Posts (page 2)

Mr. Taylor has been a great help in honing my teaching abilities. I'll just get right into the lessons.

Lesson 1- Use the Projector/Back to the Students is chaos: Mr. Taylor had to hammer this lesson to me on many evaluations before I finally got the point. Notes and organization are not my forte, frankly I learn much better from listening and live much better in at least minor chaos, therefore I resisted. By the time I finally acquiesced to his suggestion, he was so adamant that on that lesson plan when he thought I was going to ignore it yet again he wrote the suggestion in all caps. But, since I've started implementing the projector my management has gotten easier and its been less stressful for me in general to teach. I feel a little more  confined by projector notes, but confined means structure and structure is good.

Lesson 2- I can be overbearing: sometimes when I speak to students, although I have no frustration or anger with them, my tonality and volume can frustrate students or cause them to recede from the lesson rather than engage, which is my goal. Therefore, I need to tailor my interactions with specific students to ensure I don't turn them off or alienate them. However, he backed up my decision to give a student a detention for doing a writing assignment during my lecture, which I felt bad about afterward, so he enforced its ok to be forceful when disciplining, but sometimes I must vary my approach when teaching different students.

Lesson 3- Do the things your boss tells you even if you find it pointless- I find writing all the objectives for a review topic pointless. It wastes time at the beginning of the lesson. It allows the students when I asked them what we learned today or what our objectives were to just read it off the board as opposed to thinking about what we that day. I DONT LIKE IT. During one of my formal evaluations when I felt I rocked my lesson, I got a lot of points taken off for this even though the rest of my lesson was solid. I care less about grades now, but I still do somewhat, its rooted in me I suppose. Mr. Taylor understood my frustration, sharing it to some extent, and told me ways I could do the things I find pointless in a more efficient way that will still be acceptable to those evaluating me. It was comforting to be both sympathized with and instructed on how to avoid my frustration. I think this lesson helped me empathize with my students, because sometimes the things I ask them to do will seem pointless, but I will expect them to do it anyway, because I see the benefit. I see the benefit in some of the strict rules to objectives and things of that nature, but I am not the biggest proponent of structure in some areas of learning. I have become more structured in how I form my notes, my lesson, and my approach to management under the tutelage of Mr. Taylor.

Lesson 4- Student Interactions- I tried to sit with my students during first semester, although not many of the other teachers did. I only did a few times because I felt it stripped my authority and mystique away and made classroom management harder. I wanted to get to know my students better and let them know I'm a person as well as their teacher, but one of the books I've read and loved recently is "leadership secrets of attilla the hun". The quote that kept resounding in my head was, "A captain who drinks with his Huns ceases to be a captain". I therefore avoided sitting with and interacting with my students outside the classroom to maintain the perception that I was their leader, not one of them. Mr. Taylor sat with our students right away when he came and started playing basketball with them. I started sitting with them again and played basketball with them and the important thing that happened was that I saw them as people again, even and especially the ones I was most frustrated with. I think its important to remind yourself that while kids may not care what you have to say about math, sometimes you can teach them and interact with them and effect them in different ways. I'm not sure the outcome of this lesson yet, but I now have two differing perspectives on the issue.

So, yes I am a Star Wars nerd. My students have asked me several times if I'm a nerd, and I just tell them I am in certain areas, but I also know who weezy f. baby is and " I can hoop" my students say, so they are getting mixed signals, but I digress. I don't know why after I taught this particular lesson, I didn't feel incredible about it. I didn't feel bad, just not incredible, but after watching the game film, I saw my fundamentals were pretty sound and it was, as Mr. Taylor pointed out and I now agree, my best instruction of the year.
    The lesson was on making 2-dimensional drawing of 3-dimensional shapes. We have been analyzing 3-dimensional shapes in many ways, and I have had to draw them on the board numerous times, alway to a chorus of "DO WE NEED TO DRAW THEEEMM?" and several times criticisms of my pyramids. This class started off in a similar way, but the lead critic even noted my pyramids looked better and I had been practicing, which I had, because I really wanted to knock this lesson out of the park. I was an engineer for 3-years, and  have done this very operation of turning complex 3-dimensional cad drawings into 2-dimensional representations, so I thought if I didn't do this I well I wouldn't be giving the ol' alma matter credit. However initially I struggled with how I would convey this knowledge, so I used some of Mr. Fiels' advice and tried to take a small piece of information and hammer it into their heads, so instead of having them attempt the exceedingly difficult to master trimetric views, I instead focused on making top, front and side view drawings. The beginning of class started well, most students were actually focused on the do now and the questions I received  were on topic. The students shout out answers or questions sometimes, which is technically against our classroom policy, but I'd rather hear their question and answer it, then punish them for curiosity. The class knows me better by now as well, so they know the talking I have a problem with is when other people are trying to work or give an answer, and the arguments I get when giving consequences for misbehavior are  fewer, or are from the people who will always deny, or lie, or think my glasses prescription must be out of date. My set wasn't my favorite I've had, but they are normally my favorite part of the lesson and I hold them to high standards. I asked the students about designing cars and other inventors, and I asked them what they needed to do if they had a new design to make sure no one steals it. The inventors they gave me were mostly foreign to me, designers of hair care products, water guns, and peanut butter(I knew George Washington Carver), much different from my expectation of Alexander Grahm Bell, Thomas Alva Edison and the Wright Brothers, but it still worked. And students knew what a patent was and I explained to them if you wanted to get one and make money, aka ball hard, you needed to make a sketch of your idea. I had drawn an engineering drawing of an orange juice box, which is something they see everyday, so they really got to see how a real life 3-d object can be represented 2-dimensionally. The next improvement in my lesson is the big one, I've started becoming comfortable using the projector for my notes. My face is to the class and the kids, who still talked behind my back, had much less opportunity to goof off. The kids asked many questions about my pre-made drawings, and the drawing of a cube I did along with them, and the kids really seemed to have it down before we went to lunch. I hate having lunch in the middle of my period. Its the worst period to teach. When the students come back from lunch, they are mostly dancing in their seat, rapping to themselves or talking. Now when I say mostly, I mean the 3 students who have that problem anyway, after lunch its just enhanced. Most of my students have become pretty well-behaved and focused when I'm teaching, and seem to genuinely want to learn the material,to some extent anyway. AD and KD have no such desire. They desire to sit sideways in their desk, lip-sink to each other whenever my back is turned, sit there and do very few assignments I tell the class to do, if they do do them they start 5 minutes after everyone else and then ask me for more time on tests and quizzes, dance in their chairs and generally be disruptive to those around them. These students have been real enigmas for me, what do I do with them? Sometimes I want to tell them to get the f*** out of my classroom and stop wasting both of our times and do whatever it is you think or have been told is going to make you successful in life. I actually feel like this most of the time, especially when I see all the other students at least trying, maybe stumbling, but trying. When I see them talk behind my back when I'm trying to teach them, and then they do the worst on the test, its difficult for me to have sympathy. But, I like the two kids. I see them try, very few times, but sometimes. They could get the material if they were properly motivated. So I wonder If I'm just pissed off because I haven't found a way to turn them on to whatever the subject matter is yet. But then I get back to reality, I've tried, some people don't like math and don't want to learn it, and can't be convinced to, these kids are not my charges. I can't set fire to a community, only a classroom, and even then maybe only patches. The third student, AO, is a much different case. Shes smart, tries most of the time, when shes engaged is a fun student to have, but shes a brat. I gave her a detention the other day for copying a writing assignment in my class and then refusing to work for the rest of it, and she has been actively trying to interrupt my class since. Not horribly, and she still participates when I make it clear its for a grade, but otherwise she wishes to be an agent of chaos. This kind of student will be much harder for me to face, I take most things personally, I know this is not good and will be a habit I must break and just roll with some of the attitude I get during the year, but I would much rather take the trouble, whatever it is, to the mat. I like to win, but in this case I have to win the war, not the battle, and teach the kids who are willing to learn, and not let a student's personal vendetta against me affect my attitude, effort, or style of teaching. These three students were all laughing uncontrollably at something when we were starting independent practice, and so I assured the class, any noise for the rest of independent practice which isn't talking to me after raising your hand will assuredly land you a writing assignment. Guess who won the writing assignment raffle, AO, AD, KD. If they thought Mr. Warner was playing, they know he's not now. Independent Practice went well too, enough students got it from Guided Practice that I helped those who really needed assistance.   I closed the lesson with showing an excellent mistake and correction on LKs 2-dimensional drawings that I saw on several others, and I think it hit home, and I also reiterated why converting 3-d shapes into 2-d drawings is an important skill. After watching the lesson, I really could see improvement. I'm starting to tolerate classroom disruption less, have my back to the students less, and I used varied instruction and props today and I talked less, still too much probably, but less. This is a step in the right direction, but my management could have been better still, I think i could have lectured about 5 minutes less and given 5 minutes more for independent practice, but otherwise I thought it was a pretty solid lesson. Oh, and I didn't get marker on my face. I'm not sure whether I'm happy or sad about that, when I do, it kinda makes me feel like its game time.

I recorded myself teaching and watching what I did wasn't scary. I thought the lesson was pretty good, and the guided practice was taught relatively well. I tried to have differentiated instruction time, which I did, but I was probably talking, therefore working, a lot more than I needed to. But, none of this was surprising to me. I knew that talking too much in my class was a problem. I knew that differentiated instruction time was something I needed to focus on and have been. What I was unaware of was exactly how blind I was in my own classroom. First of all, the distraction of having my computer recording myself in the back of the classroom had a strange effect on some students. Most forgot about it, as I did, after 3 or 4 minutes. One student, LQ, was so enamored with the video that anytime I had my back to the board, which I finally understand how much of class I do, she'd wave her hand or throw something across the room. One of my two laugh out loud moments happened with the way one student reacted. TJ is an absolute rock in my class, he always pays attention, always answers questions when asked, and does relatively well on most assessments. Also has a very subtle sense of humor, which he displayed by almost exactly half way into class he turned back into the camera for what seemed like a nano-second, gave a knowing smile, and for the rest of class was his normal focused rock self. My other laugh out loud moment was when we were checking our work on an algebra, i asked a student in several different ways if 9 was the same number as 13, and she didnt answer even after 20 secondds of questioning. My biggest wake up call though was how blind i was to students talking behind my back, or sometimes even right infront of me. I have gotten somewhat good at regconizing all my students voices, but i was unaware they were adept at lip-sinking. One of my students, sitting sideways in his desk, probably lip-sinked to other students in class even longer than I was talking, which is quite a feat. I didn't know exactly how to handle it either, which is probably why I ignored it to some extent. But, if nothing else the video allowed me to gameplan for such an action in the future, so I might make my rule any non-sanctioned communication, whether it be verbal, psuedo-verbal, or note form, is not allowed in my class. So the summary, i want to decrease the percentage of time im talking increase the percentage of time students are working, decrease the amount of time my back is to the students, and decrease the amount of time students talk to each other.

    The teacher in the Reluctant Disciplinarian started out a hint more naïve than I am, but not much. I thought that having high expectations and interesting lessons would be enough to motivate students to learn and pay attention in my class. While I wasn't under the impression that my class could be all peace and love and understanding, I definitely had delusions of managing my class differently than normal. The first year that the teacher went through will hopefully help me avoid a similar year. His indecisiveness and lack of professionalism was like blood in the water to the circling sharks in his classroom. So instead of being shark-bait, you must be decisive and clear and professional, and lead your school of fish to the feeding areas of knowledge. Ok, enough with the fish analogy. The second year he began as a mere archetype of a teacher. He didn't reveal any of his true character, so his weaknesses couldn't be seen. As with the wisdom of Sun-tzu, if you are outnumbered in a fight, the only way to be victorious is for you to choose where to battle, not your adversary. So if you adversary, the students, knows how and where to attack you, you will certainly be smitten. If you let them know you are decisive professional that makes the objectives clear, you can choose the pace of class and where and when to engage students in both positive and negative realms. I think I am going to implement this to some extent, at least initially, until I know the students in my class, and am able to predict certain responses to revealing some of my character. The section on how to avoid being the teachers was particularly informative. The teacher I am especially glad he pointed out was the one who listens to students complain about how ineffective another teacher is and tutor them in the subject. The students are not our friends. The students are our apprentices. We teachers need to stay unified as being the master, and if a student has a problem with one of those teachers, we should not listen to character defamation. We should instead instruct the student to confront the teacher about the problems, and to attempt to change where they sit in class, or how they interact with the teacher, because we should remind the student they are ultimately responsible for their own learning. This was also important for me, because I am pretty much ultra-competitive in most aspects of life, but I enjoy co-operation as well. So I just need to make sure the teachers I work with are like my teammates, and when one of them is struggling, try to pick them up, instead of just bask in the glory that I'm rocking. Because I'm sure there will be many times, especially early on, where I am the teacher some students are complaining about, and I would like the respect and aide of my colleagues, not there gloating and scorn. Picking teachers up and teaching them and learning from them is incredibly important. I also like the advice from others teachers about how you don't need a silent classroom to be successful is comforting, because that's what we seem to have been gunning for all summer. While a silent classroom is certainly better than an out of control one, once I get classroom management to a masterful level, I'd like my classroom to have some noise and life all the time, where students are never afraid to just throw out pertinent questions when they have them. I am glad I am no longer as naïve as the author, but I think I still have quite a few road bumps ahead before I am all the way down to reality.

What is a sport?
     I am heated up right now. The argument over what constitutes a sport is driving me insane. I have a definition of a sport which I feel is correct, which I will present here. If anyone has a different definition that makes sense, then I would certainly listen to it, and if it bested my definition, I would certainly be willing to amend my beliefs and my definition. So far, I have not heard any of these. I have heard impassioned disbelief at the audacity I have to not include the particular activity someone has participated in, with I'm sure great enthusiasm, effort, and achievement, in the realm of sport. Look, just cause you really love to do something and its hard, and competitive and athletic doesn't make it a sport. I'm sorry. Sports are played. You do not play swimming. You do not play running or throwing or jumping. You also do not play pulling a 10 ton truck tied to a rope. If you cannot say you are playing something, then I'm sorry, its not a sport. Sports are first games. But many games are not sports. Chutes and ladders, while a great game, is not a sport. A sport is a physical activity with both an offense and a defense. In a sport, the score is decided objectively, not arbitrarily by a judge. So if the activity you participate in does not have a “game”, it is not a sport. You have track meets and swim meets, if you played a game with track, it'd be called I don't know soccer or something. Obviously, you need to add a ball and nets but that is basically the competitive physical activity of track with an offense and a defense and a clear and impartial scoring objective. I really cannot comprehend someone disagreeing with this without having some loyalty blinding them as to what a sport actually is. And I don't understand what the big deal about something being called a sport does. It doesn't demean whatever activity isn't a sport. Someone told me if I don't consider track and field and swimming a sport its bullshit. Please tell me why. I  now have presented my argument for all to see. Rip it apart with objective impartial eyes and I will listen and amend my beliefs, mine are malleable when presented with empirical evidence to the contrary. And if you wish to know if arguing is a sport, it can be, my brother and I certainly had an offense and a defense, an objective scorer, whoever was around that we respected, to us it was a game, and it could certainly get physical. But I say this in jest, I obviously think what a sport is has a relatively strict interpretation and people try to put their activity in this genre to legitimize it, the worst offenders of this of course being cheerleaders. Jesus Christ, anyone who considers cheerleading a sport disregard the instructions above to give me your argument. Please do everyone a favor and just kill yourselves. I have all the respect in the world for cheerleaders, some of them are my favorite people. I have seen and loved Bring it On, and performed cheers from it in front of hundreds of people. I have also now revealed more in this blog than I wanted to. But to think that cheerleading is a sport, is ridiculous. I no longer even argue this one with cheerleaders that hold the belief, because I know it comes merely from a love of what they are doing, and a lack of comprehension of “words” and what “definitions” are. I now think i've made my point clear. Tennis = sport. Synchronized swimming= competitive physical activity. 

    I thought I had an idea of how to teach a classroom, because I have run a classroom, although I realized in a different setting, in a different subject, and what now seems like a different dimension. I also have taught freshman level chemistry for the past 4 years at college, or so I thought, I now realized I lectured freshman chemistry and helped students with homework problems. I have learned many things from my 2nd year and beyond teachers. The most important was probably that I need to be serious and consistent in the classroom, because if I am not, no one else will be. This is not natural for me, because in life, I am not always serious and rarely consistent when I can help it. I like to laugh and go on sporadic road trips and things of that nature, and I like to make jokes and enjoy myself with the people I'm around. In a classroom, especially initially, this is suicide. I have been spending the last 2 weeks trying to undo the damage I did to my classroom management effectiveness. I have had to bring the wood to settle classes down and be not fun and have classes do activities I would never want to do myself, just to keep order and let them know who is in charge. I realize things that some of my teachers did or that I have done will not fly in this situation, and actually in most situations, because we are in an environment where kids aren't internally motivated or competitive when it comes to school. The two first years did the exact opposite thing I did and were serious from the get go, and now when they teach the class is far better managed and they seem to get loads more accomplished and have more fun.The second thing I learned was how to vary instruction effectively. Well, I am still learning. But I learned that I have to. I talk wayyy too much. I talk because I think thats teaching. That is how I learned in school, I could listen to my teacher and remember or know a strategy for a problem. These kids are more active learners, meaning they need activities and varied instruction no matter how beautiful or eloquent your explanation of a topic may be. This is hard for me to break, especially when I see that if I don't explain more, I'm gonna be sending these kids into independent practice without a prayer of being able to complete the assigned task. Sometimes I think I'm still right, then I wake the up from my illusion and see what the class is like when all I'm doing is lecturing. It can be calm on the surface, but it is chaos and disordered underneath, with very little focus on what's going on, and frustration when I go over something but it isn't comprehended. The second years in my class are varying techniques constantly and naturally and when I have achieved this the 1.5 class periods I could claim to have, I just felt the smoothness of the lesson and the combativeness of the students melt away and them start to actually get into learning. It was a beautiful thing that I feel I'll need to work hard for to get on a regular basis, but it'll be so worth it.This leads me to the last thing that I learned. I need to break things down to the simplest form that can possibly be conceived for instruction. Often, I'd still be doing things in the simplest way, because thats how I do a lot of the math that I do now. But the simplest way and the simplest form are two very different things. The simplest form involves the steps, physical representations, games illustrating the simplest concepts so they don't become boring and seem meaningful and can be mastered. The ways to physically represent math that I've learned from my second years have been varied and awesome, and if I ever knew them they had been buried under countless engineering and physics tomes and needed uncovering. I need to follow the mantra of my college team and KISS. Keep It Simple Stupid. My coach would always have us explain back to him what were doing on a play like he was 5 years old. I think I should explain things to my students like they are 5 and then have them explain it back, which I just realized I haven't been doing. These three lessons, be serious and consistent, vary instruction more(TALK LESS), and break the lesson and concept into its simplest form, are all going to be hard for me, none of them are natural. But, I feel through working at it and keeping my genuine desire to teach the maximum number of students the most alive, I will achieve all of these goals I have now set, because if I don't I will never get past survival mode, and I'll never grow as a teacher or a person.

I used cold calling by writing each students name on a 3x5 card before class, and then setting up an activity in which i felt it would make sense to have this technique used. The class I used the technique on was focused on calculating discount prices from discount percentages and discount percentages from initial and final price. After going over the general technique in guided practice, I had about 5 minutes before lunch, and I asked each student to tell me what they wanted for christmas this year. Just a surprising aside to me, I asked if any of them celebrated Hanukah and while i didn't expect any to, I certainly thought they would all know what it was, but perhaps I'm biased because a significant population of my high school was Jewish. But I digress, After finding out what each student wanted for Christmas we went to lunch where I determined the approximate price for each item and then assigned each item a discount or a sales price. When the students returned I told them it was their job to argue the case to each others parents that its a deal to get the present by either calculating how much money they saved, or what percentage of money they were saving. This seemed to make sense to most of the students, and I had the student select the 3x5 card of the student they would do the calculation for(only one student pulled her own name which I just made her replace and pick a new card). However, most of the students were lost on how to find the discount either way, so I had to interrupt and do two examples, one of finding discount price and one of finding discount percentage. The students seemed excited about the activity, which one of the second years commented on and said they liked, but it was time consuming and frustrating when the students didn't understand the concept we went over, which was linked to the concept we did the period before. That seems to be the biggest problem for students, seeing the connection between one problem type and the next.

     Delta Autumn has certainly given me a greater perspective of teaching in Mississippi and has helped me contrast the situation here from the situation I am from. The historical section gives ample reasons for the discrepancies in education faced in Mississippi, so instead of complaining about them or  
feeling cheated by the system, I see that the problems were long in the making. Complaining about them or wallowing in despair because I don't have the same equipment, or administrative or community back-up my teachers were afforded will not make any of the students learn anything, so I am now much more prepared to deal with the hand I am dealt. It is also helpful to know exactly how unorganized the first week of school will be, because I have the tendency to plunge into the material immediately, so now I can game-plan to have lessons that are simply in preparation for the start of the real work. My idea for chemistry is to start with a unit of alchemy, to show the students how scientists used to think chemical processes came about, but also show how integral these scientists were in creating modern chemistry. This could be an excellent tool to demonstrate what I want to be a major theme of my class to be, “don't be afraid to make mistakes”, because while what the alchemists were doing was incorrect largely and most of the concepts were completely off-base, many important foundations were laid for finding the correct methods and concepts. The breaking up fights section was important to go over yet again even after the elegant presentation of Ben Guest, because I probably will be one of the first ones in to most altercations, and reading the rules and guidelines over and over is the best method to ensure I won't be harmed, sued or killed. The parent section is also important, because while I know I want every student to succeed, I realize that has not been the case with all the teachers who have come into the Mississippi educational system, and knowing that mistrust already exists before any interaction will help me not personalize parental attacks on my methods or motives. I also think its important to realize how many real behavioral disorders are probably going undiagnosed in the classroom and instead of being frustrated, develop a plan of attack to help these students particularly focus and vary instruction to reach the broadest range of students. The most useful sections of the book were the specific subject area sections, mine being math and biology. While I am not teaching biology one, the section on how to teach to state tested criteria lets me know what environment my biology 2 students will be coming from, so I can try to stick to it as much as I'm comfortable and fits my style, so the students will also be comfortable and familiar. The ideas for finding cheap or free materials are integral for me because I like having the right tool for the job, as we all do, but I am still probably going to buy a lot of materials myself for my class, and this section gave me ideas to limit expenditures. The specific time management guide for science was also helpful, as it one of the two hardest concepts for me to master and it will give me a template for structure and help my students work. The math section gave me great ideas for games and how to garner a higher level of logical thinking overall in students so even if they don't master some specific concepts, their overall level of math skill will increase as the year progresses. I felt the book is and will be an imperative in making me less over-whelmed by the situations that arise through the year and will help me get through sticking points. It has also motivated me to have the sweetest biology classroom ever conceived by mankind and take-up my childhood fish-tank fascination again. The one discrepancy i noted was that there are 4 comptneacies tested in the biology 1 mct, and they said the majority of the material covered was ecology and experimental design. They said this was about 50% of the test. The math doesn't add up to me. Other than that, it was a good read. 

After arriving at Ole Miss after driving through several thunderstorms and surprisingly good classic rock stations, I was ready to pass out immediately. Unfortunately, I followed the incoming 2008 orientation signs and ended up, after several conversations with the campus police, signing in first to the freshman dorms. A bunch of wide-eyed freshman  asking me if I was their R.A. was my first greeting to ole miss and my roommate certainly was not ryan bolland, he looked like casper from me, myself and irene. I then found out where northgate apartments was much to my elation and passed out on my improvised double-twin bed. The following day followed with the most efficient move-in of my life with the aide of ryan and super wal-mart, and my tons of excess energy from being in Mississippi. The first lunch with all the second years at the mexican place right near campus told me three things, I was if nothing else going to have fun, food in Mississippi rocks, and Molly Goldwasser REALLY loves Duke. The next day after introductions and a lunch that was way better than I expected, we toured campus where I found my new favorite tree, the Magnolia. They are both fun to look at and I will tell you in a blog very shortly from now if they are fun to climb. I also am jacked up to learn the Ole Miss football cheer and say it with all appropriate volume when I see my first S.E.C game. I am just going to jump ahead and talk about all the excellent cuisine while I can remember it all.