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.