Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Progress with My Behavior Plan
I also felt it was important that we have my student be completely responsible for his rewards for good behavior. His rewards will be responsibilities such as passing out and collecting papers in class, getting the opportunity to draw during free time, and working on personal assignments during free time. We also set up a scale of consequences for poor behavior: 1st Offense = Warning, 2nd Offense = Minus, 3rd Offense = Referral to office
On my last week in the school, I plan to review our plan with my student and give feedback to his performance so far.
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Developing a Behavior Plan
I am very excited to see how this behavior plan works out and if it will have any effect on this student's behavior. It will definitely be extra work to keep track of this plan, but I think it will ultimately pay off.
Sunday, November 6, 2011
Dealing with Classroom Interruptions
In my classroom, our most common interruptions are from outside the class; we often encounter announcements from the office for the school or for my students. Thankfully, my seventh grade students are able to handle announcements well. They know that when someone is on the intercom, it is their time to be quiet. I believe that much of the ability to recover from interruptions comes from classroom management strategies that have been implemented with the students from the beginning of the year; because the students have respect for me and know my expectations, I am able to reconvene and continue my lesson immediately after any interruptions.
Saturday, October 15, 2011
Utilizing Extra Instruction Time
Sunday, October 9, 2011
Reflecting on my inquiry project
I also successfully sent my first video to my colleague in China who has already shown my video to his class and filmed their responses to our questions. As I have stated in previous writings, I could not have picked a more difficult country to try this video communication inquiry with because the Chinese government blocks all sites that allow video sharing. My only alternative is using email to attach my videos, yet this also creates an issue because Google mail has a 25 MB limit. Thankfully, my first video was not very long so this limit was not much of an issue.
My favorite part of my inquiry so far is that I am already seeing the benefits of adding video communication and teaching global awareness into the classroom. I recently talked with the other 7th grade social studies teacher who told me that her students in homeroom have been talking about their excitement for my video activity and showing a great deal of enthusiasm for my class. I have noticed that when students asked about when we were going to watch the video from the students from China, more than anything else they were excited about having communication with people from a different part of the world. I also have been able to use our little project to help the students make connections to abstract ideas and new vocabulary. For example, we recently talked about Thomas Jefferson and his work as an ambassador to France; to explain this, I told the students to think of Mr. Blevins (my colleague in China who is a WVU graduate and US citizen) as our ambassador to China. To this thought, I heard a collective "Ohhh okay" of realization from my class. The sound of understanding is music to my ears.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
Taping My Lessons
Thursday, September 15, 2011
Relationships with Other Staff
This semester has definitely been different for me in this manner. Every moment I have to spend with another member of the staff is so valuable; I truly regret never creating these relationships in the past. Even during "down time" like lunch in the faculty lounge is useful to me. During this time I can talk to the other teachers about their tutors or participants to see how they are doing, ask for advice about how to manage different students, and to stay aware of things going on at the school.
My most useful interaction with the faculty is during our weekly seventh grade team meeting. We usually hold these meeting with all seventh grade teachers and our principal. Sometimes other individuals come into our gatherings to talk to the group about technology integration, new policies, etc. These are wonderful moments of calm to talk about our concerns and see what's going on with students in other classes. Though these meetings are held during our only planning period, I think this time for staff development is extremely valuable to me as an intern. I already know most of the 7th grade staff's names and subjects, so if I have any questions about how to integrate another subject into my curriculum I will know who I can go to for this.
Friday, September 2, 2011
Applying New Policies to the Classroom
During this meeting one presenter discussed the school's new initiative to integrate physical activity into the classroom every day. According to this presenter, some sort of physical activity every twenty to forty minutes increases student performance. My mentor teacher has already integrated some physical activity into lessons. For example, we had students move around the room to complete puzzles of the continents of the world. We have also been posing questions to the class and having the students answer by standing. We recently talked about the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn, and how the position of the sun affects our seasons. Ms. Cooper had students stand if their favorite season occurs when the sun is positioned on the Tropic of Cancer. This does many things at once: this allows students to move around, offer their opinions on a topic and encourages students to learn why the Tropics are important to geography. I always like the take aspects of teaching from my mentors to include into my own practice, and this will definitely be one of the strategies I use in the future.
Saturday, August 27, 2011
Prompt - My First TCMS After-School Experience
As much as I can complain about spending a total of 12 hours at the middle school, I really think that my participation in this dance really did a lot for my professional integrity as a student teacher. I met several other faculty members, talked with the school's vice principal, and most importantly I showed the students that I cared about being there even after school let out. I'm truly glad I made the choice to participate at this dance, because only two hours of help truly made a difference that will last the rest of my internship.
Friday, April 15, 2011
Reflecting on the Practicum Plan
The most successful aspect of the Practicum Plan was allowing us to put a "target date" for completion. I believe this leads to my conclusion that the Practicum Plan was best for organizing our time at the beginning of the semester and making the number of assignments seem more do-able, rather than making our teaching better in any way or assisting the work done later in the semester. I feel that my work load this semester seemed less overwhelming and I think I was more organized with completing my assignments on time. However, I feel that it's possible this change could be do to my smaller class load or the move from TCMS to UHS.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
Two Characteristics of the Novice Teacher
Characteristic 6 requires the novice teacher to show an in depth knowledge of the content that he or she will be teaching. This characteristic is particularly important for secondary educators, who must have a great deal of knowledge of content. As I am a social studies teacher, I feel that it is most important to show my knowledge of history. My best example of content knowledge would be a analytical paper I wrote about the Renaissance era literature for my Italian history class. In this analysis, I discussed how the culture of Italy in this era had an enormous influence on the presence of women in literature. This essay is a wonderful example of the content knowledge I have that is require in a social studies classroom.
Friday, February 25, 2011
Practicum Plan Progress
One of my most important learning goals listed in my Practicum Plan was my aim to increase control of my classroom to ensure that students respect me as a teacher. I feel that this could be best accomplished by establishing a better relationship with my students that makes them feel comfortable in the classroom when I am teaching and allows them to bring their questions to my attention. I tried to do this by learning student names as soon as possible to be able to call on specific students during lessons. I also decided to add more discussion activities to my curriculum so my students understand that I respect their thoughts and opinions so they will learn to also respect mine.
In my plan, I originally included a lesson that includes Creative Arts in relation to social studies to be completed in February. Although I have not removed this from my plan, I have not been able to complete this lesson in February. I will have to change the target date for completion to a date in March.
Looking through my plan, I have already completed every activity that I planned to complete in February. At the moment I am also already planning my activities for March. Though I feel good about my organization and completion so far, I am extremely worried about the about of activities and lessons due in March. March is going to be the biggest problem in my plan, mostly because we have very few days of school in March. Our county has a Spring Break in addition to an Easter Break of three days. I will definitely have to buckle down to complete everything required for this time.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Two Characteristics for the Novice Teacher
Characteristic 2 for the Novice Teacher emphasizes the importance of being an effective communicator. This communication can occur in various forms: a teacher may communicate in a written manner, through speech, or even in a non-verbal way. These exchanges often occur between the teacher and student, but it is also important to note that a teacher must also communicate with parents, faculty, and other individuals in the school community.
My most important artifact associated with communication is the student blog I set up at Taylor County Middle School. I created a blog through a website specifically made for student use to ensure student safety and ease of use in order for students to answer critical thinking questions. With this website I was also able to reply to the blog entries with comments and suggestions. I find this to be my most notable artifact because my students were excited to complete this assignment, and were eager to use blogging again in the future.
Characteristic 4 relates to the essential duty of each teacher to ensure learning for all students. Being a facilitator to learning for each students involves a commitment to meeting students needs in various ways.
I believe I best met my students' needs in a lesson dedicated to differentiated instruction. I designed this lesson specifically to meet the different learning styles in my classroom. In this lesson on the French and Indian War, students used a RAFT to complete a writing activity. I also played traditional Appalachian music to help my students who work better with sound in the room. I find this to be a great artifact because my students were more equipped to complete a writing assignment than in past lessons.