Ugh, managing.

So I am really having a difficult time with management this week. I have been with my second graders for three weeks, and I knew that the testing was going to come. However, I wasn't expecting it to be all of the kids at once. I had a student climbing on the bathroom door during the bathroom break. I had another student push students in line, causing a domino affect in which four students fell down. I also had students talking during my lessons, and completely ignoring my cues for attention. And the sad thing...it all happened on the same day. It was terrible. I am getting overwhelmed. I never had this problem with the fourth graders. The next lesson I taught was slightly better, but they still weren't behaving for me like they do for my CT. It is frustrating. And I know I am not dealing as effectively with it as I need to be. My CT says that I need to give them negative consequences and really stick to it so I am consistent. It is really hard, though. I feel mean. In one lesson, I moved six different kids, and made five students give me five minutes of their recess time. It was terrible. I even had to tell them that if it didn't stop I would take away popcorn points because they weren't behaving well. It was really bad. Ugh, I know that practice will help me get better, but it is really hard. I feel mean, and then I get boring because I am thinking about how to deal with my managment problems rather than my teaching.

My First Lesson

Today I taught my first lesson in my classroom. It almost feels like it was two separate lessons though. I taught it in two separate chunks. However, I learned a huge truth about myself as a teacher.
The lesson that I was teaching was on answering questions as you read. The students have been working on this, and my CT said it was something I should do the lesson on. The lesson was a read aloud, and as I read, I brought up questions I had, and talked to the kids about how I could answer my questions. Before I taught, I set up my behavior expectations, and told the kids the objective and purpose of the strategy.
As the lesson progressed, I felt like I was not doing a great job of managing the class. There were certain students who were wiggling, or chatting with a neighbor. I kept repeatedly stating that I would wait, or asking students who weren't listening to repeat what someone else had said. I felt like it was going terribly. I also kept getting distracted, and forgetting to put my questions up on the graphic organizer. It just wasn't going that well for me.
About halfway through the book I was reading, I realized we had been on the floor for a half hour, and it was time to move on to the next activity, so I stopped the lesson, and said we would come back to it another day. The students then went to the next activity. At recess, I had the chance to debrief with my CT about the lesson, and she brought up positive reinforcement. She spoke about how she uses that a lot, and how most of my reinforcement was redirecting the kids. She suggested that I use more positive reinforcement, and then had me teach the rest of the lesson when the kids came back from recess.
This next segment of the lesson went so much better. I used a lot more positive reinforcement, and the kids responded wonderfully to it. They were more engaged, and looked at me more. They got excited about the book and the questions I was asking. One kid got so excited that he got in trouble because he rushed over to the shelf to grab another book that would have helped answer a question.
This was nothing compared to how I felt, though. Because I didn't have to do so much policing, reminding the kids of how to show their best listening, telling the students they needed to be looking at me, and correcting their behavior in general, I felt a lot more enthusiastic about teaching. I felt more positive. It was noticeable, too. My voice changed, and I seemed like I was enjoying the book a lot more. I was reading with more expression. I have realized that being so negative all of the time has really been draining me. Realizing that by being positive, I feel more enthusiastic is something that I feel will really help me be a better teacher.
I know that there is a time and place for negative reinforcement. However, my experience today has helped me to see that I can use a lot more positive reinforcement, and get much better results. I think this will really help me as a teacher, and my goal is to work on including even more positive reinforcement as I teach in the future.
Other than that, I feel that the lesson was one that was definitely at the kids' level. It is something that I have seen them working on all week long, and several of the kids, while they might ask questions, are not really doing much to answer them. Therefore, this lesson, which provided practice in answering questions, was appropriate for their level. It was not new material for them, but they still needed to practice it. I have not yet looked at the follow up activity that the students did, but I feel confident that the students are beginning to be successful with this strategy, and my lesson helped to get them there.
I do feel that this lesson met the objective that I had for the students. As I was teaching, the students, particularly in the second half, were helping me to answer the questions that I had, and I frequently asked how we could answer a question, and got answers that showed me that they understood how they could find an answer. Overall, it was a successful lesson.
If I could teach this lesson over again, I would do several things differently. First of all, I think that I would spend a little less time setting up behavior expectations at the beginning. It went on for ten minutes, and the kids were getting bored. I would also use more positive reinforcement from the very beginning of the lesson. I would also be more conscious of when I need to put up my questions. I forgot to do this at several points, and I think it interrupted the lesson flow. Finally, I would change some of my questions to go with the book that the students read afterwards. One group was reading a book that answered a question that I had originally had in the lesson plan, but later took out. I think that if I had focused a little more on what was coming, I could have given the students the opportunity to see how answering questions can really work.
Based on what I have seen today, I would say that the next steps for the students are to get some independent practice using this strategy. They have seen it modeled, and have worked as a group on these strategies. I think that it may be time for them to practice this strategy on their own. Some students may need help, but for the most part, the students know where to look, and just need to start looking there.
Overall, today was a great day, and I learned a lot about myself. In the future, I am going to work more on looking at what is coming next as I plan, getting to know the kids better, and using more positive reinforcement.

Hurray for first days!

Today was my first day in my new classroom. It was really great. I mainly just observed or helped the kids when they were doing independent work. It was really interesting to see how my CT used transitions. She has lots of different management strategies that she uses. There is not just one attention getter, there are about 20. It was really great to see. The kids brought their attention to her very quickly because of the different strategies she used.
I feel like I am making great progress with getting to know the kids. I have all of their names down already, and am getting to know some of their personalities. I have discovered those children who really like extra attention, and some who need extra help getting on task. I also feel like I am starting to understand where they are at in their learning.
At the beginning of the day, I did an introductory activity. I brought in a bag of stuff that I had from home, and then shared what they meant to me, and spoke to the kids about how they can use objects to introduce themselves to others. The kids were really engaged in that. They asked all sorts of questions, and responded when I asked questions.
I do feel like I need to get to know the class a little more, though. (Obviously.) I don't yet have a feel for how loud the kids are allowed to be before it is too much. I don't want my CT to feel like I am not helping to keep the kids in line, but I don't want to be super harsh either.
Overall, the day was great, and I will be teaching on Thursday. The lesson may be a small group lesson, a read aloud formal lesson, or just a read aloud. I haven't decided what I want to do yet, but I think I am leaning toward the formal lesson. I have done enough read alouds for me to not really get much out of it, and I have the chance to do the small group lesson afterwards if I want, so I think that is what I am going to do. A read aloud, and then small group lessons. I haven't taught small group lessons for a really long time, and I feel like that would be a great experience for me.
Anywho, I will let you know more as the days progress...

Hurray for Second Grade

After what seems like years of waiting, I have finally found my placement. I will be starting on Monday. We are going to try it for a week to see if it is really a best fit. It is in a second grade classroom, and there are lots of lower readers, so my reading endorsement should come in handy. Also, I really liked what I heard about the classroom set up. It sounds like a great class to work in. I will be doing a get to know you activity on Monday, so look forward to later blogs. YAY FOR CONTINUING THE PROGRAM!!!!

Transitions

So in math, I have been having trouble getting the students to transition quickly. They move from one class to another, and then they take a while to get settled in. By the time I get them transitioned to the carpet, ten minutes have gone by, taking time from the lesson. So, to give me some ideas to combat this, I took notes on how other teachers transitioned.
In the science classroom, some of the things that the teacher did to transition the kids was say thank you to those who ready. This positive reinforcement worked, and got several other students to quickly get ready. Then, after the students were ready, she told the students what they would do. As she was discussing the goals, she was also passing out papers, killing to birds with one stone. At the end of the lesson, she got out the timer, and timed the students lining up. This worked well, too. The kids were in line in seven seconds. I think this worked because they were challenged.
In math, the instructions were given before the students entered the class. They were told to bring their bodies to the carpet. This worked well, too. The students knew the expectation before they got into the room.
The math teacher also told the students that she was waiting for silence, and counted back for attention. These routines helped the students to get on task quickly. When they were finished with the lesson, they were timed to get back into line again.
Overall, I think that these ideas are really good ones. I have tried timing the students before, but they do not line up as quickly for me. I think that perhaps having an actual timer so I can give them their exact time might help them to challenge them. I had been using the class clock, but it is more difficult to get exact seconds using that. I have not tried giving the students the expectations before they go into the next class, though. I think that this would be very helpful. I want to try it out on Monday and see how it works.
So my goal for the students is to get them to transition in less that two minutes. Hopefully, I can motivate them to accomplish this goal.

My very late reflection

As I was teaching the very first lesson in my TWS, there were several things that went differently than I had planned. First, as I was teaching, I introduced the students to the term mass, and was surprised at the responses that I got from students. When I asked what they thought it meant, several students referred to a Bill Nye movie that they had seen, and gave a very close definition of mass. I had planned on doing a discussion of these terms, but the students' responses made me realize that I needed to move it in a different direction. I still discussed the same things, but I could see that the students did not need me to spend quite so much time on this since they already knew some things about it.

Also, as I was teaching, I left out several aspects of the lesson that I had planned to include. There was supposed to have been a discussion about why we weigh, and what it means when something is light and when it is heavy. These discussions would have been helpful to the students in understanding my essential question. Also, it would have helped those who didn't understand already to discover that heavy and light relate to each other. This would have helped the English Language Learners in my class. However, I, in looking at my lesson plan, missed that portion of the lesson, and forgot to have it.

Also, when I was having the student discuss the scales that they had looked at in their groups, I realized that we were starting to run out of time, and the final portion of the lesson was one that needed to happen. I ended up rushing through this section of my lesson. I think this was okay, because the students still got the information they needed, but I would have liked to have spent a little more time on it.

Overall, I felt good about this lesson. I would have liked to spend a little more time on it, but I only had an hour. In the future, I think I might give these concepts more time. Also, I should have included the conversations that would have supported my essential question. It would have helped the students understand why we were doing what we were doing. I did end up having it later in the unit, but it should have been in this first lesson. However, I do think I was clear in sharing my purpose for the activities that the students were doing, and what they were to be thinking about as they did them. I also feel that the students gained experience with the things that I wanted them to experience. Overall, I felt that this lesson was a large improvement from the previous math lessons I had taught.

Reflections on my TWS

So I have finished teaching all of the lessons for my TWS. The only thing that is left is the post-assessment, which the students will be taking tomorrow morning. I am very relieved to be finished with it.

Overall, it went well. There were a few things that I missed during specific lessons as I was teaching. I forgot to include certain conversations that were needed. Eventually, I did go back to them and have them, but they should have been earlier. However, I believe the students have been mostly successful with all of my learning goals. According to my formative assessment data, the students have mostly been performing well.

I tested out the GLAD attention getter strategy. I really love this. The students are now able to define mass and weight, and it was a convenient way for my to get their attention. I have tried several different attention getters this quarter, and so far, this is the one that works best for me. I feel like we are accomplishing something while I am getting their attention, and the kids are engaged in it. Also, it ensures that all students have their hands free and have a few seconds to really give me their full attention. I really love this strategy, and will continue to use it in my classroom.

Also, after talking with Carole and Joanne about the things that I am forgetting to touch on in my lesson plans, it was decided that I should start making a checklist/outline of things to cover that I had written about. The "big ideas" of the plan. I hadn't started this until my last lesson, but it was incredibly helpful to me. As I was teaching my lesson, I was just able to look at the list, and see if I had forgotten anything, and then, if I had, I could go back and talk about it. It was much more helpful to me than trying to read through my seven page lesson plan, and try to figure out where I was and what I might have missed. Lesson plans are great, but, like with our phone calls home, students don't always respond in the way that we think they will, so having it scripted out is helpful in planning, but confuses me as I am trying to teach. Having an ouline is much easier for me to follow. I will continue to distill my plans into an outline, since it is so helpful to me. (On a side note, I do think the Literacy format that we have learned, with the Who, what, when, where, why, I do, we do, you do elements, helps me to focus on what is important a little more.)

One issue that has kind of been a challenge still is timing. It always seems to take me longer to teach than I want it to, and it takes the students longer to do the activities that I plan for. I think that I need to become more concise with what I want to cover, and also, I think that getting to know how quickly kids learn things will help me with this.

There are still some minor things that I need to work on at times. I feel that I really need to stop side talk as soon as it starts happening. I am much better at this than I used to be, but I need to keep working on it. Sometimes, I feel like it would be a bigger distraction to address it than the chatter is, but it doesn't take long for that to escalate, and I don't want the class to be out of control.

One issue that came up that gave me some food for thought was, how do I get assessment data using interviews and anecdotal notes while students are working with others? With one group in particular, I chose a student for my sample, and each time I would ask her a question, another student in her group would blurt out the answer. It is great that he knows that, but how can I help him to support his group without just telling them what they need to know?

Also, how can I be more efficient with my conferring, so I provide help to all of the students who need it, rather than just a few?