Monday, April 17, 2017
My Seventh Day
On March 15th, I was back in Ms. Johns's classroom. When I first arrived to Mr. Jones's class, he informed me they were trying out a new online system, so there wasn't much I could do. In Ms. Johns's class, they were working on an Ancient Greek handout. The handout was based on a website they had to navigate. Instead of helping one student, I walked around the classroom and checked on students' progress. Eventually, Ms. Johns put me with a student who was spending most of the time on his phone. To help him stay focused, I did the worksheet with him and helped him find the answers. It was actually pretty hard because the website was confusing and there were lots of different pages.
I think doing "scavenger hunts" on websites is a cool idea, but if the website is too confusing, and the questions aren't in order of how they appear, it can take longer. However, the students do have to read more carefully. For some questions, the student I worked with had to reread a page up to three times before he found the answer. In this time period, I think technology should play a big part in the classroom. While students aren't in school to be entertained, lessons should still be engaging, especially because many don't want to be there in the first place.
My Sixth Day
On March 1st, I was in Mr. Jones's class. Most students were working on a podcast assignment. They had to summarize the first six episodes, and then look up and define vocabulary words. He kept repeating he wanted students to do the assignment in that order: summarize and then vocabulary.
I worked with two students that day. For the first student, Mr. Jones told me he had a hard time staying on task, so I needed to monitor him while he worked on the assignment. As soon as I sat down, he got to work, but started the vocabulary section. I reminded him what the instructions were, but he wanted to go ahead and do the vocabulary since it was faster. In previous posts, I mentioned it felt weird being an authority, but I knew I had to this time. I explained that Mr. Jones said he wanted it done in a particular order multiple times and explain why that might be. By first listening to the podcast, then filling out the vocabulary, you could hear the words being used and understand the context. He did it in the correct order after I explained this, and finished pretty quickly.
The second student I worked with also had a hard time completing the assignment. He seemed mad about having to do it, so I asked what the podcast was about and got him chatting to lighten the mood. While he reread each episode's summary, he commented about what he thought about different characters and plots. He didn't need any help with the assignment itself. Like the first student, he just needed a little extra motivation.
After he finished, Mr. Jones tried to find someone else I could help, but no one did. Instead of waiting around, he let me leave.
This visit was pretty laid back. I mainly just made sure students were on task. I've noticed many assignments are easy to do, it's just hard to motivate the students to do them.
I worked with two students that day. For the first student, Mr. Jones told me he had a hard time staying on task, so I needed to monitor him while he worked on the assignment. As soon as I sat down, he got to work, but started the vocabulary section. I reminded him what the instructions were, but he wanted to go ahead and do the vocabulary since it was faster. In previous posts, I mentioned it felt weird being an authority, but I knew I had to this time. I explained that Mr. Jones said he wanted it done in a particular order multiple times and explain why that might be. By first listening to the podcast, then filling out the vocabulary, you could hear the words being used and understand the context. He did it in the correct order after I explained this, and finished pretty quickly.
The second student I worked with also had a hard time completing the assignment. He seemed mad about having to do it, so I asked what the podcast was about and got him chatting to lighten the mood. While he reread each episode's summary, he commented about what he thought about different characters and plots. He didn't need any help with the assignment itself. Like the first student, he just needed a little extra motivation.
After he finished, Mr. Jones tried to find someone else I could help, but no one did. Instead of waiting around, he let me leave.
This visit was pretty laid back. I mainly just made sure students were on task. I've noticed many assignments are easy to do, it's just hard to motivate the students to do them.
Tuesday, March 14, 2017
My Fifth Day
On February 22, I was in Mr. Jones's class again. At first, Anna and I decided we would switch between classes, but I wanted to stay in Mr. Jones's class. I like the upper grades better, and it was more writing help than grammar. The week's schedule was modified, so classes stopped after one. In order to be able to fill my normal hour and fifteen minute time, I stayed for first and second period.
In first period, I helped a student with an essay. The assignment was to write about a moment in her life when she showed courage. At the bottom of her essay, Mr. Jones wrote where there needed to be improvements. The comments applied to the entire class, so after reading them, I focused on the ones specific to her essay. I enjoyed her essay a lot, and was surprised on how well she wrote. A majority of the language was informal and slang, but since it was a personal narrative, I think it reflected her voice and personality well. However, the organization was pretty confusing. Her story just begins without an introduction, and has a lot of background information. There were also many moments of courage in her story, instead of just one. However, her conclusion only mentioned one moment.
With Mr. Jones's comments in mind, we spent the class working on an introduction and revising her conclusion. First, I asked her to say what her main point was. What did she want her reader to take away from reading her story? Then, I told her what I took away from it based on her writing. I explained why the beginning and ending was a little confusing. So, she worked on introducing her essay and stating her main point. She would just type and I would help when she was stuck on expressing her ideas.
For her conclusion, I explained why she needed to revise it. What her story, and what she told me, was conveying did not match up with her conclusion. She told me her point was that she made it through each hardship, and that was courage. However, her conclusion only mentioned one moment. I had her explain why each moment was important, and how does that contribute to her definition of courage.
In second period, I helped on the same assignment with another student. While I focused on helping the previous student to write an introduction and conclusion paragraph, this student needed multiple improvements. Mr. Jones required the page length to be around three to four pages. Total, this student had about one and a half pages. Her main problem was her language was too broad. In order to increase her page count, I asked her to explain certain statements and go into detail about specific moments of courage. We also worked on developing an introduction paragraph. By the time class ended, she still did not have enough, but there was a huge difference with what she had before.
I really enjoyed working with both students. The writing level was high compared to the ninth grade class I was in. I think that is why I enjoy working with older students. At a ninth grade level, their writing is not going to be great, but that's okay. It's really hard for me to accept that. At eleventh grade level, there still some issues, but I can work with it more and help. I know I have to learn how to have reasonable expectations for writing. Ninth graders aren't going to write as well as me or an older student.
In first period, I helped a student with an essay. The assignment was to write about a moment in her life when she showed courage. At the bottom of her essay, Mr. Jones wrote where there needed to be improvements. The comments applied to the entire class, so after reading them, I focused on the ones specific to her essay. I enjoyed her essay a lot, and was surprised on how well she wrote. A majority of the language was informal and slang, but since it was a personal narrative, I think it reflected her voice and personality well. However, the organization was pretty confusing. Her story just begins without an introduction, and has a lot of background information. There were also many moments of courage in her story, instead of just one. However, her conclusion only mentioned one moment.
With Mr. Jones's comments in mind, we spent the class working on an introduction and revising her conclusion. First, I asked her to say what her main point was. What did she want her reader to take away from reading her story? Then, I told her what I took away from it based on her writing. I explained why the beginning and ending was a little confusing. So, she worked on introducing her essay and stating her main point. She would just type and I would help when she was stuck on expressing her ideas.
For her conclusion, I explained why she needed to revise it. What her story, and what she told me, was conveying did not match up with her conclusion. She told me her point was that she made it through each hardship, and that was courage. However, her conclusion only mentioned one moment. I had her explain why each moment was important, and how does that contribute to her definition of courage.
In second period, I helped on the same assignment with another student. While I focused on helping the previous student to write an introduction and conclusion paragraph, this student needed multiple improvements. Mr. Jones required the page length to be around three to four pages. Total, this student had about one and a half pages. Her main problem was her language was too broad. In order to increase her page count, I asked her to explain certain statements and go into detail about specific moments of courage. We also worked on developing an introduction paragraph. By the time class ended, she still did not have enough, but there was a huge difference with what she had before.
I really enjoyed working with both students. The writing level was high compared to the ninth grade class I was in. I think that is why I enjoy working with older students. At a ninth grade level, their writing is not going to be great, but that's okay. It's really hard for me to accept that. At eleventh grade level, there still some issues, but I can work with it more and help. I know I have to learn how to have reasonable expectations for writing. Ninth graders aren't going to write as well as me or an older student.
My Fourth Day
On Wednesday, February 15th, I had a change in placement. After Anna and I arrived in Ms. Johns's class, she informed us another teacher, Mr. Jones, needed one of us in an 11th grade class. At first, I did not want to leave, since I had gotten more familiar with the students and Ms. Johns, but I decided I wanted to experience a different grade level.
In Mr. Jones's class, there were a lot more students, and they were older. I was kind of nervous, but Mr. Jones was super nice and outgoing. He set me up with a student, Lexie. In his class, students mainly work on assignments on their own on class laptops. Lexie was finishing an assignment where she had to write a summary of a short story. Mr. Jones had a step-by-step process that had to be filled out. Mainly, they had to state important parts of the story and explain them.
This assignment was a struggle for me. I had a clear idea of what I thought the answers should be, but Lexie did not always do what I thought was right, but I did not know how to lead her in the direction I thought she should go without outright telling her what I thought. I think it's important for teachers to not just tell a student the right answer when they're wrong. They should help lead them to the right answer. I wasn't sure how to do that with Lexie. Furthermore, maybe I wasn't right in the first place. Picking out important parts of a story is a matter of opinion. While I would've chosen different moments than Lexie, her reasoning for her choices made sense, and who was I to tell her she was wrong? Because of my age and inexperience, I still have a hard time feeling like an authority on a subject. I know no teacher knows everything, but I still lack a lot of confidence. That's something I'm really going to work on during my next visits. I need to be more confident and authoritative.
In Mr. Jones's class, there were a lot more students, and they were older. I was kind of nervous, but Mr. Jones was super nice and outgoing. He set me up with a student, Lexie. In his class, students mainly work on assignments on their own on class laptops. Lexie was finishing an assignment where she had to write a summary of a short story. Mr. Jones had a step-by-step process that had to be filled out. Mainly, they had to state important parts of the story and explain them.
This assignment was a struggle for me. I had a clear idea of what I thought the answers should be, but Lexie did not always do what I thought was right, but I did not know how to lead her in the direction I thought she should go without outright telling her what I thought. I think it's important for teachers to not just tell a student the right answer when they're wrong. They should help lead them to the right answer. I wasn't sure how to do that with Lexie. Furthermore, maybe I wasn't right in the first place. Picking out important parts of a story is a matter of opinion. While I would've chosen different moments than Lexie, her reasoning for her choices made sense, and who was I to tell her she was wrong? Because of my age and inexperience, I still have a hard time feeling like an authority on a subject. I know no teacher knows everything, but I still lack a lot of confidence. That's something I'm really going to work on during my next visits. I need to be more confident and authoritative.
My Third Day
My third day was on February 8th. Once again, I was in Ms. Johns's class with Anna. Instead of grammar, the class was going over the Progressive Era. At first, I could not remember this time period, but it was basically the same as the "Roaring Twenties."
After she went over the basics of the period, the class broke into groups and were assigned a section of the reading. Each group had to underline importance sentences, phrases, or words they did not understand. I was assigned to work with a group of three boys. I had them volunteer to read their section out loud, and was happy that everyone did so willingly. Usually, you have to pick a student to read out loud. They did the assignment perfectly, but it was hard for them to single out important sentences. To them, most of the sentences were important. I could identify with their problem. It's hard for me to pick apart things, because even the supporting sentences contribute to the big picture.
Ms. Johns then had each group talk about what they thought was important, and any words they did not understand. She wrote all the words each group said on a large paper for future reference. This portion of class took the longest, and went till the end of class. When Anna and I were preparing to leave, Ms. Johns asked us how everything went. She also informed me that she wanted me with the group of three boys, because of her relationship with one. They were all bright students, but one of the boys just did not like her, and would not work if she was present. I was surprised; each student was very nice and did the assignment without need for any prompting or keeping on task. She did not tell me which boy it was, and I kind of glad she didn't. In my group's presentation about Girl, Interrupted, we discussed how knowing about a person's mental illness might cause us to prescribe behaviors to him or her before we know the individual. Now, this situation has nothing to do with mental illness, but I liked not knowing which student had the issue with Ms. Johns because I did not want to unconsciously label them and view them any different than the other students.
Overall, I enjoyed the review of the twenties and seeing a group of students eagerly do an assignment and learn new vocabulary.
After she went over the basics of the period, the class broke into groups and were assigned a section of the reading. Each group had to underline importance sentences, phrases, or words they did not understand. I was assigned to work with a group of three boys. I had them volunteer to read their section out loud, and was happy that everyone did so willingly. Usually, you have to pick a student to read out loud. They did the assignment perfectly, but it was hard for them to single out important sentences. To them, most of the sentences were important. I could identify with their problem. It's hard for me to pick apart things, because even the supporting sentences contribute to the big picture.
Ms. Johns then had each group talk about what they thought was important, and any words they did not understand. She wrote all the words each group said on a large paper for future reference. This portion of class took the longest, and went till the end of class. When Anna and I were preparing to leave, Ms. Johns asked us how everything went. She also informed me that she wanted me with the group of three boys, because of her relationship with one. They were all bright students, but one of the boys just did not like her, and would not work if she was present. I was surprised; each student was very nice and did the assignment without need for any prompting or keeping on task. She did not tell me which boy it was, and I kind of glad she didn't. In my group's presentation about Girl, Interrupted, we discussed how knowing about a person's mental illness might cause us to prescribe behaviors to him or her before we know the individual. Now, this situation has nothing to do with mental illness, but I liked not knowing which student had the issue with Ms. Johns because I did not want to unconsciously label them and view them any different than the other students.
Overall, I enjoyed the review of the twenties and seeing a group of students eagerly do an assignment and learn new vocabulary.
Sunday, February 19, 2017
My Second Day
The second time I went to Classic City High was February 1st. Since I had trouble remembering grammar concepts the first visit, I made sure to review before my second visit. Once again, I was in Ms. Johns class with Anna. However, Claire was back to her normal day, Friday.
Once we arrived, Ms. Johns informed us they veered from their normal curriculum to work on an essay that would be submitted to a competition. The students had to write about a time they witnessed or experienced bullying. It had to include their definition of bullying, the situation, and if an adult intervened. Some students did not know a real event to write about, so they had to write a short narrative of a bullying situation and how it was resolved. I worked with two students on their narratives: Nikki and Xavier. I had worked with Xavier the first visit. Each student barely had anything written, so it sounded like Ms. Johns's main concern was to have something written. However, I wish she had clarified what she wanted me to do. She never explicitly said, and I wasn't sure if should focus on teaching them to construct better sentences or just help them to come up with the story and type it out.
Since it was a draft, I focused on getting them to write out their ideas. Nikki was more talkative than Xavier, so I was able to connect with her more. She told me she was a bad writer and could not write fiction or poetry. I told her it was really hard for me too. Sometimes I felt like a bad writer, but writing is a process, and no one is good at writing at first. It's a skill. I think this made her feel better, because afterwards she wrote more. Sometimes I had to prompt her if I could tell she didn't know what to do.
Xavier would be on his phone, eating, or just laying his head down. I let him take small breaks, but I tried to keep him on track. Ms. Johns would occasionally help prompt him. Since she knew the assignment better than me, she would type out questions for him about his story.
In the class after this week's visit, one group's presentation focused on bullying. In high school, the main form was cyber bullying. I could see this being a problem at Classic City, because every student is on his or her phone most of the time. However, both students I worked with were writing fictional stories, so I do not know if this is a big problem at the school.
Saturday, January 28, 2017
My First Day
Wednesday, January 25th, was my first volunteer day at Classic City High. My plan for the semester is to go every Wednesday for first period, which runs from 9:15 to 10:30. Other than getting slightly lost, locating the school was easy, which was my main concern for the day. Two of my classmates, Anna Warnell and Claire Sanders, were here for the same period as well. Claire had already started volunteering, so she was able to direct us and show us what to do at each arrival.
The three of us were placed in Ms. Johns' class. The class consisted of eight boys. The day's subject was different types of clauses and identifying their uses. We were each assigned to help two students when the class broke up to do worksheets. Every English or English Education major student understands how to use grammar correctly. We don't really think about terms or the mechanics of it anymore. I'm slightly embarrassed to admit I had to ask for help because I could not remember what a noun clause was and could not help my students. I also learned that just because you know the right answer, it does not mean you know how to coherently explain why it is the right answer. It made me appreciate all the years of flawless, easy to understand explanations teachers gave me in the past.
The biggest behavior difference I noticed between the high school I attended and Classic City High was cell phone use. Every student had his cell phone out, and most also had headphones in. Ms. Johns only required the students to have one ear free. It was painful to watch them on their phones while she taught, but I have to remember what Ms. Mimi told us the first day of class. You pick your battles. For whatever reason, these students are struggling, and even if they have their cell phones out, at least they're here and participating. If there was a particular point Ms. Johns wanted to emphasize, she made sure every student looked up and thanked them.
As a result of my first day, I have two goals for improvement. One, be refreshed and understand grammar terms and mechanics. Two, be able to explain answers without struggling for words or slightly rambling.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)