Week 11: Toppling Towers of Spaghetti

On Friday, my class built spaghetti towers.

We just finished a math unit, so for the final day before March break, jumping straight into the next math unit wasn't ideal. Instead, we did a STEM activity involving spaghetti, yarn, tape, and marshmallows.

Not only did it involve those four things, but those were the only materials that my students were allowed to use. Each group of three students was given 10 sticks spaghetti, 20 inches of yarn, 1 yard of tape, and 1 marshmallow. Their goal was to build the tallest standing structure to support their marshmallow using only those materials with 15 minutes on the clock. Their structure would be measured from the floor to the marshmallow. Here are a few pictures of my students hard at work....

Looks like hard work, right? It's true, my students put a lot of hard work, strategizing, and logical thinking into building their spaghetti towers.

But you know what? They all fell.

Yep. Every single one of them. As soon as the fifteen minute timer went off, their hands had to take their hands off their structures. No sooner had they taken their hands off when one by one, each structure toppled over. There was a bag of marshmallows on the line for the winning team, but unfortunately, no one was awarded that bag of marshmallows since not one team met the requirements (but don't worry, they still split the prize and got one marshmallow each).

The students may have failed at building their spaghetti structure, but that doesn't mean that the activity was a failure. There was still a lot to learn. We talked about what worked and what didn't. We talked about the importance of both planning and risk taking. We viewed pictures of successful structures, and what we would change for next time. Here are a few specific things that we learned from this activity...

Trying something sometimes means taking a risk.

Like these spaghetti towers, sometimes you just have to stop overcomplicating things and take a risk. This week, my students had multiple tests, so I thought it would be a nice break to do a fun review activity in the form of a game. It involved movement and noise, so I thought it would for sure be a success. We ended up having to stop the game twice because of noise levels, arguing, and lack of listening. That being said, I will not be doing that game again. Playing this type of review game was risky, especially with this class. But I did learn that my class cannot handle this type of game, and I will plan accordingly in the future. Despite taking this seemingly unsuccessful risk, I think that it is important to encourage students to take risks in their work.

This week, I got to experience parent teacher conferences. I got to sit in on the conferences of a few different teachers (all with the parents' permission), so it was good to see how teachers differed from each other in running their conferences. During some of these conferences, one thing that continually came up, was the need for the student to take more risks. Students can get so stuck in right and wrong thinking, that they forget to think outside the box. Instead of focussing so heavily on getting a specific grade (which is countercultural in many Asian cultures), kids need to be kids, taking risks, and putting creativity into the work they do.


If something does not work the first time, that doesn't mean that you've failed.

Many of my students started their spaghetti towers by creating a base, which was actually a really great idea. They were definitely onto something. They did not quite get it to work, but the whole idea was not in and of itself a failure. I have also tried a few things (such as that review game) that seemed to be failures at first, but it doesn't mean I've failed. I have emphasized how loud and noisy my class can be. And really, they are so loud. all. the. time. You can imagine that the week before spring break wasn't any calmer. Well I decided to try something out to try to gather their attention when it seemed to be straying off. The whole "one, two, three, eyes on me" seems to be too juvenile for them,  and I DON'T want to revert to their last student teacher's method of using a whistle (although I've been tempted). It needed to be fun, interactive, and maybe even involve a bit of movement. So I tried the "If you hear me clap once," except I'd say it kind of quiet the first time, so only the students around me could hear, and I would say different numbers not starting at one. It was kind of like a game, and I hyped it up as much as I could. Once I started trying it during class, some of the boys refused to clap even though I called them out, and since there is no behavior management system in place, there is no consequence in place for not listening to me. Even though this method did not work, I am going to continue to look for different attention-getter strategies. Any suggestions are welcome!


You learn from your mistakes.

As each spaghetti tower toppled over, I'm sure many of my student thought to themselves, oh no, I've made a mistake. Despite this, the students still learned from their mistakes and they learned from the activity. You do not always get things right the first time and that's life, but you can choose to learn from those mistakes. I am noticing that the same goes for teaching as well. I am a student teacher right now, so if I am going to make some mistakes, now is the time, especially while being supported by a cooperating teacher. I had my first observation this week, and overall it went really well. It is nice to get feedback from people who are experienced in the field of education and can help you see the ways you are doing well as well as the ways in which you can improve. The main improvement that I was told in which I could make based on this observation is stopping to get all the students' attention. This is feedback that I will use to continue to keep trying and keep getting better so that I can be the best teacher that I can be.


When you get it, it's a really great thing.

After the spaghetti tower activities, we got to see picture of successful spaghetti towers that hadn't toppled. My students oohed and ahhed at the simple, but creative structures, saying things like, "we totally could have done that!" Although it takes mistakes to get there, when you finally find something that works, it is a wonderful thing. Even though I just went on and listed some of the things that did not work so well for me, I also had moments this week where I though, wow, this is really working well! I taught the final science lesson of the book this week, which was on exploring space. For part of the lesson, I turned off the lights and we simply viewed pictures taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Students could comment on what they liked about it and what they wondered about it. There were 100 pictures in the album, but we only had time for about 15. When I stopped it, they wanted to see more. I also heard a student say, "I love learning about science!" (which is something I never would have heard at my last placement!) I also showed my students a video about comparing the earth to the size of a golfball to show them how big the rest of space really is, and how we cannot even begin to wrap our minds around how small we are and how big this universe and God really are. This was one of those lessons where I thought afterwards, this really worked well. I could tell my students learned a lot and were impacted by the lesson.

Another thing that I got to see this week, which I thought went very well, were student led conferences (SLCs). For SLCs, parents would come to class and the student would show them different activities in science, math, and English, showing them what we have been learning recently. The students seemed to be so excited about showing their parents what they were learning. It was especially fun to see those students who don't usually participate start explaining the content in ways that I did not even realize they knew!

And now...

It's off to Cambodia for (a much needed) Spring Break!



Classroom Confidential: Chapter 6
One strategy that I enjoyed reading about which I could incorporate into my own teaching is the section about codes. At my last placement, there was a "Crypto Club" which was having students decode things and look at ciphers. Simply by having review activities or even introducing a concept in this way would be more engaging for the students.

Listen and Draw was another strategy that I could see myself easily incorporating into my teaching. My students right now love to be busy doing things, and many have trouble just sitting still and listening. By having my students engage in the activity of drawing the things they are envisioning in their heads, I would be catering to a variety of learning styles. I also think it would be cool to use these pictures for sort of a gallery walk style discussion where we could see the things that our classmates made and then talk about it as a class.

One last strategy/activity that I would like to implement into my teaching is the Everyone's an Editor strategy, specifically the Editor-in-Chief. So far, it seems like the students I have had for student teaching could use a lot of help on editing their work. Students can be quick to see the errors of others, but not see the flaws in their own work. By having each student actively participate in the editing process in a way that seems like a game, they will be more motivated to find those small errors within their and others' writing.

Week 10: Can You Hear Me Now?

You have most likely heard the well known phrase, "Can you hear me now?" which appears in a Verizon (or was it Sprint?) cell phone commercial. I found myself saying this phrase, "can you hear me now" frequently while attempting to FaceTime a friend, and fellow student teacher, last week due to the sometimes spotty WiFi. I would be talking to my friend, telling her about my experience in Indonesia so far, and suddenly I would realize she wasn't listening because she could no longer hear me. With lots of redialing, reconnecting, and repeated can you hear me nows, we were slowly but surely able to catch up with each other and really hear what each other had to say.

As strange as this may sound, I have had similar experiences to this FaceTime call in my classroom this past week. I taught my first lesson last week. Similar to the FaceTime call, I was talking and in the middle of the lesson, when I realized that my students seemed to not be listening and that they could no longer hear me. This was not because because of faulty WiFi or confusing concepts, but rather it was because students were talking while I was. When one students started talking, others started talking, and to make matters worse, I didn't quite have their names all down yet. It seemed like what I was saying was not quite reaching them.

This trend continued in my future lessons as well. I taught one or two lessons every day last week and had the same continuous problem. My students were just plain noisy while I was teaching. This was very frustrating for me at first. Because of the lack of behavior management system, I did not have a set way of getting their attention. By loudly stating "5th graders!" and then individually calling them out for talking, I can eventually get them to quiet down. But no sooner after I start speaking, I hear the mumble of voices under mine once again.

In my last placement, there was a strict behavior management system in place. If the students talked while I was talking, they would be told to be quiet by me, their teacher, and if it persisted, they would be told to flip their card. This seemed to work for all the students, and because of this, silence was common.

Here, silence is rare.

As I continued to observe and teach, I have come to realize something about the lack of silence. Noise and talking doesn't mean that my students are not engaged. At my last placement, if my students were talking, it meant that they were off task. Here, I do not think it's quite the case. It is hard to get this class to quiet down, but a lot of the time, this is due to the fact that they are all shouting out answers and vocalizing their thought processes.

They are just noisy learners.

It took me a little bit to realize this fact and face this truth, but talking does not mean not engaged. My students are hearing me just fine (most of the time). When I look at their assignments and evaluate their learning, they are learning in my lessons even though I often doubt whether they even hear me. However, it doesn't stop at simply being heard. I can go one step further and connect with them on a more meaningful level through the way that I teach.

Just like that FaceTime call, I need to continually look for ways to reconnect to my students.

Reconnecting to my students looks different for each class. In order to reconnect to my students, I need to know how they learn best. I have quickly learned that these students learn best when given the opportunity and the freedom to talk. Illinois Professional Teaching Standard says, "The competent teacher plans and designs instruction based on content area knowledge, diverse student characteristics, student performance data, curriculum goals, and the community context. The teacher plans for ongoing student growth and achievement." The specific and diverse needs of this class is that they need to move and talk while learning. I am intentionally trying to find ways to make lessons extra engaging and hands-on for this group. Here are a few ways that I have incorporated noise and movement into the classroom...

-In math, we are working with 3D shapes, so we have been creating our own 3D shapes by cutting them out and folding them to make our own.

-For science, we are learning about the solar system. I had students get up to model this by having one student be the sun, one student be the earth and it's rotation/revolution, and one student be the moon and it's rotation/revolution. Students have also done this in small groups as well.

-When we look at something on the board, they all have the option of getting up and sitting on the carpet.

-In general, I am more lax about the volume level in my class while teaching, as long as students can still hear me.

By catering to my students' diverse needs, I am trying to reach them and I am trying to get the to hear me. They are used to learning in a noisy environment, but I think teaching with this diverse characteristic in mind has helped them to learn even more. Teaching in this type of environment is definitely not something I am used to this, and it is something that I am still navigating through. I am starting to accept that teaching with complete silence is just not going to happen with this class.

I know what they say, silence is golden, but this class doesn't seem to be in the market for that.



Here are a few other highlights from the week:

-I finished and submitted my edTPA! Yay! Because of this, I feel like I can relax and enjoy my placement a bit more. So far, it is so nice to have this weight off my shoulders!

-I got to observe an ELL classroom. When I got there, the students were each allowed to ask me one question, so I answered questions like "What is your favorite color?" and "What is your favorite fruit?" In their lesson they talked about big animals and small animals and participated in some pretty engaging activities. Every time I observe an ESL setting, I am reminded how much I love it! Whether it is next year or somewhere down the road, I would love to teach in an ELL classroom.

-I taught my first lesson! Overall, it went well. Ironically, I was teaching a lesson on how the earth's movement affects seasons, only to realize that Indonesia does not quite have those seasons (only rainy and dry). It was fun trying to explain this, but I think my students understood. I have noticed that there are lots of little cultural differences like this that pop up while I plan my lessons. For example, I was putting together an "I Spy" game for my students with different real life 3D shapes and realized that I was finding things that they might not know what it was!

Week 9: Out of the Ordinary

Halo from Indo! (Halo is hello, Indo is Indonesia--you get the point.)

Just like that, my first week of student teaching in Indonesia is done! Part of me feels like I just got here yesterday, and another part of me feels like I've already been here for much longer. Time is a weird thing! Speaking of time, I am thirteen, now twelve, hours ahead over here, and am just about over some major jet lag. There is so much I could say about my first week especially as I am in both a new classroom and a new country.

To sum it up, this week was a bit (okay, A LOT) out of the ordinary.

On Sunday, my taxi picked me up from the airport and weaved through the infamous Jakarta traffic to the southern side of the city where it dropped me off in front of my apartment. No wait, it dropped me off in front of a mall. Wait, no it was the school.

Actually, it is all three of those things. I live in an apartment that is beneath the school that is connected to the mall all in one huge high-rise building. Not so ordinary, right? Here is the view from my apartment:

The coming week was also sure to be out of the ordinary as three of the five days were dress up days, one was a holiday (day off), and one was a professional development day, all of which I was informed of upon my arrival. Monday was the start of book week, so the students could either wear their uniform, or dress up like a book character. Tuesday was Dr. Seuss day, so the students could dress up like any Dr. Seuss character. Wednesday was dress like an author day (which I still do not understand what that means). Below is a picture of my class on Dr. Seuss day. About 3/4 of the school was either Thing 1 or Thing 2, hence all the red shirts. I attempted (very last minute might I add) to dress as Horton from Horton Hears a Who.

Before this placement, I had been in the same 6th grade classroom since August, so the students, the teacher, and the way things were run had become ordinary. Coming to a new placement, with new students, and a new cooperating teacher, things are far from my previous standard of ordinary.

It became ordinary for my students to be quiet, not really enjoying school. You could say my students are out of the ordinary as they are a pretty energetic and talkative bunch.

It became ordinary for my cooperating teacher to be pretty strict. You could say my new CT is out of the ordinary under that standard.

It became ordinary for there to be a closely followed behavior management system in place. Again, that would be a bit out of the ordinary here, or at least in this classroom.

To flesh out some of these out-of-the-ordinary qualities, I'll explain what I mean. When telling other people that I am a student teacher in this particular class, they cringe a bit and say "good luck." This particular class is notorious for being full of energy, noisy, and with as much craziness for it to still be a good thing. Apparently their last student teacher had to use a whistle. They are unlike any other class in the school, or so I've heard. For some reason, they just have an extra dose of energy than other classes, and they always have. As for the way my cooperating teacher handles this, I was surprised off the bat. During class while my CT is teaching, the students often walk around and talk during the lesson. I am still trying to figure out how much "withitness" my CT has that this is all going on. Through my own observing, I was able to see a lot of what went on behind the scenes, which was a lot. As I mentioned, there is not much of a classroom management system in place. In fact there is not one. This is a huge change of pace from my last placement because whenever students would talk there, they would immediately be punished. Here, they just talk all the time. I am seeing both extremes, so it will be interesting navigating this way of managing a classroom once I start teaching.

When I first observed this rambunctiousness during class, I thought there was no way that the students are actually learning, but when I checked their work, they knew exactly what they are doing. These students are smart. I mean this as nicely as possible, but this is a huge change from my first placement. Those students were very low, especially in math. My 5th graders here do great with math as well as other subjects. On Dr. Seuss Day, my CT had a spur of the moment idea in reading to have them write their own Dr. Seuss stories. This is going to be interesting. So that's what they did. The students paired up or worked on their own and spent 20 minutes or so working on writing a Dr. Seuss style story. As I walked around, looking and listening in on their conversations and work, I was surprised by what I saw. These students were writing stories that were way above the level of what I would expect from 5th graders, incorporating creative writing styles and original ideas. Their writing was extraordinary compared to my 6th graders in my last placement, which is a refreshing change of pace.

Do you know what else is out of the ordinary, in fact, it's extraordinary? This is a Christian school! I have never been in a placement at a Christian school during my time at Trinity. I am discovering how much of a gift it is to be able to talk about Jesus with your students freely and openly. Wednesday is Chapel day, so after lunch we all gathered as 4th-6th grade classes on the very top floor for Chapel. Some of the students from my class led worship, which was so cool to watch, and then one of the PE teachers gave a message.

Another out-of-the-ordinary thing that I have enjoyed is squeezing the entire 5th grade class on one elevator at the end of the day to go 5 floors down to street level. Oh, and did I mention that there are 13 floors in this building and that during the school day, we only use the stairs?

There are a lot of ways that life here in Indonesia is out of the ordinary to me. The traffic, the language, the temperature, the food, etc.--All of these things make life out of the ordinary right now, but over time, I am sure some of these things will become more ordinary to me as I adjust.

Week 8: Flying Solo

As I am writing this, I am on a plane on my way to Indonesia. I have traveled to pretty far places before, but never by myself. I am quite literally flying solo.

I did a lot of flying solo this week, both figuratively and literally. As it was my last week at Stony Creek Elementary, so I had the opportunity to travel around from classroom to classroom in order to observe different ages and types of classrooms. It was really nice to just do my own thing and gain all of these beneficial experiences. I also had the opportunity to solo teach once again as my teacher subbed in another classroom.

In each of these classrooms, I had very different experience, and had various insights and reactions. In my first observation, I went to a 5th grade classroom to observe math. One thing that was really surprising to me was the great difference in maturity, behavior, and interest in learning between 5th and 6th. Despite there being only one year difference between these grades, there seemed to be a huge difference. The 5th graders seemed so young compared to the 6th graders. During the math class, the teacher I was observing used PearDeck as an entrance and exit ticket for her students. I have learned about PearDeck in the past, but I had never actually used it in the classroom.

This week I changed that.

For one of my reading lessons, I created a PearDeck game to review vocabulary. Although the students had fun with it, they did not take it seriously enough because their sentences were horrible (and my cooperating teacher let them know that). However, I am not going to be discouraged by this because this specific class really struggles with vocabulary. With a different class (such as my next placement) I think this tool would be greatly beneficial.

On Tuesday morning, I got to observe three out of the four 4th grade classes. Things did not go as planned and one class had to end up testing, causing all of the other classes to change their plans. The three remaining classes were all doing Junior Scholastic articles about Pandas. It was interesting to see that even though they were all doing the same topic/resources, they used different teaching methods. Some had worksheets, some had online magazines, some had the physical magazine, some used BrainPop, some were independent, some were in partners, and so on. This simply shows how there are endless ways to structure activities, and that it will vary depending on your students and how they work best.

During my observation, I was also surprised by how (inwardly) critical I was when observing certain classes. Yes, I am just a student teacher, but I can also tell when something is being taught well or not so well. In one particular classroom, I felt like I wanted to jump in the whole time. I didn't of course, but the students all seemed to not be listening, and the teacher did nothing about it. The style of classroom management did not seem effective, the students were not speaking/reading loud enough, and the whole lesson just seemed a bit disorganized. There was also a lot of students that ended up of the ground during this class, which I was super confused by. If that would have happened in my class, I would have told the students to get back in their seats, but the teacher did not even acknowledge it. In another instance, the teacher was showing a math problem incorrectly, or at least I thought it was being computed incorrectly. If it were my cooperating teacher, I would have spoken up, but I did not want to do that in a classroom that I was in for the first time.

Although some of the classroom management styles were styles I do not want to repeat, I also picked up a few strategies that seemed beneficial along the way. In one classroom, the teacher used was a super clap to quiet her students down, two if needed. One teacher used a "clip down" method similar to the card flipping method in my homeroom. One teacher let her students show their work on their laptop by "doing a lap" around the room with their laptop so that the other students could see their work. In another classroom, the students began reading in British accents (it was a British story) and they seemed to have fun and stay engaged with that. I realize that some classes would not be able to handle that, but this one was.

The 2nd grade teacher/classroom that I observed was great! The teacher had an entirely different demeanor than that of, say, a 6th grade teacher. Even I changed the way I talked to them than I would for my 6th graders. 2nd grade is a bit younger than I would like to teach, but it was good for me to have the experience of observing this age level. These students were very young, but I they were able to do more than I expected. I was observing during a reading lesson, and then after that they broke off in centers. I asked a few of them questions about what they were working on and had them read to me out loud while some were doing independent reading.

Another experience I enjoyed during my time flying solo this week was observing a 6th grade Two-Way Immersion (TWI) classroom. It was interesting because many of the student in that class are either in my math or my science class, so seeing them speak Spanish sort of showed a completely different side of them. They started doing their reading lesson in English, and then did the second part of it in Spanish. I was able to understand most of what they were saying, and I even tried out my Spanish speaking skills a bit!

Lastly, I really enjoyed the experience of observing and getting involved in an ESL classroom. I didn't realize it until then, but I really enjoy teaching in and ELL resource room, and it is not something I have been able to do since last year. One of my students was in room while I was observing. I got to work with her a bit and we even walked around the school, pointing out different objects and how to say them. That student talked more than I ever had heard her talk. The ESL teacher said that this was the case with many of the students in her room. This room created an environment for the students were they felt comfortable to learn and speak out when they had questions or when they had anything to say at all, which is important to do in any classroom.

I learned a lot while flying solo in both my teaching and observing from class to class. In my teaching, it allowed me to be more comfortable and do my own thing. In observing, it allowed me to see different places, and observe differences between both students and teachers.