Week 1/25-29/10

My biggest success this week was planning my next two chemistry units. I looked through all the old material my mentor gave me and put together two units n my own. My mentor made some additions (a few labs) but mostly I am fully in charge of planning and teaching. My students are doing very well, and understand the material the way I am teaching it, which makes me feel that I am doing very well. We have a large quiz tomorrow, so we will see if my students really understand everything.

My biggest struggle this past week was one particular student. He has an IEP, and is a big behavior issue. He has been having a lot of trouble in my class, and my mentor and I are just helping him not be a disruption to other students at this point. Twice last week, he walked out of my class because he did not want to do what we were doing. The first time was during the final, and he did not want to sit still for an hour. The second time, I took a few different pieces of food. He wouldn’t give it to me, so when I went to call the assistant principal (part of his behavior plan) he walked out. Two of the other days he was not in class because he was in the health room and with the counselor (this kid is a chronic liar, so he makes up issues, like “my leg hurts, so I couldn’t use the stairs”). This issue is really difficult because no one really has a solution, except keep writing him up for walking out and keep track of when he is absent. I am currently working with my mentor, his learning strategies (special needs) teacher and the psychologist on campus, but all we can really do right now is keep a log of what the students does.

One thing I would like to work on is writing up each little situation rather than writing up a whole summary at the end of the week. I find I miss things, and I feel that I wouldn’t miss as much if I write many short entries each week.

Weeks of 11/9-13/09 and 11/16-20/09

My biggest struggle these past couple weeks was in one of my chemistry classes. The class is mostly juniors and seniors, and many of the boys play football. I have found that they view me as more of a friend than a teacher. This causes issues with respect, especially when my mentor is absent. The students will make somewhat inappropriate comments to me, and when my mentor is present, it is not such a big deal. But when he is not there, the rest of the class reacts, and the behavior starts to spiral out of control. Last Friday was one of those days that my mentor was absent. I began teaching class normally, but eventually the comments started. One student was very disruptive and things were starting to get out of control, so I stopped. I, somewhat harshly, informed them that the comments needed to stop. I am their teacher, not their friend. I notice that when Dr. Vernon (mentor) is gone, you seem to think you can be disrespectful and it is ok. This behavior is unacceptable and it will stop. Then I went on with the lesson. The comments did stop; the class was actually silent for about ten minutes. I think the lecture helped, but we will have to wait and see if it sticks the next time my mentor is gone.

          My biggest success these past weeks was an assignment that I came up with for one of the current topics. In science, most assignments are worksheets, practice problems, answering questions, or labeling diagrams. When there are written assignments, they are lab reports and very structured in a certain way. We have had a couple creative projects, but more speaking and making posters. I gave an assignment that allowed the students to come up with a story, poem or song that explained a process we are learning (osmosis). They were to write about a slug that gets salt on it (somehow) and show how osmosis causes the slug to shrivel. I got some amazing stories and poems from students who normally do not as well. I even had one student write a song, write music to it, then play the guitar and sing it in a video. I also have a student who normally does very few assignments who completed this one, and I can tell he worked hard on it. After all the stories have been submitted, I read them to the class, which the students also enjoy immensely. I hope that these stories helped them learn how osmosis works, and help them remember the process much longer than if they memorized it. I hope there will be more opportunities for assignments like this, because the students love them (and I really like grading them!!)

Student Work: Salting a Slug, Crawler’s End, Osmosis

Aligned with the Life Science Standard 9-11 LS1D:

– The cell is surrounded by a membrane that separates the interior of the cell from the outside world and determines which substances may enter and which may leave the cell

  – Describe the structure of the ` and how the membrane regulates the flow of materials into and out of the cell

Resolutions!

This week has been so much better than last week. The behavior issues I was having in my 6th period class have been decreased immensely because one student moved into my 5th period class. I have resolved many of my other stress issues, so I am not as overwhelmed as last week. This one student has been having a lot of trouble in class (he has an IEP and many behavior issues). I do not think that he has done any work for the last month (two of the weeks he was out of school for medical reasons) and he has been slow in making it up. I know the counselors and his special ed teacher are trying to help him get in all of his make-up work. This change I had hoped would help him concentrate better in class because he is genuinely interested in the material (he paid attention and participated in class fairly well before he left school). It has been an immense change for him. He is back to the behviors I saw before he left school. I made sure to positively reinforce his behavior on Monday, and again before class on Tuesday. I am hoping that this change will stick for him so I can help him succeed in my class. However, he needs to be the one to choose to succeed, and I am trying to help him make that choice.

Week of 10/19-23

My biggest struggle this week was an escalating situation in my 6^th period class between one student and a group of students. One student was being harassed by others, but then was reacting violently towards those students. The situation got worse each day. I ended up writing up 6 students on Tuesday. I had asked the students harassing the one student to stay after class and none of them did. The one student was gesturing threateningly towards the other students. The assistant principal spoke to all students involved. I also changed seats around so the group of students was split up. The next day in class, there was another incident between the one student and one of the group. I split up the two students and spoke with them both individually. The next day in class there was not any apparent issues, but they might have just kept their reactions out of my class. The situation was difficult to deal with because I felt like I was running around after school talking to many different people. I had no time to do anything I needed to do because I was trying to resolve this situation.

My biggest success this week was successfully managing five different classes of students I had never taught before. Both of my mentors were out this week. One was out both Monday and Tuesday, and the other was out in the afternoon on Wednesday. I took all of their classes on both days. I was able to manage both classes as well as teach them material. Even though they had never had me before, they respected me.

Wee of 10/12-16

My biggest success this week was more of a realization. One of my mentors has been going through a very rough time, and I have taken over all of her classes on days she is unable to be in school. This means I have been teaching a room full of students who do not know me and have no respect for me as a teacher. After teaching these students in addition to students I have been in charge of all year has shown me a great deal. I have seen just how much my students have come to respect me. After a headache of a morning with my mentor’s classes, I got to my classes and was surprised about how well behaved they seemed. I had been teaching them for so long, and I have had days with them where I feel that they are misbehaving horribly and that they hate me. After these days, I see how well behaved they actually are. Especially when I compare them to other students who do not know me at all.

My biggest struggle this week had been dealing with substitutes. I have been dealing with many different substitutes and each of them presents their own issues. In general, substitutes are interesting to handle with a student teacher. My mentor puts me in charge of the class, but I’m sure the substitute is thinking “well I have a credential and she doesn’t, so why is she in charge of the class?” They also are note used to letting someone else be in charge so I have had subs that hover over me in front of the classroom. This confuses the students because they are not used to two authority figures, especially in the classes I am in charge of. I feel like this undermines my authority in those classrooms a little because the students might realize that I am not truly fully in charge of the classroom. Students also take advantage of the fact that there are two teachers in the classroom and the ones I do not normally teach will always go to the sub to ask to leave the room. They know that I am a teacher at the school and that I know my mentor’s policies on bathroom and water fountain privileges. I have to keep track of everyone who leaves the room and make sure they follow procedure even though they think they are getting away with it by asking the other authority figure. I do not want to offend substitutes, but when my mentor leaves, she leaves me in charge of her classrooms. I am not really sure how to talk to them so they do not feel like I am stepping on their toes.

Week 9/28-10/02

My biggest success this past week was dealing with a potential mutiny in my class. The students were furious with me about a homework assignment that they had understood the day before, but apparently didn’t understand when they got home, so most of the class received low marks. The class was swearing at me under their breaths, upset that they got a low grade because they did not follow instructions. I calmed them down by making the next assignment (on the same material) due after the weekend, so they had time to work everything out. I also went over a few more example problems, emphasizing the specific steps they needed to complete for each problem. They all seemed much better Thursday (the following day) and by Friday everyone seemed back to normal.

      My biggest struggle this week was trying to make decisions on the fly. In both my chemistry class and my biology class, I had students asking questions about expectations and assignments. I was not sure how to answer them and therefore gave very wishy-washy answers that probably made students even more confused. Both my mentors commented that no matter what my decision was (whether it was the same decision they would have made or not) I needed to make one and stick to it. I will try to work on this in my biology classes, where I really have the final say in what I require. In chemistry, my mentor still has the final say, so it is harder to stray from his expectations. I need to make sure I know what they are before I can answer student questions.

Week of 9/14

I think my biggest success last week was learning to juggle both my chemistry classes and biology classes. I finally learned all my chemistry students’ names and I am comfortable in front of both classes. In chemistry, I got to the point where I was familiar enough with what I was doing that I can now walk around and call on people, rather than being stuck to my lesson plan and seating chart. Having already accomplished this in my biology classes, I am now getting to know them better, trying to figure out what they are interested in and how I can relate it to class.

                I think the biggest issues I am having in both classes are with specific students. In chemistry, I have a student, who was suspended for three days last week. During the first week, it was apparent that he was a very privileged child who was used to having things handed to him. When he returned from his suspension, he kept asking about past work in class, and tried to get my co-teacher (mentor) and me to teach the previous material again. He would not come after school, and he would continuously disrupt class. We would play team teacher here by having one of us take care of the student on the side while the other kept teaching. We suggested several times he come after school, but he never showed up. We had a quiz today, so we will see how he did. Maybe if he does poorly it will show him that he does need help.  I have another student in biology who also does not like to do work. He is a special needs child and has a IEP. We have been working together to figure how to help him do his work. The problem is that he has anxiety issues so he has a hard time taking responsibility for his actions, such as forgetting to do his homework. He makes up excuses for every inappropriate behavior and is constantly asking to leave class. I am working with both my mentor teacher and the student’s special needs teacher to help him do what he needs to do to pass my class. At this point, I am initialing his planner with the night’s homework and taking points off for tardiness (tardy three times = help clean up after school). I am trying to praise both students for things I see them do well, such as the first student’s performance in the football game and the second student coming to class on time on Friday.

Discipline Issues Today

I know that not every day is going to be a good day in teaching. I even know that there will be bad days. Well, today was horrible. The funny thing is, it only took the last ten minutes of 6th period to make me feel like this was the worst day so far. First, I went into class knowing that I needed to talk to four students who had switched their assigned seats during a pop quiz (unfortunately I took attendence as I collected the papers, so I did not notice until the end of the quiz) and then had very similar answers to a couple questions. I was very sad that the students felt that this was necessary. In class, we were making posters to put up on the wall in small groups and someone decided that it would be a really good idea to draw on someone else’s poster (from a previous period) and wrote some things that ruined the poster. I can no longer put this poster up on the wall. And then the students were not following directions at the end of the period, and I nearly lost it. They could tell I was extremely upset about something. I talked to the whole class about the poster and none of them owned up. I told them how disrespectful this action was, and how I hoped that no one would ever do anything like that again. I should have said more, like how disappointed I was in the student that did it, but I was so close to snapping that it was all I could do not to start screaming at them. On my drive home I decided that I should have given them homework- write a letter as if you were the student who drew on the poster, apologizing to the people who made it. I think I am still going to have them do this assignment, just to show how serious disrespect is in my classroom. I will probably give them another quick lecture tomorrow about respecting their classmates, and how would it feel if someone did that to their work, etc.

First Week!

Wow! That was way more exhausting than I expected (I really needed the whole three-day weekend to recooperate). I learned a lot of things very quickly. First off, it is really important to have comfortable shoes. I was kicking myself at the end of both wednesday and thursday because my feet hurt so much. Second, knowing the kids names really helps with management issues. Third, it really helps student to hear expectations before every activity. I found that in the classes that I gave expectations before the activity began, the students behaved a lot better. I also found that students start talking if they are not doing work, or listening to me or another student.  I found that if I start talking about the activity while I’m passing out papers, and if I talk about student’s presentations as groups are switching, there is less chatter, and more learning going on.

I also learned alot about different teaching strategies. It is good that my mentors have two different strategies, because I can see how they both work, and figure out what sorts of things work for me. With one of my mentors, I can watch how he handles the situation and then think about how I would do it. It is really great to see how he handles it, and then I reflect on how I would do it. I usually come up with something different because I do not think his methods would work for me, but I can see how they work for him.

Shared Thinking Reflection

I agree with the beginning ideas of Shared Thinking (Ch 11 in Love and Logic), that teachers should share the responsibility to think with the students. The students learn more this way, and teachers may not be as exhausted at the end of the school day. I thought this chapter did a great job of bringing together the three previous chapters, reminding us of many observations the authors had about good practices in managing a classroom. Their ideas did ease some of my stress when I think about being in charge of two classes of high school students in two weeks, but it also made me think worst-case scenario. What do I do with those students who do not respond to these procedures? I cannot expect every student to do exactly what the observed students did, especially because the students from the book were mostly middle school. I feel that high school students may not respond so well, especially if they have been labeled “trouble children” all their lives. I am worried about the attitude, “I’m bigger and smarter than you, why do I have to listen to you?” Although I understand that most of my students will not act this way, I still would not know what to do if I had a student like that in one of my classes. Many of the ideas in this book are helpful, but they are also only one viewpoint, one tool in your belt. I think the only way to learn how you will deal with these students is to actually be in that situation. Hopefully at that point, I’ll be able to figure out a way to handle the situation from past readings and experiences.