Last Blog of The Semester (In Review)

Looking back at my blog posts this semester, it seems like there were a few topics of interest, namely:

• Remembering Names
• Getting new students after Week 4
• Classroom Management
• Time Management
• Stressing out

It seems like I had been using my blog as a source of venting, which is all well and fine, but I predict that the last point would be less prominent if I took some time to focus on the positives in the experience.  That may be easier now, when I'm basically finished for the semester, as many things didn't seem all too positive at the time.

The issue with remembering names seems silly now.  I know all of their names extremely well, and now I think I have some confidence in myself to remember names in the future.  It sure seems like it'd be easier, anyways.  It also seems silly that I was stressing out over the new student in class as well.  Everything was super smooth after the first few weeks, and now they are just like anyone else.  We even got classes mixed around after the first trimester, and the transition was smooth and stress-free.

Classroom management and time management are still big concerns but I feel infinitely more comfortable with each of them at this point.  I feel like I'm way more comfortable in front of the class in general, which is good news to consider.  I think classroom management has become easier because students have a clearer idea of what I expect of them in class and I feel they respect me a bit more.  Time management is not something I'm yet completely comfortable with - I tend to want to run class right up until the end of the hour, but we always end up needing those last few minutes for housekeeping sorts of things.  I'm hoping it gets better at the high school level (or at least can be better)

I believe that stressing out is the one constant that'll be there for a while, though.  I'm feeling incredibly de-stressed at the moment, since I got two major project finished.  It feels like the semester is basically over, and it feels nice.  However, I know that a whole new line of stresses are ready to meet me on the other side of winter break.  Hooray!

Lastly, I'm gonna miss the kids in my class once next week ends.  I'm not sure about the level of reciprocity, but I love the little buggers.  It's weird to think that I will likely not see them again after this placement.

See you on the other side of 2011!

:)

Last few weeks of the semester.

Boy, that snuck up on me in a hurry!

I'm trying to make a mad dash to get as much of my portfolio finished as I can before class on Tuesday.  It has quite literally gone untouched for several weeks leading up until today.  I have been so overwhelmingly busy with everything else that it felt nice to just relax and be lazy over the long weekend.  Getting back into gear today was quite the battle of wills.  I actually cleaned my room as a form of prolonging the inevitable.

Regardless, I got 5 portions of my portfolio finished tonight, and it feels pretty damn good.  If only there weren't a significant chunk to go!  I'm not looking forward to doing the Outside Resources or Equity Project portion, so I'll just put those off a little longer... :)

As for teaching in the classroom, I feel like my role has been significantly diminished.  It sounds like I will go back to doing the opening questions like I did for the first half of the semester, which seems so long ago!  I still have two tests to grade tomorrow in class, but after that, my unit is completely finished.  It feels so weird to not have to lesson plan or stress out about grading tests anymore.  Weird, but good!

I honestly don't know if there is something else I need to be doing in the classroom.  I suppose I will wander around and help out where I'm needed.  I now know how Mr. Martin must've felt during my unit - and it makes sense that he was always looking for something to do.  I feel like the last few weeks is going to be boring!

As for my unit as a whole, I feel like it went pretty well.  If I'm considering how my students did, their test scores indicate that my feelings are accurate.  There were a few young ladies who completely bombed both tests, but I have a hard time feeling bad for them.  I approached each of them to see if I could offer additional help, and gave them opportunities to earn back some points on their tests, but neither of them took me up on either offer.  You can only lead a horse to water, right?

In other news, I hope to be hearing from Allendale about my student teaching placement for next semester this week.  Just to have official word will be nice.

:)

Last Week of my Unit

Wow, that went by very quickly!

Tomorrow and Tuesday are my last two days of the unit, and it feels very good to know that I won't have to do any more planning or stressing out about my students and I can focus on the other stuff I need to finish for the COE.  I still need to grade the test that I gave out on Friday, so that is my plan for Monday night.

Frankly, it seems that there isn't anything else exciting going on.  I got my classroom management plan done, so that's one less thing to stress out about.  The only two things left on my plate are the Multi-Genre project for my literacy class and the Placement Portfolio.  That one will actually take a bit of stress yet... Thanksgiving break should give me the time I need.

In other news, it sounds like there might be a secondary teaching placement opening in my old high school.  I have quite a few friends in the right places that it could work out nicely.  I'm going to do a bit of probing to see what I need to do to initiate the right 'first contact' and so that I can express interest before the position is filled.

Hm... what else is going on?  Well, I ran into an issue with the test that I gave on Friday.  There was nothing wrong with the test, per se, but there were a few people who needed the whole hour to take the test.  This is not unexpected, but what was unexpected was the inability of the rest of the students to refrain from talking so as to not distract those still taking the test.  It was downright disrespectful, and I'm disappointed that even with a very explicit reasoning that students are still testing, they could muster no sympathy.  It's partially my fault for not having something specific for them to work on, but I did give options for those who finished early, and they refused them.

Ugh, it was frustrating.  If my unit wasn't concluding, I would definitely make it a point that such actions would not be tolerated.

Well, I guess this is a short blog post this week.  Not much else to share.

The Busiest Week so Far!

The week started off with a bang - I gave students my first ever assigned tests on Monday.  I was pretty nervous to see how they'd do, which I figured would reflect on how well I'd taught.  I know that there are so many other factors that this would be an invalid assertion, but it's tough to avoid thinking that way.

So, I spent a lot of my downtime throughout the week slowly hacking away at grading their tests, which was quite a novel experience.  I've heard quite a few strategies for grading tests, but I opted to just grade a page at a time in an attempt to maximize consistency.  I hit a snag on page 2 when I noticed that everyone was struggling with one question.  It was a pretty difficult question, so I gave them the benefit of the doubt and made the question extra credit, so as to not factor into the total number of points possible.  Interestingly, nobody got the question correct.  The right call I'd say, and an indication to do a bit of reteaching.  More on this later.

We had a bit of a wild week, thanks to a professional development day on Wednesday, my absence from class on Tuesday for seminar, and our CT being out to take care of a sick kid on Thursday.

On Thursday, we continued learning about writing rules, and then equations, for simple linear relationships between two variables.  I was pleasantly surprised to see the students behave as well as they did, considering the presence of a substitute teacher in the room, but there seemed to be mass confusion on the topic discussed.  We didn't get through much after a long list of housekeeping things, so I decided to rethink and stretch the lesson for another day.

That night, I created handouts for the students which could be used a reference to look back on writing rules and equations, as well as provide an opportunity to practice writing their own rules.  Having finished grading their tests as well, I created a re-test of sorts, which I dubbed the Test 2 Recovery, since I intended it to be completed at home and not in class.

Friday went better than Thursday, but was still not great.  One student had one of those educational baby dolls that liked to cry at random intervals.  Fun!  Ignoring this the best we could, I let the class try to come up with their own rules and equations on the worksheet I gave them.  They were all over writing equations, but the rules (with words) were tough for them - I'm thinking it's more of a writing issue than an understanding issue.  But we must push on... we are going to be writing more complex equations this coming week.

I concluded the day on Friday by giving them their tests back.  We spent a bit of time reviewing the questions that they most struggled with, but they were being a bit rowdy.  I used the line, "I would love to continue going over this as soon as the volume level gets back under control. I'm reviewing this stuff for you all - I already know it.  I just assumed you'd want to know how to do this for the Test 2 Recovery which I'll be giving you to do over the weekend."

That seemed to work.  And now I just need to see how many people actually turn them in, and I get to have fun grading stuff again.  Interesting side note - I was pleasantly surprised to see one of the quiet, blend-in kids get a 96% for the class high.  Go him.

---

Other than that, this past week/end has been obnoxiously busy.  I haven't left my house since Friday, and I've been writing at my computer for most of it.

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Week... Err... I don't even know anymore

I'm so far into the semester that I have no idea how many weeks we've been going for, and I'm not terribly looking forward to the next few of them.  In the next 3 weeks, I have to write my classroom management plan, my placement field folio, and a teaching literacy philosophy, while make progress on my placement portfolio and completing a working prototype of my super secret project.

I hope my hair can handle all of pulling it will be asked to endure...

My teaching placement has been going well, for the most part.  Aside from them going much slower than I'd like, and having to teach a level of mathematics that is not my preference, I think I have been learning a ton about myself as a teacher.  For one, I don't do enough (in my inexperienced opinion) collecting of their work for a grade.  I will be giving a text/quiz on Monday, and I realize that I haven't yet graded them on anything I've given them for this investigation.

It's not as if I haven't been giving them assignments, but in this school, homework completion rates are significantly lower than ideal.  It sounds terrible to sell them short, but from experience, only about 10% of my students will actually do any homework assigned to them.  At one point, I had a plan to check over their homework from the previous day using our CPS remote system, but we only got one question in before class ended.  My plan was to hold them accountable the following day, but my cooperating teacher suggested that I just push on to the next section.

I need to get better at that... I think.  Right?

I had them turn in some 'Exit Slips' to gauge their understanding, which I intended to give a participation score to, which I still may do yet, but I have been told that grading exit slips should be avoided.  Gah!

---

Otherwise, last week I had one day where I fell flat on my face, followed the next day by one of the better lessons given in that classroom this year.  My cooperating teacher said that he was actually pretty engaged in the lesson, having distracted him from the work that he was trying to do off in the corner.  If I can just get rid of the bad days, then we're in business!

This week should go by pretty quickly... We have a test tomorrow, professional development for the College of Ed on Tuesday, and our school has no students on Wednesday (the jury is still out on whether I need to drive in that day).

I think I'm going to spend the next 30 minutes or so depressingly writing down everything I need to get done in the next few weeks.  Ugh.

It has begun! ...err, my unit, that is.

Yep, I have officially begun teaching my unit...

The first day went very well - much better than expected.  That is not to say that I thought I was going to do terribly, I was just shocked at how well my students responded to my first day.  We started off with a short warm-up activity that served almost as pre-test to the unit, which is: interpreting tables and graphs in order to make informed decisions.  In addition to that, though, it allowed students to mentally prepare for the lesson... I gave two short table/graph interpretation problems and told them to think about why these problems might be difficult for them.  I was more interested in that than any answer they might give, so I made that specifically clear when I gave them the handout.

Sure, there was some resistance by a few students, but most of them participated in some regard.

Then, I had them turn the paper over, and we focused on the lesson, which was essentially teaching them how to address the types of problems that they had on their handout.  Class involvement here was probably the best it's been all year.  I don't know if it's just because I left all the questions open, or what, but they were legitimately engaged!

After the lesson concluded, I had them return to their warm up worksheets and do a quick reflection on what they wrote to start the hour.  I instructed them to make a note on the sheet if they felt more comfortable with the problems or if they still felt confused by them.  I got some nice responses from these.  Then, that night, I went through and wrote a short note to each of them, either asking them some extension-type questions (that they aren't expected to formally answer), or to invite them to talk with me personally, or a tip that might help them out.

I think they appreciated that personal touch, and I could tell that the couple of students who didn't turn one in were disappointed that they didn't get a note from me.

---

My second day wasn't as eventful or well done.  They had a Friday remote quiz, which took much longer than expected.  Then, I gave them time to discuss their homework with another student in class, and then the opportunity to review one question (of their choosing) as a whole.  Sadly, when we ran out of time at this point, and I very nearly ran over.

Because of my poor time management, I didn't collect anything from them.  I feel pretty bad about that, but I'll see if I can get something tomorrow (Monday).

---

In all, I think it went well.  I just need to note the time and be more wary when I don't have any more of it.

I'm more nervous for tomorrow than I was last week.  Also, I'm already behind.

:)

The Beginning... (about to take over)

So, week 8 contained the conclusion of MEAP testing (huzzahs all around!) and a few lessons from 7th grade.  I finally got to see how my cooperating teacher uses the Connected Math workbooks in the classroom, so I at least have a basis for my own planning.  And, speaking of planning...

I finally planned out my first week, which is really only three days (Wed - Fri), and I think it went mostly well.  It took a while to get myself focused enough to actually sit down and plan, but once I got going, it wasn't so bad.  I essentially planned all three days in one sitting (with a few internet breaks here and there...ha!).  I have found the Teacher's Guide quite helpful in identifying objectives and suggested homework, but I find myself consistently diverging from their suggesting approach to accommodate the needs of my own students.  This has been a tough balance thus far, as I am trying to differentiate to my students without selling short their abilities.  There were a few problems that I nixed from the suggested plan because I thought they would be too intensive for my students.

In a perfect world, I'd have assigned them anyways, in hopes of the students struggling with them and actually getting something out of it.  Thinking about my students' past actions, however, I decided that too many of them would give in at the first sign of a struggle - especially considering they were homework problems, and my students have a poor history of homework completion.  I am consciously thinking about how I could differentiate to students within the same class, given their level of 'readiness,' but I'm not yet comfortable enough with exactly how to do that without singling out students (as in my case, it would be singling out the under-performers).  That, and I don't want to kill myself over this as I'm just getting started.

Now, the biggest issue I have with starting this week is also the source of the first major disagreement with my cooperating teacher.  He wants to take 10-15 (and sometimes 20!) minutes at the start of each day going over CPS remote questions which are ultimately unrelated to the lesson at hand.  This means that I have less time for lessons, planning for warm-up activities is now complicated, and students are experiencing disjointed "lessons," which will only serve to dilute potential learning.  It's downright frustrating, but it's his class, so it's what I am going to do.

So, yeah... I take over in three days, and I'm being observed in four days.  I'm a bit nervous, but am confident that even if it goes poorly, I can learn something from it all.

:)

MEAP Testing...

...has taken over our class.

It's really too bad.  We have spent so much time preparing for the MEAP, whose math component starts tomorrow, that we covered almost no new content in either sixth or seventh grade.  It's really quite disheartening.  On top of that, I started reading the Teaching Gap in class, and the issues that are addressed in the text are picturesque of my classroom.  We are consistently drilling-and-killing, focusing more on procedures and memorization than any notion of mathematical thinking.  Nowhere are students asked to partake in any active, problem-solving tasks... they just sit there; mostly not listening.

I really need to do something to get them excited about doing mathematics and solving problems, but... what is that something?  I have students who outright just occupy space in class, offering nothing in return.  I can think of one student in particular... she is clueless; lost; spaced-out.  She doesn't want anything to do with math, and refuses to let me help her.  One can only lead a horse to water, right?  We had a conversation today that went like this:

Me: Okay, is there a number that divides into both 5 and 15?
Her: Seven.
Me: Why do you think seven?
Her: I dunno.
Me: Okay, so tell me how 7 divides into 5...
Her: I dunno.
Me: Does it divide into 5?  Can you divide 5, 7 ways?
Her: No.
Me: Okay, then can 7 divide into both 5 and 15?
Her: I dunno.
Me:...

Meanwhile, she would lose interest and look away, spacing out.  I had to refocus her back to me every so often, but she just didn't want anything to do with the help.  When we are going over problems, she is never tuned in, always looking somewhere else.  It's to the point where I don't want to help her anymore, as she clearly doesn't want the help.

Hm...

---

On a lighter note, I had my first College of Ed observation today.  I think things went pretty well.  I didn't ever feel nervous, and thought that my interacting with the students was appropriate and meaningful.  Let's see if the review comes back with the same sentiments.

Compher, out.

Week 6 Workshop - Classroom Observation: Questioning

This blog post is terribly unexciting, I'm sure.  Apologies for that... carry on.  :)

My task for the day was to observe the questioning that occurs when my cooperating teacher cycles the room, assisting students.  The focus for today was reducing fractions to their simplest form.  Thus, the questions observed were along the lines of:

• Can someone tell us a number that goes into 20 and 100?
• What did you do here, [Student X]?
• What happened down here to make the denominator go from 3 to 9?
• Is the fraction in simplest form?
• Can you tell me why you chose B?

Luckily, there are a few instances of open-ending questioning mixed in there, which is ideal when questioning students.  Granted, when they are truly at a loss for where to go next, it becomes essential to do a bit of scaffolding via leading questions.

We sort of shifted gears from there to talk about the sum of the measures of the angles of quadrilaterals.  There wasn't much exploratory learning here, and it should have been review.  The questions asked were of the form:

• How many degrees are there inside a triangle [sic]?  Okay, then how many are inside a rectangle?
• But, didn't you just tell me that the sum of the measures of the angles in a quadrilateral is 360 degrees?
• Did you do this another way, [Student Y]?

None too exciting, really.  They were a bit more leading than the above questions, which may have been a byproduct of being pressed for time.

As for the type of questions that I would like to ask in my classroom, I don't think they would be far removed from the first set of questions.  There would be a few questions that check for understanding, some leading questions where necessary, and a mixture of open-ended questions.  I do like asking students to explain their reasoning in an effort to get them practicing the use of mathematical language.

Week 6 Begins (along with the MEAP)

Ah, where to begin.

Last week ended with a bit of a bang.  Our cooperating teacher was absent from school, so we had a substitute teacher.  What this ultimately meant is that we got to take over the class for the day.  I took seventh grade, which means I only got one class.  Since it was also a half day, the whole of the class was spent doing their Friday remote quiz.  I thought the day went mostly well.  The only niggle was the fact that students tried to leave when class ended, not when I dismissed them.  The following went down:

Students start to stand and gather their things
[Me] Hey, everyone, we know that nobody leaves class until dismissed by the teacher.
Students are still standing, one tried to leave.
[Me] Have a seat.
[Me] ...
[Me] Have a seat.
[Me] ...
[Me] Have a seat.
[Student] I'm sitting down.
[Me] Is that your seat?
[Student] No, but I'm sitting.
[Me] I said "Have a seat," and I think you know which seat I meant.
[Student] *groan*
Student moves to proper seat
[Me] Have a nice weekend...

A bit of a power struggle?  Maybe, but I never raised my voice.

Looking ahead, this week should be another eventful one.  MEAP testing is starting Tuesday, and there are rumors that we will be watching over a PE class.  That sounds like a nice use of my time!  My unit still looms on the horizon, but still no word on when I am taking over the class.  Regardless, though, I have an observation time set up for a week from tomorrow.  Hopefully we do something useful that day.

As an aside to all of this teaching stuff (sorta) my Math and Physics Certification tests are on Saturday.  I'm a bit nervous about the Physics one, and I think some studying exists in my future.  Math, I think I'll be alright with.

---

Lastly, this is a repost from a Discussion Board response for a class.  The topic is the first chapter of The Teaching Gap.  Normally I wouldn't do this, but I had some interesting thoughts that all [small number] of my readers might be interested in:

Now, the major points of the text followed along the lines of: The United States consistently under-performs in the area of mathematics on the global scale, the problem with math education lies on the teaching of math (not necessarily the teachers, but at least the process), and we seem to lack any sort of plan designed to systematically improve the state of math education (Circa 1999, of course).

One of the attributing factors here is the method in which teachers are left to their own devices, on an island of isolation.  This actually got me thinking about how much different my teaching experience will be when I have my own classroom, compared to what I experience now (read: with two professional teachers and a second student assistant).  It's actually quite daunting.  Left alone on this island, teachers are given very little opportunity to observe and reflect on their own teaching habits and methods.  There is nobody checking in on the teacher's teaching (aside from a few arbitrary observations per year), so any professional development and growth becomes the responsibility of the teacher [alone].  We haven't gotten into it yet, but I'm am fully expecting to read about collaborative efforts among content area teachers in other countries, particularly Japan.  Sure, there are likely to be departmental meetings from time to time, but nothing on the scale that really alters the way that we teach things.

Anyways, we were supposed to focus on assessment, so I should probably get around to doing that...

The big role that assessment plays with regard to this whole dilemma, the teaching gap, is that the purpose of assessment is to assess student learning.  If students are learning, this should show up in assessment (both formative and otherwise), and teaching should be modified accordingly.  If this is not happening (which is likely the case) one of two things is happening: either the results of the assessment are not being used in any productive manner, or, even worse, our assessment methods are not functioning as their intended purpose.  This would mean that assessments are not properly assessing student learning.

This was hinted at briefly in the text when it was mentioned that teaching in the United States tends to focus on processes of computation, rather than mathematical learning.  Thus, students are only "learning" to memorize formulas and when they should be used.  Instead, students should be actively solving problems.  Not problems as in "problem number four," but problems as in a questions needing an answer.  Students get so caught up in the processes of doing computation that they fail to remember, or even realize, conceptually what it is that they are doing.  This is very disheartening.  The panda is thusly sad:

Ultimately, what this chapter did was sort of shake me up a little; both in terms of pointing out the elephant in the room, and actually frightening me a bit with the task that has been placed on mathematics teachers of the future.  That's me!  Halp!

Well, that's enough of a rant from me.  My biggest concern with all of this is that the system cannot be fixed at one level by one teacher.  It must be something that is addressed at every stage of a students' education.  I can try my damndest and do everything possible, but if the damage is already done, what good would it do?

:)  <--- the smiley face is to lighten the mood.

Workshop - Observing Instruction

For one of our seminar workshops, I was tasked with observing instruction.  Since I was observing another teacher already for another course, I pulled double-duty and made notes for this class as well.  This was in an Eighth Grade Algebra classroom, and they were working with Order of Operations.

Long story short, I will now reflect on a few questions I've been considering about teaching, and how I believe that I am working on them (and who I might be discussing them with):

1. How can we include all the benefits of using a remote/clicker system without the hassle that comes with it?
Jacob and I have been talking about this quite a bit.  He has proposed a few things already, given that his unit is quickly approaching, but I'm still in the thinking stage.  The immediate feedback on student performance is the biggest benefit of using the remotes, but many students get frustrated whilst using them.  Technology should never hinder learning, and thus I have a problem with the CPS system.

2.  Is being well-liked by my students something I should consider, or should I focus more on respect?
For the longest time, I had it in my mind that I should aim to be well-liked by my students, but whenever the subject is brought up, it's been emphasized that this is a slippery slope.  Rather, students should respect you (me) as the leader of classroom.  I'm torn.  I need to find someone whom I can discuss this more openly with.

3.  How much lesson planning goes into a unit?
I've posted this as a concern before, I think but I'm still not sure.  I now have my unit material nailed down, so I need to start thinking about planning, but I really don't know how to allocate time.  In all of my classes, we've been talking about lesson planning, so that's good news.

---

Otherwise, not much went on last week.  We had a crazy few days, given the schedule changes, us missing school for a PD day, me observing two other classes on Thursday, and having a half day on Friday.

Unit plan = impending.

Week 3/4 - Changes afoot!

Already this week, we have had quite a few drastic changes to our three classes.  It's Monday.

Essentially, a long term substitute teacher was relieved of her Math post, and so all of her students were dispersed to the remaining Math teachers.  What this meant for us is a slew of schedule changes, which amounted to about 10 new students per class.  Just when I was starting to get names down, they throw this wrench at me!?  To be honest, not much good has come from this whole scenario... I'm trying to look for positives, but I can't find any:

• We have just enough clickers for each student to have one, but many of them are unreliable, or downright non-functional.
• The rooms are now at complete capacity.  It feels very crowded, especially with 4 adults in the room.
• We lost a few of our most pleasant students.
• We gained a few problem children.
• We have to essentially start over introducing the procedures in class.
• Grades are now a mess.

On top of all of this, I have great sympathy for the substitute who was relieved of her math post.  She has been hired full time, but for subjects that she was assigned this morning!  Good on her for having work, but damn that has to be nerve wracking to not know what subject you are teaching until the first day you have to do it.

----

Last week, there was a young man who was brought to tears on consecutive days.  This is sad, yes, it was brought on by his own lack of effort up to that point.  I personally worked with him as he struggled through learning the basics of solving for single-variable, linear equations.  I offered to him on Friday for us to come in early to work with him before school on his homework (at least I told him to think about it over the weekend).  Much to my delight, he was sitting in our classroom when we arrived.  I worked with him on a few problems, and he got most of it done before his class met in 3rd hour.  I wish we'd have had more warning so we could've gotten there earlier.  I'm proud of the little guy for showing some initiative.

----

As for everything else classroom related, things just keep on moving forward.  Teaching my unit looms on the horizon, and I'm just worried about how I'm going to have time for it all.  I have confidence with being in front of the class, and don't seem to have any issues handling disciplinary issues as they come up, but I'm not sure I'm yet comfortable with planning to teach a unit.  I guess we'll find out soon enough!

Also, I'm sort of confused by my boundaries as a Teacher Assistant.  I often see kids misbehaving in the hallways, but I'm not sure how much intervention is within my right, nor the best way to handle it.  Mostly it's just kids playfully pushing and shoving, but it's clear that they are not being respectful.  Today we had to move as a class through the hallway, and I watched as one of our students struck another student in the back with his folder.  I pulled him aside and sent him to the back of the line, but nothing came of it.  I feel like I should have been more strict, but I'm not sure.  Ah!

Well, I've begun to ramble.  It's spirit week, so I'm excited to wear red and white on Wednesday!

Cheers.  :)

Week Two - In the Books

Now that Week 3 is officially underway, I thought it'd be a good idea to reflect back on Week 2.  Be wary, I'm long winded.

Getting down student names is still a struggle.  This has always been a huge barrier for me with personal and professional relationships.  As soon as someone says, "My name is...", my brain melts.  I've had someone introduce themself to me, and upon mentally telling myself that I need to remember the name given, I've forgotten it.  It's not pretty.

This mostly only happens when the anxiety of forgetting a name causes me to forget.  Ironic.

I think that at its core, I have trouble with facial recognition.  I seem to be able to remember spatial distribution and physical appearance (where the students sit and what they wear), but the faces are the issue.  I can remember names, I just can't match them to their owners.  That said, I'm not completely hopeless... I think I have most of 1st and 3rd hours down, but 2nd hour is elusive, damnit!

Those obvious deficiencies out of the way...

Class if going well.  We have done more to get involved in running certain components of each day.  We alternate between doing clicker questions, which ultimately take half of the class period.  These clickers are used both to give students practice with concepts they already know, as well as to introduce them to new concepts.  It's being used formatively to gain instant feedback on student strengths and weaknesses.  If a certain concept or question is observed to be misunderstood by a large portion of the class, we cover it in more depth.  Sadly, we tend to get bogged down with these, and we wish that we had more time to give students to explore nuances and make connections on their own.

Realistically, though, we just don't have the time.  I get caught asking students, "Why did you X?" or "What did you notice about the problem that suggested Y?"  These are nice techniques to check for student understanding, but they take soooo much time.  Thus, we are only allowed to use these questions sparingly, and must race through other things.

----

Homework is fun, too.  Many of them don't do it.  One student got a less than stellar grade on his homework because he joined class late, missing out on some notes and a lesson.  He left most of it blank.  I gave him the opportunity to finish the problems he left blank so he could earn some extra points.  He declined.

Really, how little do these kids have invested in their learning.  You can lead a horse to water...

It's frustrating sometimes.

Thankfully another student took me up on the offer.  Her grade improved quite significantly, and I was relieved to see that they hadn't all given up.  It's quite the roller-coaster ride.

---

Lastly, I really don't know how to teach students how to do story problems.  They simply don't get them.  I've read that teaching them to look for keywords is bad practice, but I just can't think of any other way.  They read a question (most of the time), and just pick out the numbers.  They haphazardly choose a strategy, which is often based on no specific reasoning, and is often wrong.  Most of them have figured out how to use a guess-and-check method when doing the clicker questions.  This is a fine test taking strategy, but it really fails to show any learning, nor does it do them any good moving forward.

There are talks of us covering the answers for all but the last 30 seconds of their time.  Let's see how well this goes...

It's now 9:00.  Bedtime!

Reflections on My First Week

One week down.  [Marks tally on wall]

What an interesting week it was...  The biggest struggle throughout my first week was trying to remember names.  The, err.... interesting names that these students have does not speed up the process.  Mr. Martin uses a method of greeting the students at the door each day to learn their names.  Due to having four adults in the room for the first three hours of the day, I've resorted to listening in on these greetings (the students really don't need to shake four hands on their way in) as well as taking attendance from the seating chart to practice their names.  Thank God for seating charts!

I have most of them down by now, but I really don't feel shame in asking them to repeat their names.  I hope to have it down pat by the end of the second week.

----

On day two, we had the students fill out basic informational cards.  These essentially included their names, where they were born, something fun they did over the summer, something they remember from Math class last year, and a goal that they have for their future.  This last one was emphasized because, well, it was the most interesting.  It was not specified what "the future" meant, so the students were given a few liberties in that determination.

The male responses were overwhelmingly of the nature: NFL player, NBA player, to play college football.

At first glance, one is wont to chalk it up to the dreams of a young mind... until you stop and think about the situation in which these students live.  (Warning: Sweeping generalizations to follow)  The students in my classroom are predominantly African American, and many live in families with less than ideal circumstances.  It is about this age (sixth and seventh grade) when students tend to shed their childish "fantastical" dreams, but I fear that these students lack the positive role models and influences to move beyond these dreams.  Compounded with all these "uplifting" stories of poor, African American athletes rising up from impoverished situations to become heroes in their respective athletic areas, these males may be of the state of mind that the only way to become something is to become a star athlete.  Who do these stories uplift, anyways?  Surely, they aren't doing anyone any favors.  Note: this could be total BS.  [Gives grain of salt].

The female responses were much less centralized on any specific goal, ranging from passing sixth grade, to going to college, to becoming a lawyer, to becoming a teacher, and so on.  One interesting young lady indicated that she wanted to be both a lawyer and a hairdresser.  More power to her!

----

Otherwise, my first week was pretty nondescript.  Most of the time was spent establishing procedural practices.  I have pretty strong opinions regarding the Responsible Thinking Process line of questioning to address behavioral issues, but I'll save that for a later date.  I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

The biggest struggle for my students this fall isn't going to be the new material, but the basic Math that they should already know.  When one cannot confidently add single-digit numbers, algebra is going to be a blast!

-Matt

Ah. Fresh starts.

I just blew the dust off of this blog after not touching it for three years. After passing out from the excess of dust in the air, I think I may have hit my head. No bother... I'm back!