After a long and great semester I do not think that I have only one favorite memory, but one of the best experiences I had at AHS was observing Mrs. Z teach. The reason it sticks out in my mind and I enjoyed it was because she was awesome! As I observed this semester, I saw some classrooms that were less than great but I really think the great classes will stay with me for longer. Her class was so effective and controlled, she had little to no discipline problems at all and the students were engaged with the lesson. One specific part of her class was that unlike in almost every other class I have seen at AHS, there was no inappropriate language. A student at one point very obviously rephrased a sentence to make it school appropriate. The best part was what I heard after this that made me realize why the student had done it in the first place. Mrs. Z thanked the student for choose better words to express herself and the student was obviously very happy with the respect she was given,
I am so glad I finally got a chance to see Mrs. Z teach. I am even more happy wit the fact that I was able to see her late in the semester because I was able to very specifically pin point things she was dong that were working and why. I think seeing her teach was a way for me to see in action how some of these things are supposed to work.
This week I did my second video teach in my traditional classroom on Nixon and Watergate. I feel much more confident coming out of this lesson because I feel like it went much better than my first. I think the main thing that made me feel better was that the students in the class were more responsive. Not only did they answer the questions I asked, but they also asked some very good questions that showed me they were processing the information. I also think these students were more responsive because they knew me better and I had established more of a rapport with them. I also really like the handout that I gave for them to take notes. Instead of doing a simple question/answer format, I gave them a blank graphic organizer that showed a time line of the events. It worked well because the students were able to follow along without much help because I was able to be very obvious about which step I was in with regular transitions. I really admire the way that my cooperating teacher has set-up her classroom and I think the feel of her class made this video teach more successful for me because it is very close to how I would like my own classroom to be. I am so glad that we did more than one teach, because this time around I felt much more comfortable and happy with my work.
This week I enjoyed listening to Mrs. Z talk to our class. She had so much good advice and it is always nice to hear other teachers say the same things as my education professors. One thing that she said that made me think was when she told us that she told her students she had been teaching already for 2 years. I think as a first year teacher I will probably tell my students I have been teaching for one year, having in mind my block and student teaching, but what I really thought about was my age. When I begin teaching I will have just turned 21 and I am not sure if I would want my students to know that. If I were teaching students in the 11th grade they would only be about 4 to 5 years younger than me. Maybe this isn’t that strange but something about it makes me think I will probably add a few years to my age if a students ever asks. The other part I most enjoyed was her lesson plans. I really hope to be that organized in the future and keep up with my lesson plans. I really like the way she put the ones she was using in a binder.
Description: This week, I returned to my New Tech class again. The students are working on a project that deals with the crisis in the Middle East. The projects are always very detailed and have many different parts. This time the students have to write a research paper. In order for the students to complete this, the teacher had many steps that each student has to complete along the way and the end product is their full length paper. First the students had to complete a list of vocabulary words to better understand some of the difficult terms in their topic. Then the students have to begin to research and create an annotated bibliography of sources. After they have found their sources the students have to write an outline for their paper and eventually a final draft.
Analysis: When I first heard about this research paper I was extremely excited because I love the idea of students writing research papers in history classes. Having students write research papers combines so many important history skills to students like research, understanding points of view and bias, and lots of higher level thinking. The way in which the teachers have administered this assignment is another thing that was great to me. It has explicitly broken the larger assignment into the natural parts that many good writers go through anyway. In doing this, the assignment is much less intimidating for the students, the teachers can see the students progress, and the students are learning how to become great writers and researchers.
Reflection: Because I feel that writing is an extremely important part of history I am always trying to think of ways in which I can introduce high school students to writing history w ithout it being to intimidating. I think that if I am able to break the assignment up into managable pieces, students will feel more able and the assignment itself won’t seem as massive. I really hope to incorporate writing as an important part of my history class and I think this would be a great way to do a research paper in the future.
Description: This week I was able to observe an extremely effective teacher during my observation. When I walked into the class the teacher was up talking to the students about something they had done in the previous class. He was reviewing over a movie that the students were watching and during his shot lecture he asked the students questions about what they remembered. His class was extremely relaxed and the students were very obviously at ease in his classroom. His walls were decorated with projects the students had done and a set of rules for each class that the students had created and signed.
Analysis: This teacher seemed to have have almost perfectly fit the definition of an effective teacher. Later, in thinking about why this was true, I figured to myself that his strength was his relationship with his students. He had obviously established an incredible relationship with his students based on mutual respect. The students seemed to feel respected and in return respect the teacher. I think one of the gretest examples of this is the classroo rules that each class period came up with and signed for themsleves. This teachers treats his students as capable students and I think they respond extremely well to that.
Reflection: This experience has helped me a lot because this semeter, my professional goal is classroom management. In my time at Akins, the classes that have the fewest discipline problems, it seems, are the ones in which the teacher has established a good relationship with his/her students. I think I am seeing in practice what one of our earlier guest speakers said at the beginning of the year about relationship based teaching.
Description: On my first day in my second cooperating teacher’s classroom, she was talking about the New Deal. It is a junior American History class. Since my other cooperating teacher teaches in the New Tech High, this was my first experience in a traditional classroom. My personal philosophy of education is more aligned with a traditional model, so I was excited to see her teach. I class she did a lecture for the entire class time however, it was far more interesting than a regular lecture. She broke it up with different pictures, video clips, and audio clips from the time period.
Analyze: Her way of incorporating different techniques into a lecture I though was fascinating to watch. Everything seemed to fit in well with the whole overall lecture and there was no bumpy or jerky transitions. The best part of the lecture was to see how well her students responded to it. For the most part, her students were engaged with her lecture and there were only a few students not paying attention. The students that were paying attention were involved and constantly asking great, relevant questions.
Reflection: I am very excited to continue learing from this teacher. Next week when I get a chance to work with her again I am anxious to know how she goes about planning her lessons because they seemed extremely well put together. I also want to ask her about her classroom management style. She seems to work off a more relationship based classroom management plan and I am really excited to ask her how it works for her throughout the year. This semester I feel like I am going to learn alot from this teacher, especially because she runs her classroom in a way that I would hope to.
Desciption: This week I met both of my buddies. I had a fun time talking to them about myself and hearing about thei rlives. At times they seemed quiet and not very willing to talk but eventually, I was able to find out a few interesting things about them both like who they live with, where they are from and what intrerests them. When I asked them about what it was they wanted help on this semester and they both instantly said Biology. This worried me a bit because Science isn’t my strongest area, but I think that with their textbooks I should have no trouble remembering enough to help them out.
Analyze: This experience was good for me because I was able to learn alot about both girls. From what I can tell, their social English is very good. They expressed to me that the difficulty they have with Biology was the vocabulary so I have a feeling that they are still having quite a bit of trouble with the acedemic language.
Describe: On Monday, a guest speaker came and spoke to our class. His name was Mr. Barry and he was an educator from Seton hospital. His presentation was about feedback. He spoke about ways to give positive and constructive feedback as well as ways to accept feedback in a positive way.
Analyze: listening to Mr. Barry talk was a really good experience because he made many points that I have never thought about before. The idea that most stands out in my mind is the importance of word choice. He talked about the word “but” and how it serves as a way to negate anything that you have said up until that point. He also talked about removing “critical” from our vocabulary and replacing it with “constructive feedback.”
Reflection: I feel that this will help me because it will make me more conscious of how I sound to students when I am giving them feedback as well to others when I am receiving feedback. I will be able to use feedback in a way that will help students become better learners.
