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!