Project vs Tests

I have yet been able to see how well students do on projects but I have decided that perhaps in my own classroom I may decide to give large projects that display student's learning of concepts for a unit rather than tests. The only dilemma with that is that projects take time and if I have students work as groups then I cannot individually assess each student.

Project

So we were trying to find something for our students to do for the last week before break. The criteria were that we did not want to start a new unit because students are more likely to forget during their long break, and we also did not want to create a lot more work for them especially because we only really have 3 in-class days in Algebra, we decided to do a project with cars that integrate concepts that we just had a test on. It may have been beneficial for students to do this project before the actual test.

Gallery Walk

It would be a great idea to have students do posters about each "big picture" topics on content that we have covered so far. Then each group will have the opportunity to see everyone's description of each content and also they will have a say in the grading. Lastly, we would have public records in class that students can consistently refer to.

Is it my lesson plan or is it my students?

At times I have noticed that I have lesson plans that are thoroughly made however I cannot seem to captivate my students. Then I would have lesson plans that allows for lots of leeway and students will be on task during those lessons. Perhaps the success of my lesson depends on the mood of the students?

WikiSpaces

I found out about Wikispaces and instead of using Yola I can put up all my documents from all my classes since I began the Bothell program into a Wikispace which then allows me to have all my documents in one easy place to find. Love it!

Time Consuming Lesson Planning

I realize that planning a lesson for just one class is very time consuming...so the thought that I would have to plan for two different classes is intimidating!

Lesson Planning

As I approach the last few lesson plans of my unit, I have found that I have less things to put on my actual lesson plans and rather put more information on the worksheets that I give in class. I find that it is much easier to hand write my lesson plans right on the worksheets rather than having to recreate the worksheet on to my lesson plans. It's almost like doing the work, twice.

RoadBlock

The second week of my teaching unit 5, I encountered a dilemma that I still don't have an answer for. I want to incorporate more hands on projects in class for Algebra because I know there are many lessons that I can make more interesting except my CT and I discussed how I can make my lessons more interesting and I was told that based on the kinds of students that we have this year we might not be able to incorporate more projects. This is disappointing to me but at the same time I completely understood why this choice is made. Based on what I understand about my students, I have found that it would be more of a management class versus a learning experience, but on the other hand I could be just evaluating the outcome for myself rather than my students....still debating whether or not it is worth an entire school day to make the attempt. I don't want to be the one to waste away a day just trying to keep students on task.

Success!

Persistence does count for something! I have a student that makes the conscience choice to not to do any of the work everyday. I asked him why he did not want to do any work and he stated that he was just not motivated to do any of the work, he has failed the class before and this year will be no different. So instead of nagging him everyday to show me effort, I instead asked him everyday if it was a good day for him to try some work. After maybe three weeks of asking everyday if today was a good day, he finally said yes. Today was that day.

Time Given to do Problems on Your Own

During most of my lessons, I give students the opportunity to do problems on their own after I give an example of how to do it. What i have learned or was instructed to notice was that those students who were going to attempt the problem will do so as soon as they are instructed. But those students who take much longer to get started, extra time should not be given because they won't probably do the problem anyway. But another thing that I should do is walk around to encourage students to do the work so that I can monitor each student and make sure that the class time is used efficiently.

Norms/Expectations

I asked for some friendly advice from a cohort about classroom management methods that they found to be successful and they indicated that taking the time to stop everything and reiterating the classroom norms is a good way for students to realize their behavior that may be deemed unacceptable. What's more is that if the norms/expectations are actually created and accepted by the class, it becomes an even more effective tool of management because then students become aware of how they may be acting contrary to their own rules.

Using the Waiting Technique for Classroom Management

Since I am not one to do much yelling, I thought that I would use the classroom management technique of waiting to get student's attention during a lesson. I found that it works, where some students do start telling each other to be quiet but after I start the lesson again the talking resumes. My CT advised me that after being silent, I must make sure that whatever I had to say next, I had to give the impression that it is very important. We tried to narrow down a specific example of what he meant by it because I was a bit confused but unfortunately we were not able to come up with one. At one point, when the silent treatment wasn't working, I did tell the class to let me know when they were ready to resume class and when they said they were ready they still were talking to each other so then I added, "if you guys are ready that means I'm talking and you guys are listening". I seemed to capture their attention for a little longer and then for some reason lost them again in about 10 minutes. I am still working on my classroom management skills and looking for any kind of suggestions short of a severe consequence (like handing out detentions). It's not just one student that misbehaves, at times it's the entire class.

Making Timely Posts

AAAAHH...!!! For the life of me I cannot seem to make my three posts by the end of the week! That is NOT TO SAY that I did not do it, I actually hand write my 'aha' moments in my field notebook and then I have to type them up and post them later because I do not have access to the site while at school. But I do have them written down...just not posted. One can suggest that I should just post it when I get home, but in most cases I get home from school with just enough time to grab something to eat before I have to go to class on Tuesdays and Thursdays or go tutor on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. By the time the weekend rolls around, I just want to veg out and completely forget to post my blogs. I'm making this post not so much to make an excuse (although I hope it does create an understanding) but I guess more to vent? =)

.........at least I have a start for this weeks posts.......

Day Off on a Thursday

Being that Vetran's Day was on Thursday, there was a no-school day on Thursday but here was school for Friday. My CT made the prediction that due to the untimeliness of the day off, there will be low attendance on Friday. So far, what I can see in first period, his prediction was correct which is a little bothersome because in some of the classes, the students have a group test on Monday which they will be practicing for in Friday's lesson. I guess for those students who came in today, they will have the advantage of studying with other students and getting teacher assistance with problems they have difficultly with.

Journal in Tutorials

Already three months into the student teaching program and I did not realize that we were supposed to keep a journal for each encounter. But it feels like in the AVID program, it is difficult to track the progress of two students since the groups made are sorted by the questions they bring to class which changes every week. Fortunately, I have been working with some students during PAWS but again-unbeknownst to me, I didn't realize that we were supposed to keep a journal and I am almost a month's worth of entries behind. I guess I can start my entries today-just as long as it satisfies the requirements.

Creating Lesson Plans in Advance

I have completed lesson plans for Monday and Tuesday next week but now I'm trying to finish plans for Wednesday but I seem to be stuck. I feel like I don't want to create lesson plans that I might want to change contingent on the outcome of Tuesday's lesson. Another reason I am concerned about the success of my lesson plan on Wednesday is that I have my observation that day and it is going to be in one of the most difficult classes (management-wise). I want the opportunity for feedback concerning my classroom management skills and I guess that was not evident in my last observation because the class was overall well behaved. Now I want to make a lesson plan for Wednesday using individual whiteboards to promote collaboration and give me the ability to quickly get a formative assessment of the students ability but that was contingent on how well the students worked with the whiteboards on Tuesday. So now, I am trying to think of a back up plan for a lesson that does not require much time content-wise....

Writing to Parents

When I discovered that i had to satisfy a PPA standard of establishing a communication with the student's parent-I was a little confused as to how I would be able to do such a thing short of contacting a parent with behavioral issues. Since my CT rarely contacts parents unless there is the utmost necessity, I asked him for some option of how to fulfill this requirement. He made a great suggestion that I should send a letter home with all of my students letting the parents know about who I am and that I will be taking over the class for the next couple of weeks and that this letter is merely informative. I should leave a contact number for me and that I have the capability to update/access grades so parents should feel free to ask me any questions concerning their child. The only question I have is-will this one letter (and any further contacts if parents decide to call during those weeks that I am teaching) fulfill completely that PPA standard?

First Day of a Unit in PreCalculus

I find that it is incredibly difficult (although not impossible) to incorporate student discovery if it’s on the first day where a new unit has started. In a class like precalculus, when a new unit is introduced, there is a lot of information that needs to be given to students in order for them to proceed with each subsequent section of the unit. For example, before a student can do transformation to trig expressions they mush know trig identities and these identities or properties are given. I can see how we can let students explore the discovery of the Pythagorean expression by drawing a right triangle on a coordinate grid but this is mostly, these properties are given. Within a time constraint, it would be difficult to have students discover all the properties themselves. Whether or not students memorize the properties or discover their applications, it seems that just as long as they are able to recall this information is what counts (merely a statement based on observation and not an opinion).

Creating Lesson Binders

Usually you will have a lesson prepared prior to actually teaching the class but throughout the day you make changes to your lesson plan as you discover what works well and what doesn’t in class. As you make these amendments, you apply these changes to your future classes and at the end of the day you have a lesson plan that can be used for next year. If we take these lesson plans at the end of the day and put them in a binder, we would have a complete set of lessons already prepared to use for next year! (minding that adaptations will be made contingent on the skill level of each class-since that changes every year as well.)

Equation Editor

While creating my lesson plans, I had to incorporate a lot of equations. I had to insert the object ‘Equation Editor’ and then once I click out of the highlighted area, the window for Equation Editor disappears. Then if I had to use it again, I would have to go to the task bar and insert an object again. This would not be as time consuming if I only had to use this function once but I was constantly using the Equation Editor and therefore would have liked to have the window open all the time. On one of the computers, this ability is available but unfortunately the one I’m on does not-until yesterday that is! We had a worksheet creator installed on the computer where I’m located that has the equation editor loaded on it, so now I am able to use the Equation Editor as a separate window! Fantastic! Then I went home to check that I have this capability on my Mac because again I was just inserting the equation editor as an object. Fortunately, Equation Editor on my Mac can be opened as a separate window by finding it under my applications! YAY!