Confidence

I have been thinking about confidence recently. Both my Penn Mentor and Classroom Mentor have told me at certain points that I just need some more confidence or that they could tell that I did not feel comfortable at some points. At first, these comments surprised me because I do not think of myself as lacking confidence. Therefore, it caused me to really reflect on this aspect of my presence in the classes. I think that it is easy to use my student teacher status as a cop-out for certain behaviors. I realized that I needed to think of my teaching practices with more confidence. Even though I am still learning, I need to approach it with a stance that will command presence, for the sake of my students and to get the most out of my student teaching experience. I think that the difference might be viewing student teaching as a job and not as an academic endeavor or internship type experience. I think that this perspective will allow me to grow more as a teacher.

Dodgeball

Yesterday I had the chance to go to a Dodgeball tournament (as a spectator). It was really fun. There is a group in the Philadelphia called the Philadelphia Sports Network, that runs different intermural sports leagues. I think that they also have kickball, baseball and soccer, as well as other sports. This dodgeball game was the last of their season, the championship match. I watched the teams that were playing for 1st and 2nd place. It was a very exciting sport to watch! These teams were very good and pretty evenly matched. At some points it was even hard to follow because the balls were flying so fast. One team was up to 6 points (you need 7 points to win). In the match the winning team was going strong. There was only one person left on the other side and it looked like the game was going to be over. In a big upset, the one person left got all four people out to win the match for his team. The team with 6 points did end up winning in the end, but it was an exciting game. Next semester some of the people at GSE are talking about putting together a kickball team to play in the Philadelphia Sports Network. If they do, I will be sure to cheer on their team at the games as well.

Having a plan

I had a really great week of student teaching. I feel like I am finally coming into my own as a teacher. It started with my 1st grade lesson on Tuesday. I finally felt like I had a good class with them. The focus of the lesson was to wrap-up the unit on solids and liquids. The curriculum guide was not very helpful this week in figuring out how to plan the lesson. Mostly they suggested that the students look through their science notebooks and share with each other what they have learned about solids and liquids. This posed two problems for me. 1. The 1st graders do not have science notebooks, instead they have been making their observations in groups on chart paper. 2. I did not feel that the activity was structured enough for 1st graders, or maybe just not for my group of students. I decided to use one of the activities that they suggested where the class would fill in a Venn diagram about liquids and solids with post-it notes. I still needed some other ways to wrap things up. I found a book in our classroom about states of matter, so I read that to open the class and get them thinking about the concepts. Then I had them write down properties of liquids and solids to post of Venn diagram, sharing key points with the class once they were finished. For the final activity, I had several ideas in mind (and the supplies ready for all). I decided during the class that I would have them do the scavenger hunt activity. Each student got slips of paper and walked around the room as detectives to record where they saw solids and liquids. It worked beautifully and I was proud of the results that they came up with. I was also proud of myself for remembering to set clear expectations for this activity. Before they began I asked the class how they thought they should behave when they were walking around the room. The students said all of the things (such as not running, sharing turns, not yelling, not going in the office, etc) that I wanted them to be mindful of.

Something that I have realized while analyzing my small group lessons (and from this experience) is that I work better when I am not trying to strictly follow my lesson plan. It works better for me to have the structure and focusing question or goals laid out, but to have a couple of options of paths to follow once I am teaching it. I guess this makes sense when I reflect on it because it is important to follow the pace and vibe of your class. It surprising to me, however, that I work better in this way because I am usually a very detail oriented and organized person. In the professional world I like to have a plan and follow it closely. On the other hand, I have been told by employers that I am good at handling things on the fly. Maybe I need to start viewing myself in this light more.

4th grade conflicts

I had some interesting interactions with the fourth graders this week as well. It is interesting because I am finally feeling like a strong presence in the classes at this point in the semester. The students across grades now know my name and will often wave to me when they see me in the hallways. Because of this stronger presence, I also can feel my role shifting in terms of interactions with students. On Tuesday the 4th grade was continuing to do research about their science fair projects in class. My CM was working with students at the computer and I was floating around the room helping them find books and summarizing. At some point, the class started to get rowdy and a little out of hand. I noticed this and turned around to see a boy try to pull a chair out from a under a girl. I obviously had to address it, but wasn't really sure how. I went to the table and told him that it was unacceptable behavior. I then had him sit at a different table until he was able to act properly. It feels strange having these types of interventions or disciplining. In the fourth grade class on Wednesday, I was also faced with a difficult situation. One of the students informed me that someone was crying in her group. I went over to the table to find out that she was upset that people were making fun of her laugh. I wasn't sure exactly what to do. I saw that one of the students was trying to comfort her. I paired the two of them up to work together for the remainder of the class. But I knew that there was more that I should have done, such as sitting down with them to figure out the real situation. I did not feel equipped to do this maybe because of lack of time and lack of understanding of the social dynamics of the class. It made me realize why it is so important to set classroom norms and ground rules at the beginning of the year. If we had done this, then I could maybe refer back to a rule about respect or kindness. I also think that it is important to set expectations for how these types of situations will be handled from the beginning.

Hands-on science

Today was a really fun day with lots of hands-on activities happening in science. It started out with 3rd grade exploring how sound travels through different materials (wood, string and aluminum foil). They had to work as a group to test these different objects with tuning forks and listen to the different sounds. It was a great group activity because they literally could not do these experiments alone. Two people had to hold the materials, while another person tested the tuning fork, and a fourth person listened for the sound. It was encouraging to see them working so effectively together. I also liked how my CM set up the expectation that each person in the group should try each job in order to avoid conflict. She even modeled how they could do this by using students to demonstrate where to stand when doing a particular job and how they would rotate. I think that these detailed instructions allowed for the peaceful cooperation during the activity.

First grade is wrapping up their unit on liquids by testing two new liquids. They were to each fill out a worksheet by doing all of the explorations they have been doing in science class. It seemed like a very chaotic class and I started to get frustrated by the end of the period. It seemed like there was a student coming up to me with a question or problem every second of the period. There were sharing conflicts, large spills, confusion about the worksheet, clarifications of directions, and a lot of complaining about sticky hands. Even though I got frustrated by all of the commotion, my CM seemed to think that I did an excellent job handling the class. I think I could have structured the activity a little bit differently to avoid some of the chaos. I used the assessment worksheets from the teacher guide. However, we have not used these type of worksheets before. They also were each filling out the sheets individually, whereas every other time in science they have had to work and record information together.

The second grade made parachutes out of paper napkins. (They are learning about air.) After they made them we took them to the third floor to release them. They really loved this activity. My CM was able to keep them quiet by telling them that they were secret spies and couldn't let anyone hear what they were doing. It worked pretty well. It nice to see the kids getting really excited about science, but it was important for them to understand the expectations of how to behave in the hallway with other classes going on.

Small group vs. whole class instruction

I have been thinking a lot lately about small group versus whole class instruction. In my teaching methods courses, we learn about many different techniques to engage students in instruction. One of the common themes throughout the course work is small group lessons. The benefits are clear: the teacher can tailor instruction to meet specific students' needs, the students can learn how to work cooperatively and the students get more individualized attention. It seems that this method of teaching is a new, forward way of thinking about how to structure classes. As a new teacher, I can feel myself gravitating to these types of strategies when I am planning my instruction. However, I was thinking about how I was as an elementary school student and how I would have reacted in these situations. Since I was very shy and did not like attention, I think that this type of instruction might not have been the most effective with me. Perhaps because I experienced mostly whole class instruction as an elementary school student I have a difficult time envisioning the situation. Regardless, it made me realize that varying teaching strategies and methods is the best way to go to be sure to appeal to all learning styles and personalities.

In a similar topic, there it is often implied in my courses that worksheets and "busy work" are not effective teaching methods. I agree with the reasoning behind these pedagogical beliefs. However, I began to think about it in terms of my own learning experiences as I did with small group lessons. I remembered that I loved worksheets and things that qualified as busy work. I could have filled out a workbook all day and be completely content. Whether or not I learned the desired objectives from these activities is suspect, but again it made me wonder about how to reach all learning styles while still providing authentic and meaningful instruction. These are questions that I will continue to consider throughout the year.

Thanksgiving

We had Thursday and Friday off this week for Thanksgiving break. It was so nice to have a couple of extra days off. The end of the semester is quickly approaching (only 3 more weeks!) and my big Term III assignment is due in less than 2 weeks. Needless to say, I have been feeling the pressure of trying to keep up with school work while also planning, teaching and analyzing lessons. I decided that I was only going to do work on Sunday during the break to truly give myself some time off. Thursday I had stuffed myself with lots of good food. (Side note: It was the first Thanksgiving in about 10 years that I ate turkey because I have recently retired from vegetarianism.) Friday I watched 4 movies in a row! It might have been a little excessive, but it was a nice treat as part of my relaxing weekend. Saturday my roommates and I made 3 pots of soup and had lots of friends over for dinner. Then Sunday it was back to work: catching up on readings and more lesson plans. It was perfect timing for a mini-break, as I feel refreshed and ready to tackle the rest of the semester.