Reel It In: Week 6

This week of aiding has been very beneficial for me as a whole.  Like the past few weeks, I've been doing a lot more than just sitting at the back of the room observing.  I've been walking around the classroom a lot.  But, today, I not only got to walk around the classroom, but I got to answer so many more questions from students who trusted my judgment.  Plus, in a class of 26 students and technically 3 teachers, there's a lot of opportunity to help them in what they are doing.

Today in class, we had the usual check in, but then, we went right into a really fun activity!  All of the students have been learning about conflict and the different types.  There's four of them all together:

Each of the students were given two sheets of paper.  They had to use scissors to cut out the different situations, and would later have to glue it onto the second paper that they were given which listed these four conflicts in four columns.  While they were working on placing them in the appropriate category, the three of us walked around asking them how they were doing.  

I got to ask a lot of kids questions, and I really felt like I was teaching them something which has not happened that often in the class.  From prior education classes and my job as a Writing Center tutor, I've learned a lot about how to guide students towards the right answer.  A lot of times, I would ask the students, "Why did you put this in that column?  Why does this not belong here?"  All I did was ask students questions.  I sure was not going to tell them the answer.  It felt good to feel needed and to actually be helpful.

And, it helped that many of the students were focused.  You could tell that they wanted to get it right and try their best.  Some struggled more than others, but the result was still the same.

In the other class that I've been aiding with, we're doing something a little different.  Right now, the 8th graders are learning about Greek Mythology.  One of their biggest projects revolves around this unit.  Their mission:  create their own script based on one of the many Greek myths and perform it.  This project takes up the majority of the semester.  When I came to class today, they were already working on their scripts and ideas for the performance.

The class was split up into 2 groups:  Persephone and Midas.  What they had to do was read over the story 3 times and start writing a script based on it.  From what I was hearing, it sounds like there are a lot of good ideas; I just hope that these 8th graders put all the effort they can into it.  If they do that, I have no doubt that they will succeed.  

While they were working on this, I was able to have another teacher moment.  It wasn't one of those big ones, but it felt kind of good.  Teachers have different strategies to refocus students, but I have developed my own signature way to refocus.  Surprisingly, it kind of works.  One group started straying away from talking about their script, so, using my hands, I mimicked the motions of fishing, and I said, "Reel it in!"  The kids were hooked.  Another time in the same class period, the same group was getting off topic.  So, I mimicked the hand motions again, and one of the girls caught me doing it and yelled, "Reel it in!"  Then, everyone started doing the hand motions.  Luckily, they got back on track and in focus.  It truly was a cool moment.

Overall this week was really fun getting to have those little teacher moments here and there, even if I didn't get to have more teacher roles.  Also, I was able to find out about a cool resource for finding texts or small articles.  It's completely free, and easy to use.  It is called readworks.org.  I'm definitely going to have to use this when I become a future teacher.

My goal for this next week is to find ways to be thankful or things that I am thankful for.  Right now, I'm thankful for those little teacher moments.  I am hopeful that I'll get to experience more of those.

Making Connections: Week 5

Week 5 was rather short for me and for the students.  I mean, what school has 3 days off out of 5 and it's not a holiday like Thanksgiving?  Definitely not my school, but that's okay.  I was able to come on Monday and Wednesday during the regular times.

As usual, we had the read aloud.  It was a pretty solid chapter.  We got to get more into the plot and learn more about the characters, especially Melody, the narrator with cerebral palsy.  In this chapter, she is trying out for her school's quiz team, but basically, everyone is underestimating her, even her teacher.  Anyway, she tried out, regardless of everyone's unwilling attitude.

Once again, as usual, everyone raised their hands, ready to make their predictions, inferences, connections, etc.  One student, (let's say his name was Tom) raises his hand and speaks.  I can expect him to give good insights, but I wasn't expecting what came out of his mouth.  He gave a 60 second movie summary of a movie called Drumline (a very GOOD summary I might add) and connected it to Out of My Mind, our read aloud book.  It was genius.  It made me want to see the movie.  Anyway, he made the connection of how the girl in the movie was underestimated in the drumline even though she was the best out of all of the guys.  In the movie, people tried to sabotage her so that she wouldn't succeed.  He predicted that the same would happen to Melody.  His connection astounded the three of us.

Speaking of connections, after the read aloud, my teacher taught a mini lesson on the difference between predictions and inferences and even gave them a sheet to practice making inferences.  Both involve information in the text, prior knowledge, and either the prediction (what will or could happen next) or the inference (figuring out something about the text the author didn't tell you).  The students then discovered that they were already making these kinds of connections.

When I got to 2nd period, I was surprised to find a substitute teacher.  She was a very nice lady, and she was also a Christian!  It was nice getting to talk to her and work with her for 50 minutes.  Unfortunately, she didn't know the class or how it worked.  All she had to go off of was a sheet that the teacher had typed out.  Luckily, I was there, so I got to actually lead the class for most of that time.  I got to initiate and lead the writing BINGO.  The students actually listened to me, although I fear that they respected me more than the substitute teacher.  I certainly did not want to take over the class, but I just wanted to make it easier for her so that she knows what to do for the other four periods.  She actually appreciated my help.  After that activity was over, they were given individual work, and I got to talk with her about her experiences.  It was a great class.

On Wednesday, the 1st and 3rd period classes had to fill out a self-evaluation form  on how they think they were doing in reading class for this semester.  I just walked around the classroom as usual, and it was interesting to see how they were evaluating themselves.  As a future teacher, I definitely am going to incorporate this into my classroom.  It's a better way to assess them and connect with the students, in my opinion.

English class is all about connections, but it's great when you're making connections outside of the book as well.

My goals for this next week are pretty much the same as before:  TAKE MORE RISKS!

Excited for what next week holds!

Successes & Failures: Week 4

The past few weeks of aiding in this school have been very beneficial to me as a future teacher.  Something that I have always been reminded of in all of my education class though is that not every thing you do is going to be successful.  There will be failures to learn from.  This week, I saw that, and it made me think of what I could do to rectify that problem.

But, first, before I start moping about the failures, I have to start with a pretty big success (as far as aiding goes).  I had the opportunity to get out of my seat and read the read aloud book!  First period on Friday, I noticed that the students were a chapter ahead of me.  Yet, my supervising teacher read the next chapter of the book aloud anyway, but luckily, one of the students summed up the previous chapter, so I felt caught up.  After listening to the chapter and engaging in discussion, the students had individual work that they needed to get done.  They started working on a project for the play that they had read, "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street."  The students had already worked with a plot diagram, but now their task was to make a visual plot diagram.  So, while they were working on that, I read the chapter that I had missed.

When I came back for 3rd period, I was ready to take another risk.  I asked my teacher if I could read the new chapter for the read aloud.  She didn't seem hesitant, but she definitely seemed surprised.  If there's one thing that I love doing and feel that I thrive at, it is reading aloud with expression.  And, after listening to the chapter once before, I knew how I was going to read it.  It felt great, and I know that the students were engaged.  The chapter of Out of My Mind was a pretty good one, so I'm thrilled that I was given that opportunity.  Taking those risks definitely paid off.  I felt like I could be a successful teacher.

Another success that came from taking risks was being able to run check-in.  Each day, the teacher checks in with each individual to see what page they were on.  Now that I know the students' names, it was easier for me to go through the list and ask for the page.  It was not much, but it felt like a step forward from sitting in the back of the class all the time or just walking around and monitoring the class.  Monday of the following week, I was able to do that.

Also, in 2nd period, the supervising teacher let me grade BINGO for completion.  They had to have 11 full pages, and she instructed me to take off points for not really putting in effort or filling the page up.  I felt pretty powerful, although I did have to double check with the teacher a few times.  But, hey, that's how you learn, I guess.

So, it seems like I had some pretty average successes.  Regardless of what they were, it made me feel more present--more needed rather than an accessory.  Being a teacher has been a lot of fun so far, but then there's times where you feel that you have failed as a teacher.

In the 1st period class, on Friday, they had presentations for their Monsters project.  They had their visual plot diagrams finished already, and their task was to explain two parts of the plot as well as its corresponding pictures.  It was an easy A in my opinion.  They already did all the difficult work.  It was just explaining their work, like they would do if they were telling about a movie they saw or a book they read to a friend.

When it got to one student's turn (let's say his name was Sam), he got up there with what looked like an unfinished drawing.  It wasn't colored, but I had known Sam to not really put too much effort into his work.  In fact, he was a consistent troublemaker that would talk out of turn with no avail.  Sam walked up to the front of the classroom with his drawing and started talking about the exposition and the climax of the story, but he decided to be "funny."  Rather than sticking to the plot, he made up a dramatized and inappropriate version of the story using names not in the text.  It was very disrespectful.  My teachers and I all managed to keep a disappointed face on while the rest of the students were laughing up a storm.  I felt so bad for my supervising teachers.  It made me wonder--how do you get a student that does not care to actually care?

This failure made me want to learn from it and figure out a way to make kids like Sam more engaged where they just don't care.  He doesn't seem to enjoy books, so what am I supposed to do?  That's always something I have to ponder as my time to become a teacher draws close.

My goals for this next week are to look for those little successes and take more risks.  If I want to be a teacher, I need to get up and actually do something.

Hopefully the successes outweigh the failures this upcoming week.