Blog #9

"Reflect on any after-school activity you attended."

Friday night was the annual "Mohawk Bowl" which is the football game between the Morgantown High School Mohigan's and the University High School Hawks.  Traditionally, the players from both schools shave their heads into mohawks as this is the "biggest rivalry in the state for high school football."  Although I disagree with this, because I know school's who have much bigger rivalries in West Virginia, it is still a very serious and important game.  My students asked me all week to attend, those who played football, played in the band, were on the majorette line, and others who were just going to be in attendance, as well.  Although I have already gone to two football games and a girls soccer game, this was one game I did not want to miss.  I wore my blue shirt and my best friend and the three other interns all wore either their blue or red, and we sat front row on the 40 yard line to cheer on our team.  Students from each of our classes came up and talked with us throughout the entire game and were so happy that we came to support.  Even several of the players waved, which is against the rules.  Other's who did not wave let me know in class that they saw me and were happy that I came.  They were happier, in fact, because MHS won the game!!!  The stands were packed, the weather was great, and everyone was there to support their teams.  I really feel like there is nothing like high school football.  Morgantown High's best player, Chazzy, got taken out and hurt pretty early in the game and had to be rushed out in an ambulance to have immediate surgery on his ankle.  Even though we were winning, I really thought Morgantown High would lose momentum because they lost one of their best players but luckily, they kept up the tempo and finished strong.  As I was leaving the game, I ran into one of Morgantown High's vice principal and talked for a little bit and then ran into the Principal, and smiled and said hello.  He isn't much of a talker but I was glad I could at least get him to say hello!  I am so glad I got to attend this game, it was really a great experience and this coming Friday is the last home game of the season according to some of the students so if the weather is good, I think I'm going to try to attend it as well! :-)

Blog #8

"Reflect on your professional relationships with school personnel other than your mentor teacher."

There are several teachers who I have formed a great working relationship with and one that I have become friends with as the year has progressed.  I am pretty excited about all of them.  Several teachers who I work with during our PLC's, which also include forming a better relationship with two of my previous mentor teachers at Morgantown High School, two of the special educations co-teachers who I work with, and finally the history teacher whose room is next door to mine.  I was already working well with the two mentor teachers who I worked with previously so I won't discuss those.  The two teachers I work with during our PLC are really fun to work with and we have all worked really well together.  Although, Susie and I (another intern) always get suckered into doing all of the work until this last PLC where we all worked together.  They are both really nice and very helpful and we have worked well together regarding out 10th grade classes.  There is only one 11th grade teacher who I've talk to about work but I have been friends with her for several years.  The history teacher has been awesome to befriend because we have discovered that we have many of the same students so we have been able to work together to get them to work better in both classes.  He also just comes in to talk sometimes throughout the day and we usually just discuss our days after school, too, which is nice to just get all of that out of my head and tell someone else, which I'm sure is similar for him, as well.  He has been teaching for 4 years now in history and we share a lot of history ideas which should be helpful in the future for both of us!  

The relationships I am happiest about building are those with the co-teachers.  There is one "autism aid" who works with me during 3rd period and she is a lifesaver in more ways than one.  She is one of the nicest co-teachers I have worked with and she is so helpful with giving me prior information on students regarding IEP's.  We have two students with autism in my 4th period class and without her as an aid, one of them would cause major disruptions in the class but thankfully, she sits with this student and stops the problem before it becomes a major issue.  She is working on an actual degree in special education currently so we discuss this a lot, too.  The special education teacher who co-teaches with me during 2nd and 4th period is the best.  He really doesn't do much co-teaching with me, but he is in the classroom and he helps me with reading aloud to students who want it, and prompting students to work when they are not working.  We have this problem frequently in 2nd and 4th and while I work with some students, he works with others.  He has actually taught me so much about IEP's and the processes that go along with those and we have already worked together with plans for my contract hours.  I am going to take his place as co-teacher for several days and he is going to sit down with me and show me how to work on IEP's and I'm going to go to several IEP, SAT, and 504 meetings with him next semester!  He has been extremely helpful as I really love my collaborative classes and hope to teach more of these in the future. :-)

Blog #7

"Without using last names, which child do you think you influenced most this week? In what way (academic, social, emotional)?"

Charles.  I am so happy with the progress he is making the effort he is showing and this has taken weeks to get from him!  This particular student is hands-down one of the laziest students I have ever worked with - but I have found out that he really liked working with scary stories and he likes to read aloud in class.  Once I found out this strength, I used it to my advantage by frequently involving him in this activity because is good at it and praising him for doing so well.  We also did a writing assignment and he was refusing to do the work more than writing a paragraph.  I said, "Charles, you are smart and very capable of writing more than a paragraph.  Let's see what we can work on together," and he scoffed immediately, laughed a little, and said, "smart... ha! yeah, right."  There was the problem.  I sat there, discussing all of his strengths as a student, and although he has weaknesses to, who doesn't?, we worked on his writing together.  That was the pivotal moment I needed with him because for the rest of the class period, he would call me over and ask how his writing looked, and how he could improve it.  He ended the assignment with a solid 3 paragraphs that, although had a few grammatical errors and needed to flow better, we could work on that later.  That was a week ago from yesterday and all throughout this week, although it still takes major prompting sometimes, he gets his work done and his journals have even been improving in length.  I have been writing back and forth with him a lot more, and he has even stopped by the classroom to say hello twice this week.  I'm really hopeful that this will continue throughout the rest of the semester, and hopefully next semester when I'm gone, as well.

Blog #6

"Reflect on what you have observed about the students’ learning styles/multiple intelligences."

Although relevant to all of my classes, this is especially relevant to my 11th grade classes.  I have so many 11th graders with IEP's who need many different teaching styles and methods and on top of that, each student has different learning styles, obviously.  So many of my 11th graders are creative and artistic and do extremely well with work where I have use art and writing together.  They love anything creative.  I also have a lot of students who are great with hands-on activities so I have done the best I could integrating this into the curriculum, for example, when we read "Nature" by Emerson, we went outside and had class in nature.  What better way to learn about nature than to be in it?  I had them use their 5 sense, as Emerson does in his writing, and they had to write about their experience and later about the place that they go in their lives that relaxes them the most, or their favorite place where they go to escape from the world, just as Emerson did in his writing.  They loved it, and some of the students who I have a really hard time getting them to be produtive worked really hard on this assignment.  With 10th and 11th graders, I try to give them multiple assignments throughout each unit, using writing, art, media, and verbal assignments and thus far I have been extremely happy with the results and I am learning which students need to work on their skills in some areas and where students already have major strengths!

Blog #5

"Reflect on your participation in a parent-teacher conference."

At this point I have participated in both parent-teacher conferences and an open-house night for all parents come by and discuss the plans for the semester.  The open-house night was first and I had just taken over full responsibility with the 10th graders, although I had been teaching the 11th graders full-time since the beginning of the year.  Very few parents came to the 11th grade open-house, we had 2 sets of parents total and I have 75+ students.  I was actually really disappointed because there were several parents who I really wanted to meet from each class.  The 10th graders had a few more parents show up for each class and I was able to share with them my plans for their students for the rest of the semester.  Most of them just listened to what I had to say and left it at that, a few had questions about the final project (a multigenre project) because they had never heard of one before.  I explained the basic process and that I had actually completed two myself, and they thought it was going to be a really cool idea.  I felt that it was a pretty successful first open-house!  

A week later we had parent-teacher conferences (this week), and I only had THREE conferences!  I was again very disappointed as I want so badly to have parent involvement, though I am very used to having no parental support from my jobs at Boys and Girls Club in Charleston.  One student's mother came in and asked what his grade was, and we told her an A, and I thought was going to faint.  She was so happy and relieved.  Her son has an IEP and is extremely unorganized, however because I already knew this, I have really tried to help his organization and work with him when he wants it as far as reading assignments aloud, and he has not needed nor wanted the help most of the time.  He has been succeeding in our class, and once given this information, she couldn't have been happier.  I have another student who has autism and his mother came with him and had a few questions about the class as a whole and her major question was regarding whether or not I could read her sons handwriting, and although sometimes difficult, I have yet to be unable to read it.  I had one 10th grade mother come in and that was very interesting because her son had a 100% in class and is one of my best students out of the 150 or so that I have.  She was so kind and it was apparent to me why her son is such as good person.  Again, these were a success but I am still disappointed that I did not have more parents.

Blog #4

"Reflect on your use of alternative forms of assessment: journals."

I use journals almost daily.  I say almost because there have been approximately 3-5 days that I have not had the students do some form of a journal, even though almost all classwork is completed in the journals.  The journals I have been using have been great.  I give students a choice each day: 1) free write (about anything), 2) respond to a prompt that I provide, or 3) respond to the quote on the board (which I post each day under my "Daily Inspiration" section).  Students have been writing more and more throughout the semester and when given a short survey about the journals and their writing, almost every students said that they feel more comfortable in their writing skills and they look forward to doing their journals when they get to class, even those students who used to hate writing.  I have learned so much about my students through their journals, many have told me things that have been bothering them and even discussed more serious matters that I have had to take to the counselor.  Although this makes things stressful for me as well, I know that it's really helping them to discuss these things and I am so happy that they trust me enough to do so.  I once heard a quote that read: "people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care" and I absolutely believe this is true.  The students have been getting more and more motivated to complete their work in the journals and outside of the journals and the work has been of better quality overall regarding grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, and the like as time has gone by.  I also have several ESL students who have written on several occasions that they feel the communication in the journals has helped their English and grammar over the course of the semester!  :-)

Blog #3

"Reflect on your school’s or mentor teacher’s classroom management system."

The management system at Morgantown High School is strong in some aspects and not strong in others.  Most of the time, it is dependent upon the teachers who are implementing the intended rules.  Regarding truancy, MHS is strict.  They turn in students after 5-6 absences, but the system outside of MHS is slow.  Regarding small rules, such as the dress code, MHS definitely has an issue with following policy, and after being at my high school in Charleston, where it is dealt with very strictly, it's very different being in the Morgantown High community and seeing students walking around in cut-off shirts, short skirts, and dresses that would normally be seen at the clubs in downtown Morgantown.  

There are also rules such as not bring backpacks to class and not wearing hats.  Most teachers allow both of these things, but my mentor does not allow either.  Backpacks must be kept in lockers and hats must not be worn.  Students come in each day grumbling when they are forced to return their backpacks to their lockers, but finally, they are getting more used to it.  I honestly could care less about backpacks because I know I carried mine in high school and if teachers had not allowed me to carry it, I would have been pretty upset because my locker was so far away from my classes.  Hats are also the least of my worries during class unless there is a test, in which I would make them take them off.  My teacher thinks that wearing hats is disrespectful so the students are not allowed to wear them.  Sometimes the girls wear toboggan's that sit on the back of their head's but she doesn't make them take them off.  It creates frustration with the students and given the students that we have in our classes, I prefer to pick and choose my battles and this is one I'd rather not even worry about, however, I just keep my mouth shut for this.  My only thoughts are, if one student must take off their hats, all students should have to.  Other teachers also allow students to wear them anytime so my teacher hears a lot of complaints.

My teacher and I also have very different management styles in the classroom.  I am a lot more vivacious and I am very enthusiastic and therefore, my students usually are, too.  My teacher is somewhat opposite in that she is more low-key.

Blog #2

"Without using last names, which child do you think you have influenced the most this week?  (academic, social, emotional)"

There are two students in particular with whom I am working in my 4th period class, Andre and Raheem.  These two students remind me a lot of the kids I work with back home at Boys and Girls Club.  I have heard stories from other teachers about these students regarding classroom misbehavior and disrespect.  I was shocked by this because these two students are some of the most polite young men I've ever taught.  Each day they walk in, greet me upon arrival, they both participate a great deal in class, and as they leave, they always tell me goodbye and to have a great day.  These students lack motivation at times, especially Raheem, but they both told me that they thought it was "awesome" that we were going to be doing a lot of work in class that catered to them.  They loved the interest inventories we did, and also really loved the "coat of arms: activity because it gave them a chance to express themselves artistically and through writing in order to tell me a little bit about themselves.  Raheem took this activity to heart and his coat of arms was outstanding in both writing and artistically - he even took it home to finish it.  One aspect of both students' lives is music - they love it, and enjoy listening to a wide variety of it.  Raheem especially loves rap and hip-hop and he even has his own mixtape (meaning, he raps and has it recorded to a cd and sells his CDs).  When I talked to period 4 about mixing rap and hip-hop with American literature, his eyes lit up.  He and Andre both probed me with questions about what songs, which artists, what stories, how we were going to do the assignments, and I knew then that I had gotten them excited for English for the first time since high school, given the lack of enthusiasm they showed for English in their journals and on the interest surveys, reading autobiography, and coat of arms.

I have the students do daily journals, mostly free writes to give them an opportunity to express themselves, but I also assign them different writing prompts on occasion as well. Raheem is less into the journals than Andre, but they both really enjoy them and I have learned s much about them.  Andre has gone above and beyond this week in his journal writing - twice he has taken his journal with him and done extra free writes when the time has permitted, just to get things off his chest.  When I asked the students to do a quick write to explain their opinions on the dialogue aspect of the dialogue journals, Andre's response was that he loved them because he loved that I took the time to read his journals and actually cared enough to respond.  He also said it helps him get his thoughts out of his head so that he can focus on what's going on in school that day.  Raheem also stated that he loved the journals, loved the music, and "loved everything that I have done in this class, honestly!!!"  Raheem also gave me 3 songs to listen to off of his mixtape, which I of course listened to, and gave him notes about them.  He could not believe that I listened to the songs in the first place, and that I took the time to actually write down the lyrics that were good and my comments on them.  He thanked me about 10 times in class for caring enough to actually listen, and I can tell that just that small action has impacted him in a positive way - he is trying harder on his assignments, and his class participation has increased even more in the past week.  Andre is the same way, especially with journaling, but emotionally I think the journals and my comments back have really helped him a lot in the past week and will hopefully continue to do so!

Blog #1

"Reflect on your rapport with the students."

Having been in my classroom for 2 full weeks, I feel that I have already developed a good rapport with the 11th graders who I have been teaching full-time.  I have three 11th grade classes, two of which are collaborative (with an aid), and I have implemented the use of journals, student interest surveys, and various writing assignments to better get to know my students.  Several of my students remind me a lot of my kids back home at my Boys and Girls Club job which is very refreshing considering how different most of the students in Morgantown are from my kids in Charleston.  The common theme between most of the students in my collaborative classes and my kids from BGC back home are their backgrounds.  Most of them do not come from homes that are very supportive and who strongly encourage academics.  That is not to say that all of the families are like this, but it is an all too common theme amongst many of these students, and that along makes these students ones with whom I can easily build a strong rapport.

The interest surveys and writing assignments that I have implemented thus far have been fairly simple and easy for the students to fill out when determining things like their goals, favorite things, responsibilities inside and outside of school and home, learning styles, what they enjoy about school and what they dislike about school, who they admire, what makes them unique, a motto for their lives, and finally, a self portrait for how they see themselves.  They were allowed to decorate some of these activities because I wanted to get an idea of who they were as students and individuals.  They were also asked to do a "reading autobiography" so I could get a sense of who they were as readers, and how they have seen their past experiences with reading and English classes.  Finally, I have been having them complete "free writes" for completion grades in their journals, and as a free write suggests, they can write about whatever they want and can even illustrate instead if that's how they need to express themselves.  Even after the first week of doing free writes, I have learned so much about my students, their hopes and dreams, their lives, and some of their fears and worries.  They have a choice for whether or not they want me to read their entries, and they can put their journal on the shelf where it says "READ" or the shelf that says "DO NOT READ" and all of them have placed them on the 'READ' shelf.  This tells me that they want me to know them.  Developing this trust with my students has really helped in teaching, as well, because they are respectful and have thus far enjoyed doing their work.  The rapport that I've been building and will continue to build is great and I'm excited for the rest of the semester because these students can relate to me and yet still see me as a teacher.

Inquiry Seminar Reflection - Blog #3

The Inquiry Celebration was great this year as a participant.  When I was a tutor, this presentation seemed so much more intimidating and over my head, but as this year has progressed, we have focused so much more on our own inquiry, especially through out mini-inquiry, and because of this, I felt like I had a better understanding of the presentations done at the seminar.  I saw 4 presentations and two of them taught me so much.  One of these focused on project-based learning, which is something I've always been interested in and it was nice to know that, although it was the first year this had been implemented by these interns and their school, it was for the most part, successful.  This gave me hope for the future in my own classroom when I decide to try it out.  The second presentation that was so awesome included using a skype-like system to teach about other cultures by having video chats with a classroom in another culture.  This intern had a friend in China who was teaching (English) at the same time and they would have their classes make videos and send them back and forth, asking and answering questions about the culture.  This was so interesting because I am a big fan of experiential learning and this is a great example of it.  This intern said that her students loved this activity and they learned so much about the culture of China, and this also gives me hope that this would be a great activity to try to implement in the future!

Characteristics of the Novice Teacher - Blog #2

Characteristic 1: We believe that the novice teacher should have a commitment to and skills for life-long learning

            A life-long learner is someone who strives to always search for new information, and in this case, for teaching.  They are always looking for new and more effective strategies to help them educate their students.  Life-long learner go alone with another characteristic as well, which is being a reflective practitioner.  Lifelong learners want to do better and be better than they are and by reflecting on the practices that are and are not working, it enables them to research more information.  There is a quote I read in a book for one of my classes this semester where a teacher stated that when a teacher thought they knew everything there is to know about teaching, it was time to retire.  This is because those teachers were not longer putting in the work to learn new ways of teaching.  As long as a teacher is in a classroom, they are learning, about their content area, their students, ways to differentiate based on their students, and the pro’s and cons of their strategies.  Finally, lifelong learners are always open to new ideas and should collaborate with their fellow teachers regularly about what works and what doesn’t.

The artifacts I’m choosing to include in this characteristic are my research brief/inquiry assignment, my video analysis, and records from the Pod 6-2 Team Meetings at Bridgeport Middle School where I am currently a participant.  The research brief/inquiry assignment fits into this category because it is an ongoing process of learning.  We also have to make a plan, do research, collect ongoing data throughout our years in the Benedum Collaborative and finally, we have to show the results from our study.  This does not stop here, however, because we will continue to do the same thing when we are out of college and teaching on our own, even if it’s in a less formal manner.  The video analysis is helpful because we are able to videotape ourselves teaching, and instead of getting feedback from our mentor teachers and coordinators, we are able to critique ourselves.  Although our mentor teachers are honest about their feedback, people tend to criticize themselves more harshly than others do, so being able to see yourself teaching, and to observe what you like about it and what you don’t is a great way to evaluate yourself, your teaching style, and your student interactions from time to time.  Finally, the Team Meetings we have a Bridgeport Middle are somewhat like a PLC, but they are specifically for the 2^nd half of sixth grade core teachers.  There are four core teachers and they see the same students for the entire year, and because of this, they are able to sit down with one another each day (2^nd period) and collaborate together.  They work together in filling out paperwork, making decisions for the Pod/Team, and discussing students who are struggling, excelling, having behavior problems, and the like.  I take notes each day at these meetings and although I’d have to change the named of my students if I ever write about them, these meetings are a great way to continue learning and seeing things from another persons perspective.

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               2012                                                                                                                                                   2072

Characteristic 7: We believe that the novice teacher should effectively integrate content and pedagogy

When I think of content, it is easy for me to put a definition with it – the subject matter – but when I think of pedagogy, it has always been harder for me to define concretely, but the best way I can put it is, the way in which one teaches, and more specifically, the way they teach their content.  For example, being in social studies and English, my pedagogy might be different for these two classes because the content differs.  The goal for my students, however, stays the same – to teach in a way/ways that they can all learn.  Many teacher’s who go into the professional go in with an intense knowledge of their content area, but are not able to teach the students in a way that is meaningful to them.  I had a teacher in high school who was this way, she was extremely intelligent, but she did not know how to teach the content with which she was so familiar.  Because of this, it is imperative for teachers to know their content and know how to teach it. 

Included as artifacts for this characteristic are a final exam and a final unit plan from my Social Studies Methods course in the Fall 2011 semester with Dr. Waterson.  I also plan to include a unit plan from my Literature and Grammar Methods courses from the Spring of 2012.  The final exam in Social Studies Methods was a compilation of the NCSS standards for Social Studies Education.  We had to take these standards and explain what they were, why they were important, how we used them in our practicum experience, and how we planned to use them in the future.  It was a very in-depth study of our knowledge on the content and pedagogy we had used that semester.  The unit plans from both of my specializations will be another important artifact because they show case both of my content areas and several ways I plan to teach them to my students.

Characteristics of the Novice Teacher - Blog #1

We have discussed the Characteristics of the Novice Teacher for as long as we have been students in the Benedum Collaborative Program, however, unless we are filling out our rubrics at the end of each semester, we have not spent much time discussing what these characteristics really mean, not just as a basic definition, but to each of us individually.  The seminar we had on Friday February 10, 2012 was extremely helpful in discussing these characteristics and artifact examples that we might find helpful in showcasing what we have learned from each of them.  Although there are 10 characteristics, I will be discussing only two for this blog.

Characteristic 2: Effective Communicator

An effective communicator, in education, is someone who is able to convey information to students, parents/guardians, other teachers, administrators, and other people in the community.  This information could be important deadlines for assignments and tests, as well as contact information in case there are questions or concerns, and even a reminder of classroom rules.  Being an effective communicator means being able to not only share important information with others, but to be able to listen to any ideas or concerns that these people may have.  For parents/guardians, it could be ideas about how to enhance the learning of their particular student, and for students, it could be ideas for how we as educators can enhance their own learning.  We must be open to answering questions and open about our classroom practices because this will show that we want to work together for the students’ best interest.

The artifact that best fits this characteristic is the parent homepage that we are creating for our Education 401 class.  Although we have not yet created the homepage, there is a group of 3 of us who are required to make a homepage for parents of those students in our classrooms.  One of the girls has my same students and we are in the same “pod/team” at Bridgeport Middle School, so this should be relatively easy for us to target their parents, however, the other girl is at our home placement, Morgantown High School, so we are still trying to figure out how to make one that caters to both sets of parents.  Regardless of the way in which we decide to split the page, we will have a section for each school with information including the days and times that we are in the classroom, contact information, activities that we are supposed to do with their students for the practicum, and anything else that seems important.  This will obviously be more specific when we get together as a group and set up our homepage, but once it is finished, it will be an excellent tool for our students, their parents/guardians, fellow teachers, administrators, and community members.

This artifact offers a universal source for each person in the students’ community or support system to access information relevant to student learning and success.  This offers  a way to communicate back and forth between parents/guardians and teachers, which, according to our Education 401 book, is an essential part of student achievement.  If parents/guardians and teachers are on the same page and are working together, inside school and at home, students are more likely to succeed in school.  It also shows that teachers want parents/guardians to be aware of what is going on in their classrooms, building trust between them, and again, enhancing student learning.

Characteristic 8: Reflective Practitioner

A Reflective Practitioner, in education, is someone who keeps records of their lessons that were successes and failures, as well as keeps records of materials used in lessons.  They are educators who discuss what went well and what failed in their lessons with other teachers, and who use observations from principals to better themselves.  Not only including reflections of their lessons, but educators should also include reflections of their interactions with their students, fellow teachers, and parents/guardians.  Keeping notes after each school day or during/after meetings in school can help educators look back on what went well and what did not go well, and can help us to improve regularly.  We can compare our own notes and reflections with those of other teachers and we can use these comparisons, discussions, etc. as feedback to again, help us improve.  Teachers are supposed to teach, obviously, but many people do not also think that teachers should be researchers and learners, as well, but according to our Education 401 book, when a teacher feels that they have nothing new to learn, they should retire.  This means that teachers should constantly be researching through practice and even through seminars and other resources and from this research should come continuous learning, therefore, improving their teaching.

There are three artifacts which are important in becoming a reflective practitioner, including answering our reflection questions from our lesson plans, our reflection notebooks, and teacher feedback/observations.  The first two somewhat go together because I answer my lesson reflection questions in my reflection notebook, and include any other information that I can remember from the day that seems important.  Besides this, one of the best artifacts is the feedback/observation forms that our mentor teachers and education coordinators fill out for us, as well as the conferences that we have to follow up.  I learn best from discussing the strengths and weaknesses of my teaching with someone who observes me and can tell me what they observe.  I like to know if our opinions of how the lesson went and how I deal with students are the same or different, and why.  After these meetings or even just reading the observation/feedback forms, I typically write down another reflection of my own for how the meeting went or my reactions to the comments I’ve received in my reflection notebook.  This helps me keep records so I can look back on any of this information at later dates to remember if I cannot remember off the top of my head.