Wednesday, January 6th
Today is teacher planning day, so Ms. Radcliffe and I set up the room to get it ready for students tomorrow. I also met some teachers and administrators today during my tour of the school. My adventure of today was battling the copy machines in the main building.
Thursday, January 7th
Today is the first day of school for the students. It is the start of the spring semester for me, my last semester before graduation. I got to be in front of every class today in order to introduce myself and let the students know that I am going to be their teacher, not just a helper to Ms. Radcliffe. In addition to introducing myself, I also laid down my rules and expectations to the classes. I tried to tell the students in the first period class my rules and expectations from memory, but that went down like a lead balloon. To make it up to first period, I said that we would start fresh on Friday. I used my rules and procedures sheet for the rest of the classes that day with better results. I feel that today went well, especially for it being my first day. After school, Ms. Radcliffe and I talked about my plan of experience and other things. Tomorrow we will start VITALS, the curriculum that Ms. Radcliffe is basing her dissertation on.
Friday, January 8th
Today is my mom’s birthday, and I had planned on having each of the classes sign a birthday card for her, but I completely forgot. I watched Ms. Radcliffe implement her VITALS curriculum for first and second period before trying my hand with it for the remaining classes. I didn’t crash and burn, but I didn’t do as well as I would have liked. It is difficult for anyone to follow the thought process of someone else when teaching their lesson, so there were some slip ups on my end concerning that, but the largest problem for me is classroom management. I need to buckle down on off-topic and out of turn talking. Despite some classroom management issues, I think that today went as well as it could have. My goals are to improve my classroom management strategies as well as gain a rapport with the classes. I think that part of the problem with the classroom management this week is that it isn’t really a real school week and the students are still in winter break mode. Next week should be better behaviorally I think.
Week 1
Monday, January 11th
A quick rundown of the personalities of my classes:
First Period—Usually quiet and pretty smart, their answers are on level with what Ms. Radcliffe and I are looking for.
Second Period—Same as first period, but a little louder. On the VITALS assignment on Friday their answers were a little more literal and less figurative than First Period’s answers.
Third Period—Planning!
Fourth/Fifth Period—Mostly made up of lower level students, and high energy and low concentration level class. The students are friendly but thick skinned. Some of them have seen things and experienced things that I can’t even begin to imagine. I have a lot of respect for them, but I also need to find a way to reach them. This period is weird because it is interrupted by lunch, so the first 7 minutes of class we can’t get anything done, then it usually takes 4-5 minutes to get them back on task after we get back from the lunch room, not to mention the 5 minute walk there and back. Lots of wasted time. On M W F this class goes to the computer lab to work on FCAT and reading skills. Personally, I think this is a waste of time. The kids don’t like it and it takes away from direct instruction in the classroom. But policies are policies, and I’m just an intern. This class will be a challenge, but I eat challenges for breakfast.
Sixth Period—By far the most unruly class of them all. I blame pent up energy from the lack of a recess, and the fact that they recently had lunch. This class usually gives me the most classroom management problems, but like first and second period, they are intelligent.
Seventh Period—Made up mostly of students I have earlier in the day. This is the activity period, so we usually work on reading skills and such. On Fridays they’ll have a fun day or something to that nature.
Today went well, I watched Ms. Radcliffe deliver the lesson in first period then I took over for the rest of the day. We started working on sequence words using a picture book. Using Shel Silverstein’s, The Giving Tree we learned what transitions were and made a class graphic organizer. Seventh period started reading Walter Dean Myer’s Smithy Blue Solves Two, a detective play. They will be performing it on Thursday.
Tuesday, January 12th
Like Monday, I watched Ms. Radcliffe teach the first period, then I took over for the rest. We finished The Giving Tree today and started working on the next part of the scaffold. The students are split into groups by table, and each table was assigned a different picture book. They are to read it as a group, find the transitions and make a graphic organizer on a large piece of chart tablet paper. I found out today how loud group work is. Using my discipline policy, Ms. Radcliffe and I devised a way to keep the classes in check. Every two weeks the classes will be given a “Fun Friday” to reward them for nine days of hard, on-task work. Over the course of two weeks if a table accumulates three strikes in one day they lose Fun Friday privileges. The students quiet down very quickly when I start handing out strikes. I think it is an effective classroom management strategy that I plan on using in my career. However, I still need to work on my classroom management. Part of it is the students getting used to me, and me getting used to the students, but I’m too concerned with being the good guy. I have to stop trying stop that practice because it hurts everyone.
Wednesday, January 13th
Continuation of yesterday with group work. Made more copies, had an Intern meeting with Mrs. Pickett in the morning and met Mr. Shapiro, my university advisor, during planning. Only one table has lost Fun Friday privileges so far. 7th period is still working on their Smithy Blue play, their performance is tomorrow.
Thursday, January 14th
After finishing up their group projects, each table presented their picture book and posters to the rest of the class. Still having some classroom management problems, but I’ve come to the conclusion that 6th graders don’t really know any better yet, they’re still young. Granted, they are closer to being 7th graders each and every day, but I think a part of them still wants to be in elementary school, treated like children. Part of the hidden curriculum has to be teaching them how to act during presentations and things like that. As I type this, the gears in my mind are turning and I’m thinking of some activities that will allow them to learn how to act in certain situations.
Friday, January 15th
Like the last time we did VITALS, I watched Ms. Radcliffe do the first period, but this time I took over second period through the rest of the day. This VITALS lesson went better than the previous week’s for me, as I’m starting to get the hang of being in front of the class for hours at a time. Already in the first week of internship I’ve had more hours and experience in the classroom than my entire time in the major. Also, I’ve learned more than any text book could teach me. Because 4th/5th period meets for a block period, they have Fun Friday’s every Friday. The table that had to sit out was very angry, but I think it will make them more observant of the three strike rule in the future. I can feel myself becoming more and more of a teacher as I progress through this week. I’m still having difficulty with their names, but I’m making headway. Next week I am focusing on learning their names and working on my classroom management techniques.
Week 2
Monday, January 18th
Martin Luther King, Jr. Day; No school. Potluck at my place with all of my English Education friends! Certainly a mental vacation to see them all and talk with them all again—you don’t realize how much you miss people until you don’t see them every day.
Tuesday, January 19th
On Friday, the students had to hand in their weekly homework, which was to write a paragraph sequencing how to make a root beer float. Today we graded their essays based on how well their instructions worked. Today we hyped 100 students up on soda and vanilla ice cream. I wonder how the other teachers felt about us?
Wednesday, January 20th
After making enough copies to destroy Osceola National Forest, each class moved on from picture books and started working on paragraphs. We’re still working on sequence/transition words (and will be for a little while), so we’re gradually working on getting the students competent enough to read and recognize the passages on the FCAT. After working on sequence, we’ll move on to description, compare/contrast, problem/solution and multiple text structures. By this time next week I will start to take over the classes myself, so I will be responsible for the structures after sequence, as well as the Friday VITALS. The paragraph the classes are working on now is based on the loggerhead turtle. Like with The Giving Tree, we read the passage as a class and create a graphic organizer as a class. This takes the entire period for each class. I’m working hard on my classroom management strategies, but I’m definitely making progress. I think the students are beginning to view me as a teacher, rather than an assistant to Ms. Radcliffe. This theory will be put to the test tomorrow, though, as Ms. Radcliffe will be out finishing her dissertation. Today I started reading Touching Spirit Bear to all of the classes so that they are exposed to what good reading/pacing/pronunciation sounds like, as well as be exposed to literature that they can relate to. Also, today I handed out my first referral, something I really have been dreading. But constant class disruptions and defiance will not and should not be tolerated at any level.
Thursday, January 21st
You know, I think today went very well, all things considered. While I felt like a bloody animal thrown into a shark tank for most of the day, I was able to maintain control over the classes and move to the next portion of the sequence/transition words unit. After revisiting the loggerhead turtle, we moved onto “elbow buddy” work, a paragraph based on the Olympics (ancient to modern). Here the students were to work with their buddy and find the transition words, create a graphic organizer and summarize the paragraph in a GIST (Generating Interaction between Schema and Text) statement (20 words or less, a strategy we have been working on since The Giving Tree). My only two problems today besides loud noises (which I handled pretty well, according to Mr. Barnes, the sub) were two students, one in my second period class and one in my seventh period class.
Friday, January 22nd
Today was the first “Fun Friday” for the students. Before they could participate in board games they had to hand in their homework, a letter to me telling me their favorite movie, book and song, so I could get to know the students better. Most of the first two periods were just keeping students quiet and playing around with them. I crushed a student at checkers without getting a king. But most meaningful to me was speaking to the two students that gave me problems yesterday. I read over their letters and found out that we have common interests. One of the students is a cook and watches the Food Network religiously and the other wants to be a video game designer. The student who wants to be a video game designer has never done a thing in class or even uttered a word, but today he and I spoke about video games and things to that nature. The other student talks too much and answers back, but we had an excellent conversation about cooking and the food network. This weekend I’m going to make an inventory of all of the students interests so I know what to include in my future lesson plans. I already have a bunch of ideas for the future video game designer and head chef. I left during the planning period to go receive my TEACH award at FSU, so I did not get the chance to interact with the rest of my students. So far, though, this internship has been amazing, and I look forward to taking over the classes and implementing my own lesson plans. With Ms. Radcliffe as my CT, I think that I will do a splendid job.
No comments:
Post a Comment