Week 3: Short and Sweet

This past week of student teaching was a short one. On Monday, we had off for MLK day and on Thursday and Friday I was away at a conference. That just left Tuesday and Wednesday. Even though this was only two days, they were full ones! This short week featured the end of my filming for edTPA (wahoo!) and my first day of full takeover.

Standard 4 of the Illinois Learning Standards says, "The competent teacher structures a safe and healthy learning environment that facilitates cultural and linguistic responsiveness, emotional well-being, self-efficacy, positive social interaction, mutual respect, active engagement, academic risk-taking, self-motivation, and personal goal-setting." This standard focusses on the idea of learning environment of the classroom and how a teacher should be a part of this. This standard seemed to appear and especially connect throughout this past week. At my placement this week, I got to step even more fully into the role of teacher through both my involvement in facilitating learning as well as my involvement in discipline (once again). All of these things contributed to creating a safe and healthy learning environment.

In facilitating learning and classroom environment, I did things like leading our morning routine, bringing the students to and from their specials, and end of day pack-up. These were all tasks necessary for the full-takeover piece of my student teaching. I have been able to see how important it is to make sure that these transition times are run smoothly and safely. This has meant making sure students are quiet and walking in a line when we move from place to place. It also has meant making sure students get to the bus on time or know all the information they need to know for the next day before leaving. Even though these things seem small, I have seen how crucial and important they are for smooth sailing in the classroom.

Discipline also has a lot to do with creating this safe environment. If students misbehave, then suddenly there is the potential for negative factors of a classroom environment to creep in. This week, I had to discipline another student for his misbehavior in the hallway and lack of respect for me as the teacher. And I had to do it solo! After the misbehavior, I had the student flip his card and had a conversation with him about his misbehavior, which helped in reconciling the behavior as well as doing so in a way that is rooted in love.

One particular highlight of this week was having more-than-usual support from my cooperating teacher. She has been so helpful and encouraging throughout my edTPA process so far. I also feel like we have been able to work together in planning lessons, co-teaching, and just bouncing ideas off of each other which has given me a further glimpse into the value of collaboration that takes place on a team of educators.

This week may have been a short one (two days!), but there were a lot of sweet moments of learning that came through gaining responsibility, discipling, and collaborating.

Classroom Confidential: Great Teachers Are Ringmasters
After reading this chapter, I learned a lot about behavior and was able to make connections to my own classroom. First of all, the term "misbehavior" can take on many different forms. Typically, we think of it as acting out, but some misbehaviors go more easily unnoticed. For example, students who zone out, do not follow directions, exhibit distracting behavior, or just flat out acting out are all example of misbehaviors. Schmidt also talked about the underlying reasons that misbehavior occurs: to seek pleasure and to avoid pain. These two things drive the misbehaviors of students, but there are various ways that these behaviors can be combatted which Schmidt describes as self-accommodations, as well as giving eight different strategies that teachers can put in place. In order to do this, you must know your students well enough to know their behavioral tendencies. Once you do this, you are more able to put into place a self-accommodation that is most fitting.

There were many things throughout this chapter that resonated with me and with my experiences in the classroom this semester. There was a particular section of this chapter that talks about camouflages, which are particular acts that a student may take on when exhibiting a certain behavior. For example, the "charmer" is one who try to win over others by complimenting and being helpful to get what they want. From the outside, this does not at all look like a misbehavior. When reading this, I have one particular student that comes to mind. The same goes for the "bad boys" of the class. I have one student who puts on this tough and defiant exterior that can sometimes be difficult to see past. This chapter helped me to recognize these behaviors as well as how to respond to them when they occur.

Week 2: Speak Up

One thing that I have particularly enjoyed about teaching with students at the sixth grade level is the ability to have more meaningful conversations with them. Whether it is chatting before lunch with a student or asking them about their day as they are packing up to go home, these students' responses seem more relatable and relational-- in comparison to a first grader for example. This particular age group has lots of interesting and valuable things to say, but sometimes it is not so easy to draw these things out of them. Sometimes they need to be encouraged to speak up.

As a teacher-in-training, I have also needed to be encouraged to speak up, by my cooperating teacher and even by my own students! This week, I was taking my students back from their special at library (which was in a fairly large room) and so I yelled, in what I thought was a loud enough voice, "Okay sixth graders, it's time to leave for math. Pack up your things and then line up at the door." As they all began to pack up, one of my students turned to me and said, "you have a soft voice."

Basically he was saying, you need to speak up.

Even though this was just one brief comment that maybe did not have much thought put into it (and was maybe even borderline disrespectful), it meant something to me. As I teacher, I need to speak up, which can show up in a variety of ways and take on a variety of meanings. For example...

When you are teaching a class, speak up.

In terms of audibility, I have noticed that I need to speak louder when teaching. I did some practice filming for my edTPA this week (as well as real filming) and noticed that I am hard to hear, which may be due in part to the overall camera quality, but it made me realize that I can and should be speaking louder than I have been. When teaching, it is important to speak clearly and confidently. I have found that in doing so, students gain a stronger sense of understanding and respect for you as a teacher. This week I taught eight lessons total, and each one I teach, I gain little more confidence and understanding of the curriculum, my students, and my ability to teach. Because of these things, I can and have spoken up a little more with each lesson taught.

When a student does something extraordinary, speak up.

Sometimes all it takes for a student to share their unique abilities is for a teacher to name it. One of my math students this week showed an in-depth and advanced understanding of a concept that I had not yet taught. This student is one who is shy and rarely speaks in class, even when working in a small group. He is not placed at the high table and often lacks evidence of understanding on his assignments. But I caught that he understood this, so I challenged him to speak up. When encouraged to do so he explained his method for solving a problem on the board for the rest of the class to learn from, and it seemed like a bit of a breakthrough moment for him. The next day, the class took a pre-assessment and there was one particular problem that the class struggled with and only two students got it correct. One of them just so happened to be the shy student who spoke up the previous day. This time, I spoke up and told him how extraordinary he was for not only getting this question correct, but also for demonstrating his knowledge.

When a student does something not-so-extraordinary, speak up.

This is one I have trouble with. I would be perfectly content with students that always listen to me, respect me, and behave properly. This week, I had to discipline multiple times. At one point, one student would not listen to me when I told him to get back in his spot in line. Once he did not listen, it became a respect issue. Even though I am still timid about discipline at times, I spoke up and gave him the choice to either get in the back of the line in the next five seconds or going back to the room and flip his card. He waited much longer than the five seconds and then went to the back of the line, so I made him return to the room to flip his card. As a student-teacher, I realize that I am going to get a little pushback about discipline and have already been experiencing that. My teacher had a conversation with the class earlier in the week prior to this incident telling them that they are to treat me like their teacher. One girl in the class told me that a boy sitting next to her responded to this with, "I'm not going to treat her like my teacher." Unfortunately, there could be more students in the class like this, so by speaking up and cracking down on discipline, I may be able to establish the respect I deserve as their teacher.

As a teacher, you should speak up for your students and encourage them to speak up as well.

Illinois Professional Teaching Standard 9 covers professionalism, leadership, and advocacy. This whole idea of speaking up for your students directly relates to the advocacy piece of this standard. By speaking up for students, you are advocating for them. As a teacher, you can help students to have their voices heard. Often, when my math students are answering a question, they speak quietly and I tell them that I cannot hear them. I do this so that they will make their voices heard, because they truly do have intelligent things to say. I also appreciated this week when my students spoke up and let me know that they were confused and that I needed to explain a particular concept further. This week I also experienced their voices being hear through voting on door decoration ideas. Each student has a voice in this, and has the ability to speak up. We started a unit this week on Ancient Realms and I was thankful that my students spoke up to say how excited they were for this unit. When students speak up for the things they care about and the knowledge they have, it is a beautiful thing!

Goals for this week:
-Speak louder when filming the remainder of my edTPA.
-Speak up and tell at least three students about something that they have a particular strength in.
-Do not be afraid to discipline, and when you do, do it confidently.

Week 1: Goal-Getters

At 7:30 on Wednesday morning I sat in the newly constructed library of Stony Creek Elementary for an early morning faculty meeting. It was the first meeting of the year, so the administrator talked to us about making goals for 2019 (as is fitting in the new year). As an optional activity, we could record those goals using an Adobe Spark slide, and had the option of posting it in the staff room. The goals that were voiced ranged from spending more time after school to drinking more water. I chose to participate in this activity and created the following slide:

Although these goals are a little broad and simple, it is also important to make specific goals in my journey towards becoming a teacher. Last week, I had the goals of pacing and learning more about the curriculum. I was able to teach three more lessons, during week 1, and I feel as though I improved slightly on pacing. I have realized that there are specific pieces of my math lessons in which I need to improve a lot more on in terms of pacing. For example, when we discuss "I can" statements and evidence for learning targets, I need to keep things moving a lot quicker than I have been. As far as my curriculum goal, I have learned a lot more about math and reading curriculum.

I am not the only one setting goals lately. My students have also been creating goals for themselves and then continue to follow up with those goals every few months or so. It has been encouraging for me to watch them set and reach goals this past week. For example, one of my students is an ELL and she had set a goal to speak and write English better. Another one of my students had set a more specific goal to improve on a standardized test by a certain amount of points. He got the results back on Friday and had surpassed his goal. This particular student is one who has a lot of behavior issues and rarely gets excited about anything. Yet after receiving this score, the smile could not be wiped of his face for the rest of the day. If he had not set that goal, I do not think this meaningless number on paper would have mattered to him in the slightest. Because of this, I can see that there is something special about being a goal setter and a goal-getter.

In watching my students meet their goals, I have been encouraged to continue both with setting goals and continuing in the goals I have set. This week, I hope to specifically learn more about social studies and science and the lack of curriculum for these subjects. Another specific goal I have for this week is to find new ways to differentiate instruction in the classroom in a way that is inclusive towards our new ELL student (who I will tell you about right now) and even welcoming to her.

This week, our 6th grade homeroom class got a new student from Yemen who speaks no English aside from a simple hello. This student is a small and spunky girl who shrugs at about anything you try to tell her. She does not even know how to say or recognize her own name. She is also learning social behaviors as well. The first time she saw me, she gave me a huge hug, which was sweet, but as she continues to do that, we are trying to teach her that this is not particularly acceptable on a professional level. There are a handful of other students in our homeroom who speak Arabic who have been helpful to her in telling her simple actions like "now we are sitting down" or "go get your stuff from your locker" or "we have recess now." However, for social studies, we are still trying to figure our how to include her. Last week we were talking about Mesopotamia, so we gave her a map of the Fertile Crescent and then I had her color in specific regions a certain color. During reading, I also had her practice writing her name, as she does not know how to write since the last time she was educated was 1st grade. As stated in my previous goal, I want to find new ways to include her this week. This connects to Standard 3 of the Illinois Professional Teaching Standard about differentiating instruction. By learning about this student's diverse characteristics, I can help her towards growth, and even meeting her own goals! Not only do I hope to include her more, but I also want her to feel welcome. I learned the Arabic greetings Asalamualaikum and Salam (which also happen to be Indonesian greetings!). I plan on using these in the morning and at the end of the day so that she may hopefully feel a bit more comfortable and welcome!

Week 1 also consisted of lots of meetings, essay writing instruction, and math instruction. I feel more like part of the teaching team now as I have gotten to sit in on a variety of meetings ranging from faculty meetings, 6th grade math intervention meetings, and technology meetings. These meetings have also helped me to gain a fuller understanding of what it is like to be an actual teachers.

In addition to these meetings, I got to help my students in writing what for most of them was their first essay ever. They focused on specific parts of an essay such as the hook, the thesis, the introduction, the body paragraphs, and the conclusion. I enjoyed helping them with this process more than I expected. Because they each have their own unique ideas, each essay is a little bit different and brings out the uniqueness in each child. I was pleasantly surprised by how clever and creative some of the students were with their hooks! I was not-so-pleasantly surprise by the amount of grammatical errors that were found in my students' writing samples. Being a bit of a grammar-nazi myself, I enjoyed pointing out the errors and explaining the why behind certain grammar usages, but it made me realize how little English instruction they are getting from the Reading curriculum. It leaves me with the question: How can I incorporate and encourage more English instruction within the limits of the Reading curriculum that I am given?

The last commonality of this week was the math instruction. I taught three lessons, was observed for one of them, and have now taken over this subject. With both failures and successes, I am confident that I am learning and growing, and that my students are learning and growing as well. I am getting used to navigating the curriculum, and even taking notice at the ways that the curriculum is lacking.

In math, we set goals for every lesson in the form of "I can" statements. Sometimes it takes us one day to reach that learning target and sometimes it could take up to four. This reminds me of the importance of goal setting no matter how slow or how speedily you work towards reaching them.


Classroom Confidential: Great Teachers are Equal Opportunists
After reading this chapter, there were so many things that I could relate to, even in this short time of student teaching thus far. "Covering" the material simply so that the students are exposed to it is something that I have already felt the pressure to do. Yet as page 2 of this text says, "Learning is sacred. Curriculum is not." If I rush through the curriculum, authentic learning will not take place, and there are so many ways to do that. Schmidt outlines a few of those ways in the various intelligences that he writes about. Some of these intelligence struck me as particular ones in which would greatly benefit my teaching that I hope to use. The first one is Picture Smart-- Visual and Spacial Intelligence. This would be helpful with the English Language Learners in my classroom, particularly the new student. I also think it would be great to incorporate Body Smart--Kinesthetic Intelligence, into my lesson. My students do a lot of sitting down all day, and I think getting up and moving would be highly beneficial to their learning experience. People Smart--Interpersonal Intelligence, is another one that sticks out to me and one I hope to use because of what I know about my students. They are a social bunch, and communicating with each other is something that they value.

In this chapter, Schmidt also talked about "full brain learning." I have seen and used this in my classroom in a few ways. First of all, "give students the opportunity to develop individual projects tailored to their own interests" is something I have observed in a variety of projects. For example, we just completed a class project about endangered animals. Each student got to choose an animal that was interesting to them, and they also got to choose their preferred method of presentation. This piece stood out to me as well: "prompt students to constantly assess how various activities help the learn. By evaluating their strategies, students ideally become experts at learning." When we come up with "I can" statements, students look back at their activities to find evidence of meeting that "I can" statement, which helps them to evaluate their own learning.

Week 0: Well This is New

I had my first official day of student teaching on Thursday, December 13, 2018. Having been at the school, Stony Creek Elementary, since August, I went into this new stage of transitioning from a novice teacher to a student teacher with anticipation, but also a sense of comfort and familiarity. I knew my way around the school, I knew my teacher, I knew my students, and I knew my schedule. What more could there be to know?

I would soon find out the answer to this question was: a lot!

I began to realize this from the moment the fist bell rang at 8:10. The students stood up synchronously, recited the Pledge of Allegiance, and continued to recite the Stony Creek Pledge in unison. I had never heard the Stony Creek Pledge. I stood there, attempting to mouth a few of the words, and thought to myself, well this is new.

Those words could sum up a lot of what I encountered week one (or week zero?) of my student teaching. From book discussions to hallway procedures to home communication forms, I was able to experience new aspects of this 6th grade classroom that I had not encountered during my novice teaching. Because of all of these new things, I know that there is so much more to know, which fills me with both eagerness and nervousness.

During this week, I learned a lot of new things about collaboration between students. In Science, the students have been working on creating a presentation about endangered animals. They each have their own animal, but have been working in groups to create presentations in a specific format-- a billboard, a flyer, or a podcast. Students were able to choose which format they would use, but the students would gather with other students who were using the same format to discuss ideas and designs. Seeing students teach each other and advise each other with their presentations was a strategy that proved to be beneficial and enriching to their learning experience with this project. I saw student collaboration again throughout the week as my 6th grade homeroom wrapped up their reading and discussions of the book Hatchet by Gary Paulsen. The students were able to have some pretty fruitful discussions and connections with real life. Seeing the collaboration in both of these situations helped me to recognize the uniqueness of this age level. Different than other levels that I have experienced in other placements, these students are able to have deeper and more meaningful discussions.

Another new thing I learned this week had to do with the details of teaching. This mostly came through observation of my cooperating teacher. I helped her to prepare the home communication forms that go home every Friday, which is something I had not given much thought to previously. There are also very specific hallway procedures for walking down the hall, which I had to learn about. Navigating the detailed curriculum is another thing that is new to me. There are so many specifications in its structure, which has been pretty difficult more me. It leaves me questioning how much freedom I have in the lessons that I teach and how I can make it more engaging.

I was able to grow in my own teaching this week too. I taught two math lessons, feeling rushed each time. Pacing. This is something that I know I have improved on, but yet have a long way to go. Overall, my lessons when well, but pacing is a goal of mine that I hope to improve immensely during this student teaching experience. Another goal I have is to learn more about the curriculum and its requirements, but also the room allowed to deviate from it.

During this week, there were a lot of things that were new to me, and I know that there are so many new things ahead (whether unwelcome or pleasant surprises), but I am figuring out that this is typical in teaching. One day is never like the next, and I am ready to see what new things the next fifteen weeks hold!