Final Reflection

Dear Gaby,

I know you’re nervous, is this really what you want to do for the rest of your life? I know right now you want to teach high school. You don’t want to be near anyone below 9^th grade. When your former middle school math teacher offers you a job as a para in her middle school math class you should give those little middle school monsters a chance. I know you don’t like math, and you’re not very good at it but you will learn more than math along the way. You will begin your journey with those middle school students, they’ll make you want to not teach anymore and remind you why it is you want to teach all in one day, every day… You’ll find that those middle school students are not so bad after all, in fact you may change your mind about teaching middle school along the way. You’ll find them to be kind, grateful, and full of life, which is just what you need in life. When you decide that you no longer want to teach high school students because you can’t deal with all of the attitude, make sure that you still get licensed for 6-12, you will thank me. You will complain when you are placed in a high school for your student teaching, even though you are excited that it’s the school that you graduated from. In the end it will be an amazing experience that will help you grow as a teacher. You’ll realize that it doesn’t matter if you’re in a middle school classroom or if you’re in a high school classroom, what matters is that you’re in a classroom. You will love teaching, challenging your students and exposing them to new knowledge every day. Keep in touch with your former teachers; they will be immensely helpful along the way. They will help guide you through the education program, and help you grow as a teacher.  Don’t procrastinate on any of your classes, make sure that you go to every class and take notes. Those 8am classes will be hard and you will want to leave when you can’t find a parking spot, but just keep driving and looking for an empty spot. Don’t go home just because you couldn’t find a parking spot close enough to the building that your class is in. It also wouldn’t hurt to study for exams, even when you don’t think that you need to study…study! When the KPTP gets thrown at you start working on it right away. Don’t wait, whatever you do, do not wait until the last minute. That will stress you out. Be sure to start task one before January and go from there. Whenever you feel like giving up, or whenever you feel like maybe teaching isn’t what you want to do read this letter. Remember the students that you have worked with, they look up to you, they appreciate you and they need you!

Sincerely,

Gaby J

Listen to me! (Online Reflection #3)

The first days of the school year are important; it’s a time to get to know your students and to let your students know you. During the first days of school it's important to set the classroom guidelines, and rules. It's the beginning of a new year, new students, and new personalities. During these few first days it's important to set yourself as the authority figure in the classroom. In First Days of School Wong states that "What you do on the first day of school will determine your success for the rest of the year. You will either win or lose your class on the first days of school." Whatever you decide to do on those first days of school will shape your classroom for the rest of the year. If you establish a poor authority figure and inconsistency then you are going to have a hard time engaging your students and enforcing the rules in your classroom. However if you start off the year being consistent and establish and enforce the rules in your classroom then it will be easier to keep your students engaged and on task. But what happens when these first days for you happen in the middle of the year instead of at the beginning of the year. How do you establish yourself as the authority figure in the classroom after the students have already had a different authority figure for half of the year? As a student teacher this is something that I struggled with when I first began to take over the classroom.

When I began my school year with these students they knew me as the student teacher who would eventually take over the classroom. I was a second authority figure in the classroom, I helped managed the classroom, and I assisted students when they needed help. My cooperating teacher asked the students to treat me with the same respect that they would treat her, which they did. When I finally took over the classroom second semester the students were used to me being in the classroom but not to me teaching them for more than a couple of days. Most students were respectful, and they treated me like the authority figure. But they still looked to my CT as the main authority in the classroom for simple things such as passes to the restroom, tardies, questions about their grades, and questions about the work they were assigned. I also had the occasional students that decided to not listen to my directions.  A couple of students didn't take me serious, they didn't listen when I told them to put their phones away, they would talk while I gave directions, or they would just ignore anything that I told them to do. These problems occurred when my CT was not in the room, when she was in the room I didn't have these problems because the students were still looking to her as the authority and since they didn't do that when she taught they didn't do it when she as in the room, but as soon as she stepped out of the room the problems occurred. As Student teachers and sometimes even as first year teachers I think that we want to be nice, be on the students good side, we want to be the "cool" teacher; but that isn't something that is going to lead to a productive classroom. As Wong states "The only way to improve student learning is to improve teacher instructional practice," we need to be the authority and shy away from trying to be the students' friend.

What helped me establish myself as the authority figure in the classroom is that my CT was gone a couple of days for trainings, due to the fact that she was not in the classroom I was forced to establish the rules. Being the only consistent authority figure in the classroom I was able to come across as the main authority figure. Now I have no problem addressing any problems or distractions in the classroom. The students also treat me as the main authority figure in the classroom. They no longer act out when she leaves the classroom, and if they have any questions or concerns they come to me instead of pestering my CT when she is busy doing other work. Her being out of the room helped me become more comfortable with disciplining the classroom and taking control of it. My question for my fellow classmates is how did you establish yourself as an authority figure in your classroom? Did you have any problems when you began to take on the teacher role in the classroom?

References

               Wong, Harry K., and Rosemary T. Wong. The First Days of School: How to Be an Effective Teacher.Second ed. Print.

Please Participate! (online reflection #2)

Participation

How do you get students to participate? And I mean really participate, not just give a two word answer to a question you just asked. How do you get students to develop a deep and thoughtful answer to those questions that you ask in hopes of sparking a class discussion? Most of my students struggle with participation in class. I ask a question and I hear is silence, I then rephrase my questions, and still get nothing. Then when I call on someone and they don’t know what to answer. The students wait for you to answer the question because they want to hear the "teacher answer" which they associate with the "correct answer". The article "Including Student Participation" emphasizes teachers to "not give in to the temptation to answer your own questions, which will condition students to hesitate before answering to see if you will supply “the answer.”". Students will wait for you as a teacher to get tired of waiting for them to answer the question and answer it yourself. By doing so you're the one that’s working harder, as oppose to your students pulling the weights and making connections in the text, you're doing it for them and they learn nothing out of that other than you will give them all of the answers. Which then leads to an even bigger struggle which is that your students start to get lazy  because they know you'll provide the answers for them most students don’t want to take the time to analyze hard text such as Hamlet, or anything else for that matter, they don’t want to struggle and do the work.  But in order to fully understand a piece of writing you must be willing to take the time to analyze and think about that text. Sometimes you have to read something more than once in order to start understanding, and most students don’t want to do that. They read it once and if they don’t understand they give up which then leads to poor class discussions because they don’t understand what is going on and they are not able to formulate responses around the text. If they are confused they don’t participate in class discussions and sometimes the comments that we as teachers do get are more of a distraction because they have nothing to do with what we are doing. Then you get those students that do get what's going on and are willing to participate, but then they end up talking the whole time because no one wants to add to what they are saying, and no one wants to formulate their own ideas. In my class we are currently reading Hamlet by William Shakespeare which is a hard text so I've given my students a variety of ways to try and analyze and understand the text; such as guided questions, different versions of the text, I give them specific quotes I want them to re-read, we listen to the text, and we watch different parts. To increase class participation and to limit the just one student speaking scenario I've started to use name sticks with my classes. If I pull out their name then they have to answer. But before I do that I give them individual time to think about the question then I give them time to discuss with their tables, this gives them a chance to formulate their thoughts and hear others thoughts before having to share with the class. This helps our class discussions quite a bit, they are more inclined to share their ideas with the classroom after they’ve talked to someone else about it, sometimes I don’t even need the name sticks.

References

"Increasing Student Participation." The Teaching Center. Washington University in St. Louis, 1 Jan. 2009. Web. 26 Feb. 2015. <http://teachingcenter.wustl.edu/strategies/Pages/increasing-participation.aspx#.VO60QPnF-UU>.

Online Reflection #1: It's almost the end

It's almost the end

It's time for student teaching, everything will be okay.

You'll show up to your placement and won't know anyone at all.

You're excited and nervous, but you're also lost in the hall.

Your cooperating teacher is an exceptional teacher and very experienced, but won't let you get involved in the classroom.

It's time for you to teach your unit, except you won't be ready for it.

It's decided you'll teach Hamlet, how hard could it be?

It's the worst.

You've got some planning periods to get your things planned. It's quiet and peaceful, and here comes yet another group of students doing tutorials.

You've mapped out your unit, then your CT says she hates it.

You re-plan your whole unit get everything printed out. Then somehow you manage to misplace it all.

You go to reprint everything, and you jammed the printer and no one can fix it.

You've planned fun for your students; they are going to act out a scene.

If only anyone would participate.

You try to reach out o your students and get them excited about coming to class, but they all hate you.

You're almost done with your unit way to go, you've officially

ruined Shakespeare for these kids.

There's a story about the prince of Denmark whose father has been murdered.

He's stuck in a verdict, does he avenge his death or does he forgive and forget.

On one side there's vengeance, his uncle must pay for murdering his father.

On the other there's living, living his life without anger and hate.

While he ponders this question whether to be or not to be he admires an ancient skull, the structure, the meaning, the life and memories that once belonged to someone else.

Too much technology? (online reflection #3)

How would you incorporate technology in your classroom? How much technology is too much? Is it okay to let students have their phones out when they are in class? As the time goes by there's more and more technology. Most students have a smart phone which is quite distracting, but it can also aid them in their everyday learning. The only problem here is how do we as teachers incorporate this technology in a way that aids more than it distracts. Also how do we incorporate every student?

We are in the era of technology. Every year there's a new phone with new apps. Every year new technology enters our classroom, we as teachers need to keep up with the new technology. It’s not only about the books and the handouts now. You can teach your students using video clips, movies, songs, and even social media. Technology serves teachers as visual aids. Technology not only keeps our students engaged but it's also information at their finger tips. As much as we all love technology and all of its wonders, technology can also help our students not learn. How easy is it to be on your phone looking up a work and somehow end up on Facebook? Technology can be very distracting to our students.

My CT uses technology in her classroom. She uses video clips when they start a unit to help the students understand concepts such as point of view, or how important it is to be acquainted with your teachers and counselors. She also uses this cool thing called "Reminder 101" which is a free website from which the teacher can email or text students reminders. She just sends out a message about important work that is due and all of the students get the same message. She also allows them to use their phones during class in case they need to look up any words or listen to music when they are doing independent work or reading.

In Building Adolescents Literacy in Today's English Classrooms Randy Bomer explains why it is very important that we teach our students these skills 21st century technology skills, he states that "literacy is most importantly expanding in online environments". Technology is constantly changing and we need to learn to adapt to it not only as teachers but also as students.  Even though most students have a smart phone there are a select few that don’t. How would you include those students that don’t have a phone? They wouldn’t be able to receive all of the reminders. They may not have a phone or they may not have internet at home to view the email. Also what kind of technology would you incorporate in your classroom in order to teach them these 21st century technology skills? Most schools don’t have a lot of technology available. Most schools share a laptop cart which is on high demand by every teacher in the building.

References

 Bomer, Randy. Building Adolescent Literacy in Today's English Classrooms. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2011. Print.

KATE Conference

This past week I had the pleasure of attending the KATE conference and it was awesome! I got to learn some pretty cool things that I can use in my future classroom. I also had the pleasure of seeing my old high school English teachers and meeting new teachers. Not to mention I also had the pleasure of listening to Taylor Mali recite his poetry which was pretty fantastic.

On the first day of the conference I listened to quite a few helpful breakout sessions. My favorite was the first session that I went to titled Rethinking Language Arts and Crafts. This session provided me with ideas to make my classroom fun with some hands on activities that didn't require too much technology. This session not only showed us some student examples but they also provided a packet that we could take with us with all of the arts and crafts assignments. One of the sessions was a little disappointing mainly because it was a bit short. The speaker had to leave early so we only got about 10 minutes of Shaking Up  How we Approach Shakespeare. I wish I would've learned a bit more on the one because I think that would be useful when dealing with high school English.

The second day of the conference was also very useful. I learned about classroom management and using social media in your classroom. In Nonfiction: Unlocking Creativity and Critical Thinking I learned about quite a few interesting sites that I can use as a teacher. My favorite session was Command Control and Conquer your Classroom. This session focused more on classroom management and how to interact with your students in order to have a successful and comfortable learning environment. One session that I did not attend that I wish I would have was Facing the Joys and Perils of the First Year of Teaching I think this would have been an interesting and helpful session.

My favorite part about the KATE conference of course was having the opportunity of listening to Taylor Mali in person. He is amazing. I have seen his videos on YouTube but there is nothing like listening to him in person. I was absolutely amazed. Overall the conference was great and I am very greatfull that I was able to attend and listen to all these great ideas of how to make your classroom successful.

Genre Reflection #1

Senioritis

Seniors trying to graduate,

Writing essays and reading books,

Every seat was taken when I first walked in the room.

Their ears are open,

Their minds are eager.

One more English class, one more year!

One more English class, one more year!

The teacher eases her way throughout the room.

She eases her way into their minds.

She fills them with knowledge.

She fills them with direction.

Everything is clear now, clear as only water can be.

Now they can get to work.

Silence takes over as they focus on their work.

Only a faint sound of music coming from the students headphones echoes in the room.

They get their work done.

They get good grades.

Days fly by,

Work gets graded,

Their progress reports say they’ve done well.

Their work all gets done and nothing is late.

The teacher is happy,

And so are they.

Days keep flying by.

Students are late,

Students are absent.

That essay was due a week ago, that essay was due a week ago.

That essay is now late.

There are empty chairs,

There are empty minds,

No longer do these students care.

No longer do they try.

They all want to graduate,

They all want to leave.

How long is this class, how long is this class?

Can I just go back to sleep?

Get your head up… Get your head up,

There is no sleeping in class.

Trying to save these kids grades,

Trying to save them from falling behind.

They keep trying, keep trying.

They try to stay awake,

They try to do all of their work,

They try to turn their work in on time.

They try to focus, they try to care.

One more English class, one more year!

One more English class, one more year!

In the end they're just trying to graduate.