On My Own | ED 645 Week 1 Reflection

This week marks the first week of the next class in my program, so we are back to week 1. For the next eight wees, I have decided to do the majority of my reflection through video rather than through text. For this first week, I reflect upon what teaching two class periods on my own taught me about classroom management.

One thing I didn't mention in this video was that, despite having gained the respect of my students, I did struggle to find ways to motivate some of my students who came to class having decided they didn't want to do any work that day. I tried multiple different tactics, but I had two students in particular that I just could not convince to focus on their classwork. While this was frustrating, it was a situation that helped me to evaluate the best courses of action and showed me a skill that I need to spend more time developing.

Talk Softly | Week 8 Reflection

This week, the experience that I had in school that made the most impact on me happened during an assembly rather than in class. The 9th and 10th grade students were called down to the auditorium to for a presentation on distracted driving. Typically, the students in the school that I'm working in are relatively respectful of the teachers but in this circumstance the assembly made them more rambunctious than usual. Much to the teachers' disappointment, the students had a lot of trouble settling down before the assembly started. Multiple times, the students were asked by the principle and by other teachers to quiet down. At one point, even the presenter told the students that she would not be able to continue if they didn't settle down. The presenter finally did begin her presentation but the students are still having trouble staying quiet. One of the faculty members asked the presenter to stop so that she could reprimand the students. She began raising her voice at the students and they laughed at her. This made the faculty member even more angry and she began yelling even louder. Finally when it was clear that she was not going to be able to get the students under control, another teacher stepped in. Rather than yelling, this teacher talked softly but seriously to the students in the auditorium. He calmly explained to them that it was embarrassing for the teachers and the administrators to have a visitor come to the school and to have the students act in such a way. He asked them to be respectful and said that if there were any students who were unable to do so, he would remove them from auditorium to have a talk. From this point on the students began to settle down and were nearly silent at the time the presenter began speaking again.

This experience was so profound for me because it demonstrated many of the things that I have heard people talk about and seen writings about when discussing classroom management. One of the things I've heard a lot when talking about classroom management is that students will take their cues from you, as the teacher. If you raise your voice or show that you were angry, they will mimic you. It's very important to keep an even, calm temper even if the student is doing something that upsets you. The difference in the students' reaction to the two different faculty members was as clear as night and day. The first faculty member immediately started off accusing the students and losing her temper. The second faculty member addressed the students calmly, pointing out that the students were better than the behavior that they were demonstrating. While the students clearly needed to be reprimanded for their actions, it was absolutely not necessary to yell at them. In fact, the yelling had exactly the opposite consequence as was intended.

This is a concept that I definitely am trying and will continue to try in my classroom. During my first observation, I noticed a student who was off task and calmly reminded her to return to her task. After I was done, the person conducting the observation commended me on the fact that I stayed calm while still steering the student back to the correct activity. My initial inclination when seeing students misbehaving is to take them aside and to have a conversation. This way, not only can I discipline them in a calm manner, I can do so in a way that is not public, in the front of their peers. It was interesting to see this concept played out in a real school scenario rather than just reading about it. This is a lesson that I will keep with me as I continue to learn and begin in my own classroom.

Best Laid Plans | Week 7 Reflection

There was one particular situation in class this week that stuck out to me. In the GT Biology class, my mentor teacher and I have been working with the students on macromolecules. They have been introduced to the four different types of macromolecules through notes, videos, craft projects, and readings. My mentor teacher has planned many different methods for helping the students to get familiar with the new concepts and to be able to distinguish between the different molecules. For many of the students, this is their first in-depth look at carbohydrates, proteins, lipids, and nucleic acids. In this lesson, there is also a lot of new vocabulary. Something the students have been getting confused about is that there are often several terms that mean the same thing (subunit, building block, monomer). It has taken some time and many different activities for the students to get the hang of all of the new vocab, but we were finally confident that we could move on from the introduction of these molecules into their reactions.

On Thursday, we introduced an activity to them where they would be answering questions and then cutting out shapes and manipulating them to help them visualize dehydration reactions that combine monomers into a polymer. It was clear early on that several of the students were getting lost. My mentor teacher decided to stand at the front of the class and walk through the steps with the students to model the activity. Still, students were having trouble answering the questions for that activity while also trying to figure out what they were cutting and how to connect the shapes of paper to the concepts there were supposed to be learning. It took nearly half of the class period to get the majority of the class back on track. It was tough for the students and tough for us as teachers to figure out what was going wrong and how to fix it. We were having trouble figuring out where the disconnect was and the students were having trouble explaining what they weren't understanding.

In particular, there was one student who had all but given up on the activity out of the frustration. When I walked around to the table where she was sitting to ask how they were doing, she said to me, "I don't understand any of this." I spent the next several minutes talking through what we were doing to try to understand where the break down in her understanding occurred. At one point, when I realized that the problem might extend beyond this activity, I asked her if she could tell me what a macromolecule is and she could not. After not being able to answer the question, she expressed to me that she was having trouble keeping track of all of the vocabulary words. We talked a little bit about what would help her to keep track of the words. Unfortunately, the class was ending at this point so we weren't able to make any further progress.

After the class I talked to my mentor teacher about the interaction and we concluded that several students seemed to be having trouble remembering all of the new words. We made a plan to give students a set of flash cards for the new vocabulary so that they had one single thing to look at when they couldn't remember a definition, rather than having to search through all of their notes. I look forward to giving these to the students and seeing if that helps.

Ultimately, what this taught me (and what I continue to learn from being in the classroom) is that, as a teacher, you have to constantly be adjusting your instruction and staying aware of how students are doing with the material you are presenting to them. Teaching is a constant back and forth and the final instruction is often quite a bit different from the initial plan. It is clear that some of the most important skills for good teachers to develop are flexibility and the ability to adapt when needed. It's been endlessly helpful to watch and participate in the process through my mentor teacher's classroom.

Routine Management | Week 6 Reflection

In ED 640 this week, we read and discussed assessments and classroom management. Since classroom management has consistently been my biggest worry when preparing to teach, this was particularly of interest for me. We were given a video from the Teaching Channel to watch about a first year teacher from the Bronx who got tips for classroom management from a veteran teacher (click here to see the video). This was an interesting video to watch because it showed that teachers should be open to getting assistance with classroom management issues if they need. It also provided some suggestions for things to try in the classroom.

One of the concepts that was brought up multiple times through this week was the idea of using a routine to help with classroom management. Routines allow students to know what is expected of them and what they should be doing at a particular time in class. I've had experience with how routines impact students' behavior in the classes that I am observing. My mentor teacher began a routine at the beginning of the school year where there students know every day to grab a paper that sits in a table at the front of the room when they come into class. This is their drill and it typically reviews concepts from previous classes or introduces the concepts that will be covered in class today. Students know that they are expected to sit down and begin working on the drill right away. This allows the teacher to get administrative tasks such as attendance done at the beginning of class while also getting the students prepared for the class ahead.  I have observed other classes where there was no drill, and it often took the teacher more time at the beginning of class to focus students' attention for the first task. While there are still a few classroom management issues in my current classes, many problems can be avoided by having the students know what they should be doing from the minute they walk into the door.

One concern that I still have with classroom management relates to intervening when there is a conflict between students. In one class that I observed, an argument between two students escalated until they were yelling across the classroom at each other. My mentor teacher had already tried multiple times to diffuse the situation but was unsuccessful. Finally, she had to remove the students from the classroom separately and take them to the office. This is a situation I have no experience with, so I was glad to have an experienced teacher there to take control of the situation. Now, I have an example from which I can learn. Another issue that is occurring in my 9th grade classroom is that there are two students sitting next to each other that tease each other. The majority of the teasing is done by one of the two students and I've felt the need to intervene during several class periods because the teasing was mean spirited and inappropriate. I plan to have a discussion with my mentor teacher about the situation so we can figure out the best way to handle this situation.

Ultimately, I still have so much to learn about classroom management, but the resources we have been given this week have provided many helpful strategies that I look forward to implementing in my classroom. I've also learned that I should look for help from more experienced teachers if I am unsure about how to handle a situation in my classroom.

Observations | Week 5 Reflection

This week in class was not abnormally exciting. For the most part, the students have been continuing with units that they started in the previous weeks. One different thing that happened this week was that my mentor teacher had an observation. The principal of the school and the department chair observed the classroom during the first class of the day, Biomedical Interventions, a Project Lead the Way course. Leading up to this observation, my mentor teacher had been gathering materials to present during her pre-observation meeting and had been providing me with some insight into what the process is like for her. It was interesting to hear her perspective from a teacher who has tenure and who has been through many observations. She pointed out the things that she typically does with the class that the administrators would be looking for, like having a clearly stated objective. She also mentioned how important it was for the observation that she make sure to come up with good questions for the students and to get them involved in discussions. During the observation, both my mentor teacher and I spent time questioning the students as they worked in groups on a project. The school principal also made the rounds, having the students describe what they were doing and what they were learning from the task. Ultimately, the observation went well. The department chair and principal were both pleased with what they saw in the classroom.

This week in class we have been learning about Danielson's Framework for Teaching that can be used to evaluate the quality of instruction. Not only was I able to take the time to look at my mentor teacher's instruction and compare it to the framework, I was also able to see this week how a professional observation is prepared for and carried out in the classroom. Having this experience gave me things to think about for when I have my first official observation as a teacher.