Thoughts about Post over the Last Week

Class,

The following are snippets I found in your posts that caught my attention:

Student Post: I thought it was interesting that correctives could be used for special ed purposes.

Todd: In what ways will you suggest and meets the special needs of students? Can a student-centered classroom led by students investigations that are starting from where the students are at and that allow more time for students to council with individual groups meet these needs? Would the student-centered classroom be the silver bullet? I sometimes feel that I have reduced too much down to this conclusion and want to be sure that I continually reflect on this, but I see this as a more authentic and personal approach to meeting the needs of all students more so than specially designing teacher-centered lessons for each student as I feel that most have unique needs. What are your thoughts?

Student Post: Sometimes I worry about this because I tie things together in my mind but wonder if how I teach will tie together concepts and ideas in a similar way in the minds of my students.

Todd: In observing this lesson I did think that the passion that you had presenting your own experiences was meaningful as a member of the audience. I was interested in the elk and ferret project. I appreciate that you put forth the effort to bring in real life examples and props that would further gain the students interests. I also think you are wise to be sure that you are not assuming that how you tie things together is how your students will. I would want to do exactly what you did, but also continue to share different careers with students along with classroom guests and student interactions with other professionals to make sure that I was allowing them to tie things together in a way that best suits them and their interests.

10/25

On Wednesday I taught first hour a lesson on careers in science. I had a fun time with the lesson. We started by talking about halloween and then moved into a KWL session on tarantulas. I got so wrapped up in it that I forgot to give the students instruction or time to do the W part of it, but was pleasantly surprised when I noticed that many of the students did it on their own. I then put my caving flashlight on my head and pretended that I was an arachnologist while having one of the students interview me. As we went through the interview (which I pulled off cool careers on the pbs website) the students filled in as much as they could of the L part of the chart about tarantulas. I found it challenging to try and respond to all of the students in a meaningful way - though I definitely tried. To end I talked about how the kids could do anything they were interested in if they pursued it and told the kids about my experiences with tracking elk and black-footed ferrets. My hope is that I could tie all of my thoughts together for them in a meaningful way while making it interesting. Sometimes I worry about this because I tie things together in my mind but wonder if how I teach will tie together concepts and ideas in a similar way in the minds of my students.

10/27

I had an interesting conversation with Mr. Borton today. I asked him about his involvement with special education and the IEP process. He said that he spends a lot of time at the first of school year being part of IEP's and then again with evaluation during April and May. Inbetween there is only an occassional meeting in this regard. He said that he has seen everything from polite and cordial to very difficult in his IEP meetings depending on what the parents were like and how they felt about the process. He said that most of the accomodations he needs to do are taken care of through the correctives, which are a part of every unit he does anyway. He said that for the most part the special ed teachers don't ask him to do much more than this. He told me about some of his experience over the years with this and how some special ed teachers expected a great deal of individualized lesson and assignments from him, but most were satisfied with the correctives which were built in for the whole class. He said that many times the students would have difficulty in one area which he could specialize assessment for them, such as giving tests orally to students who had trouble reading and it didn't seem like this was too common or a big hassle to him in any way. I thought it was interesting that correctives could be used for special ed purposes.

Thoughts about Post over the Last Week

Class,

The following are snippets I found in your posts that caught my attention:

Student Post: he told me that Mr. bishop showed up at his front door on a saturday morning and asked the students mother if he might help her boy with his paper for an hour. I thought this was awsome that he would give up his weekend to make sure this child passed.

Todd: Wow.

Student Post: She expects students to be engaged and treats them according to that expectation.

Todd: This caught my attention. I think we often get what we expect because we lay out conditions which help to facilitate our expectations. I am sure we don’t/won’t always hit the mark, but I think that student engagement in class is essential and deserve high expectations.

Student Post: My gut feeling is to prepare as many activities as will engage the brightest students, understanding that half the class will not get to the “extensions” or “extra” content. How much will the other students feel left behind? Will they feel like part of a “learning community” or a bystander?

Todd: I think this is a struggle that we will each become better at with more experience. I wonder if the attention and responsibility could also be focused on the students. If students are participating in a student centered lesson, where they are helping to dictate to some extent where they are going, I would expect more questions to arise as students engage. If this is not happening, I want to work on this. If this is the case, I can continue to let those students who may have completed on task in respect to what they have investigated move on to work at answering other questions that might have come up. I want to keep it student centered where I work with the students to come up with extensions that are relevant and directed by where they are.

Student Post: They wanted to tell me what they knew and I was willing to listen. However, the questions were coming so fast and furious that I didn’t know how to direct the discussion. It was like I had unleashed a tidal wave after praying for rain. I got flustered and finally had to tell the students that we didn’t have time to answer all the questions. Had I been more experienced and in my own classroom, I wonder what would have happened. I certainly don’t want to dissuade students from asking questions, but how do I guide the questioning period toward the topic at hand? Questions are great, but I also want to have time for answers.

Todd: I think this does fall under classroom management. This is a problem that needs to be addressed so as not to dissuade students. What are the options? As I read this, I wondered if perhaps students might right down their questions before choosing 1-2 to share with peers in a group. They might then choose 1-2 questions their groups was most interested in and share with the class. This is just one idea, but perhaps a strategy to encourage student questions while honoring their need to discuss their questions. I am sure there are other approaches that can be used. What are others?

Student Post: Also, I noticed that if a student gave the answer that I wanted, I praised them and moved on with the lesson.

Todd: I think to some extent, all teachers are probably guilty of this. Should this happen? My knee jerk response, if you want an answer tells them. I am not sure it should be this straight forward.

Student Post: It is possible to have time in the school year to explore all concepts before formal instruction? What would a classroom look like where the students were always exploring before the formal instruction was given? Would the students understand what was happening? If students are exploring a topic before a lecture is given, will the exploration always lead to the intended learning outcomes? This is such a foreign concept to me because I have had so few teachers that actually model this method.

Todd: If it is an effect method of instruction, I think its inclusion is justified. When time is discussed in school and the concern for it, I want to consider the alternative. What is the alternative? Direct instruction with no student exploration? Maybe not, but if it is the alternative, getting through the material may happen with a different level of student comprehension. I want to continually reflect on the quality of time spent.

Student Post: I don’t know exactly what the students learned from this little mini-lesson, but I know the information that came out was more than I understood until college. My enthusiasm for astronomy and the excitement I saw in those students really made this mini-lesson come alive for me. I think I had more students with me for that 15 minutes, than I had for the 3 hours that I taught for my PD lesson. I am feeling more confident and secure with the idea of student teaching, but it still frightens me to think that I need to come up with hundreds of hours of meaningful lesson material. I hope I am up to the task.

Todd: This post may go far in reiterating the point I was shooting for previously. I am sure their will be ups and downs as we all teach. There will be times when we feel that one three hour lesson is less valuable than the one that lasted fifteen minutes. Whenever I have arrived at the point that I am proud of, I want to step back and ask myself what allowed the “15 minutes” to be so meaningful. Was it student driven? Was it teacher directed? Was it in the middle of these two? Was it lead by student curiosity? Could it be described as student mental exploration? What was it? Once I think I have this identified, I want to go back and try it again to see what happens the second time.

Thanks for your posts for the week and affording me an audience for my responses.

Assignment #2

Clinical Experience
Assignment 2

As per the assignment, I was supposed to “introduce a lesson, begin class with a starter activity, instruct a small group in a lab experience, etc.” I arranged to teach a short lesson on the motion of the moon. As this was an impromptu experience, I did not have a prepared lesson plan, but instead let the students drive the discussion. I wanted the student to understand why there are not lunar and solar eclipses every month. I began by asking the students what they already knew about the motion of the moon. Many talked about the phases, as they had just viewed a video about it. One student had pointed out shortly after the video that the moon cast a shadow on the Earth. This began a discussion about eclipses. We talked about the fact that we don’t see eclipses every month and I asked for suggestions as to why this was the case. One student suggested that the Earth’s tilt had something to do with it. I put a diagram on the board to illustrate the relative positions of the Sun, Earth and Moon. I pointed out that the Earth’s tilt was not the major factor, but that the Moon’s orbital tilt to the Solar system’s plane was. We explored through the discussion how scientist can predict when the eclipses happen and where the best viewing locations on the Earth will be by understanding the motion of the moon.

I don’t know exactly what the students learned from this little mini-lesson, but I know the information that came out was more than I understood until college. My enthusiasm for astronomy and the excitement I saw in those students really made this mini-lesson come alive for me. I think I had more students with me for that 15 minutes, than I had for the 3 hours that I taught for my PD lesson. I am feeling more confident and secure with the idea of student teaching, but it still frightens me to think that I need to come up with hundreds of hours of meaningful lesson material. I hope I am up to the task.

Oct 3 - Oct 18

Clinical Experience for the weeks of October 3 – 18, 2006

Oct.3: 1:45-3 pm

I taught in Mrs. Swasey’s classroom today. I taught my PD lesson again to the other 6th grade class. I was very nervous, hoping that I really could improve on it from the last time I taught the lesson. I must have done something right, because students had so many questions and were so excited about studying astronomy. I believe I respected their prior knowledge and this is the reason they were so enthusiastic. They wanted to tell me what they knew and I was willing to listen. However, the questions were coming so fast and furious that I didn’t know how to direct the discussion. It was like I had unleashed a tidal wave after praying for rain. I got flustered and finally had to tell the students that we didn’t have time to answer all the questions. Had I been more experienced and in my own classroom, I wonder what would have happened. I certainly don’t want to dissuade students from asking questions, but how do I guide the questioning period toward the topic at hand? Questions are great, but I also want to have time for answers.

Oct. 4: 1:30-3 pm

From 1:30 – 2:30, I helped in Mrs. Seamons’ classroom. The students are working on planet books. They have to look on websites that Mrs. Seamons had previewed and find some information on each of the planets and the asteroid belt. Todd was observing that day and the students were very curious about who he was and what he was doing in the classroom. Once students had decided that he was okay, they were excited to share what they were learning. One boy in particular was so excited to show what he was doing and learning, I believe because Todd is an excellent listener and can ask leading questions to get students to share what they know. The teacher must play a listening role, if students are going to feel comfortable being involved.
At 2:30, Todd and I went to Mrs. Swasey’s room and I taught the 2nd part of the PD lesson. There was lots of confusion and noise as I was setting up the activity but I included more of the students as I explained what I was setting up. However, I think I could have engaged the students better if I had some thought provoking questions as the set-up was taking place. For example, how can we know if the stars move at night? Have any of you had experiences observing the night sky? What have you notice about the stars at different times of the year? And other questions like that. It’s just that when you are nervous anyway, these ideas don’t come until after the lesson is over and you can’t sleep at night thinking of all of the ways to improve. How do teachers get any sleep? Also, I noticed that if a student gave the answer that I wanted, I praised them and moved on with the lesson. I think it could have been more effective had I required students to give evidence for their answers, thus helping them vocalize their thinking process.

Oct. 5: 1:45-2:30 pm

The students were working on planet books again. It has been two weeks on the same project and some of the students are finding it difficult to stay on task. I asked Mrs. Seamons how she judges the length of a project. She responded that it takes longer at the beginning of the year because students are still trying to figure out how to manipulate the computers and what is expected of them. However, an assignment like this at the end of the year usually only takes about 2 or 3 days. I guess being able to judge appropriately takes experience, but I wonder if there is a way to know without the trial and error?

Oct. 10: 1:45-2:45 pm

The students viewed a video about the phases of the moon and then were allowed to ask questions. Mrs. Seamons also asked the students some questions. One student responded to a question accurately according to the video but was inaccurate according to reality. It spurred a question about why there are not eclipses every month. This brings up an issue about how good some of the information out there really is. I have to be so careful about getting good info to my students. With so much information out there, are there any easy ways to quickly assess the plethora of information? I know in some of my other classes, I’ve done searches for lesson plans and so forth. However, this takes time, a lot of time. If I teach 6 different classes everyday, will I have time to search for the best info? Are there strategies for collecting and cataloging useful information?

Oct. 11: 1:50-2:50 pm

Students worked on phases of the moon booklets. Each of the phases is represented on cards that the students will use for a game. There were lots of questions about how to name the phases and the moon’s placement on the card. I wondered if any of the students had paid attention during the instruction period. It hit home the importance of student exploration BEFORE formal instruction. I think the mind has to have time to think about information and develop questions before it is ready to retain that information, otherwise it is simply a collection of disassociated facts to be forgotten. It is possible to have time in the school year to explore all concepts before formal instruction? What would a classroom look like where the students were always exploring before the formal instruction was given? Would the students understand what was happening? If students are exploring a topic before a lecture is given, will the exploration always lead to the intended learning outcomes? This is such a foreign concept to me because I have had so few teachers that actually model this method. I’m having a difficult time visualizing teaching stoichiometry with exploration first.

Oct. 17: 1:30 – 3 pm

Students are continuing work on the phases of the moon activity. Students are allowed to work in small groups as long as they work quietly. I’m impressed with how well these students do their work. I think a lot of this has to do with Mrs. Seamons’ classroom management style, but also with the activities that she chooses or lets students choose. All the activities get the students thinking in some way or another and answering questions. Will I be able to recognize activities that engage students by the time I am finished with my education? Is this one of my intended learning outcomes?

Oct. 18: 1:30-2:30 pm

Students are finishing up their moon project. Those that have finished received a worksheet that is a guided reading project using the internet. Students have several activities to complete using different URL’s provided by Mrs. Seamons. At the PD meeting that afternoon I asked about assessment and how to assess these extra assignments. Mrs. Seamons said that she won’t grade this extra assignment, but allows those students that finished it to address the whole class and share what they learned doing the assignment. This way all of the students benefit from the extra assignments even though they didn’t all get to do it. What an awesome idea. I’ll try to incorporate something like this into my module.

Responses to Others' Questions

I finally have some time to go back through the posts and respond to the interesting questions and thoughts that have been expressed recently. I just finished my CORE Academy assignments (one class down, 6 to go) and have a little extra time on my hands (I can’t believe it). Anyway, I picked some of the things that caught my eye and wanted to comment on or ask about. Using Todd’s format, I’ve quoted then responded.
On a side note, Todd, is there a CORE Academy for all of the grades K-12? I had such an awesome experience I’d like to attend others if they have them.

Here are my comments for what they are worth…

Todd: While I would be excited that students have completed, I am not sure that I could be if my best or brightest or fastest students had their assignments and were now using science class time to read novels or do homework for other classes. I want science class to be for ENGAGEMENT in science. I have suggested nothing to move this situation from where it is; only pointed out that something might need to change-as I think the clinical student may have been doing also. What would you do if this were happening in your class? How will you keep this from happening in your class? Will you?

Deb: I agree, I would want my students engaged throughout their time in my classroom. I’ve watched Mrs. Seamons handle this situation by also having activities for the students to engage in after a primary assignment is complete, similar to Mr. Borton’s extension activities. Usually these “extra” activities require only brief instructions and then the students are off and running, doing the assignments independently. I think it takes experience with recognizing what students can and can’t do by themselves. The difference is that she doesn’t tell them whether or not they will be graded on “extra” assignments, she simply hands them a new assignment when they are finished with the last assignment. She expects students to be engaged and treats them according to that expectation. As long as students behave according to that expectation, all is well. However, she makes the consequences for not being engaged extremely distasteful, like sitting in a corner WATCHING other students perform fun experiments. She finds that she only has to do this once or twice before everyone understands that engagement is the ideal choice.
Okay, this brings up a question, how much material should I prepare for any given module? My gut feeling is to prepare as many activities as will engage the brightest students, understanding that half the class will not get to the “extensions” or “extra” content. How much will the other students feel left behind? Will they feel like part of a “learning community” or a bystander?

James: I also tried to practice what I read about questioning in the articles Todd gave me.

Deb: What articles and where do I get copies?

Todd: What experiences are others having with questioning?

Deb: I know I’m not very good with asking the right kinds of questions yet, but I know they are the key to a successful learning experience. The more I can get students to talk about the topic at hand, the more excited they get. I feel like students are engaged when they are asking questions and seeking answers to those questions. In reflecting on my own educational experience, my most memorable experiences have been when I was curious enough about a topic to ask questions and then go hunting for the answers either through conversations with the professors or independent study. I think the mind is open and ready to receive information when it is questioning.

Todd: I personally really like KWL charts, but I want to be sure in the end that the L that we are going back to fill in as we work through our learning is geared toward answering some of the initial STUDENT questions. I don’t want to see it used as a primer and then not revisited as I think it might send the message, tell me what you know and want to know, now we are going to focus what I have planned for you to learn in this unit.

Deb: I think KWL’s are great, because it gets the students asking questions. I am using this model in two of my classes to write term papers. It really guides my research and makes the experience so much more meaningful. I’m no longer writing to inform my instructors (I think they could care less), I am writing so that I am informed on a topic that interests me. I never would have thought that writing a term paper could actually be engaging. It is still challenging and I wouldn’t do it if it wasn’t required, but the experience is less stressful and more rewarding.

Tom: I am having a very hard time getting up and involved in the class lessons. So far I have only helped a student once find Uranium on the periodic table. The teacher of the class expects me to just sit there and watch, and I don’t have enough courage or maybe even desire to push my involvement in the classroom.
Todd: What advice would each of you have here based on your own experience?

Deb: I found in my first clinical experience that if I didn’t have something to do, I went crazy. I have a very difficult time just watching all the fun (this is probably why I don’t watch professional sports and have a difficult time watching my own children perform in athletic events). I asked my cooperating teacher if I could correct papers or enter grades or prepare labs, anything to keep my hands busy while still in the classroom observing. He was so grateful and pleased to have the extra help that he was more willing to let me do other things in the classroom. By the end of the year, he felt comfortable with me giving lessons and directing review sessions. It takes time though to develop that trust. I always respected what he was trying to do, and tried not to be an inhibiting factor in the classroom. I also respected him as the expert in his classroom.I also tried to practice what I read about questioning in the articles Todd gave meWhile I would be excited that students have completed, I am not sure that I could be happy if my best or brightest or fastest students had completed their assignments and were now using science class time to read novels or do homework for other classes. I want science class to be for ENGAGEMENT in science. I have suggested nothing to move this situation from where it is; only pointed out that something might need to change-as I think the clinical student may have been doing also. What would you do if this were happening in your class? How will you keep this from happening in your class? Will you?I am not sure that I could be happy if my best or brightest or fastest students had completed their assignments and were now using science class time to read novels or do homework for other classes. I want science class to be for ENGAGEMENT in science. I have suggested nothing to move this situation from where it is; only pointed out that something might need to change-as I think the clinical student may have been doing also.I am not sure that I could be happy if my best or brightest or fastest students had completed their assignments and were now using science class time to read novels or do homework for other classes. I want science class to be for ENGAGEMENT in science. I have suggested nothing to move this situation from where it is; only pointed out that something might need to change-as I think the clinical student may have been doing also.

Oct 19

This morning I tried again at lecturing second hour. Mr. Borton left the room to do something else and handed the class over to me. First we corrected the homework from the day before and then we moved to the lecture. I lectured on bacteria while the kids took the required notes again. As I started the kids moaned again that they had another lecture. As I went through I tried to make it interesting. I caught the kids attention with a few things such as telling them about all of the bacteria that live on their bodies and how some of them ate a lot of good bacteria in the yogurt they had for breakfast. A few kids were involved and asking questions. I tried to get at the students conceptions of bacteria at the beginning with a discussion about what the kids initially think when they hear bacteria. Many of the kids were reluctant to participate in this although after some effort I got half a dozen responses to this. When I was scribbling what they said on the board they got worried about if they should write that down to and would be tested on it. I explained to them that it was just for discussion, that they wouldn't be tested on it.

One little boy kept complaining really loudly and obnoxiously about how he hated taking notes and doing a lecture. I wasn't sure what to do about it and some of the other kids were really involved so I just ignored him and after the third or fourth time of getting no attention he quit. I'm not sure if there would have been a better way to handle him or not. When the lecture was over I went over to him and asked him if the book-work assignment they started at the end of class was better than taking notes and he said that it was. As I went through the lecture notes I had difficulty keeping the attention of the students from time to time. If what I was talking about was really interesting to them then I could keep their attention for a little while and if not they would start getting ancy. They were all studious when they had new sets of notes on the overhead to write down. For this reason I started going through the lecture notes faster. What happened was that there were a few kids who were slow at writing who would keep asking me to go back so they didn't miss anything. There was one boy on the back row who was painfully slow at writing but was determined to write down every word. It was difficult for me to accomodate for him and keep the rest of the class from getting bored.

10/17

The Thing I was most impressed with today was Mr. Bishops determination to make his students sucseed. I heard him say to severaldifferent students that he would not let them fail his class if there was anything he could do to stop it. I talkeed to one student who had been avoiding gettingf a large report in, he told me that Mr. bishop showed up at his front door on a saturday morning and asked the students mother if he might help her boy with his paper for an hour. I thought this was awsome that he would give up his weekend to make sure this child passed. It also would help the parents feel more urge to help out.

Thoughts about Post over the Last Week

Class,
The following are snippets I found in your posts that caught my attention:

Student Entry: This morning I visited Mr. Borton's second hour class. For the last three school days the kids have been working on correctives or extensions to get the full points needed to pass the unit. Today the corrective test was given. Immediately as class started a boy was being rowdy and Mr. Borton made him go in the hall to talk with him. He had me review for the test and the students were actively involved in this. After the review the test was given to the half or more of the class which was doing correctives. I noticed that most of the extension students were done with their units and most were reading novels or working on some homework for another class. Only a few of them were finishing up their units. After the test we put on a movie and graded the tests. It was disappointing that so many of the students who retook the tests failed again. A few who did well were excited that they had done better, but many of them failed again. Each student was called up to talk with Mr. Borton. He asked each student if they studied before taking the test again and almost all of them said no. Also most of them who failed the test were falling short in completion of their unit or didn't have their folder to show the teacher. Mr. Borton said that he had just talked to most of the parents of these students and that they all said that they would help their students study to pass this test the second time. It makes me wonder how effective correctives are and if it is worth taking all the time required or not to try and help the few students who take the correctives seriously.

Todd: We will attempt to tackle this in class this week. I would like to hear others thoughts about what they would do. I am sure I have said this many times in class, but it keeps coming to mind “You deserve what you tolerate”. This is a situation that has at minimum caught the attention of the clinical experience teacher in the class (it sounds like it has caught the attention of the host teacher also). The point here as I said in class before, this seems like an unsatisfactory situation in the classroom. While I would be excited that students have completed, I am not sure that I could be happy if my best or brightest or fastest students had completed their assignments and were now using science class time to read novels or do homework for other classes. I want science class to be for ENGAGEMENT in science. I have suggested nothing to move this situation from where it is; only pointed out that something might need to change-as I think the clinical student may have been doing also. What would you do if this were happening in your class? How will you keep this from happening in your class? Will you?


Student Entry: I am not as comfortable up in front yet and I try to do that but it doesn't work as well as I would like - yet!.

Todd: Determination emerging? !!!!!!!!
Student Entry: I also tried to practice what I read about questioning in the articles Todd gave me. I think there is something to that, about starting by asking the kids things which they are confident in answering and don't have to worry about getting it wrong. The students participated well I thought.

Todd: I found in trying to arouse discussion and reflection from students that I need to give them a problem that can be wrestled with. One that might have multiple answers or responses defended by multiple rationales. If I want them to arrive at what I have already concluded, this is when I think I should have just told them. What experiences are others having with questioning? One of the indicators in the RTOP is “The metaphor “teacher as listener” was very characteristic of this classroom.”. I want to ask questions that spawn student discussions and then I want to be sure that I am characterized by this indicator. If I ask those questions that lead to the answer I have predetermined (which I do) I often find that I am not the “teacher as a listener”. I am more the teacher waiting for the cue so that I can move students along to the predetermined end I have for them. Not necessarily where I want to be most of the time.

Thanks for sharing this week!

10/16

On Monday I had the opportunity of giving an entire lecture to Mr. Borton's second hour class. I felt a little uncomfortable with the lecture because I didn't feel like I knew the material very well, even though I studied over it a little the night before. I also wanted to try and align it to what Mr. Borton was doing to keep all his classes on track together. I watched Mr. Borton teach first hour to see how he did it and then I tried it the next hour. I enjoy watching Mr. Borton as he has a way of connecting in comical ways with the kids and they really like it. I am not as comfortable up in front yet and I try to do that but it doesn't work as well as I would like - yet!. I tried really hard to get the kids involved in the lecture and participating. I had a couple of volunteer students come up to the board and draw an experiment for me, that we then talked about, and they seemed to like doing that. I also tried to practice what I read about questioning in the articles Todd gave me. I think there is something to that, about starting by asking the kids things which they are confident in answering and don't have to worry about getting it wrong. The students participated well I thought. Still I admit that I felt like my thoughts during the lecture were a bit disconnected for the students. They were feverishly writing down the notes on the overhead (which they get points for - it makes them take notes anyway), but it seemed like the real listening and student participation didn't come until I left the slide on the overhead up long enough for them to write it down and then they could get more into it. The kids really liked it when we talked about cow puss and small pox vaccines but I'm not sure they understood a thing I said about Pasteur. Good practice anyway and hopefully I'll be lecturing again on bacteria this Thursday.

10/10/06

This morning I visited Mr. Borton's second hour class. For the last three school days the kids have been working on correctives or extensions to get the full points needed to pass the unit. Today the corrective test was given. Immediately as class started a boy was being rowdy and Mr. Borton made him go in the hall to talk with him. He had me review for the test and the students were actively involved in this. After the review the test was given to the half or more of the class which was doing correctives. I noticed that most of the extension students were done with their units and most were reading novels or working on some homework for another class. Only a few of them were finishing up their units. After the test we put on a movie and graded the tests. It was disappointing that so many of the students who retook the tests failed again. A few who did well were excited that they had done better, but many of them failed again. Each student was called up to talk with Mr. Borton. He asked each student if they studied before taking the test again and almost all of them said no. Also most of them who failed the test were falling short in completion of their unit or didn't have their folder to show the teacher. Mr. Borton said that he had just talked to most of the parents of these students and that they all said that they would help their students study to pass this test the second time. It makes me wonder how effective correctives are and if it is worth taking all the time required or not to try and help the few students who take the correctives seriously.

We also had an interesting discussion about a student who never comes to class. The student will inevitably get an F, which will count bad towards AYP and the science program. Mr. Borton has talked to the students mother but she says that her child is scared to come to school so she lets him stay home most of the time. The school really doesn't do anything about students like this one who are absent all of the time and it is frustrating for the teacher.

Thoughts about Post over the Last Week

Class,The following are snippets I found in your posts that caught my attention:

Journal Entry: During class I gave some brief instructions and let the kids work in groups on a test review and then we reveiwed it as a class. I pretended like Todd and Mr. Borton were not there! But it really helped me because the lecture was much easier for me this time than ever before - hopefully I am making progress.

Todd: I think that being observed quite often in clinical experiences will help each student as you move into your own classrooms. I think we should teach each day with our doors open and welcome anyone wanting to visit. I recognize that this can be distracting, but it may also help to hold us accountable and confident in what we are doing. I want to always have a strong rationale for what is going on each day. This also led me to keeping my classroom door open to the extent possible to again hold me accountable for the products that are emerging from my planning and instruction. I will be able to put this rhetoric to action this week as I will be taping our methods class for my peers to assess and provide feedback.

Journal Entry: Mr. bishop is a really nice guy and runs his class in a very comfortable way. It seems like the kids are very much at ease and feel comfortable talking to him, which is very important when they have questions. But he might let it be a bit too loud and comfortable. I'm not quite sure where the line is.

Todd: I think student need to feel comfortable in the classroom so that they are willing to share their ideas, but I also agree that there is a fine line that needs to be balanced so that comfort does not lead to complacency or not taking studies in the classroom seriously.

Journal Entry: One particular student was goofing off and I went over there and asked him if he was done with everything. He said and that he was and I asked him to show me. He had completed the correctives worksheet and thought that was enough for him to pass so he refused to do anything else.

Todd: I think this can often be a problem. This is what bothers me most about grading and placing too much of an emphasis on it (not that I believe this is happening in this classroom-it just opens the door for this discussion). I want my students digging in to the extent that they forget about the grade. I want them working without worry of grade, but more with worry of whether they are learning what THEY set out to learn. Is this too lofty a goal? What if anything might you suggest to move in this direction? My last secondary teaching position was in a school with tremendous parental support, but also with what I considered too much an emphasis on grades. Students were so concerned with their grades that they would quickly do whatever was requested (for the most part) to achieve a grade. While I appreciate this, I also recognized that this could be problematic. The emphasis was not on authentic learning, but on grades (could this also be the case with NCLB?). I can remember several college classes that I focused more on grades and recognized that I was not learning all that I probably could but was satisfied by the stick that my learning was being measured by.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts for the week. Keep sharing and continue to do so in a reflective manner that asks us to offer suggestions to the questions you are discovering in the classroom.

10/5/06

I visited Mr. Borton's second hour class today and for the first time I got to participate in the application of mastery learning and the use of correctives and extensions. About half of the class worked on each. Mr. Borton first went through explaining the choices each student would have depending on their performance on the test. Then he let the students choose which activities to complete. Most of the students who performed well on the tests chose to look at slides of Daphnia and some other creatures and draw them. A few decided to draw giant pictures of a specific creature that they liked, such as a paramecium. I could really see them getting into this and having a good time with it. Two students chose other activities including a reading assingment and a yeast experiment requiring a fair amount of math. Basically all of the students doing correctives worked on the first corrective assignment choice, which was a large worksheet provided by Mr. Borton. They showed no real interest in any of the other corrective choices given them. I quickly found out that I was basically just in the way when I tried to help any of the students doing extensions, they are all pretty sharp. I then turned my attention to the students doing the correctives to try and find some usefulness for myself. I found a couple of students to help but most of the students were doing pretty well on their own.

As the class went on many of the students got tired of what they were doing and started talking and goofing off. Mr. Borton asked them a few times to quiet down and it remained noisy. Then he threatened that the next person who talked would go to after school detention and that quieted them down immediately. One particular student was goofing off and I went over there and asked him if he was done with everything. He said and that he was and I asked him to show me. He had completed the correctives worksheet and thought that was enough for him to pass so he refused to do anything else. I tried to get him to choose another activity but he just said that he would not do anything else, he had made up his mind. It seemed that I couldn't persuade him to do anything productive so I told him that if he wouldn't do anything then he needed at least to be quiet and quit distracting his neighbors from learning and completing their work. He seemed ok with that and didn't give me much trouble after that.

I was reviewing part of my professional development video today and it made me glad to be where I am at. Mr. Borton has involved me about to the level I could handle and slowly I am getting more confident. One day during the development project we gave the students a dice lab and I was expecting it to take them 30 minutes but it only took ten. Luckily Mr. Borton had another assignment and worksheet to fall back on to take up the rest of the time. When the kids started getting a little rowdy because they finished early he said with a smile, "Now this is what happens when you don't prepare enough material to take up the class period." It brought home to me that if I am going to make a mistake in preparedness that it should be on the side of too much material or activities. Extra can always wait until tomorrow but if the students surprise you then at least you have something else to keep them occupied with. Beyond my lecture stumbles and giving the kids the dice before demonstrating the lab procedure for them I think I did ok during the project.

Oct 3-4

Yesterday Todd came to the middle school with me and we set up a different teacher for me because I was in the wrong subject. Mr. bishop is a really nice guy and runs his class in a very comfortable way. It seems like the kids are very much at ease and feel comfortable talking to him, which is very important when they have questions. But he might let it be a bit too loud and comfortable. I'm not quite sure where the line is.

Oct 4th

Today Todd visited the class. I had thought about the lesson a little bit the night before but tried to relax and not worry too much about it. During class I gave some brief instructions and let the kids work in groups on a test review and then we reveiwed it as a class. I pretended like Todd and Mr. Borton were not there! But it really helped me because the lecture was much easier for me this time than ever before - hopefully I am making progress. The kids were good and more awake and involved than they are on Mondays. I wish that I were better with their names though. I end up pointing at kids and saying "What answer did you get?" I really enjoy the kids and I remember their faces but can't link many names yet. I'm sure it would be better if I knew their names and hope that once I get more used to the procedures of everything that I can get better at this.

Thoughts about Post over the Last Week

Class,
The following are snippets I found in your posts that caught my attention:

Journal Entry: One of the teachers said he liked to teach science because it was a great equalizer. When I asked him to explain what he meant he went on to say that even children that weren’t good in language arts or math could enjoy and do well in science. He believes science should be enjoyable for everyone and that everyone has something to contribute to a scientific process.

Todd: I wonder how the instruction planned for the students determines the extent to which students feel they can contribute. I know in my own chemistry classes as an undergrad, I didn’t get the feeling that I could contribute as much as I got the feeling that I was ingesting the content. While I do believe what this teacher has put forth, I also think that our instructional strategies determine the extent to which students feel they can contribute.


Journal Entry: She finds that when she plans lessons according to the inquiry method only a portion of the students understand the intended learning outcome. Whereas, when she specifically instructs using the textbook and a lecture method, a higher percentage of the students understand the material.

Todd: In what ways could we look to collect data that would help us when we have these considerations regarding textbook and lecture vs. inquiry? What percentage of practicing science teachers do you think harbor these same feelings? If there is a large percentage, what might explain the disconnect between research and theory compared to practice?

Journal Entry: She knows that she would not have been an effective teacher right out of college, but that the experience of motherhood prepared her for what she loves to do now.

Todd: While I agree that my experiences as a parent have shed light on teaching and learning, I am not sure that I would have always recognized facets of teaching and learning if they had not been supported by the education I received in my teacher education. Are non-parents at a disadvantage?

Journal Entry: She sees herself as a performer on a stage, always seeking ways to draw attention to what she is trying to do and make it as entertaining as possible. . . I don’t know that I want to be a stage performer, but I think I would even do that if it worked and I could get the “ah-ha” moments with my students.

Todd: I think that many teachers see themselves as performers on the stage, but this is not what I would want my students to see for me. I do want students interested in the things I have to share, but I want to at least in my mind make an effort to shift this so that he students are performers on a stage. I think this goes back to the Chinese proverb “Tell me and I forget. Show me and I remember. Involve me and I understand.” I don’t want students just hearing my profound understandings (if these exist), I want them to articulate their own profound understandings through taking the center stage in their own education.

Journal Entry: I feel it unfortunate that almost none of my time gets dedicated to the good students, because they are being well, good!

Todd: I would really like to discuss this further. What can be done to be sure that all are getting time? How can we structure our classes and instruction so that there is time for all students?

Journal Entry: I must admit that I am very uncomfortable lecturing at this point and I love the labs! I feel ok at giving directions on how to do things, such as I did in making the paper helicopters, but I feel inadequate in lecturing.

Todd: What is the origin of this discomfort with lecturing? From my own perspective-I have the same discomfort, but I think my discomfort lies more in my thoughts about teaching and learning. If you had to describe your discomfort, what would you say?

Journal Entry: However, once the books were started no more was mentioned about the KWL. I wonder how she will, if she does, tie the assignment back to it.

Todd: In discussions in graduate school about KWL’s I think the weakness that has been described or that often exists is the disconnect between the KWL and what follows. In many of the videos used in my dissertation, teachers would revisit the KWL chart at the end of their unit, but we often found that the L portion described what the teacher intended for the students to learn before the KWL was completed before the unit and that the W and L were often unrelated. I personally really like KWL charts, but I want to be sure in the end that the L that we are going back to fill in as we work through our learning is geared toward answering some of the initial STUDENT questions. I don’t want to see it used as a primer and then not revisited as I think it might send the message, tell me what you know and want to know, now we are going to focus what I have planned for you to learn in this unit.

Journal Entry: In my education classes a rubric is often provided, which is helpful for understanding a professors expectations, but in the process of fulfilling those expectations some of the spontaneity of learning is lost. The joy of discovering something on your own without promptings from a teacher is an incredible feeling.

Todd: I could not agree more. If I had a preference, I would want the learning and engagement to be worthy of attention and effort without the threat or mention of grades, but on the other hand, I do want my students to be informed of what is expected. This was my biggest struggle as a new teacher. I cared about learning and students being authentically engaged and if mention of grading criteria took away from that I tended to discuss or bring it up less.

Journal Entry: although I've already been stumped more than once by a really smart little girl.

Todd: I think these are the moments to be celebrated. I want to portray myself as knowledgeable, but more importantly confident in my ability to admit when I do not know something and to work with students when these instances arrive to work on problems with students. I think working with the students to answer the questions that have stumped us both might be much more valuable than me displaying my impressive collection of knowledge (exaggeration)

Journal Entry: I am having a very hard time getting up and involved in the class lessons. So far I have only helped a student once find Uranium on the periodic table. The teacher of the class expects me to just sit there abd watch, and I don't have enough courage or, or mebee even desire, to push my involment in the classroom.

Todd: What advice would each of you have here based on your own experiences?

Journal Entry: Students are very capable and come to the classroom with many experiences and previous knowledge. I think as a teacher I need to develop skills to help students help themselves. Asking good questions, allowing students to struggle with problems and understanding when the struggle is no longer fruitful, helping students answer their own questions, understanding my limitations; these are all skills/insights that will help me as an instructor.

Todd: I would hope that these are the things that I am also working to achieve as an instructor. Thanks for sharing this!

Thanks for all of the thought that went into your journal entries over the last week! I look forward to reading more.