After being in the classroom with the same sets of students for several months, you may feel as though you have a fairly good grasp on those students' personalities, abilities, and needs in the classroom. By the end of March, I had been working with a gifted and talented 9th grade Biology class for 7 months. I was confident that I knew what to expect from each student. Despite this class being at the GT level, there was a student in the class who had spent most of the previous 7 months being minimally engaged with the class. His test scores were lower than average, he wouldn't turn in completed classwork, and he rarely would participate in class discussions without being called on directly.
However, at the end of March, we were getting into the genetics unit which was proving to be popular with many of the students, including this particular one. Suddenly, this student was not only completing all of his work, but he was doing so correctly and was often the first one done. He always had answers for me when I asked questions to the class and even began asking his own questions to further understand the material. During one class period, he finished his work so early, that I gave him an additional assignment to complete, which he did excitedly and without complaint.
There are a lot of factors that can affect a student's performance in the classroom. Many of those factors occur outside of the classroom and are out of the teacher's control. This student made me realize that I should never make assumptions about student behavior, regardless of how long I have known them. If I always have high expectations for every student, there is always room for them to grow and improve. There is also a huge benefit to finding what interests students and allowing them the freedom to explore those interests.
Wednesday, April 26, 2017
Unexpected Results | Internship Reflection 7
In a previous blog, I discussed implementing a positive reinforcement strategy using tickets in one of my classes to improve classroom behavior. This strategy would allow students to earn tickets for good behavior that they could exchange for rewards. As expected, after introducing the tickets at the beginning of March, students became invested in earning tickets, often asking what they needed to do to earn tickets. While the strategy did not work for all students (particularly the most disruptive ones), many students did embrace the idea of earning tickets. In order to allow students to keep track of the amount of tickets they earned, I created a "scoreboard" that listed ever student in the class and how many tickets they had earned. At the end of each class, I would adjust the scoreboard to reflect current ticket amounts. If students exchanged their tickets for rewards, I would decrease their ticket number on the scoreboard.
A surprising result of this was that many students seemed to be more interested in having the highest number on the scoreboard than receiving a reward. I would announce when students had enough tickets to buy a snack, but many students expressed that they would rather "save up" their tickets, despite the fact that there was not reward that cost more than the number of tickets they currently had. It seems like the motivation for many students was in the form of competition rather than tangible reward.
This unexpected reaction from my students made me aware that I could likely increase engagement in the classroom by introducing activities based around games/competitions. I am hesitant to pit students against each other because I would rather encourage personal growth, but this particular class seems to enjoy the challenge of trying to be the best in the class.
A surprising result of this was that many students seemed to be more interested in having the highest number on the scoreboard than receiving a reward. I would announce when students had enough tickets to buy a snack, but many students expressed that they would rather "save up" their tickets, despite the fact that there was not reward that cost more than the number of tickets they currently had. It seems like the motivation for many students was in the form of competition rather than tangible reward.
This unexpected reaction from my students made me aware that I could likely increase engagement in the classroom by introducing activities based around games/competitions. I am hesitant to pit students against each other because I would rather encourage personal growth, but this particular class seems to enjoy the challenge of trying to be the best in the class.
Too Much Independence | Internship Reflection 6
In the senior-level Biomedical Innovations (BI) PLTW class that I work with, a lot of the classwork focuses around providing the students with problems to solve on their own or, more recently, having them come up with their own problem that needs solving. At the end of this course, the curriculum has students develop and implement their own independent project for which they pick a biomedical topic and find a solution to a problem. Students are given the opportunity to do a research study, a fundraising event, an internship, and more. On the surface, the freedom of this project seems like an excellent way to get students engaged with science by allowing them to research something in which they are interested. However, in practice, students who are not used to taking so much responsibility for their own learning (and the demonstration of that learning) get overwhelmed by the openended-ness of an independent project of this type.
In March, we spent the majority of time in BI helping students plan, research, and implement their projects. After receiving a lot of push back from the students, I began developing extra scaffolding activities that would provide structure to the project that students were floundering without. For instance, I noticed that the students were really good at providing feedback for each other, so I had students get into groups and take turns describing their vision for the project. Afterwards, other students in the group would ask questions and make suggestions for moving forward. I also used drills at the beginning of class to ask questions that would help students complete sections of their projects. For one drill, I asked students to create a list of steps (shorter than 10 items) that it would take to implement their project. After creating this list, students had an outline for the methods section of their project. Breaking daunting parts of the project up into small pieces was a much more successful strategy for students who did not have experience with this amount of independence in the classroom.
What this experience made me realize is that it is important to get students engaged in independent learning from an early age so that they are comfortable with this sort of projects at the end of their secondary school career. If the seniors in my BI class had been engaged in inquiry and project-based learning throughout their educational experience, they may not have needed as much scaffolding during this course. But regardless of the age, it is beneficial to stay aware of the students' needs in the classroom and to be flexible enough to provide extra support when needed.
In March, we spent the majority of time in BI helping students plan, research, and implement their projects. After receiving a lot of push back from the students, I began developing extra scaffolding activities that would provide structure to the project that students were floundering without. For instance, I noticed that the students were really good at providing feedback for each other, so I had students get into groups and take turns describing their vision for the project. Afterwards, other students in the group would ask questions and make suggestions for moving forward. I also used drills at the beginning of class to ask questions that would help students complete sections of their projects. For one drill, I asked students to create a list of steps (shorter than 10 items) that it would take to implement their project. After creating this list, students had an outline for the methods section of their project. Breaking daunting parts of the project up into small pieces was a much more successful strategy for students who did not have experience with this amount of independence in the classroom.
What this experience made me realize is that it is important to get students engaged in independent learning from an early age so that they are comfortable with this sort of projects at the end of their secondary school career. If the seniors in my BI class had been engaged in inquiry and project-based learning throughout their educational experience, they may not have needed as much scaffolding during this course. But regardless of the age, it is beneficial to stay aware of the students' needs in the classroom and to be flexible enough to provide extra support when needed.
Monday, April 17, 2017
On My Own | Internship Reflection 5
During the first week of March, my mentor teacher was absent for several days because of a fall in the classroom. For these days, I had to manage and instruct the classroom on my own. The first day or two were particularly difficult because we had not prepared for my mentor teacher to be out, so I was scrambling to make sure that I had all of the copies and resources I needed to complete all of the lessons. My university mentor was also scheduled to come in to observe one of my lesson during these days, which added to the stress.
Fortunately, I was able to coordinate with other professionals in the school to make sure that I had everything I needed. Through email and text message, I coordinated with other teachers to get access to copiers and supply rooms so that by the time my students entered the classroom, everything was ready to go. For the most part, I was able to run through the lessons smoothly and keep the instruction moving forward, despite my mentor teacher not being there.
One thing that I noticed during this time was the dramatic difference in behavior between the two classes I had been with all year and the four classes I had only just met at the beginning of the semester. The two classes I had been working with all year didn't change their behavior much, despite my mentor teacher being out. They were still very respectful and completed the work I assigned to them. On the other hand, the classes with which I hadn't had as much time to build relationships acted up much more while my mentor teacher was out. They did not respect my authority as much and spent much more time off task during the lesson. This experience helped me to realize how important it is to build relationships with students early in the year in order to set a tone and expectations for the class. Having an environment of mutual respect is a key component of a well managed classroom.
Fortunately, I was able to coordinate with other professionals in the school to make sure that I had everything I needed. Through email and text message, I coordinated with other teachers to get access to copiers and supply rooms so that by the time my students entered the classroom, everything was ready to go. For the most part, I was able to run through the lessons smoothly and keep the instruction moving forward, despite my mentor teacher not being there.
One thing that I noticed during this time was the dramatic difference in behavior between the two classes I had been with all year and the four classes I had only just met at the beginning of the semester. The two classes I had been working with all year didn't change their behavior much, despite my mentor teacher being out. They were still very respectful and completed the work I assigned to them. On the other hand, the classes with which I hadn't had as much time to build relationships acted up much more while my mentor teacher was out. They did not respect my authority as much and spent much more time off task during the lesson. This experience helped me to realize how important it is to build relationships with students early in the year in order to set a tone and expectations for the class. Having an environment of mutual respect is a key component of a well managed classroom.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)