Thursday, February 14, 2013
Frustration
How do you work, or co-teach, with an ed tech who is constantly undermining you and your mentor teacher?
Grading
One thing I've learned since taking over grading for my 9ers is that with a late policy, it becomes more about grading their timeliness than their ability. I do think it is important for students to learn the value of turning things in on time, but I don't want that to detract from their ability. With education becoming more and more standards based, we're supposed to be evaluating students on how well they met the standard, right? How can you do this when the grade that you put in the book is based on when they turned the assignment in? Should there be two grades for each assignment? One for timeliness and one for the standard? Is that realistic? I want my students to do well, and I want to be able to look at their grades to see how they are doing with the different standards, but I don't know how I can do that when the grades I'm putting into the gradebook are based on whether they turned it in on the right day or not.
Another thing that I'm finding tricky is being fair with students. One student has a concussion, which I was not made aware of until recently, so I am allowing him to turn in his missing work without penalty because of the medical excuse. Another student thought she needed to finish the pre-assessment to make semester goals, which wasn't actually the case, and since technical difficulties were involved, I'm also allowing her to turn in her assignment without penalty. As far as I know though, none of my other students have excuses to not turn their work in on time, so they will receive points off for it being late. If I get it...
Summary: It's hard adapting to someone else's grading policy, especially halfway through the year.
Another thing that I'm finding tricky is being fair with students. One student has a concussion, which I was not made aware of until recently, so I am allowing him to turn in his missing work without penalty because of the medical excuse. Another student thought she needed to finish the pre-assessment to make semester goals, which wasn't actually the case, and since technical difficulties were involved, I'm also allowing her to turn in her assignment without penalty. As far as I know though, none of my other students have excuses to not turn their work in on time, so they will receive points off for it being late. If I get it...
Summary: It's hard adapting to someone else's grading policy, especially halfway through the year.
Wednesday, February 13, 2013
Ugghhhh
I'm pretty certain that today is secretly Friday. At least the kids seem to think it is. Green days are usually a little more chaotic than black days, but today seems especially worse. If it were the Friday before break, I would chalk it up to them being ready for vacation, but where it is the middle of the week I don't know what is causing it. I think part of it is still anticipation for vacation, but Monday wasn't as bad. I also think that some of it has to do with this week being winter carnival and kids are starting to get more excited about it.
Period one went well, considering. I went over the work that I was missing from students so that they can turn it in to me. Instead of giving them zeros for everything, I am giving them another chance to turn their work in. They now have until the Monday after vacation to receive credit for it. After that, any work still not turned in will receive a definite zero. There didn't seem to be any complaints from this class about this. They were all agreeable and I think some of them were thankful for the opportunity to turn their work in still. I know there are some students who will not take advantage of it, but that is their choice. After that they had time to finish working on the posters that they started last class. I had three students who were absent last class, so I had to modify the assignment for them on the fly, but considering the amount of time they had to catch up to the rest of the class, I was impressed with the progress they made. After giving students more time than I had originally planned, I had students present their posters to the class. Once all groups had presented, we moved on to the next activity. This was a little challenging, but I think we got through it well enough. Trying to teach students about point of view isn't as easy as I originally thought. The Springboard text has some excerpts that students need to transform to different points of view. I should have looked at the activity again before teaching it, but I thought it was more straightforward than it actually was. So period one found it a little frustrating, but I was able to make changes for period two.
Period two was...a challenge. This class is consistently difficult, and it hasn't actually gotten any easier since I've started teaching. To start the class today, we had a new student, so I had all of the students introduce themselves to him, just as they did on my first day. I thought this would be an easy task for them, but most of the students struggled with it. We muddled through the introductions, then I gave the students the list of missing work. Two or three of the students have not turned in any of the assignments, and I highly doubt that they will. One of the students never has his book or his laptop with him and now that I have figured that out, I can make sure to photocopy the activities he needs, but even if I give him copies, I don't think he will do the assignments. The other student brings his book and/or laptop, and does his work in class, with occasional prodding, but asking him to do anything outside of class is wishful thinking. It's too bad really, because he is a bright student, all he is missing is a strong work ethic. Next, I got the students working on their posters. We had one student who had been absent last class and the new student, who had no background knowledge about what we were working on. By some strange miracle, these two buddied up and I was able to partner them up without any difficulties. I had the student who was absent explain the story to the new student, and then together they drew a modified poster because of time limits. They didn't exactly do the assignment right, but we talked about it and I explained where they had changed the story and how it was supposed to be. I also had to deal with two members of a group who could not work on their poster because it was at home with a third member. I asked them to explain to the class what their poster looked like, but they had not helped the other member at all, so they were not able to do that. Instead, I asked them to act out the ending of the story, which they did, horribly. I know one of them had been absent when we read the story together as a class, but the other was in school, and last class they read through the end of the story as a group, so I know that they both have read the ending. They also had plenty of time while the other groups were finishing up to review the ending and plan out what they were going to do, but they chose to play games on the computer instead. I caught one of them once, and told him to put it away, but when I came back later he had his iPod out instead. So again, I told him to put it away, which he did. During the presentations, I sat near these two, and once more, caught the student on his iPod, which I then took away from him. Throughout the entire period, H and I both spoke to him multiple times about his behavior. It is becoming a concern, and I might have to take my actions to the next step. H says this was not his typical behavior during the first half of the year, so I'm wondering if there is something going on at home that is causing the changes. I'm going to talk to H about possibly involving guidance and the other Freshmen teachers to see if we can get to the bottom of this.
Winter carnival sign ups are a maddening disaster.
During third period, we have prep the first half and then study hall during the second half. H's rules for study hall are simple: work on something for school or read, and if you have your laptop open, the screen needs to be facing her. Two of our students were not following the rules, and when H went to check on them to see what they were doing, she found that they were attempting to bypass the proxy to do something not school appropriate, like playing a game or something. She asked them to own their behavior and tell her what they were doing, but they wouldn't, so she eventually just chose to confiscate their laptops. I then delivered the laptops to the office, where the principal handled the situation. Like I said, it seems more like today was a Friday than a Wednesday.
Based on how the other classes today went, I was expecting our seniors to be even worse. I was pleasantly surprised when they weren't. Were they the dream class? No, but they worked mostly independently, and most of them made some sort of progress. I was able to work and talk with a few students who typically aren't receptive to me, which made me happy. One student in particular made me really happy. I've been in the classroom for about 3 weeks now, and during the entire time I've worked with the students, this particular student has said maybe 3 words to me. In 3 weeks. H gave me a heads up about him, so I knew that he wouldn't open up to me right away, and I handled things accordingly. I had hoped that he would eventually open up to me, and today seems like it's the first step towards him doing so. H and I have both witnessed this student working one on one with different classmates, much as you would see an ed tech do. However, this student doe snot realize that he has any kind of gift. Last class, we witnessed another interaction, and H and I were able to communicate about it using just facial expressions as we watched it happen. After the student was done helping his classmate, H took him into the hallway to talk to him, and told him that he has a gift for working with special education students. She was brought to tears when he told her that he has always wanted to be a special education teacher. When he came back into the classroom after talking to H, he had an actual smile on his face, which I had not seen from him before. I'm hoping, as is H, that down the road, he decides to act on this because he really does have a natural gift and the patience to go along with it. I'm looking forward to seeing how his awareness of this influences him throughout the rest of the semester.
Now for the fun stuff! Part of the winter carnival activities is a scavenger hunt that takes place after school. I had been planning on helping supervise after school today anyway, but I was thinking more along the lines of helping the students with the hall decorations. I was not expecting to get roped into the scavenger hunt, but when I did I totally got hooked. As a teacher, I was given a list of the items that our team needed to find before the students were able to look it over. At 2:30, I had students hounding me for it, so we made copies, and since the Freshmen teacher who was in charge of the scavenger hunt for our team was at South Campus, I took the role of coordinator for the students at North Campus. This gave me the chance to get to know some of my students better as well as some of the students in the other Freshmen classes whom I don't have. I thought I would just stay at North Campus for a little while and coordinate, but I ended up actually running around town helping to get a few items, which I then brought back to the South Campus where our headquarters was at. We had a small group of Freshmen show up, but I think we had more than any of the other classes, which I was really proud of. I also think that a few of the students were surprised to see me there considering it wasn't part of school. I really enjoyed being at the final round of the scavenger hunt because not only did I get to interact with more of my students, I also got a chance to talk with a couple of the other Freshmen teachers who I hadn't really been able to form a relationship with. Even though I was exhausted after a 13 hour day, I smiled to myself the whole way home. I'm excited to see what Friday's activity day looks like now!
Period one went well, considering. I went over the work that I was missing from students so that they can turn it in to me. Instead of giving them zeros for everything, I am giving them another chance to turn their work in. They now have until the Monday after vacation to receive credit for it. After that, any work still not turned in will receive a definite zero. There didn't seem to be any complaints from this class about this. They were all agreeable and I think some of them were thankful for the opportunity to turn their work in still. I know there are some students who will not take advantage of it, but that is their choice. After that they had time to finish working on the posters that they started last class. I had three students who were absent last class, so I had to modify the assignment for them on the fly, but considering the amount of time they had to catch up to the rest of the class, I was impressed with the progress they made. After giving students more time than I had originally planned, I had students present their posters to the class. Once all groups had presented, we moved on to the next activity. This was a little challenging, but I think we got through it well enough. Trying to teach students about point of view isn't as easy as I originally thought. The Springboard text has some excerpts that students need to transform to different points of view. I should have looked at the activity again before teaching it, but I thought it was more straightforward than it actually was. So period one found it a little frustrating, but I was able to make changes for period two.
Period two was...a challenge. This class is consistently difficult, and it hasn't actually gotten any easier since I've started teaching. To start the class today, we had a new student, so I had all of the students introduce themselves to him, just as they did on my first day. I thought this would be an easy task for them, but most of the students struggled with it. We muddled through the introductions, then I gave the students the list of missing work. Two or three of the students have not turned in any of the assignments, and I highly doubt that they will. One of the students never has his book or his laptop with him and now that I have figured that out, I can make sure to photocopy the activities he needs, but even if I give him copies, I don't think he will do the assignments. The other student brings his book and/or laptop, and does his work in class, with occasional prodding, but asking him to do anything outside of class is wishful thinking. It's too bad really, because he is a bright student, all he is missing is a strong work ethic. Next, I got the students working on their posters. We had one student who had been absent last class and the new student, who had no background knowledge about what we were working on. By some strange miracle, these two buddied up and I was able to partner them up without any difficulties. I had the student who was absent explain the story to the new student, and then together they drew a modified poster because of time limits. They didn't exactly do the assignment right, but we talked about it and I explained where they had changed the story and how it was supposed to be. I also had to deal with two members of a group who could not work on their poster because it was at home with a third member. I asked them to explain to the class what their poster looked like, but they had not helped the other member at all, so they were not able to do that. Instead, I asked them to act out the ending of the story, which they did, horribly. I know one of them had been absent when we read the story together as a class, but the other was in school, and last class they read through the end of the story as a group, so I know that they both have read the ending. They also had plenty of time while the other groups were finishing up to review the ending and plan out what they were going to do, but they chose to play games on the computer instead. I caught one of them once, and told him to put it away, but when I came back later he had his iPod out instead. So again, I told him to put it away, which he did. During the presentations, I sat near these two, and once more, caught the student on his iPod, which I then took away from him. Throughout the entire period, H and I both spoke to him multiple times about his behavior. It is becoming a concern, and I might have to take my actions to the next step. H says this was not his typical behavior during the first half of the year, so I'm wondering if there is something going on at home that is causing the changes. I'm going to talk to H about possibly involving guidance and the other Freshmen teachers to see if we can get to the bottom of this.
Winter carnival sign ups are a maddening disaster.
During third period, we have prep the first half and then study hall during the second half. H's rules for study hall are simple: work on something for school or read, and if you have your laptop open, the screen needs to be facing her. Two of our students were not following the rules, and when H went to check on them to see what they were doing, she found that they were attempting to bypass the proxy to do something not school appropriate, like playing a game or something. She asked them to own their behavior and tell her what they were doing, but they wouldn't, so she eventually just chose to confiscate their laptops. I then delivered the laptops to the office, where the principal handled the situation. Like I said, it seems more like today was a Friday than a Wednesday.
Based on how the other classes today went, I was expecting our seniors to be even worse. I was pleasantly surprised when they weren't. Were they the dream class? No, but they worked mostly independently, and most of them made some sort of progress. I was able to work and talk with a few students who typically aren't receptive to me, which made me happy. One student in particular made me really happy. I've been in the classroom for about 3 weeks now, and during the entire time I've worked with the students, this particular student has said maybe 3 words to me. In 3 weeks. H gave me a heads up about him, so I knew that he wouldn't open up to me right away, and I handled things accordingly. I had hoped that he would eventually open up to me, and today seems like it's the first step towards him doing so. H and I have both witnessed this student working one on one with different classmates, much as you would see an ed tech do. However, this student doe snot realize that he has any kind of gift. Last class, we witnessed another interaction, and H and I were able to communicate about it using just facial expressions as we watched it happen. After the student was done helping his classmate, H took him into the hallway to talk to him, and told him that he has a gift for working with special education students. She was brought to tears when he told her that he has always wanted to be a special education teacher. When he came back into the classroom after talking to H, he had an actual smile on his face, which I had not seen from him before. I'm hoping, as is H, that down the road, he decides to act on this because he really does have a natural gift and the patience to go along with it. I'm looking forward to seeing how his awareness of this influences him throughout the rest of the semester.
Now for the fun stuff! Part of the winter carnival activities is a scavenger hunt that takes place after school. I had been planning on helping supervise after school today anyway, but I was thinking more along the lines of helping the students with the hall decorations. I was not expecting to get roped into the scavenger hunt, but when I did I totally got hooked. As a teacher, I was given a list of the items that our team needed to find before the students were able to look it over. At 2:30, I had students hounding me for it, so we made copies, and since the Freshmen teacher who was in charge of the scavenger hunt for our team was at South Campus, I took the role of coordinator for the students at North Campus. This gave me the chance to get to know some of my students better as well as some of the students in the other Freshmen classes whom I don't have. I thought I would just stay at North Campus for a little while and coordinate, but I ended up actually running around town helping to get a few items, which I then brought back to the South Campus where our headquarters was at. We had a small group of Freshmen show up, but I think we had more than any of the other classes, which I was really proud of. I also think that a few of the students were surprised to see me there considering it wasn't part of school. I really enjoyed being at the final round of the scavenger hunt because not only did I get to interact with more of my students, I also got a chance to talk with a couple of the other Freshmen teachers who I hadn't really been able to form a relationship with. Even though I was exhausted after a 13 hour day, I smiled to myself the whole way home. I'm excited to see what Friday's activity day looks like now!
Monday, February 11, 2013
Struggling with the Seniors
While I've mostly taken over completely with the Freshmen and Sophomores, the Seniors I'm still struggling with. Out of the 12 students, maybe 5 of them are receptive to me. I'm just as friendly with all of them, but still I get resistance. I work with the students who will let me, try to check in with those who somewhat listen to me, and the rest I just keep an eye on and let H work with them. They give her resistance too, but not as much as they give me. I know that it isn't anything personal against me, I just wish there were more I can do.
I'm hoping that as the weeks go on, the rest of them will open up to me, but I'm not hoping for anything. There are a couple of them that I would really like to work with because I can see a lot of potential in them, but they don't see it and it frustrates me.
I'm hoping that as the weeks go on, the rest of them will open up to me, but I'm not hoping for anything. There are a couple of them that I would really like to work with because I can see a lot of potential in them, but they don't see it and it frustrates me.
Condensed Version of Last Week
Last week was a little less stressful than the week before. My luck seemed to have improved some.
I worked with the freshmen a lot Tuesday through Thursday, especially on Wednesday and Thursday. H and I were also able to look at Springboard and see where we can trim some of the unnecessary stuff and push through a little faster in some other areas, which was incredibly relieving to both of us. I also started planning for taking over the Sophomore class, which will be the class I focus on for my TWS. I put real grades into the gradebook on Thursday evening, but because of the snow day on Friday, didn't see any students right away to see how they felt about their incredibly low grades. After putting the grades in, most of my students were failing because they have not passed in most of their work. Work that was primarily done in class. Today (Monday) I've had several students come see me and ask me about their missing work, so it seems that at least some of them are looking on PowerSchool to see what it is they are missing.
I think H and I see grades somewhat similarly. We have a Freshman Academy grading policy, but we're a little softer on the Freshman than some other teachers might be. I believe that students are responsible for their own grades and should know what they are missing, but I also know that a lot of students, especially Freshmen haven't really figured that out, so I'm using a 0 as a placeholder to remind them what they are missing when they check their grades. If they come see me and make up the work, I will give them the grade they earned. If students put the effort into it, even if it is late, and they get a good grade, they see that as an academic success. We want students to achieve academic success, not failure, so I would much rather work with them to help them succeed.
I worked with the freshmen a lot Tuesday through Thursday, especially on Wednesday and Thursday. H and I were also able to look at Springboard and see where we can trim some of the unnecessary stuff and push through a little faster in some other areas, which was incredibly relieving to both of us. I also started planning for taking over the Sophomore class, which will be the class I focus on for my TWS. I put real grades into the gradebook on Thursday evening, but because of the snow day on Friday, didn't see any students right away to see how they felt about their incredibly low grades. After putting the grades in, most of my students were failing because they have not passed in most of their work. Work that was primarily done in class. Today (Monday) I've had several students come see me and ask me about their missing work, so it seems that at least some of them are looking on PowerSchool to see what it is they are missing.
I think H and I see grades somewhat similarly. We have a Freshman Academy grading policy, but we're a little softer on the Freshman than some other teachers might be. I believe that students are responsible for their own grades and should know what they are missing, but I also know that a lot of students, especially Freshmen haven't really figured that out, so I'm using a 0 as a placeholder to remind them what they are missing when they check their grades. If they come see me and make up the work, I will give them the grade they earned. If students put the effort into it, even if it is late, and they get a good grade, they see that as an academic success. We want students to achieve academic success, not failure, so I would much rather work with them to help them succeed.
Monday, February 4, 2013
Is it vacation yet?
Even though today wasn't a teaching day, it was just as exhausting, if not more exhausting.
Because of impending budget cuts and layoffs, the students started signing up for classes today, earlier than anticipated. Teachers were informed of this at the last minute, so no one really had any idea what was going on today. We knew that the day started with a whole school assembly, so we all headed to the gym, where the teachers were given packets of information for their advisees. Then, as an advisee group, the students went around to different classrooms to hear the different departments talk about their course offerings for next year. This meant that the English department stayed in the library for the duration, and then talked about the course offerings ten times. After about the third time, it started to get repetitive and boring, but because I wasn't required to say anything, I mostly tuned out.
After the students finished going through the rotations, we had a 30 min. lunch break, followed by a 30 min. advisory period where students were able to finish signing up for their classes. Then, there was a whole school pep rally that is supposed to get students excited for winter carnival which is happening next week. The pep rally was actually quite well done, though it was mostly led by one of the teachers from South Campus. There's not anything wrong with that, I'm just used to pep rallies and other similar activities being student led, so it was a different experience for me. Once the pep rally was finished, the school broke into different classes to start planning for the winter carnival activities. H is class advisor to the freshmen, but she left early, so along with the other freshmen teachers and the freshmen class president, I helped to explain winter carnival and survey class participation interest. The day finally ended with another school assembly and students getting ice cream.
While planning for winter carnival with the freshman class, we were talking about one of the activities where students raise money to duct tape a teacher to the wall. One of the students (not one of mine) said that they should duct tape me to the wall. I'm not sure whether I should take this as a compliment or not!
Because of impending budget cuts and layoffs, the students started signing up for classes today, earlier than anticipated. Teachers were informed of this at the last minute, so no one really had any idea what was going on today. We knew that the day started with a whole school assembly, so we all headed to the gym, where the teachers were given packets of information for their advisees. Then, as an advisee group, the students went around to different classrooms to hear the different departments talk about their course offerings for next year. This meant that the English department stayed in the library for the duration, and then talked about the course offerings ten times. After about the third time, it started to get repetitive and boring, but because I wasn't required to say anything, I mostly tuned out.
After the students finished going through the rotations, we had a 30 min. lunch break, followed by a 30 min. advisory period where students were able to finish signing up for their classes. Then, there was a whole school pep rally that is supposed to get students excited for winter carnival which is happening next week. The pep rally was actually quite well done, though it was mostly led by one of the teachers from South Campus. There's not anything wrong with that, I'm just used to pep rallies and other similar activities being student led, so it was a different experience for me. Once the pep rally was finished, the school broke into different classes to start planning for the winter carnival activities. H is class advisor to the freshmen, but she left early, so along with the other freshmen teachers and the freshmen class president, I helped to explain winter carnival and survey class participation interest. The day finally ended with another school assembly and students getting ice cream.
While planning for winter carnival with the freshman class, we were talking about one of the activities where students raise money to duct tape a teacher to the wall. One of the students (not one of mine) said that they should duct tape me to the wall. I'm not sure whether I should take this as a compliment or not!
Friday, February 1, 2013
Finally Friday
Leaving for school this morning, I knew it would be a rough day. I went out to my car, got in it, and tried to shut the door. Of course, the door would not shut at all. Not even part way enough for it to latch just a little. The latch simply was not working. So, in a semi-panic, I called my mom to see if I could borrow her car for the day, since she works from home. Nope, not possible because this is the one day a month that she has to travel to the in-center location for her job. She was, however, heading the same direction as me, and able to give me a ride there. Funny thing is, when she picked me up, she got out of her car to try and fix my car's door, was unsuccessful, so she got back in her car and then her door wouldn't shut. We've decided that I'm no longer able to touch cars because I break them. So it was a lovely start to a day that has just gone downhill from here.
Period One:
H went over the agenda because I was running late, but I started the class by checking homework. As I was going around checking the homework, I realized I don't know most of the names in that class for some reason. All of my others classes I know, but period one I don't, so I'm making a mental note to get their names down soon. Then they spent some time on their acad. vocab quizlet in preparation for our discussion/review of them. They were mostly quiet during this time and transitioning them to the next part of the lesson was fairly easy. For the most part they were focused while I reviewed the terms with them. Then H did her point of view mini-lesson with them, but it ended up taking longer than anticipated, so we didn't get to everything in the lesson, but that actually worked out in our favor because period two did not go nearly as planned.
Period Two:
This was probably the worst class I've seen so far during the week and a half I've been here. Checking their work went fine, getting them on quizlet was fine, after that though, things started to fall apart. It was a bit of a struggle to get students to close their laptops and focus their attention on me. I started going through the terms that they had just reviewed and I was constantly interrupted by two students in particular, who were sitting next to each other. I spoke to them multiple times while I was talking and while others were talking. The entire class also kept trying to talk over one another when I asked them a question. They were reminded by both myself and H about raising their hands multiple times. When H was acting out the meaning of evoke and then explaining how that meant evoke, the students started to get off task. H spoke to them numerous times but it continued to get worse. She eventually stopped the lesson, had a stern discussion with them, and tried the silent treatment strategy with them. It focused them a little, enough for H to pass the lesson back to me. I continued going through the lit terms until we got to the PoV mini lesson, when H took over again. This was when everything really fell apart. H was teaching them about PoV, but the students were getting off topic constantly, not paying attention, and talking over each other. H got frustrated with the class, sent everyone back to their seats and asked them if they knew why she was so disappointed. Then she asked that those students who were responsible for distracting everyone and getting off topic would own responsibility for their actions and create a plan to fix their behavior in the future. Out of the students that responded, about half of them were sincere in their plans. It was easy to tell which students weren't sincere, and they just happened to be the ones who were the main cause for the disruptions. H and I talked about it after class and I think that we need to talk to the parents of one of the students to see what's going on at home that might be affecting his behavior.
Period Four:
Seniors. Same as usual. Still getting resistance from half of the class, so I'm just working with those students who will listen to me and trying to remain nice and friendly to those who don't seem to like me. One student seemed to open up to me a little more, so I guess I'm making some progress with them.
Over all, this week has been absolutely crazy. I'm hoping next week is a little smoother at least. There aren't any classes on Monday, so it will be interesting to see how that affects the students on Tuesday.
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