CP Reflection Week 8

Ugh. I was doing so well!

But then I got wrapped up doing lesson planning, grocery shopping, and housecleaning. I knew I'd need to post something before heading to game night with some friends, if I was going to post anything.

Unfortunately, time slipped away from me.

Suddenly it was after 1am, and I was tired. So...no blog post on Saturday.

This past week was Cultural Field Experience (CFE) at my school. What is CFE you might ask? It's an opportunity for students to get out of their comfort zone and broaden their cultural experience. I student teach at a private, Christian school, which probably says something about our student population. For many of the students, their lives have been relatively sheltered.

CFE is an opportunity to reach out to the community - opening their eyes to what else is out there.

From the school website...

The intentions of real-life learning are:

• To promote an understanding of another’s life and point of view
• To provide opportunities for students to discover their God-given gifts
• To develop compassionate and globally-minded citizens
• To equip students with a willingness to give of themselves in service to God and others

Seniors aren't required to participate (though some do attend the international trips), but all freshmen, sophomores, and juniors do something for CFE.

Some examples of the various site options included:

• Assisting at a Sommali-immersion early-childhood development center
• Assisting in an elementary school serving Spanish-speaking students
• Preparing / serving meals and interacting with residents at a transitional shelter and food shelf
• Working with adults with developmental disabilities at Shepherds Ministries in Milwaukee
• Working with Urban Homeworks in Minneapolis doing demolition, construction, painting, yard work, etc during the day and participating in poverty discussion and service learning in the evenings.
• Interacting with residents at a Jewish senior citizen residential care center
• Visiting a variety of religious places of worship

There were also options to visit Greece (Latin class), France (French class), Slovakia (Band). I also know some students went to Florida (Choir), Colorado, or Kentucky. I couldn't really find any details on those trips on the school website.

I was an Assistant Team Leader with another teacher. We took a group of 12 students to the American Indian and World Cultures (no link because it's closing at the end of this school year) magnet schools. Our students worked, individually, in a classroom of 1st, 2nd, or 3rd graders. Since they were in a classroom on their own, I think it really forced them to step out of their comfort zone and interact with the kids. They helped in the classrooms with reading, math, and other activities. They ate lunch with the students and played with them during recess.

For the most part, I think the students enjoyed their time there, and I know the elementary students enjoyed having high school students around.

Our students were surprised by:

• the language some of them used
• how much energy they had
• how smart they were but also how little they applied themselves to their learning
• how common it was that they didn't live with both a mom and a dad
• how hungry some of the students seemed during lunch (i.e. cleaning their entire trays for lunch, including practically eating the chicken bones one day)

I think some eyes were definitely opened.

As a leader at this particular site, it was a little dull for me. We didn't want to interrupt the classes too much, so we just made the rounds a couple times of day. Mostly we just sat and chatted, did some minimal lesson planning, graded tests, etc.

We spent Mon-Thu on-site and then had a 1/2 day reflection retreat on Friday. It was neat to hear about the different experiences the students had.

I think this is an invaluable opportunity for high school students. While they may not appreciate it to the fullest extent, I truly believe that each student walks away from the experience being impacted in at least one small way.

I think it's an excellent opportunity, and I wish it was more feasible at more schools.

What do you think of this opportunity? If you have children, would you want your school to offer / require something like this?

CP Reflection Week 7

I'll get right into it. Yet again, I did not work on this throughout the week. Ugh.

Monday, 3/12 - In World History, we continued our unit on Latin America. Mon/Tue lesson was on how culture spreads from one civilization to another. We talked about the Olmec and how scientists are arguing over their of influence on subsequent civilizations. We read, "Mother Culture, or Only a Sister?" - an article from the NY Times. We then switched to learn about the Maya who may have been heavily influenced by the Olmec. We talked about things they already knew about the Maya and things they may want to know about that great civilization. We then started to watch a movie on the Maya from Time Life's Lost Civilizations series - The Maya: The Blood of Kings.

Tuesday, 3/13 - Same lesson in World History. Worked on lesson prep for future lessons during my down times.

Wednesday, 3/14 - I really liked how my lesson in World History turned out today! We finished watching the movie on the Maya. It gets pretty graphic at certain points, so it was difficult for me to watch it three times, but I made it through. :) Luckily, I was able to work on some other things while watching. After the movie, we summarized some major characteristics of the Maya on the board - in one circle of a Venn diagram. Then the students got into pairs - half the students read a the section in the textbook on the Aztec and half read the section on the Inca. They jotted down notes of the characteristics of each civilization. When they finished, they switched to be partners with someone else who had read about the other civilizations. With their new partner, they described their civilization and then discussed any similarities and differences between the two. We all came back together as a class and completed the Venn diagram - we moved some characteristics around that the Maya shared with one or both of the other civilizations, and then we filled in more info with what they discovered on the Aztec and Inca.

Thursday, 3/15 - Same lesson in World History. I'll have to say that during this lesson on Wed/Thu, there was such a positive energy in the classroom. The students were really engaged in the lesson and had lots to contribute.  Even my quieter classes were much more active. Yay! This was the last week before Cultural Field Experience (CFE) more on this next week and Spring Break, so I won't be seeing these students in class for two weeks! I was surprised at the engagement level of the students during the week - considering the beautiful weather and the upcoming break. It was nice to see they were still engaged and not distracted.

We also had parent conferences Thursday evening. I got to participate in these as well. It was really interesting to get another perspective on the student. I only know what I see in the classroom, but this was an opportunity to get their parents' perspective on what was happening as well. Most of the parents that came were of students that were doing really well, but there were a few of some students that were struggling. Until I was sitting with the parents, and looking at the grades, sometimes I hadn't realized just how poorly the student was doing. It was good to be able to make a plan for those students on what we each could do to encourage better performance.

Friday, 3/16 - No school for the students. Parent Conferences for my Mentor Teacher. Me? I had to go to another clinical practice seminar. I would have much rather been anywhere else. Not because I don't think the seminars are useful or interesting, but rather because the people I sit with do not. We were assigned to be in a Professional Learning Community (PLC) at the beginning with others in our same licensure. None of these other future social studies teachers can see the benefits of these seminars, so instead of being able to enjoy the presentations and activities, I get to listen to things like this for six hours:
Is it time to go yet? 
This is pointless. Why do we have to be here? 
I'm bored. 
This is stupid. 
This is just busy work. 
Why are they requiring this? 
I'm just going to leave.
How much longer? 
Why are we doing this? 
If they did the schedule differently, we could be done by now. Why do we need breaks and an hour for lunch? 
Is it over?

Repeat ad nauseum. For SIX FULL HOURS!!

I always leave these seminars so frustrated. It is difficult to be around such negative people for so long. Plus, it really bothers me that these are the people who will be teaching the future leaders of the world.

They are so unprofessional, and I hate to admit, that their rude behavior makes me feel all vindictive - wishing the worst students on them. I know I shouldn't, but I think it's only fair. A dose of their own medicine, if you know what I mean.

Ok. Enough complaining about that.

It's St. Patrick's Day! I'm running a half marathon in just over an hour! I'm essentially off work for TWO WHOLE WEEKS! Though I am still going to try to be very productive during these two weeks, so I won't have as much to do in the evenings the last few weeks of CP.

What are your weekend plans? Running any races?

CP Reflection Week 6

Yesterday's post was my 400th post. Should I have celebrated somehow?

I totally meant to work on this reflection throughout the week, but I just never took the time. Ugh! Maybe next week...

Thankfully, it was kind of a light week, so hopefully this doesn't take me too long to write up.

Monday, 3/5 - At the end of each unit, we have a day for current events about something related to the unit. Since we just finished a unit on Japan, the current events assignment was related to the tsunami/earthquake that hit Japan March 2011. The assignment might have been a little vague, and we may have assigned it without ample time, but in general, the presentations were really sub-par. It was disappointing. This current events assignment was created by my mentor teacher.

Tuesday, 3/6 - World History had their Japan unit test, so nothing to do for that class. I taught most of the class in AP Euro, though. It was on Soviet propaganda vs. the reality of life under Stalin and then taking that and discussing how the Socialist Realism movement was possible. I think the lesson went pretty well. I was relatively relaxed and confident in my lesson plan. It had to be quick because there were other things Nathan wanted to do i.e. go over their test from the day before, so it was a few video clips and some primary source readings. I am definitely pleased with how it went.

Wednesday, 3/7 - The other sections of World History took their Japan unit test. I still had quite a bit to do to prepare for my the Thu/Fri World History lesson, so most of my day was consumed with prepping that lesson. Also, I did get most of the exams graded. Well, my part of the grading. The students had to write 3 short essays out of 5 prompts, so my MT graded the answers to 1-3 and I graded 4-5. It's a system that works quite well for us. That's how we did the China unit test, too.

Thursday, 3/8 - Our next unit in World History is Latin America. My MT hasn't been really pleased with how this unit has gone in the past, so it is largely my creation. I really like what I came up with for an introductory lesson. First, we did a little free association to begin class. I asked the students what some of the first things were that they think of when I mention Latin America. Then I paired the students up and they drew the name of a Latin American city. I provided some guidance and let each pair do some research on their city to get a sense of what that area is like - its geography and climate, common activities for visitors, what the population looks like ethnically, what language they speak. The idea was to get them to recognize the diversity in Latin America. I thought it was a fascinating lesson! I enjoyed researching all the different areas even though it really bit me with the travel bug! After they did their research, they created a travel poster and presented their findings to the class in a quick 1-2 min presentation. I was really impressed with the creativity this class put into both their posters and presentations! I felt like it was a pretty effective lesson.

The rest of the day was spent grading tests and preparing for my next lesson.

I spent the evening making some minor changes to the World History lesson. Despite the changes being minor, it took me several hours. Mostly because I needed to include a few more locations because I forgot that one of the classes about 6 more students.

Friday, 3/9 - Same lesson in World History, but these two classes weren't nearly as creative and interested in the activity. Perhaps I ought to have left the lesson alone from the day before. Really, I think it  had more to do with the different personalities of the students. The third time around, I especially had difficulty getting the students to stay on task and focused on the project. Also, the 3rd time around, many of the students researched the country instead of focusing on the city. With some countries, the geography/climate can vary greatly from one area of the country to another, so this didn't really accomplish exactly what I was hoping for. Still, I would totally use this lesson again.

When I wasn't finishing the grading, I was working on my next lesson. Unfortunately, this was the first day I didn't end up having time to eat lunch. I should have gone during AP Gov since I was working in a different room, My MT was being observed by the principal but I thought I'd do down during lunch right before World History. Unfortunately, I didn't take into account the necessary set-up for my lesson, and suddenly class was starting in 10 minutes. Surprisingly, I made it through without even feeling too hungry!

Saturday, 3/10 - that's today! I finished writing my lesson plan for Mon/Tues. It's on the Olmec and Maya civilizations. I feel pretty good about it, but I still need to do some additional research on the Olmec to feel even somewhat confident during delivery. I imagine I'll spend a good deal of time on it tomorrow plus I'd like to get a good start on the next lesson plan, too.

Now, I'm off to sleep because I need to be uber-productive tomorrow, and I'll be losing an hour thanks to the time change.

What are your Sunday plans?

CP Reflection Week 5

It was a pretty great week! It's snowing right now and beautiful to watch as I write this reflection.

Monday, 2/27 - I taught a lesson on the aftermath of the bombing of Hiroshima. Driving question of the lesson: How should we evaluate the use of nuclear bombing on the Japanese? I really struggled with this lesson plan. Over the weekend, I had assigned the students to read excerpts from Hiroshima by John Hersey, but I struggled with how to use that in class and how to sculpt a good lesson. All-in-all, the lesson turned out all right in all three classes. I'm still struggling a bit with questioning, but I have improved quite a bit. It's really helpful for me to actually write down the questions I want to ask as well as the answers I hope to get. I think it was a relatively powerful lesson. This was also my 2nd official observation by my mentor teacher (MT).

Tuesday, 2/28 - Our lesson in World History today was on Postwar Japan - Culture/Value changes, Constitution, American Occupation. I mostly just observed this lesson. My supervisor was coming on Friday for my 2nd observation, so my focus was on preparing/polishing that lesson.

Wednesday, 2/29 - Happy Leap Day! We didn't acknowledge this at all, but still. :-) Same lesson as the day before in World History, but I taught the portion on the Constitution. Twice. I felt much more confident in what I was doing the 2nd time around, so it flowed much better and was (I'm hoping) much more effective. Very interesting document, btw.

Thursday, 3/1 - It's March! Yay!! The students had a late start, though I was surprised by how many students came in at the regular time because they forgot about the late start. Oops! No late start for the teachers. Instead we had a department meeting and then training for the new online grading system. I attempted to make it in for the dept meeting, but my regular bus broke down 1/2 a block before I was to get on. I had to wait about 10 or so minutes for the next bus. I finally got to school around 8:25, and the dept mtg only went until 8:30. Oh well. During the grading system training, I just worked on prepping my lesson for World History - making sure I had all the copies I needed, the presentation all set, and able to run through it a couple times.

In World History, I taught a lesson on the Economic Miracle of Japan's phenomenal growth after WWII and the population shift the Japanese are experiencing now. Driving questions: How did Japan recover economically from WWII? How does an aging population affect a wealthy country like Japan? It was a really great lesson plan. One of the best I've written. Execution wasn't stellar, though. There were definitely changes I had to make to the lesson plan before giving it again on Friday.

In AP Euro, I spontaneously taught a very mini-lesson (about 5 min) on what happened after Lenin's death and how Stalin (very pragmatically) rose as Lenin's successor.

Also, I forgot my water bottle today! Ugh!! It's only the 2nd time I've forgotten it, and oh, how I missed having it. It's just so much more convenient than walking down the hall to the fountain.

Friday, 3/2 - I stayed up too late Thursday night and got up too early Friday morning - trying to work on a lesson plan for next Tuesday's AP Euro class. I knew I was going to be ultra tired during the day, so grabbed some Zipfizz to mix in my water to help me get through the day. It. Was. A. Lifesaver. :-) Well, except that sometime during the day, I dribbled some pink lemonade onto my white top, left breast. I knew I needed to take care of that before teaching 10th graders the last class of the day. Plus I was getting observed by my supervisor and wanted to look good. Thankfully, I was able to get it out pretty well in the bathroom before class. I really wished I'd had a Tide stick or Shout wipes or something, though.

World History - Same lesson as Thursday, but each class I taught it to was better than the previous, which was good since the 3rd time was when my supervisor came. The changes I'd made after the first two classes really showed by the 3rd time around. I was much more comfortable in moving around the class, presenting the material, and working with the groups. For the most part, I forgot that I was being observed and just went about teaching. :-)

After each observation, we sit down to talk about how the lesson went. It didn't get off to a great start, which was difficult for me because I had thought it had gone really well. She didn't like my opening, and that I didn't tie it together before the students got into the opening activity. I justified it by saying I wanted them to get there on their own, so ultimately, I still feel good about what I did. The students started by exploring specific sections of the Toyota company website. They worked in pairs to browse the website to learn about the history and corporate culture, and then compare Toyota's corporate culture to what they know about Japanese culture and assess how their values that might have helped them to recover after WWII. Her suggestion was to remind the students about what we've discussed in previous classes about Japanese culture before having them browse the website. I think that would have dumbed down the lesson a little for 10th graders. Maybe more necessary for 7th or 8th graders (more her background) than 10th graders, in my opinion (and perhaps the opinion of my MT).

She also gave quite a bit of feedback of how she would have done many things differently. Some of her suggestions were good, but a few I simply didn't agree with. It was getting to be a little frustrating. Finally, she did get around to a few things she liked about the lesson. Overall, the planning was really good. My questioning had improved a lot since the last observation. She liked how I switched up the partners for different activities. She appreciated how professionally I was dressed, and commented how the other students she is currently supervising don't seem to get it. Good thing I was able to clean the pink lemonade off my shirt before class!

Major things to work on: Motivating language to engage the students, helping them to know the importance of what I'm asking them to do. Relating the lesson back to them. Why should they care about the aging population in Japan? Giving clearer directions and expectations of what they are supposed to be doing.

For the weekend, I have some homework to grade, a lesson for AP Euro to finish prepping, and I'd like to get a lot of work prepped for the first couple lessons of our next unit: Latin America. The next unit starts on Thursday.

Overall, it was a pretty good week! I did feel a LOT more tired this week. I really need to be better about getting to bed on time and more efficiently using my evening time.

These reflections are taking me so long to compose! I really would like to take a few minutes each evening to reflect on that day and then just wait to publish it all together at the end of the week. Hopefully I'll give that a try this next week.

CP Reflection Week 4

One of the things that has been really stressed in my teacher education program is the importance of reflection, so in that spirit, here is my reflection on this past week of Clinical Practice (i.e. student teaching).

Monday, 2/20
NO SCHOOL. PRESIDENT'S DAY.

This was a much needed break. I hadn't been extremely productive on Sat or Sun last weekend, so I spent most of Monday really working hard on upcoming lesson plans. Designing lesson plans is really mentally taxing. How can I best teach this in a way that students will learn? How do I make this interesting? What type of activities will reinforce learning?

Tuesday, 2/21
No school for students. Faculty Workshop. This was largely unhelpful for me. The purpose of the workshop was for teachers to create a Google site for their class. The school is very interactive with Google products. Their email (for faculty and students) is Gmail-based, and now by the fall, each class should have a Google site set-up. Since I am not a faculty member, I didn't have much to do during this portion of the workshop. I played around with Google sites briefly, but mostly worked on lesson plans. After lunch, I attended a seminar on Google apps. Since I've been a fairly avid Google user for years, I didn't learn much from this either. In fact, I was able to assist other teachers who needed help with Google  forms, etc. In some ways, it was a fun refresher for me since many things I hadn't used in quite some time.  After that seminar, we had a department meeting. It was a discussion on curriculum in the middle and high school. After that, we went out for drinks/apps - easily the best part of the day!

Wednesday, 2/22
All the classes were shortened by a few minutes for a special chapel service for Ash Wednesday. Being a product of public school, it is still weird for me to have a weekly chapel service during school.

The only class I taught today was in World History (AP Gov had an essay test; AP Euro was taught by my mentor teacher (MT)). We covered the Mejii Restoration in Japan. I ran them through what some of the changes were and why they wanted to change. My MT took them through some specifics that demonstrated the rapidity of Japanese modernization and how they were able to successfully accomplish such a feat.

Thursday, 2/23
I went in early for a grade level faculty meeting. This week it was for all faculty who taught sophomores. The main purpose of the meeting was to discuss students who were failing and to get advice from other teachers with the same student. Was the student doing poorly in all his/her classes? What could  teachers do to assist and better ensure learning by the student? It was interesting to sit in on the meeting. I knew several of the students that were being discussed. There weren't quite as many suggestions and helpful advice as I would have hoped, though.

In World History, we spent some time discussing Japan and World War II. My MT teacher provided some background on the war, and I introduced nuclear warfare (i.e. the bombing of Hiroshima). We did an ethical exercise (taped several ethical statements around the room, students indicated if they agreed or disagreed or were neutral). I showed the following slideshow (taken largely from this website), and then we began reading excerpts from Hiroshima by John Hersey. The rest was assigned as homework over the weekend.



I think this lesson turned out really well. The students seemed pretty responsive to the war and the devastating effects of the nuclear bomb. On Monday, we will continue our discussion of nuclear warfare.

In AP Euro History, I mostly did all the teaching. My MT opened the class and ran through a bit about the economic situation in Europe after WWI. Throughout Europe during the 1920s, many political experiments took place. Today's lesson was on the experiments going on in Russia. The driving question of the lesson dealt with how to reconcile the conflict between ideology and practicality. The Bolsheviks/Communists wanted to fundamentally change all of society. How could this practically be accomplished? We walked through how you would change society (via legislation, education, arts) and if it was even possible to ever achieve this ideal. My MT and I were working on this lesson plan almost up to the moment class began. It definitely could have been polished a bit more, and I ended up running out of time before getting to the end. I do think it was put together pretty well, and we may not have run out of time if I'd had better control over the flow. There was a bit of group work throughout the lesson that I could have managed better (e.g. clearer instructions, less time in the group, smoother shift back out of the groups) to provide us with more time to get through all of the material. This was my first observed lesson by my MT. He had a lot of good suggestions for me.

Things I need to work on:

• Questioning technique - planning a series questions to lead students in a logical direction, asking the right questions.
• Transitions - using motivation language to get students into groups, being clearer about what the groups should be doing and why, pulling students back from the groups and getting them into groups, connecting disparate elements of the lesson

Friday, 2/24

I was not in the classroom; I had a clinical practice seminar. In my post yesterday, I alluded to having one of those days. Let's just say that the seminar was completely frustrating. My fellow teacher candidates are so poorly behaved. They are just plain rude. I'll be honest. I would hate having them for students in my class. One girl in my group was texting on her phone nearly the entire time. Most of them have no qualms about talking when someone is presenting information, and then they have to ask a bunch of unnecessary questions, because they would have been answered had they been paying attention. I had to concentrate extra hard to compensate for all the chatter around me. Ugh! If I were more vindictive, I would actually wish poor student behavior on them, as punishment for being poor students themselves. I could go on and on, but I won't. I know I've already rambled enough.

Overall, not much classroom time this past week. I am pleased with how much I am learning in clinical practice, and I'm fairly confident that it will help me to become a much better teacher some day.

I hope you are enjoying a beautiful Saturday afternoon! I've been quite productive today. How about you? Do you tend to be more productive during the week or on weekends?

CP Reflection Weeks 1-3

Hello, long weekend! I am so happy to finally see you. :-)

The past two weekends, I've wanted to take a few moments to write a reflection about how clinical practice (student teaching) is going, but I haven't. My weekends have been so busy with lesson planning and grading and procrastinating doing both of those things.

NO MORE EXCUSES. 

This reflection will be a bit longer than future ones, because I'd like to recap briefly the weeks I missed.

Week One

2/1 - This was my first day in the classroom. You can read about more it here, so I'll just leave it at it was a great start! Oh, I didn't mention in that post, that I did get to work with a few students that first day. Most of the students were asked to write a short reflection briefly defending or refuting a statement while a few students were sent to orally discuss the statement with me. It was fun to start interacting with students right away.

2/2 - This was my 2nd first day. Because of the school's modified block schedule, it was a whole new (to me) group of students. I was not feeling as confident today, because I didn't really care for my outfit. Plus, my nylons got a run in them when I was putting them on in the bathroom, and I was forced to wear my skirt with heels and no nylons. Not exactly the first impression I wanted to make. Oh well. In World History, time was mostly spent in individual reading time. Students read a few articles on China from the New York Times website. We gave them specific areas to look at on the website, but they could choose their own articles. We then placed them in groups to discuss what they did as well as do a specific task. One group created a survey of questions they would ask to determine if a person was happy. Another group created a venn diagram of American values and Chinese values and where some overlaps would occur. The third groups drew pictures of what they thought would make a good life and then indicated which they thought the Chinese would also think made a good life. I helped out with the groups to make sure they were staying on track and helped them to tease out some ideas. Because of the nature of the group work, I really should not have worn a skirt.

2/3 - Today was the same lesson plan for World History. I basically just helped out with the groups.

This week ended with me telling Jeff how much I am enjoying student teaching - more than I thought I would. I am surprised at how much love being in the classroom. Even though I am tired a lot, there is just such an energy I get from being with the students and learning and teaching!

Week Two

2/6 - Classes are a little shorter on Mondays. It's not a block schedule on Mondays, so all 7 classes meet. World History was fun today! We watched segments from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and talked about the symbolism and some of what China was trying to tell the world. This was a true co-taught lesson, as we each had specific parts of the ceremony to discuss.

2/7 - This was the last day of instruction for the unit on China. We handed out articles for the students to read and then, after giving them time to read through their article, we had a fishbowl discussion. I didn't know what this was, so I'll explain it briefly. Basically, 5 students sit at a table in the middle of the classroom and begin a discussion. We provide them with an overall, general question to base their discussion around, and they are to use evidence from their articles as well as previous classroom discussions to mold their conversation. When anyone from the perimeter of the room wants to join in the conversation, h/she joins the students at the table and someone else leaves. Basically there are always 5 people in the middle, but not always the same five people. This is a graded discussion, and everyone is supposed to participate. It was fun to listen to their conversation and some of them actually made really good points. I was a little surprised at how much enthusiasm they brought to this discussion.

2/8 - Same lesson as the day before, but it is amazing the difference between the three sections of World History. Yesterday's class was really into it and made some great points. The first class today did, too, but there were a few students that didn't say anything. A couple students even joined the circle, but then didn't contribute it was kind of baffling. The third section is by far the most talkative class (of the three), but it is really dominated by a few. There were several students that never got in the middle and a couple that never said anything when they were in the middle. This was pretty disappointing to my MT. Overall, I do like this activity and will most likely incorporate it into my classroom in the future. The articles we chose for them to read were long and may have been a bit difficult. The third section was especially resistant to doing the reading.

2/9 - Test in World History. World History is the first class of the day, so we spent most of the rest of the day grading those tests. We actually finished grading all of this class! The test was 10 multiple choice questions and 4 short essays (1 para each). It was my first time grading essays. I was quite impressed with some of the writing.

2/10 - Test in World History. I worked on some lesson planning while the students were taking the test and then grading once the first section had finished. We also met with my supervisor during one of our free periods. It was basically an introductory meeting to discuss her role and more about my MT's role. We graded most of the day but still had to take some tests home to finish over the weekend. I forced myself to finish the grading before going to bed. :-) Otherwise, I knew the weekend would be over, and I wouldn't have gotten back to it.

Overall, I'm still really excited about being in the classroom and working with students and my MT. 

Week Three

2/13 - The last Monday of each unit, is set aside for current events. 3-5 students are assigned for the unit, and they are given a pretty detailed assignment sheet to help them narrow down their current events topic. Their presentation is to be 5-7 minutes and include some multimedia (slide, video, image, etc). There were quite a few people gone today, and a few students that just weren't prepared for their presentation. I felt sick to my stomach through most of the day. It was a real struggle to make it through, and there was a very slight sense that I might not make it in for Tuesday.

2/14 - I was feeling better in the morning, so I made it to school. In World History, we began our new unit on Japan. Again, this was a co-taught lesson. I taught a lesson on how Japan's geography affects its culture and then my MT taught about Shinto. The timing and flow was off a little, and we made a few changes to the lesson for the next day. In AP Euro History, I taught a lesson on the Russian Revolutions. Since this was the first time I'd really interacted with these students, I designed the lesson to be co-taught. It was fun to prepare and give this lesson. We provided the students with some background and then we did a simulation. We split the students into different groups (autocrats, moderates, Mensheviks and socialist revolutionaries, and Bolsheviks) and each group met to discuss if they should join the Great War and then met several other times to discuss their next steps as we moved through the war and 1917. There were definitely some things we would probably change if we were to do the lesson again. There were a couple times when I lost my train of thought and gave the impression that I didn't know what I was talking about, but overall I was pleased with how well it went.

2/15 - Same lesson in World history, but with the few changes we made to the order/timing. The first class of the day was also my first official observation by my supervisor. I wasn't particularly nervous that she was there, so that was a good thing! After that first lesson, the three of us sat down to discuss how we thought it went. To be honest, it was a little discouraging. She said she didn't see any red flags, but then gave me a lot of things to work on. This is what I should have expected for my first observation, but it was still a little difficult for me to take in. Honestly, I took it harder than I should have. I blame the fact that I had a cold and was dealing with some female issues. Anyway, I also hadn't exactly set myself up for success because I didn't reprint the modified lesson plan and tried to stumble my way through the old one.  This gave the (not untrue) impression that I didn't know where I was going with the lesson. 

Major things to work on: Asking questions across the whole spectrum of Bloom's taxonomy. Creating smoother transitions from one idea or activity to the next. Tying everything together. Again, no real surprises here.

2/16 - Continuing with Japan, we co-taught a lesson on major themes in Japanese history and Japanese values. We focused on art, the Kamakura period (basically the Middle Ages in Japan), the samurai (this was the bulk of the lesson) and the Mongol invasion. We took a look at the Heiji scroll this is a really neat interactive look at the scroll. This was my section. I didn't feel very comfortable with what I was doing for this section of the lesson, and I think it showed. I was able to stumble my way through, but it wasn't pretty. lol. My other part in this lesson was leading them through a short reading and discussion on what it meant to be a samurai and live by the code of bushido. I definitely could have done this better. Overall, I wasn't too impressed with my parts of this lesson.

2/17 - We made a few changes to the lesson. My parts went much better today than the day before, but you could still tell that I was nervous and maybe not 100% prepared. There was one group in particular that was frustrating. When the small groups were discuss the reading on the code of bushido. This group simply said it was illogical to behave like they did. End of discussion. I tried to push them passed this, but I wasn't very successful. The third time around was much better, though. Afterwards, my MT teacher commented that I seemed much more relaxed and was able to really made some good connections. I did a good job tying the discussion back to earlier discussions in the lesson to make stronger points during the bushido portion. It was really good to get such positive feedback.

Overall impression from the week? I need to work a lot harder at my preparations. To be honest, I haven't been putting in the time or effort necessary for a beginning teacher. As my participation in the lessons is going to get more and more intense, I really need to spend more time in the evenings focusing on lesson prep and less time watching TV and lounging. When I get home from school, I feel like I need some decompression time, and that seems to take longer than it should / than I really need. I need to change that.

Phew...this was LONG! I won't feel bad if you didn't make it though the whole thing. Next week's will be much shorter, I promise. :-)

Now, I'm going to enjoy my long weekend with some swimming, running, LOTS of lesson prep and some grading.

What are you up to this weekend?

Day One

Well, my first day has come and gone. I'll never have another first day.

Until tomorrow, that is!

The school I'm at is on a modified block schedule, so tomorrow will be like another first day because I will be meeting all new students.

Still, it won't be the same. I don't think I'll be nearly as nervous.

Today was good! But tiring. Mostly because I wasn't really doing much. The World History classes were watching a Frontline video on China. It was really interesting but still difficult to watch the same documentary twice in one day. :-)

I am looking forward to a fun semester, though.

Despite being am a little intimidated by my mentor teacher. He is awesome and so full of knowledge!, I do think I will learn a lot from him; we should work quite well together.

Here are a few thoughts from my first day.

• Dress in layers. i.e. wear a cardigan or sweater. I knew this would be the case, but still I chose to ignore it today. I usually get pretty warm when I'm in front of a group, but since I was mostly watching a movie today, I ended up pretty cold most of the day in my short sleeve top.



My first day's outfit.

• Bring more food. I ate half my lunch as a snack during prep around 10:30am or so. I had to stop myself from eating more. I finished my lunch during lunch period, and I was pretty hungry by the time I got home. On second thought, maybe I shouldn't bring more food. Y'know, to aid my weight loss journey.
• Teachers are master cryptographers. Most of the students in the two World History classes today had decent enough handwriting, but others are quite a stretch to decipher. I'm pretty pleased that there was only one whose writing I couldn't stumble through at. all.

Overall it was a great way to ease into teaching and my home for the next three months.

The time has come ...

My lunch is mostly packed.

My outfit is all laid out and ready to go. Accessories included.

I've checked the bus schedule.

Now just to get some shut eye.

Hope I sleep well. I'll need my rest.

For tomorrow, I begin molding young minds.

I'm excited. And nervous.

Wish me luck!

One week

One week from today, I'll be a student teacher. My semester actually begins on Monday, but next Wednesday will be my first day in the classroom.

I still have some things to do to prepare.
Like read the student teaching manual.

Overall, I'm very excited.

But I have some concerns.
That are not at all teaching-related.

What will I wear? Technically, there is no dress code, but it is business casual. No jeans. My closet is a little pathetic right now and could easily go for a nice overhaul. Unfortunately, that just isn't in the budget.

What will I eat for lunch? My current office has a full kitchen - with an oven, stove, microwave, refrigerator. Can I bring my own lunch? Where will I store it? Will I have easy access to a microwave, or do I need to bring cold lunches? Where will I eat? Classroom? Teacher's lounge?

How will I stay hydrated? Sometimes I feel like I have the smallest bladder. The more water I drink, the more often I need to sneak away to the potty. I won't have the luxury of just heading to the bathroom whenever I like. I also can't shouldn't simply deprive myself of water, though.

Will I be able to get enough sleep at night? I already have poor sleeping habits. Will student teaching help me correct this or make it worse?

How will this affect my workouts? I begin training for Grandma's Marathon on Feb 13th. Will I be able to successfully focus on both? Will I be able to incorporate exercise into my daily routine and actually get more energy rather than have it zap my energy?

Source: 30.media.tumblr.com

I know I'm largely needlessly worrying. Once I get started and into a routine, this post will seem silly.

But right now, I'm concerned.

Any lunch / hydration tips for me? How do you stop from needlessly worrying about the small things?

3TT #2

I really had high hopes for being a great blogger during January when I didn't have any homework, and I was just biding my time until student teaching started. Unfortunately, work has been keeping me busy and I've just been too tired lazy to blog in the evenings.

So, here are at least 3 things that are going on with me this week.

Thing 1 - Less than two weeks until I am in a classroom for student teaching. I am both excited and pretty nervous. I met with my mentor teacher last night. I think we'll get along great and work well together (based on that initial meeting). He teaches 3 sections of 10th grade World History, a section of AP Government, and a section of AP European History. I'll be most active in the World History classes. I get to plan a unit on Latin American history. This is intimidating, yet I am looking forward to the challenge!

Thing 2 - I ran for the first time this morning since Jan 2nd! I tried out my new shoes. They were a little awkward for the first 1/4 mile or so but felt great after that. No knee pain at all during the run; there is a little discomfort right now, though. :-(

Nike Zoom Structure Triax 15

Thing 3 - An Arctic cold front blew in last night. When I left for work this morning it was -11°F. Straight temp. Today's high is forecasted to be TWO whole degrees.  It was so cold when walking the 3 blocks to the bus that the collar of my coat frosted a bit from my breath.

If you were taking a class on Latin American history, what would you like to focus on or hope to learn in the class? How's the weather where you are today?