposed to be rigorous but it is not supposed to put its students into a state of rigormortis, six feet under a pile of papers (digital or conventional) and I think I have successfully challenged this and succeeded. I have time for my friends, I have time for myself, I have time for my students, and I have time for my work. And I never had a break down.
I realized that I am fifty percent finished with my first set of graduate school. It is incredible how quickly time is able to move by when you are having fun, when you are busy, when you have people are looking toward you, when you have people looking at you, and when you have people looking up to you. There is a serious amount of modelling and pressure and it just seems to make the job more fun.
I truly believe that I have a good understanding of what it means to be a teacher. If I were to summarize the experience down to a short sentence of what it means to be a teacher at this point I think I would say that it means to always have something ready, because you always have to be looking forward.
I would not change anything, because then I would not have my eyes forward.
I realized that I quit counting the days until this semester and this whole year long internship thing would be over. I am not sure when this happened, but I distinctly remember that for about the first month of being in the classroom I would come home and consciously count down the weeks until graduation. I think that I stopped doing this somewhere around the beginning of November. In the middle of November I quit being just a figure in the room, I believe that I began to develop a sense of purpose and realized that I did not have to be so stark and standardized with the students - that I was allowed to have a personality. This is what I needed. I need to be able to be a person in the classroom not just be there. Even though I was helpful before, I was just an assistant, not an individual. How could I encourage students to be themselves and be individuals when I was not expressing myself.
I realized that students whine about school but they love staying after. I realized that any time that a student is in a classroom of their own will in their own time is a good thing. Students might act a little crazier on their own time, but at least they are being constructive and being dedicated in a positive environment. I really enjoy working with students after school because it reminds me of how much I love it when things are less structured. By the time I had created a scheduled system with the students of snack time, homework time, writing time, they were really getting something out of our after school group. I understand how important it is for students to have constructive and safe free time at school. I also understand now, based on the students that always came, how important it is to provide the option of this time to those students who have less of a safe structure system at home.
I realized that I finally was able to get a system together for myself and still have a life. I do not spend every moment of my free time working on preparation for my classes or on my homework. I know that this program is supposed to be rigorous but it is not supposed to put its students into a state of rigormortis, six feet under a pile of papers (digital or conventional) and I think I have successfully challenged this and succeeded. I have time for my friends, I have time for myself, I have time for my students, and I have time for my work. And I never had a break down.
I realized that I am fifty percent finished with my first set of graduate school. It is incredible how quickly time is able to move by when you are having fun, when you are busy, when you have people are looking toward you, when you have people looking at you, and when you have people looking up to you. There is a serious amount of modelling and pressure and it just seems to make the job more fun.
I truly believe that I have a good understanding of what it means to be a teacher. If I were to summarize the experience down to a short sentence of what it means to be a teacher at this point I think I would say that it means to always have something ready, because you always have to be looking forward.
I would not change anything, because then I would not have my eyes forward.
Friday, December 2, 2011
Critical Literacy, Critical Authority
HYPERTEXT
A set of compiled information showing how digital texts can be actually digitized to increase the understanding and critical authority of students based on content.
A set of compiled information showing how digital texts can be actually digitized to increase the understanding and critical authority of students based on content.
Sunday, November 13, 2011
There are lots of firsts...
I meant to write this on Thursday, however as with everything, time keeps slipping away.
This past Thursday I had two firsts, one kind of traumatizing and bad, and the second overwhelmingly great, a feeling of appreciation and belonging in a very tiny gesture.
For the first time, I was left to lead class with the upper level seventh grade class at my school. While I have worked with them since the first day of school, I will admit that I am not as close to this class as I am to my other two classes, likely because they do not really need very much assistance or at least as much assistance as the other two classes. My lead teacher had to go to an IEP meeting for one of our eighth grade students and so I said sure I can finish going over the benchmark test with this class. No problem.
Boom, wrong.
I would also like to note that this is the only class that ever has less than three adults in the room with them.
So there I was alone. With the most intelligent kids in the school. And they could not get it together. We made it through about one half of a page, I tried several times to get them back on track, and then I did the only thing I knew how to do. I walked across the hall and asked for help from the math teacher. He wasn't there so I came back over and told the students that since we could not handle working through the benchmark together, they would be reading silently the rest of the class period and that they would have to do the benchmark tomorrow. This only kind of worked, so I went for help again. He was there and I asked him to come over and sit with me and the class.
The room was silent when he and I came back in. They were being angels, terrified angels. Looking at their pages then looking at us. He did a once around the room and then came back over to me. We had a little talk about how to clarify rules and expectations with students, we decided that when he left I would announce to them that the next student who talked or was off task would go to his room and they would get an afterschool detention. He then told me that sometimes I have to sacrifice a student and that it is okay to do so, especially if they probably really deserve it anyways. He left and I made this announcement.
This worked for a short while. I let some students who did not have silent reading books go back to the library and get one. I had a girl go get a book and then return to her desk and start mumbling about how much she hates the book. I left this to slide, and then once I walked back around the room she was still mumbling and was now drawing in her notebook. I reminded her that everyone needs to be on task and the task was reading. She told me she didn't care and I told her then she can make the choice to go to the math teacher's room. She said can I bring this with me, and I said sure. She said fine, I'm leaving, I don't care. The girl next to her said "No, don't, you know that's an afterschool detention." She said I don't care and left. I propped the door open on her way out.
For the next fifteen minutes or so, the class read their books silently, and listened to the math teacher give the student a piece of his mind as she tried to blame things on me and then eventually relinquished and accepted the decision as her own and accepted her faults. I had my own diatribe with the class based on the fact that I have never done anything to disrespect them as individuals, people, or as students and I had done nothing to merit the total lack of respect they had shown me today. I also told them that they gave me no reason today to believe that it was worth designing lessons for their class if they could not respect me in the slightest. Then my co-teacher returned and returned with a fury as soon as she realized what had happened. She then gave them her own lecture and prepared them for a miserable Friday.
The student who had left then returned. She returned by slamming the door and slamming her books down. My lead teacher then told her to go wait calmly by the door for her to let her in after she dismissed the class. She did not, she left and went to her next class, with her books still all over our floor. This became a referral to the assistant principal.
This was the first afterschool detention I issued. This was the first referral I was involved in issuing.
This was also the first day I got a key to a classroom. My first key to my first classroom.
In the afternoon we had an articulation of Digital Harbor High School where a woman came and gave a presentation on the school for the seventh and eighth graders. At the end of it, my lead teacher came over and said "Well you know since all your stuff is in there, I don't want you to feel dependent on me to get in and out. And what if something ever happened and I couldn't get to school, then what would you do?" and handed me a key to the room, a shiny gold, made just for me key. I honestly had not felt that accepted and welcomed and appreciated until this moment. Such a trifle. And it made me feel like I knew we really were going to be a great team by the end of the year and that yes, despite my shortcomings, my fears, and my inability to arrive to school prior to 7:32 with consistency, she wants me to be there.
I guess really everyday of this year is a first of some form. These were a few really worth remembering.
This past Thursday I had two firsts, one kind of traumatizing and bad, and the second overwhelmingly great, a feeling of appreciation and belonging in a very tiny gesture.
For the first time, I was left to lead class with the upper level seventh grade class at my school. While I have worked with them since the first day of school, I will admit that I am not as close to this class as I am to my other two classes, likely because they do not really need very much assistance or at least as much assistance as the other two classes. My lead teacher had to go to an IEP meeting for one of our eighth grade students and so I said sure I can finish going over the benchmark test with this class. No problem.
Boom, wrong.
I would also like to note that this is the only class that ever has less than three adults in the room with them.
So there I was alone. With the most intelligent kids in the school. And they could not get it together. We made it through about one half of a page, I tried several times to get them back on track, and then I did the only thing I knew how to do. I walked across the hall and asked for help from the math teacher. He wasn't there so I came back over and told the students that since we could not handle working through the benchmark together, they would be reading silently the rest of the class period and that they would have to do the benchmark tomorrow. This only kind of worked, so I went for help again. He was there and I asked him to come over and sit with me and the class.
The room was silent when he and I came back in. They were being angels, terrified angels. Looking at their pages then looking at us. He did a once around the room and then came back over to me. We had a little talk about how to clarify rules and expectations with students, we decided that when he left I would announce to them that the next student who talked or was off task would go to his room and they would get an afterschool detention. He then told me that sometimes I have to sacrifice a student and that it is okay to do so, especially if they probably really deserve it anyways. He left and I made this announcement.
This worked for a short while. I let some students who did not have silent reading books go back to the library and get one. I had a girl go get a book and then return to her desk and start mumbling about how much she hates the book. I left this to slide, and then once I walked back around the room she was still mumbling and was now drawing in her notebook. I reminded her that everyone needs to be on task and the task was reading. She told me she didn't care and I told her then she can make the choice to go to the math teacher's room. She said can I bring this with me, and I said sure. She said fine, I'm leaving, I don't care. The girl next to her said "No, don't, you know that's an afterschool detention." She said I don't care and left. I propped the door open on her way out.
For the next fifteen minutes or so, the class read their books silently, and listened to the math teacher give the student a piece of his mind as she tried to blame things on me and then eventually relinquished and accepted the decision as her own and accepted her faults. I had my own diatribe with the class based on the fact that I have never done anything to disrespect them as individuals, people, or as students and I had done nothing to merit the total lack of respect they had shown me today. I also told them that they gave me no reason today to believe that it was worth designing lessons for their class if they could not respect me in the slightest. Then my co-teacher returned and returned with a fury as soon as she realized what had happened. She then gave them her own lecture and prepared them for a miserable Friday.
The student who had left then returned. She returned by slamming the door and slamming her books down. My lead teacher then told her to go wait calmly by the door for her to let her in after she dismissed the class. She did not, she left and went to her next class, with her books still all over our floor. This became a referral to the assistant principal.
This was the first afterschool detention I issued. This was the first referral I was involved in issuing.
This was also the first day I got a key to a classroom. My first key to my first classroom.
In the afternoon we had an articulation of Digital Harbor High School where a woman came and gave a presentation on the school for the seventh and eighth graders. At the end of it, my lead teacher came over and said "Well you know since all your stuff is in there, I don't want you to feel dependent on me to get in and out. And what if something ever happened and I couldn't get to school, then what would you do?" and handed me a key to the room, a shiny gold, made just for me key. I honestly had not felt that accepted and welcomed and appreciated until this moment. Such a trifle. And it made me feel like I knew we really were going to be a great team by the end of the year and that yes, despite my shortcomings, my fears, and my inability to arrive to school prior to 7:32 with consistency, she wants me to be there.
I guess really everyday of this year is a first of some form. These were a few really worth remembering.
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
Teach Like A Champion: What Worked
When I first told my parents that I was considering becoming a teacher and that I had started applying to grad school, they were interested but maybe on the verge of skeptical. However, when I told them that it was in lieu of becoming a whitewater kayaker professionally and moving to Asheville, NC, they became more intrigued. My dad told me one time that the only other thing that he ever wanted to be was a history teacher, however my grandfather said an engineer or the army were his options, coincidentally he wound up doing both. I did ask my dad if he regretted it. He has always told me that he doesn't regret anything because then we wouldn't be where we are now. This is a value that I hold true every day.
So, after this announcement to my parents last year, the first thing my dad gave me was a copy of Teach Like a Champion - he is the master of finding "the best resources." I had read this book prior to arriving in my program, so as we started working through from the Digital Classroom course to the Baltimore as Your Classroom course, I began recognizing elements from the work. I was less than surprised that it was our text for our seminar. Little did I know how both effective and difficult some of the strategies are, not just to implement but to be consistent. However, if I have learned anything from the past months in the classroom - consistency and ultimately predictability is absolutely key.
For the past two weeks I attempted to effectively implement some of the strategies outlined in Doug Lemov's collection Teach Like a Champion. I focused on No Opt Out, Cold Call, and Wait Time.
No Opt Out (A student is called on and does not answer, the student is then returned to for the final answer) - The first time I tried this strategy was while I was doing the class warm up everyday. I started it with a class that is very quiet when they get called on and sometimes will simply just say "I don't know" for everything, and of course that results in about two students answering everything. What a surprise. Anyways the first time I did this I think I received the closest mortal equivalent to the eyes of satan drilling through my body in a way only an eighth grade girl is capable of. But she answered. And she does nearly every time now, or at least I receive the truly confused eyes not eyes of the laser death ray. More interestingly, it created more of a class culture of helping each other find the answer to questions. I use the phrase "Can someone help him out." And then once the answer is reached, I return to the student and for the most part they then elaborate on the answer if possible.
Cold Call (Calling on a student regardless of it their hand is raised) - I found this technique both tricky and effective. There are some students who when called on are not paying attention and it becomes a refocusing tool as they scramble for a response or look to their peers for assistance. On the other hand there are many students who have answers that they are prepared to respond however for whatever reason, being shy, looking cool, not feeling like raising a hand, then have the opportunity to answer and let their voice be heard in the classroom. I believe that this technique was familiar to the students because their science teacher also uses this technique both straight and through the use of popsicle sticks with the students names on them. He says "I am drawing an opportunity."
Wait Time (Delaying a few seconds after asking a question to give students a moment to think) - I believe that this was the most important technique to use with students because it gives the students who are eager to answer a moment to actually think of what they want to say other than just that they want to answer, you know the flailing hand waving type, and it gives the students who need time to process a moment to work through the question. I found it very important to use care with this when coupling it with Cold Call because I did not like it when I knew I caught a student who was still working out their thoughts. This really resonated with me because as a kid I would not talk in class because of this very thing, it is something that I still have issues with.
Conveniently enough I received comments from my university observer that I was using these strategies well and that she specifically noticed me use them during one of my observations. That definitely made me aware of their effectiveness. Additionally, for the students the use of these strategies has made an impact in their understanding of the expectations for the class. They have demonstrated their understanding by being much more inclined to be on their toes and paying attention during the warm-up and I have definitely seen a substantial increase in the number of hands raised.
Oh, and the Death Star has not been present in the classroom in a while.
So, after this announcement to my parents last year, the first thing my dad gave me was a copy of Teach Like a Champion - he is the master of finding "the best resources." I had read this book prior to arriving in my program, so as we started working through from the Digital Classroom course to the Baltimore as Your Classroom course, I began recognizing elements from the work. I was less than surprised that it was our text for our seminar. Little did I know how both effective and difficult some of the strategies are, not just to implement but to be consistent. However, if I have learned anything from the past months in the classroom - consistency and ultimately predictability is absolutely key.
For the past two weeks I attempted to effectively implement some of the strategies outlined in Doug Lemov's collection Teach Like a Champion. I focused on No Opt Out, Cold Call, and Wait Time.
No Opt Out (A student is called on and does not answer, the student is then returned to for the final answer) - The first time I tried this strategy was while I was doing the class warm up everyday. I started it with a class that is very quiet when they get called on and sometimes will simply just say "I don't know" for everything, and of course that results in about two students answering everything. What a surprise. Anyways the first time I did this I think I received the closest mortal equivalent to the eyes of satan drilling through my body in a way only an eighth grade girl is capable of. But she answered. And she does nearly every time now, or at least I receive the truly confused eyes not eyes of the laser death ray. More interestingly, it created more of a class culture of helping each other find the answer to questions. I use the phrase "Can someone help him out." And then once the answer is reached, I return to the student and for the most part they then elaborate on the answer if possible.
Cold Call (Calling on a student regardless of it their hand is raised) - I found this technique both tricky and effective. There are some students who when called on are not paying attention and it becomes a refocusing tool as they scramble for a response or look to their peers for assistance. On the other hand there are many students who have answers that they are prepared to respond however for whatever reason, being shy, looking cool, not feeling like raising a hand, then have the opportunity to answer and let their voice be heard in the classroom. I believe that this technique was familiar to the students because their science teacher also uses this technique both straight and through the use of popsicle sticks with the students names on them. He says "I am drawing an opportunity."
Wait Time (Delaying a few seconds after asking a question to give students a moment to think) - I believe that this was the most important technique to use with students because it gives the students who are eager to answer a moment to actually think of what they want to say other than just that they want to answer, you know the flailing hand waving type, and it gives the students who need time to process a moment to work through the question. I found it very important to use care with this when coupling it with Cold Call because I did not like it when I knew I caught a student who was still working out their thoughts. This really resonated with me because as a kid I would not talk in class because of this very thing, it is something that I still have issues with.
Conveniently enough I received comments from my university observer that I was using these strategies well and that she specifically noticed me use them during one of my observations. That definitely made me aware of their effectiveness. Additionally, for the students the use of these strategies has made an impact in their understanding of the expectations for the class. They have demonstrated their understanding by being much more inclined to be on their toes and paying attention during the warm-up and I have definitely seen a substantial increase in the number of hands raised.
Oh, and the Death Star has not been present in the classroom in a while.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)