Some things I noticed in the classroom that I thought were good to take note of is how my cooperating teacher calls on her students. I asked her if she had a specific was to do it and she told me she looks at the students who probably aren't paying attention to force them to do the thinking and learning. She also said if I don't know my students that well (like at the beginning of the year or something) I could use popsicle sticks with their names on them and draw one to call on people.
Something that I am struggling a bit with so far is going from observing to actually talking to and getting to know the students and their work. This is something I will need to do before actually teaching a lesson to them. The students are currently reading the book Night by Elie Wiesel and writing an essay on how the Holocaust changed people in the book. They have to gather evidence from the book and analyze it to make it connect back to their thesis'. This is a challenge because I don't know how to approach the kids and see what their thoughts are. It's a little awkward. The environment is nice I just have to learn to strap up my teacher boots and leave my student ones behind when I'm there.
Practicum Learning 02/07/23 - 02/14/23:
This last week was really tough for me. I was feeling a lot of imposter syndrome in the classroom, particularly when I would try to help students. It felt like they didn't really see me as a teacher, which really sucked. On top of that, dealing with the standards and not being able to understand them/not knowing how to ask for help with them has also gotten me stuck in a rut. When I went into the classroom on the 7th I was feeling so much pressure. I still don't know what to do in the classroom with the kids. It feels like I'm an outsider. So the fact that I have to teach two lessons this semester is making me really anxious. I don't know where to go or what to do. Today (the 14th) feels a little better. I'll keep trying but I'm unsure as to what to do. I feel like my teacher isn't incorporating me or asking me any questions to help me get engaged but how do I ask her to do that? Like, "hey can you modify the way you're teaching for me?" is basically what I'm asking her to do and I could never do that to someone. This is a cry for help. :')
Practicum Learning 02/21/23 - 03/07/23:
My cooperating teacher uses a lot of formative assessments when teaching her students. The one that I see used most often is the Think-Pair-Share. I believe it is super effective because then my teacher can see what students are grasping from the lesson and what their thought processes are like. Based on how the students answer my cooperating teacher can provide additional support if the students aren't understanding the question she asked or she can push their thinking even more if they hit the nail on the head. Another formative assessment strategy my cooperating teacher uses is having the students put their heads down and voting on ideas they support. I'm unsure about what the official name of this formative assessment is. They were talking about human rights and the teachers posed some theoretical questions that were a little controversial. So they had students put their heads down so no one would be ashamed of sharing their true thoughts.
Practicum Learning 03/14/23 - 03/21/23:
The biggest challenge I've seen my cooperating teacher face is this one kid in class that always wants to sleep. The class runs from 8 am - 9:20 am so it is first thing in the morning during the school day. This kid always has his head down and tries to sleep and close his eyes during class. They constantly have to remind him to pick his head up. If I was in her shoes I would be really deadpan about it and not take any of it. If it continued to happen during class over multiple classes I would very kindly tell him to head to the Wellness center until he was ready to come back to class because it is disruptive to his learning. I'd also go about trying to call/email home or the guidance counselor to figure out how to fix the problem since it is such a constant issue.
Practicum Learning 03/28/23 - 04/04/23:
My cooperating teacher uses what I have learned in my education classes in her classes every day. One thing I can think of that stands out to me (which I believe I touched on in earlier entries) is she turns the standards she's using into student friendly language and writes them on the white board for everyone to see so the students can know that by the end of the unit they should be able to do what the standard says. The statement that is on the board for this unit is "I can summarize, interpret, analyze, and evaluate." This is the standard she used when it comes to four way thinking book reviews. Another thing she uses that I learned from my education class is meeting students where they are. This part she had to explain to me because I don't see this part of her teaching. The example she used is when they wrote essays on the book "Night" she told me that she gives students individual based feedback. Even though they all get taught the same lesson sometimes students need help with different aspects. One student had all of the formatting and organization down so she was pushed a little bit more when it came to analysis. Another student had great ideas and writing but needed help with organizing his thoughts. She helps the kids with what they need and will give extra assistance to those who are struggling a little bit more.
Practicum Learning 04/11/23 - 04/18/23:
My cooperating teacher was very transparent with me about the resources she uses. At this point in her career she has been teaching the same curriculum since I was a high school freshman. She told me she uses blogs by other English teachers to get ideas for teaching as well as Google. She encouraged me that there is nothing wrong with Google and I just have to take what everyone says with a grain of salt because everyone has a different teaching experience. She also lent me some books she uses for her upper level classes that she pulls from because she mostly teaches writing classes. The books she gave me were "On Writing" by Stephen King, "Bird by Bird" by Anne Lamott, and "On Writing Well" by William Zinsser. After looking into these resources more I really like how when someone teaches writing they're just sharing the tricks of other people and themselves. Creative writing is not like a super concrete thing. It is very fluid so the teaching of it is the same way. This gives me a lot of relief when it comes to teaching reading and writing. I was worried about teaching the "wrong way" when in reality as long as the kids take away from something I'm teaching, I'm doing my job correctly. Even if it's not the content (hopefully it is partially the content though).
Practicum Learning 04/25/23 - 05/02/23:
I see my cooperating teacher using number four, respond to the child, not the behavior. I see her do this in many ways because I am at a very diverse school and many of these kids have immigrated here from places like Kenya, the Philippines, Nepal, Vietnam, and more. So, it is very important for the teachers to adjust how they would discipline kids. Some of these kids grew up in not-so-great conditions, especially when it came to learning. It is super important for my cooperating teacher to be gentle yet firm when discipling her students due to their pasts. Something else my cooperating teacher does is explain why she's there. Because I am observing a Humanities class there is one teacher that is more so the language arts teacher and the other is a history teacher. My cooperating teacher is so into reading and writing that she tries really hard to be passionate and to show the students she gives a crap about what they're learning about. She reads and writes with them too when they start their day with reading or writing. She talks about her own life in hopes to be on the same level with kids and I think that really shows.
As for the Corneilius Minor chapters, something that I am going to pull from and use in my teaching is the idea that teachers have to work really hard to understand their kids. Without that understanding it will be very hard to teach them because you aren't going to know how they work; therefore, you cannot help them understand in the most efficient way. Something else I really liked was the idea that teachers should not be working for the kids, it is a matter of working with them. If we both have the same goal in mind, then it is really powerful to be able to disrupt the system that originally set them up to fail.
Practicum Reflection:
Three of the main things I learned from my Practicum are how to call on students, the importance of prepping, and how to discipline. First, very early on I asked my cooperating teacher if there was a method to her calling on students and if so how she did it. She said it can be random, a kid who she doesn't think is paying attention to kind of make them think, or sometimes it can be a kid she definitely knows knows the answer. This was really helpful when it came to my turn to teach the class and I used her method. It worked really well and I will continue to use that. Next, I learned a lot about lesson planning and the importance of it. I didn't really like planning a big, long, elaborate lesson plan because that isn't really what I needed for the classes I was teaching. In a newer class that is new to me I think I would make a longer and more detailed lesson plan but for classes I've taught a million times with the same subject matter I don't think I really need a detailed lesson plan. I like the idea of having the students see the standard and the learning targets so they know exactly what is expected of them but the end of a whole unit, there are no surprises. Finally, I learned a little bit about how to discipline. This isn't always a bad thing, but I needed to learn how to do it earlier rather than later. The students were incredibly disrespectful to me while my cooperating teacher was out, and they didn't do any work while she was gone. She talked about how the sub notes were negative and that they are upperclassmen and shouldn't have acted the way they did because their behavior will not fly in college. It made sense and I agreed wholeheartedly. Rather than yelling and being obnoxious and making the situation worse, my cooperating teacher was cool, calm, and collected and told the students what they needed to hear straight up. This was super important to see early on. The one that I saw in our course as well as in my Practicum was lesson planning. We talked in Partnering with the Adolescent Learner about how to plan for lessons and that some lesson plans are not going to be as elaborate as others, especially as we grow from being baby teachers to pros! I'm excited to see how I apply everything I learned this year into my Practicum II and Student Teaching in the future.
Partnering with the Adolescent Learner - Final Reflection:
The three most effective ways to teach adolescent learners are to collaborate with them, have multiple methods of teaching them, and create/maintain a safe environment for them to learn. This is based solely on my Practicum experience, however, there are definitely traces of several aspects brought up in multiple education classes I have taken at NVU.
First, in order to teach adolescents, you must have their input on what they are learning. If you do not take into account what the students want to be learning about, chances are they are not going to care about what you teach because it doesn’t feel meaningful to them. Before the end of each year, I recommend teachers asking their current students what classes or curriculums they would like to see in the upcoming semesters. This way students have a voice in what they are learning and actually care about coming to school every day.
Second, learners come in many different shapes and sizes. If I have a class of twenty kids, and I am only appealing to half of them, I am neglecting the learning needs of the other half of students. Some kids learn by verbal instruction, where they can be told what to do and they just go. Some students need a more hands-on approach and can learn by doing rather than someone telling them things. Other kids need visuals. The best way to meet kids where they are is by having multiple ways of explaining the topics you’re teaching and different ways for them to show you they’re learning the content.
Finally, one of the best ways for students to learn is for their teachers to create and maintain a safe and healthy learning environment for them. Some ways we can do this range from not having harsh lighting in our rooms to making sure students are comfortable enough to voice their feelings to you without fear of being judged. These small gestures can make it so the “problem kid” no longer feels the need to throw chairs and instead talks about their feelings with you. From ages five to eighteen kids spend what feels like a majority of their days at school or doing schoolwork. The least teachers can do is make it a bit more manageable for them to really listen and hear them, think of them when creating curriculum, and making sure they come to school to learn, and other things won’t get in the way.