summative post

What is my relationship with my students?

            That has been my essential question all throughout this semester. I’ll be their teacher but what else am I to them? Am I their friend? Am I their motivator? Their advisor? I’m not sure any one role makes up a teacher. I think different days call for different things and this semester really helped me understand what my role as teacher is.

            For instance I learned that a teacher is someone who understands what students are going through. I rode that bus every Thursday and every Thursday I was nauseous. What does that mean for my students who come in every morning and can’t handle the ride either? It doesn’t mean I expect less from them or don’t expect them to use the start of their school day for learning. It just means I go about learning differently. I learned through this semester that any limit you create on a person acts like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If I tell a student they’re not ready to learn then there is a good chance they’ll believe me.

            Another example of this is when I witnessed students returning from lunch or from the hallways. They were overly hyper and difficult to calm down and focus. Like the bus ride example I think it is important not to limit their educational time. One could easily think “give them five minutes to cool down.” While I don’t necessarily disagree with this I find myself wondering if there isn’t something more I could do.

            I guess what I’ve been thinking about with my question is what does a teacher do? I think with those two examples it is important to establish a community through routine. I think a solution to both those problems might be something like a “check in”, an exercise in which kids take five or so minutes to calm down and get their minds ready for the content at hand. One could have them use their urge to talk as a way to create social structure. One could also give that student who needs a moment to calm down from a bumpy car ride to school an in class writing prompt. Starting the day with something quick, low stakes, and relaxed will give the students a moment to switch into learning mode while also giving them the opportunity to show their learning. If one carefully constructs these start of the day exercises into the fabric of their class then students will already come to expect it.

            I think what I’m getting at is that it’s important not to see teaching just as content. It’s not just about knowing literature it’s about making it accessible to your students. I can know everything there is to know about the English language but if my students don’t understand it then it doesn’t matter. Teaching is about the student, not the teacher. So I think my role as a teacher is to understand them and their needs. I need to understand that they are not just blank canvases ready to learn, they have plenty of things going on in their lives that will detract them from learning. It may be the usual like car (or regular) sickness, or too much energy from lunch or break, but it might also be any number of other things. In a weird and strange world of constant variables I think it is the teacher’s job to figure out how to cut through all of that and create a space where learning can happen. I think routine is important because as I said the world is strange and always changing. If the classroom is the only place that is constant and accessible for them than it is our job to make it so. 

What I want to learn from the parents

I know this blog is late but I didn't feel right not putting one up. I was thinking about how we're going to meet some of the parents of the school and I thought this'll be a great experience. I always hear about parents getting in the way of education (I.e getting books banned, or theories banned, ect) and I think a lot of it boils down to there being no communication. While I certainly don't agree with books being banned I think a parent has the right to have some say in their child's education. What I want to know from these parents is:

What are they looking for in a teacher?
 What could I do as a teacher to make them feel more involved in their child's education?
 What do they think their job as parent is in making sure their student gets the best education they can?
What is the ideal way a teacher and a parent can work together in their mind?

I think the most important thing is to establish a community. A parent that wants to be involved in their child's education shouldn't be seen as a bad thing or something that gets in the way. We are only responsible for the child's learning for a few hours a day. The parent is a great resource in establishing a community that looks at learning as something that happens in and outside of school.

Starting to make progress

So on thursday I mentioned how difficult it was for me to talk to some of the students and connect with them because I felt like it wasn't my place or I didn't know what to say. Unfortunately that observation period I didn't get much opportunity to connect with any of the students as the type of classes I was observing the student's attention needed to be focused on their work and it didn't feel right to distract them from it.

However I went to CF on Monday and observed the period 4 class of Kim (this will be the class I'm going to be teaching) and I felt like I made a lot more progress. They were reading "To kill a mockingbird" and Kim let me sit in with a group. There was a student who Kim admitted was a bit of a troublemaker who didn't like doing his work. I asked him if I could read on with him while the class read aloud together. He said yes and we read together. When I noticed he was getting distracted I made a few gestures to get him back to reading which worked and we didn't have many problems. When we were done and the group had to do their dialectical journals I helped him, and the rest or the group, out with figuring out where everything needed to go. I was shocked that he actually asked me for help with figuring out what to write for the reflection portion. I asked him what he thought it meant, he told me, and then I asked him why he thought that and we were able to come up with a pretty decent reflection for his journal. Lastly I was able to work with the group on their exit slips and when they asked me to help them (the question was something like name 3 things about a particular character in the book) I asked them questions to remind them of things we just read and pushed them to go deeper with the things they were writing about said character. I'm aware that this was only one day and only for a small amount of time but I feel like I made a lot of progress with communicating with the students.

How to differentiate instruction?

So after having that very inspirational discussion with the panel of students I initially felt more inspired to be a teacher than I did before. Who wouldn't want to work with such bright students that have a real passion for learning like they do? I have to wonder though what the students who weren't the leaders of their class would say? I think it's important to understand that there are so many different types of students out there and what worries me is how do I teach them all the way they need to be taught?

One thing I noticed is that all four kids seemed to want four very different things from their teachers and from their assignments. One kid was adamant about getting packets while another was strongly against them. One student liked group work another hated it. So I wonder what does that mean for me as a teacher? How do I appeal to all my students when they all want different things? Do I give packets sometimes and something else another time? Do I give different options for my assignments?

All this tends to overwhelm me. As a teacher candidate my biggest worry is how I'll accommodate all my learners. How can I keep a lesson or activity engaging to everyone while also making sure they all learn?

Extra set of eyes.

So I was thinking all week about what an extra set of eyes did for us as we observed. I'm not sure that was the right question though. I'm thinking it's more along the lines of what did we see as we guided a new pair of eyes? I learned that I'm not as bad at navigating the school, I'm still pretty bad mind you but not as bad as I thought. I think it also livened up the observation a bit. I think once the newness of it wore off a routine started forming. For me I noticed I stopped noticing as much on the walls, and how the classroom was set up and started paying more attention to the teacher and the students. While I don't think this was a bad thing I definitely got the chance to step back and guide my observer a bit which helped me noticing some of the things I stopped looking for.

 This got me thinking about how I always used to think you had to know a lot about what you're teaching in order to teach it. While I still think that's true I also think you learn a lot while teaching. I think there's something to how you focus on something so much when you're teaching and attack it at ever side to gain understanding so that you can share it with your students that makes learning happen so organically. While I wish I could say I learned so much while showing my student around I can say I saw things a lot differently.

Promising Practices

So I'll preface this post by saying this particular experience I had at promising practices is not the one I'll be writing my letter about. Not sure it matters to clarify that but hey there it is.

So during promising practices I learned about something called literacy walks. Basically these are education events where the teacher sets up a variety of stations a student has to walk to and complete a task (usually a fun one) that has something to do with the book or overall theme of the walk. Once they complete one task they move on to the next. The culminating task usually has something to do with the over all point of the book. In this case it was a 3rd grade class reading a book about building things so they built a bridge. This exercise is meant in some way to be just that: exercise. It's supposed to get the students active for a small amount of time and get them out of their seats. While this was designed for an elementary school class I wonder what it would be like with a high school class. 

I'm thinking maybe say American History the student could walk through the path of the original settlers and go through each colony and learn something about each of the original 13 colonies. It could be a great preface to a unit on American History.

Or maybe a preliminary unit on poetry where students walk to different stations learning about different types of poetry and maybe at the end making their own. 

I think this has a lot of promise and I love the idea of adding a kinetic aspect to learning. I think the more parts of the brain and body the student uses to learn the more the student will retain. In this day and age I think it's great to motivate our students to move around more too. 

Do you think you could use this exercise in your class? I'm curious how it might be used in a math class.

My essential question

So I've been thinking about my essential question and I've been thinking about what kind of teacher I want to be. I want to be a teacher that has a good relationship with my students but I've had teachers who tried to be "the cool teacher" and it honestly made me respect them less. I don't want to be the 30 year old who is trying to have a bunch of 16 year old friends. I don't want to be the strict teacher that my students hate either. I remember a teacher I respected a lot who, when I went back to high school to interview him for a class i was taking, said he didn't believe it was his job to help students figure out who they were. He said his job was to teach them English and that's what he'd do. Anything else like aptitude tests, mentoring, and advice he said wasn't his business. I always loved his class when I was in high school and it confused me to hear this. I'm not surprised by this, not many of my teachers could have been considered the 'mentoring type'. I'm not sure that's what I want either but as a kid it would have been nice to have someone to go to about college nad the 'real world' that wouldn't just give me the same basic "go to college" answer that I'm sure most teachers feel obligated to say. I guess one essential question that I'm working around with is: What is my non instructor role as a teacher to my students? What do I owe my students and what line do I want to draw with them? How involved in my students lives do I want to be? This is a question that finds its way in my head a lot. I often wonder not only what kind of teacher do I want to be but what kind of teacher I'll end up being. I think what I want and what I find out works best for me might end up being too different things. After all I know so little about who I am as a teacher.

Libraries reading and attention span

So I was listening to a speech by a favorite author of mine where he talks about libraries. The speech can be found it its entirety through this link:

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/oct/15/neil-gaiman-future-libraries-reading-daydreaming

But I'll try and pick a few quotes out that I feel best capture the point I think one can make about schools and libraries.

            

"Literacy is more important than ever it was, in this world of text and email, a world of written information. We need to read and write, we need global citizens who can read comfortably, comprehend what they are reading, understand nuance, and make themselves understood.

Libraries really are the gates to the future. So it is unfortunate that, round the world, we observe local authorities seizing the opportunity to close libraries as an easy way to save money, without realizing that they are stealing from the future to pay for today. They are closing the gates that should be open."

and

"Well-meaning adults can easily destroy a child's love of reading: stop them reading what they enjoy, or give them worthy-but-dull books that you like, the 21st-century equivalents of Victorian "improving" literature. You'll wind up with a generation convinced that reading is uncool and worse, unpleasant."

So I was thinking about how I could apply this to teaching, or at the very least the school system. So far there is one resource that (hopefully) all schools have. That is a library. There are good libraries and there are bad libraries but one thing most of them have are books and computers. 

When I was observing I noticed a class utilizing the library and one thing I noticed was the lesson was largely computer based. Not a book on the shelf was used. Now this is not to say they don't use them, I could never really know that, but it got me thinking about my own high school days. During my time in school we had a library and a computer lab. They were separated by the vast hallways of the school. One couldn't, for instance, hop to the library and grab a book then go the the computer lab in say under a minute. There was generally a long trek involved. This amounted to a lengthy time in the computer labs and not a whole lot of time in the library. I think the only solid lesson we ever learned in the library was how to check out books, something we ended up never using as...well we had computers. I often wonder how the invasion of the digital has affected our way or reading. Students today are given millions of choices formed in compact easy to read, easy to access summaries. The problem is that in the digital age of email, text, and internet everything is so short. I worry that this leaves us with a shorter attention span then ones of earlier generations. I've certainly heard this argument made before. 

So I thought about those quotes and I thought about libraries and reading. It's true that the short formed textual readings of the internet age are probably the preferred medium for children in high school and the young adults we find in college. These quotes, and largely this speech, seem to think they work together but I worry that they are actually at war. I described my library and computer lab with a vast distance partly because I feel like that distance exists in between the two mediums of reading. Partly it's out of convenience. A computer is certainly an easier source of information than a book but are we sacrificing endurance for speed? 

I remember in math class we would always learn the hard way to doing a formula before learning the quick way. My teacher would always say it was so we'd learn to appreciate they easy when once we went through the hard way. We went through something like that with the fry readability in class a few weeks ago. I wonder if by skipping the teaching of research and learning through solid books and going straight to the internet are we robbing our students of the oppurtunity to appreciate the hunt for knowledge?

These are just some thoughts I had this week. What do you guys think? (also in theme with my blog, sorry for the long post haha.)

Cooperative Learning and Me.

So I'm no stranger to cooperative learning and I'm actually a huge fan of it. I love the roles that are given and the, seemingly, seamless integration of them. I am, however, a bit intimidated by them. I think the best lessons, coop learning, magic tricks, ect are all made to look easy. For cooperative learning to be successful the student can't really see the gears moving so to speak. I guess what I mean by that is all the effort picking groups, picking the roles, the tasks all have to be done away from the student's eye.

 I think choosing who goes in what group is very tactical. You pick the people who can most help, and be helped, by the ones they are partnered with. Often in my own high school classes we'd fight so desperately to work with our friends. Not because we thought we'd get the most out of the lesson but because we wanted to goof off. I think understanding that the groups are rigged can sometimes have the same effect as a bad heart transplant. The students will reject the system and use what ever power they have to undermine the project. That being said I think that might only happen if the structure is not sewn into the fabric of the class. In one of the English classes at CF I saw that the teacher had a big board specifically designated to cooperative learning stuff. It listed all the roles and who would perform which role for that particular weeks project. What I liked about that is that it builds the concept into the students mind right away. It moves the student away from group work (which I feel is the term that best describes the idea wanting to work with your friends and goof off) and moves towards cooperative learning. The idea of roles and performance and become a part of the culture of that classroom community. It's not something that the teacher springs on them and has to spend 15 minutes explaining ever aspect of it. It's something that has been introduced to them along with the opening of the class at the beginning of the semester. It is understood that that is a normal and common aspect of that classroom.

I think the above picture represents what I like about cooperative learning pretty efficiently. Cooperative learning encompasses so many different learning opportunities in one exercise. The student learns content but they also earn social skills, team work, independence, and self mandated structure. I think it is admittedly one of the more important aspects of a classroom, if done well.

Life long learners.

I wanted to continue with posting some Ted talks that got me thinking about education. If you haven't checked out this website it is really interesting. You can find a whole bunch of videos that can easily be used to open up discussions in lesson. Not to mention a lot of them are just really funny/interesting.

Anyway I was thinking about what it means to be a life long learner and I stumbled upon this video. In this video the guy shows us how he had been tying a shoelace the wrong way his whole life. He goes on to show the right way and ends with the point that simple changes can yield great results. So I got to thinking how that could be used in teaching. It seemed to me that there are definitely many more opportunities to learn in life other than just how to tie your shoes. School seems like a lot but often times it really only scratches the surface of the knowledge that is out there in that given subject. I think as a teacher by tweaking how I present information it might yield me better results. Students often look at school as something to get through. They learn math, or english, or history, and they're done. They'll "never have to need it" in the real world. I don't know exactly how yet but i feel like there needs to be a change in how society views education. As a teacher I feel like that falls to me in some ways to make that change. I want to be able to show my students that learning doesn't end when we're out of school. I want them to know that learning is a tool that can make your life more interesting and more fulfilling. I'm not sure how to do that yet but I feel like it's not enough for students to learn, they also need to know how to learn, and why to learn.

Our second observation

So I mentioned last week that I had some apprehensions about marking negative observations in our walk through logs. I had been thinking about it all week going in and I was thinking a lot about the comments you guys put up as well. I find myself agreeing more with what you guys were talking about, namely not thinking about it as criticism and the use of language. I think one person posted a topic about how important word choices can be. Using words like "urban schooling" can be damaging. I think using positive language has helped me take more positive learning experiences out of our second observation. Going into it I tried to keep that in mind and I really think it shaped my viewing. In the end though I think I walked away with something else that is equally as important. Teaching isn't in the one day you view.

So looking at this I started thinking about how I view teachers and how sometimes I think people unfairly view them. Often times teachers are viewed as something other than people. Now this can be viewed as a good thing or bad but I think it's definitely there. Teachers are unfairly given expectations that no other job has. They're expected to be on at all times. I think that mentality can isolate them and when looking at small portions of their work (one day, one lesson, one 5 min block) one tends to inflate it and use it to represent the teacher as a whole. I'm starting to realize that that isn't the way to go. I watched a teacher in our last observation who used her knowledge that she gained through out the semester to best solve a classroom management problem. She knew enough about the child to know how best to handle that. Now it's not fair to expect that teacher to have known that the first day of class. That's something she had to build to. What I'm liking about these observations is that we get to see that growth. We start out fairly early in the year and we may see teachers who may not handle something the best way at first but through out the year they'll learn and pick up new tricks to help them along. Just like that teacher grew accustomed to her students behaviors so will most of the others. I think putting it in that light I'm more interested in these observations now as an opportunity to go through this journey with the teachers.

Memory and Teaching.

So this post has nothing to do with any of our readings or observations and I will probably post about one of those in the next few days but I was thinking about something and I wanted to share it with everyone. So a few days ago I was watching some TedTalks and I came across the one I posted above. (I will post a link to it as well just in case it doesn't work or something) and it got me thinking about how it could potentially relate to teaching.

I think it would work best to summarize it first just in case someone can't watch it, though I highly recommend it, it is very interesting. So this guy Joshua Foer was researching a memory competition for a quirky events piece. Turns out these people could remember crazy amounts of information in very small amounts of time (like a few hours) and the winner gets some kind of prize. The technique is called the "memory palace." Now some might remember hearing about this in small detail in CEP. Basically the technique involves picturing your house, or another familiar pathway, and populating it with strange symbols you've related to what you need to remember. He uses a nude bicycle race to remember the memory competition, Brittany Spears dancing in his living room to remember an anecdote involving her, and a few more as weird as that. Doing some scientific research he found that, after using brain scans, the people using this form of memory were using different parts of their brain than normal. Not only that they were using more of their brain and were able to recall more efficiently the things they remembered. It had do do with the visual section of their brain. It turns out that is where longer kept memories are formed.

Now I don't want to go too much into detail about it but what I was thinking was why not use this in class? He brings up a point about working more to remember and using your imagination. I was thinking as an English teacher I could use this to prompt my students to say visualize Hamlet. Maybe have them cast each character in the play and have them act them out in their heads. Maybe have them visualize a scene as we read. Often I worry that people read the wrong way. People read the words on the page but never let them come to life. I find I recall what I read better if I think about the passage as I'm reading it. If I really use my imagination to add another dimension to it.

So what do you think? Is there anyway something like this could be used in your content area?

Link: http://www.ted.com/talks/joshua_foer_feats_of_memory_anyone_can_do.html

Problem commenting

Is anyone else having problems commenting on other blogs? I find myself having a difficult time. Mostly whenever I write a comment I have to write it twice because the first time I publish it it just disappears. The second time I'm prompted to prove I'm not a computer by typing out those jumbled letter number things. I find myself unable to comment at all on a mobile device, which is annoying since I primarily use a tablet. I'm just wondering if anyone else has had this problem and if so any suggestions on how to fix it?

First Observations

So going through our first observations I noticed something that I think may end causing me difficulty in my life as a teacher. I have trouble giving criticism. So I guess to give context I'll talk about the last observation my group went to. There were roughly 25 kids in that class and a fair number of them weren't paying attention, not to say everyone was, but like a good 5 or so. When it got to that question that asked how many students were engaged or however it was phrased I fought between saying 50 to 75% which it was and the one that was like 76 to 90 percent. I don't know why I just felt kind of bad. Thinking back I find this to be strange, I know that these observations only help the teachers but still I find myself feeling guilty with the idea of criticizing someone. I worry how that will come through when I'm a teacher grading students. Deep down I know that pointing out where they did wrong can only help them in the future but sometimes there is that disconnect between knowing that and wanting to be honest with their work.

Lit Profile

Sorry for the delay here's my lit profile:

When I was young I used to love thinking up stories. I would spend class days day dreaming about new super heroes and ninja warriors, the kinds of things I’d watch when I got home from class, and think up stories for them to live in. I remember one day I spent five hours in my room writing and drawing a comic about a frog who had all his limbs replaced with jetpacks and the crime fighting adventures he’d get himself into. To tell you the truth all this attention to the make believe is probably the reason I never did so well in school as a kid.

            I never really stopped telling stories. I’d fill my journals with little ideas or characters that I had no room for yet but maybe one day I could find a home for. I’ve heard people say you don’t learn how to write stories you just wait for inspiration to strike. I don’t really agree with this. There’s a lot I did to improve my writing and there’s a lot I still can do.

            As I grew up and realized this was a passion of mine I wanted to learn how to improve. I started by reading interviews from the authors I admired the most. Mostly I was looking for any and all sage advice I could find. The vast majority of them said the same thing: write. Write every day, write often, finish what you write, and move on to the next thing. So that’s what I did. I gave myself a schedule, write every day for one hour, and I kept to it. It took me awhile to realize it but writing is a lot like exercising. Nobody walks into the gym and lifts huge amounts of weights their first day, nobody runs a marathon and expects to do well their first time. So as such I learned to accept that I would struggle at first, that my best work would come later and that I was working up towards it. I accepted that writing was like a muscle, not some magical inspiration generator, and that I had to work my creativity muscle.

            Next I read a lot. I didn’t just read books I enjoyed I read books I hated and I analyzed why I hated them. I learned what to avoid and from the good books I learned what worked. I read things like “Alan Moore’s guide to writing comics.” A book about ways to think up new innovative methods for writing comic books, though admittedly the material was applicable to any medium.

            I think writing stories and teaching have a lot in common. Writing requires a lot of organization, you have to keep track of all the characters, the settings, plots, ect. Teaching is a lot like that. You have to remember all your students, all their needs and accommodations, you have to organize your time and your ideas, and then there’s all the papers you have to organize. However I don’t think that is the most important similarity.

            Teaching and writing are, at their core, about one thing: getting your point across. As a writer you have to write a story that puts ideas in the reader’s head with out over explaining the symbols and metaphors. No one wants to read a book where all the author does is tell you what happens instead of showing you. The same thing goes for teaching. One can’t simply tell a student the meaning of a poem, or a show them a math equation. They have to present the material in such a way that the students can replicate it and show understanding. For both of them it’s not just about how great of an idea you think it is but also clearly you present it to your audience.

            I think that’s what I like the most about teaching and writing. They both depend a lot on you. With writing there are only so many plots, really when you break it down there are really only 2 plots in writing, what makes it unique is how you write it and what you bring to it. With teaching all the content is already there for you. You don’t have to write the poems you teach or discover the formulas or anything like that but how you put your own twist on it is what makes you a good teacher. There are plenty of resources out there to help you teach, much like the books that taught me how to write, but ultimately it’s about what you can bring to the table. 

CF First impressions

So I was admittedly nervous going into cf last week. I've heard bad things about the school in the news and then nothing much else outside of that. No one talks about cf unless to point out its small size or its economic problems. So going in I was pretty blind to the good that was going on. I was blown away by the clean and well put together school that made my moldy high school look like it was in shambles. I was so encouraged by jl's excited helpful attitude. It's obvious just hearing him talk that he is the right man for the job.

One thing I would say is that I'm personally against school uniforms so I wasn't thrilled to hear that they were being put into place. That being said I don't really know the situation there and it would be beyond me to question why they are being put into place.

Irony and Wilhelm Ch 2

After reading the second chapter of Wilhelm what stood out to me was the passage in which he tries to teach his students about Ozymandias. He reads the poem and the students are really excited, they read along and shout how great he is, then when he gets to the part where the speaker points out how useless the king is the students don't pick up on it. They're stuck on the initial thought that the King is this great legend. I had that same experience when teaching "the road not taken" by frost in my sed 406 class. Everyone thinks that poem is about how great it is to be an individual but really the poem is making fun of that thought. It's a poem about over indulged nostalgia. When I tried to get my 'students' to see that it was impossible. They were stuck on the idea of individualism that they were taught. For awhile I thought it best to just point out the parts that indicated the irony in the poem but what good would that do? They wouldn't know how to use irony or spot in on their own. After reading this passage I have to say I like his method. Irony is difficult and it makes sense to cultivate it through out a strongly supported unit before expecting students to just understand it.

First test post.