It's almost the end

Well folks we're down to the wire. This week went by very fast and we finished up the last portion of PSSA testing. It's definitely been stressful for me as I try to finish up my unit and grade everything that I have and get it back to the students. I wish that I had just a little more time so I didn't feel so rushed. Either that or more energy. The week went pretty well and my co-op didn't spend a lot of time in the classroom in an effort to give me some time to really be all by myself. I appreciated that because while getting feedback was important, I also feel having time to be by myself in the classroom is important as well. To echo what I'm sure everyone else is saying, I can't believe it's almost over. It just doesn't seem possible. I've learned so much through this experience about how to teach, what to teach, classroom management, the way teenagers act, and a lot about myself in general. I've also learned that I feel bad when I give out bad grades but that some students don't pay attention and include what they're supposed to or turn their stuff in on time so bad grades become unavoidable. Mostly I've found that I worry that my instruction wasn't good enough and that something I did caused them to do poorly. Probably one of hte biggest things I've learned through this opinion of my work is that I'm harder on myself than anyone else. A teacher doesn't always have to be perfect and sometimes lessons and units aren't going to work out as well as we'd like them to and that's okay. You just have to learn from it and try to help your students with what isn't clicking for them. I hope for my last week that I can enjoy myself, my students, and my colleagues, get all my work done, and not have a mental breakdown. Good luck to all of you in your last week and, if I don't see you in all teh graduation craziness next week congratulations and goodluck.

Observation and week 6

In this week's news PSSA testing at Lamberton continues and we began a unit on the play The Diary of Anne Frank and we started a vocabulary unit. The week was an odd one, at times it felt very fast and at others very slow. I feel like one thing that improved for me this week was my class engagement. I've been trying very hard to achieve the same type of engagement that I had in my last placement. It was easy for me to get students to talk at the high school placement but for some reason I was having a hard time with it at LMS. With the start of the new unit I've been able to actively engage kids relying on their prior knowledge and asking questions trying to extend what they know. I hope that the rest of the unit continues to go well. I have a lot of grading and work to do in the next week and a half. Unfortunately with all of the extra stuff in this placement (ie: placement testing, field trips, movies, etc)my first unit took a lot longer than I'd hoped. Now I'm teaching the vocab unit and The Diary of Anne Frank unit simultaneously. Though it means I'll stress a little and sleep for a week when after graduation I'm glad to keep going and have time to teach and continue to get to know my students.

The big thing for this blog is my observation. I had my final observation today and Dr. Mortimore came to observe my 3rd section class. While the lesson itself went well, the main issue was with classroom management. For my lesson I consolidated some vocab that we've been working on and then transitioned to a KWL on Anne Frank, a slideshow of the Frank family and the other people who hid with them, and assigned parts for the play on Monday. Today the students were pretty unruly. There was a lot of talking, side conversations, people who forgot just about anything and everything, and just a general lack of focus. I believe that contributing factors to the rowdiness were the fact that it was A. Friday, B. afternoon, and C. a PSSA testing day. That being said, I definitely did not do some of the things I should have. I had to tell students several times to be quiet and get focused. Looking back I should have used wait time a little more instead of telling them to get quiet, separated some people (possibly) or asked students who were constantly being disruptive to leave. Something that Dr. Mortimore suggested was to assign silent work if talking becomes too much of a problem. Another thing we discussed was to have the students do some silent work right at the beginning of class to quiet them down right away. I think these will be things that I will consider implementing for the future. In this placement they won't work so well for the next few weeks but they are both techniques that I'd be interested to use in my own classroom. The next class that I had after Dr. Mortimore left worked very well. It's amazing how different those students were from the first period class. Even though I had days this week and last week with much better management I know it's something that is a constant challenge to teachers and something we've all worked on this semester. I'm glad that Dr. Mortimore got a chance to see this class because I didn't have management problems in my first placement. I can take the information from my co-op and now from Dr. Mortimore and hopefully have great classroom management for my last week and a half.

Good luck to everyone with their last week and a half, portfolios, and impact projects. Enjoy the last few days.

Countdown: 2.5 weeks....yikes

Hello all! After our dinner on Wednesday night my week got progressively better. I got over my issues and I'm really excited about finishing these last few weeks strong. I feel like I have a good handle on my new unit (The Diary of Anne Frank...the play) and I'm really excited about starting it. I haven't felt this excited since I was at my placement so I think that's a good sign even though I wish it would have happened earlier. My biggest challenge with the unit I just finishd is that I had trouble getting students involved and as a result it bored them and it didn't really let us get to know each other. I should have tried to create activities where my students were actively engaged and while I wanted them too be sometimes I thought they were but looking back they weren't. This is something that I took into consideration when I planned my new unit and I tried to create more opportunities for engagement. Also, I'm trying to work on my classroom management. Some days are better than others and I'm trying to use more direct, firm statements and calling out individual students who are causing problems.

Not much happened this week, PSSA tests took up a lot of our time (as I'm sure they did for most of you) and I had to plan my time around those. The same thing will happen next week but I think that my literature unit will be easier for me to teach around testing than my writing unit. I attended Lamberton's faculty meeting on Tuesday which I liked because it was pretty short and sweet. The principal got right to the point of what he wanted to say and we got through the agenda pretty quickly. This is a lot different than the faculty meeting I wanted to at Ship (although we read an article for that one that brought up a lot of discussion). My placements have been very different and as I've bene thinking about it in regards to jobs I agree with what Jenna said on Wednesday. A lot of the way you feel about the school is the environment. While I think that I like high school better, I'd definitely be willing to give middle school a shot in my own classroom.

For the last few weeks I'm setting some goals for myself:
1. Get students more engaged
2. Develop better classroom management

Good luck in the last few weeks. We're almost there.

MLA, Washington D.C., and Dances With Wolves Too

Hello fellow student teachers! I want to start by saying congratulations to all of us because we officially have 3 and a half weeks left until we're done with student teaching and we become Shippensburg graduates! I hope everyone has a good last few weeks and makes it through PSSA's in one piece (yayyy).

Now on to my week. I did write a post about my observation on Wednesday but I'd like to start by revisiting Tuesday. On Tuesday I did a lesson with my students on MLA and works cited. I believe that my students understood but my co-op recommended that when I'm using guided notes that I should really engage the students more and to find a way to create a good activating strategy. On Wednesday I did a lesson on thesis statements and I tried to incorporate more discussion throughout the guided notes and both my co-op and I thought that I did a better job than the day before. He still suggested that I work on my activating strategy but he provided me with some examples of ones he uses and I think that will help as I move forward. Wednesday's 4th period was also one of my hardest classroom mangagement days. I was using an article that talked about getting off of school for holidays of minority religions such as Islam and Judaism. It was specific to their district and in fact had been written by a student from a few years ago. The first three classes were not a problem so I didn't expect 4th period to be a problem either but they got into a more hotly contested debate about the issue which made it hard for them to focus on what I was teaching them. I didn't want to make any student feel like their opinion was't important and I really hope that they didn't feel this way. Afterward Mr. G and I talked about setting specific guidelines for discussions like those. 8th grade is a tough age to teach. They have a lot of energy, questions, emotions, and some of them are offended very easily. I hate to think that I could accidentally make anyone feel bad.

Thursday was my field trip with the students. We went to Washington D.C. and took a group of 8 students (along with my co-op and a parent chaparone) around the monuments and the Smithsonian. Overall it went well and the students seemed to have a good time. The ride home was very loud but it was an interested experience. I'm officially scared for more field trips though.... On Friday we watched Dances With Wolves as part of something for history class. All in all it was a pretty low key week.

While I was considering all the feedback that I recieved this week, and feeling a little overwhelmed at points, I came to the realization that there aren't many other professions that require their professionals to take as much feedback as we do. I enjoy recieving feedback so I can improve my teaching but sometimes I have to tell myself to not get upset because it can be very heavy. I think that this week felt a little overwhelming and as it gets down to the end all of this is coming up. I hope that I can always take the feedback and turn it into something positive and improve my teaching.

On an uplifting note to a very long post, I'd like to leave you all with a quote for our last few weeks, "So be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O'Shea, you're off to great places! Today is your day!Your mountain is waiting. So get on your way!"

Observation 3

Today I had my third observation and I believe that overall it went pretty well. I was happy with the content of my lesson (which was on thesis statements) and the handout I created. I created a series of rules for the students to use when creating a thesis statement. I incorporated the use of the smartboard into my lesson and wrote the answers the fill in the blank statements on it.
My lesson started with an example article from a few years ago. We read it aloud as a class and then briefly discussed it. In addition to asking students if they agreed or disagreed with it, I also asked them to identify the topic, the position of the writer, and the thesis statement. We did this orally in whole group. Then we progressed to filling out the worksheet. I had students volunteer answers if they knew them and we went over examples at the end. The remaining class time was spent in the computer lab working on their persuasive letter to the editor.
After talking with Dr. Mortimore and my co-op I identified a few things to work on. One of those is to try and involve more students even if it is just in a pair share so that each student is held accountable for the information and to increase participation. Also, I've been having problems including good activating strategies. I believe that I thought of the article as an interest generating piece but as my co-op pointed out, the students didn't know why they were reading it until after we were done. By using a more specific activator, I would be able to give them a point to it before we start. This is something I'm going to work on for the new few weeks. One other thing that was suggested was to give students more examples and more opportunity to practice their own. The students need to see what thesis statements look like so giving them more examples (and lots of them) would have helped them to see several different ones. In terms of writing their own, this would give them good practice for their letters. Since most people learn by doing this would have been a better use of some of our class time than just reviewing the answers verbally. I think by incorporating these things into my upcoming lesson it will make the classroom a better, more engaging place. I look forward to my final observation, I can't believe it's almost here. Field trip tomorrow...wish me luck!

Short week

I'm writing this on Wednesday because LMS is off Thursday-Monday. This week, though short, offered some good learning experiences. My co-op complimented me on my classroom management in our regular classroom from last week and I think (hope)I'm doing well. On Monday and Tuesday we spent time in the computer lab researching on a topic of the student's choice. They are writing persuasive letters to the editor and they have to find two sources on their topic. Topics ranged from school uniforms, to rules for skateboarders, to global warming and deforestation. We discussed the databases, credible sources, search terms, and then we were off. Monday was a little rough. People were getting started, I was trying to get around to all of them to approve their topics and things got a little loud and a little dicey at times. On Tuesday my co-op and I discussed computer lab classroom management and I tried to make the necessary adjustments. It went much better on Tuesday. I was able to address problems earlier and the students worked much better. My co-op said I did a good job trying to make the changes and advice he suggested. Today we didn't have regular class but we did watch the movie version of To Kill a Mockingbird. I had some problems with a few students who kept talking and picking at teach other. Eventually I moved on of the students and later another student asked if he could move. Aside from those management issues today went well. I hope that everyone has a fantastic Easter weekend. Enjoy your break.

Oh Middle School

What a week! This week I started out teaching half of the time on Monday and Tuesday. My students were finishing up their To Kill a Mockingbird unit with my co-op. They had their test on Wednesday and then I took over full time teaching on Thursday and Friday. The tricky part of the week was that on Thursday, when I took over, my co-op was out of the building part of the day and that particular part of the day happened to be when our classes were. What this meant for me is that 1. it was afternoon and the students were wound up and 2. at times it was a little difficult to keep them focused. One strategy that I found worked well was a little wait time. I would stop talking and just look at them for a few seconds and usually one of the students would tell the others to quiet down. Another way I found worked was to threaten to take away some research time from them in class. I told them that if we couldn't get through what we needed to in class then I'd have to take away their research time so we could finish it. Friday was the complete opposite. We got through so much because their classes were in the morning and it's a completely different atmosphere. When they have class in the afternoon they are loud and boisterous and when they have class in the morning they are much quieter and subdued. I also ran break detention on Thursday and Friday which was an interesting experience. Despite the fact that this is a punishment, many students try to talk during break detention and they even try to sit next to their friends. I had to tell them several times to be quiet and stop talking. I also separated a few students from their friends. Anyone have any suggestions for dealing with middle school classroom management?

All in all, despite the management challenges (and even then they were generally off on tangents that related back to the content of the class) I'm enjoying it. I'm trying to get to know my students and I know almost all of the names. I hope that by the end of my time I can develop a good relationship with all of my students and try to bridge some of the students who are a little more distant.

We also discussed our upcoming field trip this week. All of the 8th graders will be going to Washington D.C. on April 8th. We talked about the assignment they will do based on their trip as well as groups, chaparones and what students will be allowed to bring. I can't wait to see how it goes.

That's all for now. More next week! Have a great week everyone!

LMS Week 1

Hello fellow teachers!
I'll start by saying that I hope everyone's first week at the new placement (and Edward's continuing adventures at his placement) went well. I'm really happy to be at my new school. It's been interesting trying to get used to their schedule and the way they do things (ie: hall duty, lunch duty, bus duty) but I think I'll have it down in no time. Coming from a place where I was teaching up until Thursday, sitting at Lamberton this week and observing was difficult. My co-op was finishing with To Kill A Mockingbird and they'll finish up with that early next week. I'll be splitting time with him on Monday and Tuesday, Wednesday they have a test and by Thursday I'll be able to teach the whole block. I'm grateful that he wants to get me teaching again so soon because I feel like it will keep my momentum going. I'll be teaching a persuasive writing unit first and after that we'll see. My second unit will be starting during PSSA testing so it will probably be a bit more laid back (at least in terms of outside of class work). LMS allows teachers access to Youtube which is great because I really want to incorporate video clips and stuff like that into my lessons. I'll be showing my students some commercials and looking at how persuasion functions in them. Also, my co-op told me about itunes U which has some cool stuff on it. We went over my lesson plans today and my co-op told me he thought they looked good so I was happy to hear that. I'm going to try to plan out a lot for this unit this weekend so that I don't have as much to do later in the semester. The better I can plan now the better I can adapt later if necessary.

My students are a rowdy and entertaining bunch. I forgot what 8th graders were like after spending so much time in the h.s. I'm excited to take over and really get to know them. Some of them will be classroom management challenges but luckily my team is supportive and they already know who to watch for because generally it's the same students acting out. Nothing more to report really other than to say that when the weather is nice we're able to hold class outside right outside the classroom. I'll be looking forward to doing that more as we go forward. I hope you all enjoy the wonderful weather outside. Have a great day.

Resource

Hey guys....just wanted to let you all know that there is this thing on itunes called iUniversity (or something similar) where you can download all kinds of stuff for free. It has books, podcasts, etc. from different universities and organizations. They're educational and there is some good stuff on there. Thought I'd let you know because most of you probably have itunes. If you already know then just disregard my post. Haha.

Good luck

I don't know if anyone will be checking this before Friday or Saturday, but I wanted to say good luck and I hope everyone has a fantastic week at their new placement and in Edward's case a fantastic week.

8 Weeks down, 8 to go

I can't believe that is is already time to write this blog. Trying to reflect on the last 8 weeks seems like such a daunting task. I've had so many experiences that it seems hard to get to everything I've learned. I'll start by saying that this last 8 weeks has shown me that I am meant to be a teacher. Today was the last day that I spent at Shippensburg H.S. Each class (all 7 of them) had a party and we ate food and talked. My co-op passed around a small journal and had each student write me a note. When he gave the the book I almost cried. I know that it is something I'll keep forever and I'll have it to reassure me that I'm doing well and to remind myself why I love teaching when I feel like I might forget. When I got up in the morning I couldn't wait to go and get into teaching, even through all of the grading and planning headaches were overwhelming, I enjoyed being at school everyday. I'm sure there will come a time when that will change, but for now I'm going to enjoy it.



I had the opportunity during my placement to work with some wonderful, helpful and supportive teachers. My co-op teacher was an excellent resource and provided me with feedback, reassurance, and general teaching advice. I feel lucky to have worked with someone who sets high standards for his students and I think that I'll be a better teacher for it. I was also lucky to have wonderful classes. My students were well behaved, hardworking, and just generally interesting, unique kids. I hope to make it to some of their sports games this spring so that I can see them again.



I've learned a lot while at Ship but here are a few of the biggest lessons I learned.



1. Be FLEXIBLE- Sometimes there are meetings, assembly's, snow days, or other random disruptions. A good teacher can take these in stride and adapt.



2. Make copies in advance- The printer, copy machine, etc. will break at some point. Most likely when you need to make 65 copies of a test. If you have everything ready to go and make all of your copies at least a night before you'll feel a lot less stressed and rushed.



3. Don't be afraid to give students the grade they deserve- At some point as a teacher you have to come to terms with the fact that not everyone will get an A. This doesn't always reflect your ability as a teacher but rather the student's ability and effort.



4. Set high standards- Even though your kids will grumble a little bit one day they'll think back and silently thank you.



5. Become friends with your colleagues- Other teachers become great friends, confidants, and resources. They are the only other people who understand what a teacher goes through. That makes them the people to talk to when you're having problems.



6. Keep it fun- Students can have fun and learn at the same time. In fact, I would argue that some of them will learn better as they have fun. By combining activities that are high interest but still have a higher critical learning aspect they will absorb more of the information.



7. Be as specific as possible- This refers to handouts, instructions, and anything else that you could think of. You need to spell things out for students. The better the instruction, the more they understand it the better the result.



8. Appreciate your students- They have so many interesting things to say and contribute. Make sure you allow them the opportunity to ask their questions, and share their stories. They will be more relaxed and everyone will have a better experience.



I feel that I've learned so much more but if I talked about all of it I'd be typing forever. This experience has been one of the most gratifying and rewarding experiences of my life. Life was hectic, stressful, and sometimes very long during student teaching but it was all worth it in the end. To read the notes in that pink book and to hear students say "We'll miss you Miss Achey" made it all worth it. I feel that with my experiences in the past 8 weeks I'll be a better teacher. I can't wait to take everything I've learned and continue it in my next placement where I can keep growing and improving. I hope that everyone has had as good an experience as I've had. Congratulations, we're halfway there! See you all on Monday!

Observation 2

Observation 2, after it was rescheduled, went very well. Unfortunately due to the snow I was administering a test to my students so there really wasn't much of a lesson. I did get good feedback on my directions for the test. Dr. Mortimore said she thought they were very clear. She also complimented my quick response to student questions during the test. I also recieved positive feedback on my test (the test was for Honors on Julius Caesar). I'm currently working on grading them and students actually did worse on the true/false and fill in the blank than I thought they would. I thought the problems would come from the short answer. While they were working, I was able to share a homework assignment that I had them do with Dr. Mortimore. I had each student draw a picture of the character Cassius and write a paragraph about his personality and their opinion of him. Many of the students had interested, unique drawings. Dr. Mortimore thought that this showed my willingness to incorporate different activities that appeal to a variety of students. She complimented my desire to help my students connect to Shakespeare in a personal way instead of just reading it. I wish she could have seen more teaching, but there's always the next observation.

Overall I was satisfied with my observation. I felt that the period ran smoothly. There were no problems or anything out of the ordinary that came up. I'm anxious to see how my students performed on their tests. Initially it looks like these grades will be lower, again mostly because of the true/false and fill in the blank questions. That being said, I don't think that anyone will fail but some students may end up with lower B's and high C's. I hope as I continue to grade them that this won't be the case but we'll see.

Until next time, have a good week

Wait...its week 6 already???

Hello fellow student teachers (and Dr. Mortimore!),

Well this week went pretty well for the most part. I was able to have all of my worksheets, quizzes, etc. ready last weekend so that took the stress off of trying to fine tune and fix worksheets.

In Myth and Folktale we had a test on Tuesday so we spent time reviewing on Monday. After the test students had time to work on their original creation myth (which was assigned the week before and they turned in on Thursday). I brought the computer cart down and students were able to type it up and brainstorm and whatever else they needed. In an effort to keep it interesting, I also required a visual with this project. I think that Myth and Folktale offers a great opportunity to be creative so my students often have a drawing or visual incorporated with their activities. On Wednesday we started learning about Norse Mythology and the Monomyth. I made a power point for the students and gave them a fill in version of the power point so they were forced to pay attention. After that I gave them time to read our next story, "The Theft of Thor's Hammer." I've had problems with participation from some of the students in this class and my co-op suggested that giving them time to read in class might be a good solution because I could watch them do it. It seemed to work well. I gave them a little quiz type thing first thing Thursday. I asked them to tell me two things that happened in the story, two elements of a monomyth that we went over, and one question that they had. I chose to do this instead of a regular quiz because it also gives them a way to ask about things they don't understand. After that we took the "The Theft of"Thor's Hammer" and made an event line. We pointed out major events in the story and tried to pair them with different elements of a monomyth. After that (in an effort to keep critical thinking in my lessons) we had a discussion about whether or not Thor meets our idea of a hero. We also discussed the story and if the story meets the requirements for a monomyth. On Friday we were supposed to use comic books to look for elements of a monomyth (to show students that this is an idea that is found in books, movies, and mediums). I'll be starting with that on Monday now.

In Honors Literature we took a quiz on Act I scenes 1 and 2 in Julius Caesar. The students did really well on their quizzes for the most part. Also this week we watched the film version of Caesar (1970's with Charlton Heston) and compared it to the play. I had them watch the equivalent of the first Act and then they had discussion questions to answer. This classes are at different points because the 10th grade students had multicultural day this week and so some of them lost class time. For Thursday I started one group of my students on an activity called Shadows that we learned last year in Ado. Lit. In this activity the students are assigned a portion of the text and they assign people to read it, people to interpret it, and people to connect it to the real world and their lives. They will continue with this on Monday. I was also able to make a connection from Caesar to the movie Mean Girls which several of my students have seen.

In College Prep we continued to work on speeches and they were due on Thursday. One period had scheduling meetings during our class time but the other class was able to start their speeches. The students did pretty well. I was very happy with how those that went delivered their speeches. For most of them this is the first time they've given a formal speech. More speeches to come next week.

Biggest challenges this week: Having several class periods taken away for multicultural day, the snow day, and the scheduling meeting, having classes on different days

Best things about this week: Seeing some of the speeches and feeling like the students actually may have really learned something (I'll need to wait to see how the outlines turned out), developing lesson plans/ideas that incorporated more critical thinking

Most interesting experience: My co-op had sent an email to the administrators asking if one of them would possibly be able to come down and observe me like they do for all their teachers. The principal actually came down during one of my honors classes this week and observed. While he was there we discussed what was happening in the play, addressed questions, and then I passed out the film comparison sheet, explained what I wanted them to do and we began the film. We'll be meeting sometime this coming week to discuss what he saw and his thoughts/ideas. Neither my co-op nor I knew he was coming on that particular day so I was happy that it didn't rattle me at all. I'm looking forward to hearing what he thinks and I'll be sure to post that next week.

Since this blog has gotten much longer than I intended I believe I'll cut it off here. Enjoy your snow day everyone! I'll see you soon!

Ellen

P.S. How is every one's impact project going? Mine took an unexpected turn this week.

Observation 1

For my observation lesson I had students start by looking at a word splash of different heroes such as firefighters, police officers, Gandhi and others. I had them predict/discuss what all of these people could be considered. I asked them to think about it individually first and then did a pair share. We then discussed it as a whole group. After this I moved them into a Frayer. I had them make their own by folding a piece of paper. I modeled each step for them and then wrote on the board what to label each section. Then we came up with one example each for examples, non examples, and characteristics. After that I asked students to work by themselves and try to list at least 5 in each category. Next I had them pair up and asked them to try to add at least 3 more to each category. Finally I had them get into groups and add a few more things. Then we arranged our desks in a circle and discussed the examples we had. We were supposed to write a definition for a hero after we discussed some of these but the class ended before we could.

I feel that overall the class went pretty well. The students were interested but at times it seemed like maybe there should have been more to it. I had one student in particular who did not want to join in what we were doing. She was doodling in her sketchbook and I had to ask her repeatedly to stop and to join in with what were doing. I asked if her anything was wrong because she seemed somewhat out of sorts and she said she had a rough week. On the other hand, a student who generally doesn't participate was doing more. I was bummed we didn't get to the definition and looking back I could have pushed them further to make sure we got to that. Also, I should have told them that what we folded was a frayer. I had to redirect students a lot. They had a lot of energy today due to shortened periods and a pep rally. That took some time away from the lesson but not much. Overall I was pretty happy to find that at least I wasn't completely terrible.

According to Dr. Mortimore I had a good repoire with my students. This is a fun class, I have a lot of interesting, bright students who love to talk and contribute. Most of them make it very easy to talk to them and interact with them. Other things from observation that were well done were my circulation of the room and redirecting students to keep them on task.

As far as things I should improve, I need to work a little bit on the pacing of my lessons. I probably should have just had them work in pairs instead of having them get into another group. This would have kept the pace moving and we would have had more time to create a definition and also talk about how our different versions of heroes, and other culture's different ideas of a hero will be important to our Hero Myth unit. Towards the end of the lesson I should have brought it back to more direct instruction maybe with guided questions concerning potential relevance to the unit. These will be things I try to improve in my teaching by really checking my lessons to make sure that there is that closure and that wrap up that really lets students know why this is important. Also I'll be trying to make sure that my pace is just right for my lessons.

In this upcoming week I'll be giving a series of quizzes, tests, writing assignments, and speeches to students so I'll be able to see if my students are understanding what we're talking about and what we should go back to if needed.

This week was a little frustrating and felt very long so I'm happy to it over with and I'm looking forward to taking all of this feedback into consideration and making my lessons even better.

Until next time have a good week!

Week 4....Wait what week?

Hey Gang!

Well....this should be a relatively short post because I only had 2 days of school this week. We were off Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. We're also off on Monday for President's Day.

The two days that I had the classes to myself went well. My co-op watched bits and pieces of lessons and gave me some feedback but for the most part he worked in our department work room and let me have the run of the classroom. I'm sad I didn't get more of that this week but I'm using all my own lesson plans and my own essential questions so I'm feeling as though I'm really in charge of these kids and the classes.

I think since it was such a short week that I want to talk briefly about students who seem uninterested, unmotivated, and don't do their work. I don't have many but I do have a few who seem to only do the minimum amount of work possible and sometimes not even that. I try to make my class as interesting as possible and the course is about mythology which I know the students are interested in. My co-op suggested talking to the student and explaining that he/she must get their work done and that they need to try to contribute to class.I'm going to try that but with this particular student I'm not sure it will work. I've tried talking to the student about interests, asking if he was in need of clarification, etc.. but from almost the first day of class I haven't got work back and I continue to feel that he/she feels disinterested even though I know he/she is interested in the class material.

I'm looking forward to getting back in the classroom on Tuesday and finally getting into the meat of some of my lessons. Hope you all enjoyed your snow day(s) and that you all kept safe and warm. See you all next week for our seminar.

Wow Week 3

Hello All!
The fact that I'm snowed in this afternoon actually represents one of my biggest challenges this week. On Wednesday (or maybe it was Tuesday) Shippensburg had a two hour delay because of the snow and then they actually decided to dismiss us early on Friday just in anticipation of the snow. This meant that my classes on Wednesday and Friday were all shortned. My college prep students were in the library researching for their speeches and they lost some of that time. My Myth and Folktale class is mostly on track although I did opt to push the lesson I had planned for Friday back to Monday in order to allow time to finish Thursday's classwork and to ensure that I had enough time to do my activity. The Honors students finishesd their speeches and we'll begin Julius Caesar on Monday. Since my students did miss out on some of the time they should have had I'm trying to figure out if they need extra time for certain things and if so, how much time I should give them. Most of my college prep students seemed to find their information in the days that we were there but I have some students who were absent several days who may need to catch up. Trying to catch up students is another problem. I want to be fair and give them the same amount of time to work that the others have had. My co-op recommended that for students who had a lot of absences I extend their speech deadline so that they have enough time to research.

Something I've been learning about myself this week is that, although I usuallly have excellent organizational skills and planning skills, I need to begin planning earlier in the week for my lesson plans. I think that part of this is because I've been gradually picking up classes and so I'm not quite used to planning for all of them at once and it snuck up on me. I'm almost glad to be snowed in so I can get some work done and begin planning for week 5 (I can't believe its almost here).

One of the more interesting challenges that week 4 brings me is that it is the week that I will be in charge of all the classes. I will be teaching Honors, College prep, and Myth and Folktales. On Monday my co-op is taking a personal day so the first day I'm teaching all the classes he won't be there. In some ways I'm happy about that because it shows that he trusts that I'm ready to handle classes but in other ways I'm a little nervous because I don't want to mess up. Additionally, I value his feedback and opinions on what I'm doing so I would have liked to hear how I did. On Friday I actually left after him for the first time and had the duty of shutting the classroom down for the weekend. Being me I'll only be slightly paranoid that I didn't do something right. Haha.

Another interesting opportunity that presented itself this week was the faculty meeting. We recieved an article to read about what makes a great teacher that brought up some strong opinions and discussion. We also heard about upcoming events, 4site tests and a few other things. It was an unique look at the teachers because I discovered that most of them really didn't want to be there...or at least not for that long. I never imagined that faculty meetings would be a lot of fun but this one definitely had its entertaining moments.

One more interesting thing that happened this week. My honors students are to select a mystery/suspense novel to read for the first half of this marking period. While many are selecting Dan Brown books like the Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, some people are less sure what a suspense novel really is and have selected (or tried to select) books that I don't consider suspense like Jodi Picoult. Now if she is a suspense writer please correct me but I just don't think I consider her one. One of my students apparently was quite upset that I didn't approve her book which prompted her mother to write an email to my co-op. It wasn't a mean email, she simply was unsure why Jodi Picoult did not qualify. My co-op, rather than worry about it told her that if she knows it to be a suspense novel just to read it. I'm fine with that since I don't want to start any problems but I've been suggesting authors and books to students so I feel like this shouldn't have been a problem. When my co-op announced that the book was to be mystery/suspsense he explained what it was so the students would know. Some of them still seem unsure though. So I had my first experience, though it was second hand, with parent correspondence.

As this is getting to be a very long blog I'll say goodbye for now. I hope everyone enjoys their snowy weekend. Stay safe. Good luck as we all begin week 4! We're a quarter of the way to graduation (eeeeek).

Week Two

Hello All!



I can't believe the second week of student teaching is already over. I think that this is going to go a lot faster than even I imagined. The best part of my second week was that I was able to start teaching the Myths and Folktales class. So far its been going well. It's an elective so most of the students who are in it actually want to be there and have an interest in what we're learning. Right now we're working on creation myths from Greece and soon we'll move on to Egypt and then the Mayans and perhaps an Asian one as well. Next week I'm going to be taking over the college prep class and I'll be working with them on a speech unit. They will have to research and prepare and deliver an information speech on an aspect of world culture. The honors classes are currently delivering their speeches and after they are done I'll start working with them on Julius Caesar.



I think that things have been going well during Myths and Folktales. This week some of the things that I did with them were a little boring so I'm currently trying to find some more unique ways to present some of this information. Luckily my students are well behaved and they've been good sports even when they had worksheets to fill out and stories to read aloud. Next week I have them doing some more creative work like drawing and stations so I hope that they gets them a little more excited. Mr. Massara has been very helpful with writing comments of things he observes. Overall the comments are fairly postive and constructive. I enjoy getting the feedback so I know what to correct.

Today I had an interesting experience in study hall. Mr. Massara was at a meeting so I went to study hall and another teacher covered. The students wanted to move around and talk a lot since it was a Friday and their regular teacher wasn't there. I'm sure that they didn't like hearing that they had to move back to their seats but they know the rules for study hall.

All in all my week has been very positive. I haven't had any real problems yet and I hope that it continues to go smoothly. I'm looking forward to next week and starting to teach more classes. I've even come up with some new ideas for Julius Caesar than I orginially had so I'm really excited to try to work those into my lessons.

I'm starting to get to know more of the students names. I have abput 110/120 students so learning all their names when I'm not the one teaching them right now is a little difficult. They really interest me though. Their conversations, questions, and comments crack me up sometimes. Most of them are very friendly and I try to say hi to them in the hallway as well so that I can put names to the faces.

I think that's all for now. I'll let you know how the start of speeches and Caesar goes next week. I hope everyone's second week was just as good as their first.

peace
Ellen

Shippensburg: Week 1

Hello all! I hope that all of you had a wonderful first week. At Ship H.S. things were very good. The students are used to working hard in Mr. Massara's class since he demands that they take class very seriously. He has virtually no classroom management problems and in the rare event that students get out of hand he is quick to correct it so that no one is derailed for long. His first rule is essentially give respect, get respect and it seems to work. He also is friendly and ask students about how sports games went and other things that show he cares about them not just their grades.

The class routine is the same everyday. Students first read the minutes which helps remind students what they did the day before and helps absent students know what they missed. The students take turns writing and reading the minutes so the responsibility of paying attention falls to them. They also play The Game which is a question put on the board that students answer using voting cards. The grammar questions were just finished and I started with the literary terms questions today and will continue with them during my placement. Students are used to doing several things in Mr. Massara's class. They often work in groups or pairs on questions or something else concerning their current novel. If they are in the middle of big projects they usually get some notes to help them (this week it was outlining for a speech) and then they get work time.

Mr. Massara's teaching style is a mix of direct instruction and discussion base. The students are often put in groups or pairs to explore something in a novel as I said before. At times he also gives them power points and notes that have fill in the blank so that they are forced to follow along and aren't just sitting idle during a lesson. He has a pretty good rapport with his students and usually brings a lot of energy to the lesson. He also has high standards for his students (college prep and Honors and even his elective, Myths and Folktales). Students are expected to respond to questions to the best of their ability and if they don't know the answer or if they don't answer completely Mr. Massara will try to help them get to the right answer by asking more questions.

This post is getting rather long so I'll try wrap it up quickly. I don't know much about the socioeconomic status of my students and so far I'm not sure what kind of outside pressures the kids are facing. I hope as I spend more time with them I'll get to know these things better and then I'll be able to help the students if I can.

Shippensburg is a friendly and inviting school. I've met several of the teachers and I feel comfortable and welcome there. They are used to getting student teachers so its nice and relaxed.

I would also like to add that I will be starting to teach Myths and Folktales next week and I'm very excited and I'm looking forward to the experience. When I taught the game today I tried to improve every time. There were things that I could have done better but the biggest help was that Mr. Massara wrote down some things I did well and some things that I could improve. I'm looking forward to continued recommendations and suggestions.

Have a great second week! Sorry to make this so long, I apparently had a lot to say :)