7 posts tagged “required”

Three things that I need to improve upon:
1) classroom management - consistency, swiftness of punishment, taking as little time away from instruction to deal with discipline as possible.

2) differentiating instruction - teaching to the top third, middle third, and bottom third of the class all with the same lesson

3) enjoying teaching (and life, in general)

One thing that I think I do well as a teacher is that I keep the kids busy and working.  I took a great amount of pleasure hearing my kids say things like "you tryin' to kill us with all this WORK!"  Keeping the kids involved in work and activities from bell to bell definitely helped with my classroom management, and I will continue to make sure we waste as little time as possible in class.

The general philosophy exhibited in this district plan is that teachers with a decreased workload and fewer students will be more effective because they are able to spend more time instructing each individual student.  Also, resources are allotted to attract high quality teaching candidates and leadership at the school and district level.

My most controversial initiative would be to impose benchmarks at the 3rd and 8th grade, where students would be required to pass reading and math tests on grade level before being allowed to advance to the next grade.  The alternative school should help those who fall behind, hopefully so much so that they can return tot he regular school, even if a grade behind.

Also, money has been allotted to support HeadStart programs for all pre-K children in the district, not just those from low income families, at a level about 25% higher than the national average, hopefully helping those programs bolster their resources, increase the quality of their instructors, and increase their effectiveness, thus preventing many children from entering the district in Kindergarten at a disadvantage.

The details of my district can be be found here.

A spreadsheet detailing the payroll and budget of my district is here.

I gave each of my students a survey as a bellringer.  I asked them not to write their names on it, but some did anyway.  Below are the complete, unedited responses that I found most amusing and/or eye-opening.  I also tries to omit any responses I felt weren't honest (especially if they wrote their name on it), regardless of content.  Enjoy:

1. Describe Mr. Bolland.

"Well Mr. Bolland is cool as long as you do what you are suppose to do.  Sometime he can be unfair like he get mad at you when someone else is doing something."

"Mr. Bolland is a good teacher.  I feel that he doesn't have to explain hisself to these children for what he does.  Also that he doesnt' have to put up with these children and give them all these warnings, but overall he is a good teacher."

"strict, steady, doesn't let Trival thing get in the way of teaching, keeps personal and Job life seaperate."

"A teacher that has a great personality but gets very angry when his class gets out of control.  I also feel he has trouble w/ controlling his class."

"cute smart annoying annoying irritating annoying childish short vanilla Robin Thicke crazy smart did i write annoying."

"a unhappy person"

"Funny, he always happy"

"Mr. Bolland is a very nice person, maybe even too nice.  He seems so patience with these kids.  He's not so very tall but not so short.  He dresses nice everyday."

"complex"

"Nice (no homo) don't be tripen alot"

"He is a good teacher, but he never smiles, is to proffessional and acts older than he is"

"he eats alot of apples"

2. Describe Mr. Bolland's teaching style.  How does he teach?  What does he do that helps you understand things?  What does he do that doesn't help you?  How could he do better?

"He gives us worksheets and we have test.  I really dont understand what he talks about.  If he talks about the chapter and explain it more."

"He is a good teacher.  I actually like learning in his class at times."

"Good, explain, not enough questions, ask more"

"He teaches indepedently if you don't want to learn he wont fault you.  I really don't understand cause he doesn't teach well to me.  He don't communitate with you.  He can do better by trying harder."

"It be hard to learn.  Give you the paper and say do it.  You be kind of sleep.  With ex work to get grade higher."

"borning.  He teach like we are in jail.  Gives us detenction.  Gives me the answers.  Not to give me bad things to work on.  Like hard work."

"He teaches tot eh best of his abilities.  We work individually with each student and answer all questions.  Fuss all the times and don't let us work in groups.  He is doing the best he can but let us get in groups."

"He is a good teacher like the way he gives us study guide to help us do well on our test and how he answers any question no matter how stupid and immature it is"

3. Describe the way that students act in his classroom.

"Students in his class are really bad.  They seem to run Mr. bolland instead of him running them.  They talk while he is takling, they eat candy, they curse, they rap, etc.  They are just bad."

"They act like children suppose to act.  They dont suppose to just sit there and be quiet cuz Imma talk reguardless.  And go to sleep too."

"Some of the one's like myself act very well educated, others act like zoo animals."

"A butch of clowns"

"We be acting a donkey sometimes we show no respect we talk lound sometimes quiet"

"They go crazy like they would at a zoo or some."

4. Describe Mr. Bolland's classroom.

"mr Bolland's classroom is not structured at all.  It has no speafic way of targeting all the individual students individually."

"Well it boren and all he ever do is work us and go over stuff can we have a little fun every now and then"

"crunk as h***"

"It's big but he needs to change his functuay.  Also do some good cleaning-up.  Or but up more posters of science things so it won't look so empty and boring.  Lighten it up!!!"

"it a fixer uper.  we need new sets and books"

"spacious, could use sweeping and mopping"

"Its like a normal science class except the handful of students he has to deal with from day to day.  It would be better if he got rid of them the first day."

"cold"

After reading all of the responses, I have come up with a few general points.  First, the student's view me very differently in different classes.  The more well behaved the class, the happier and nicer I appear.  Students in my worst behaved classes were more likely to report me as being mean or "snapping" on them.  Most students who commented on the decor of my room said it was plain and needed more color.  Also, when I could tell who's survey it was, I noticed that the well behaved kids almost always commented on how disrespectful or poorly behaved the other students were, whereas those who were less behaved said the kids acted fine.

I knew before this that my classroom management is by far the weakest part of my teaching.  It seems that many of the kids are also aware.  For the most part, I got positive reviews on my teaching style, once I was able to execute it.  I'm a little bit surprised that the kids care so much about how plain my room is.  I knew it was plain, but I've never been much for interior decorating.  Hopefully between now and the beginning of next year I'll get an opportunity to rearrange and liven up my room some.

My favorite emails in the world always greet me the same way:

"Ben Guest......Blog Topics"

Heavy sigh of frustration.  Click on the email which reads:

Two posts, due by 8:00 AM Thursday, December 11th:

1)  Why should someone join the Mississippi Teacher Corps?

2)  Choose from one of the three following:
a)  Photo essay describing your community
b)  Describe one of your favorite students

c)  Freewrite

So, I need to answer an unanswerable question in the middle of the week when I'm busiest.  I've always thought the times I was most stressed out and frazzled were the best for thoughtful reflection.  Which I guess leads me into my response to the first required topic.  No, its not my answer, its my response.  I don't have an answer.  Knowing what I know now, I don't know why anyone would join MTC unless they had an intense desire to try (without any realization of success) to do some service.  If you have that intense desire, then you must also meet the following conditions, as set forth by Dr. Mullins:

"You must be prepared for a challenge, be prepared to be rewarded in the utmost way, be prepared to be disappointed, be depressed, to be concerned, but also if you have a good heart, know your subject area, you are prepared to work really hard, if you can be flexible, if you will study and learn about the area of the state where you're going and the state of Mississippi itself."

If you can meet those expectations, then Dr. Mullins has a good job for you, and you should join the Mississippi Teacher Corps.

Do you want the good news or the bad news?

The good news:

I think my overall comfort, classroom management (of which there is little because of the makeup of my class), and teaching (by this I mean explanations, questioning, and generally getting information from my head to the heads of my students) is improving and pretty good overall.  My lesson was effective and the I interacted well with the students, using a lot of informal assessment via questioning and observation as they worked on their own.  Related to this, I've also improved on my communication, that is to say I talk a little slower and I break things down more effectively with better examples than I did before.

The bad news:

My lesson planning still needs some work.  I'm still struggling with breaking things down all the way.  I just said I've improved in this, but I still have a ways to go.  In this lesson I can see that my students stayed with me in the beginning, but I began to lose them near the end of the block when I was transitioning to explaining a more difficult concept.  Because of this, I lost them and I don't think they mastered my second objective as fully as I would like.  I need to continue to break things down and plan more time for independent practice, especially for more difficult topics.  I think that if I bite off a little less in each lesson this will be easier.  The transition from 50 minutes periods to 100 minute blocks has hurt my ability to do this some, but has also exposed me to how long 100 minutes is and how much I can fit in.  I'll get there.  I think I'll like working with a block schedule in JPS.

The bottom line:

Compared to my first videotaped lesson, I think I have improved, if subtly.  I still need to work on the same things as I did in that lesson, namely the speed at which I talk and time management, but its getting better.  I also think that my lessons are still and continue to be effective in that the students are engaged for the most part and meet the objectives.  We'll see if this stays true once I have to spend more energy managing the classroom.  I just hope that doesn't cause me to sacrifice too much from my lesson.

Wow, shameless and lame.  He doesn't even say that, that I know of.  But if he did, that would make it even funnier.. or maybe funny at all.  I'm sorry, Jeremy.

I've really enjoyed having Jeremy as my TEAM teacher.  He is very approachable and I never felt uncomfortable around him.  I also think he's pretty funny and has a great outlook, which helps me to put his comments and suggestions in context.  He has a very laid back attitude and style, which I think cuts back on being able to easily identify things that he's taught.  However, I have picked up some valuable lessons from him.

First, break it down.  Jeremy gave us some lesson planning tips at the end of June, which all involved simplifying information and hammering into the kids' heads.  Coming from the college lecture background of "look at these powerpoints and listen to me read them or maybe even rehash them in my own words while you furiously write notes, sleep, talk online, or maybe glance at the copies of slides you have in front of you if you were lucky enough to get a copy from me even though you don't really have to pay attention because the notes are all online" teaching, I have struggled somewhat with really simplifying information to the basics to maximize retention.  Jeremy's tips have helped me improve in this area.

The second thing I've learned from Mr. Fiel is to find what works for me.  In the role plays and his general advice about classroom management, he often will point out how what he does in practice differs from what many of the other teachers do.  He is conscientious about warning us of this, but he also talks about how what he does is effective for him.  The lesson I've taken from this is that even though his methods may not be "by the book," he still is able to accomplish what he wants to accomplish.  His recommendation to start out doing the things we're taught and diverge as necessary is probably how I'll try to survive this year.

Related to the above, Mr. Fiel has taught me so adjust to my administration and school temperament.  In pointing out how his style differs from others, he also points out how his administration differs from that of others.  He and Ashley Johnson have very different teaching styles, but both are effective.  Their schools have different temperaments and administrations, and they would probably not be able to swap strategies and survive.  This year I'll need to come in with a plan for management and instruction, but also be prepared to adjust to the policies and temperament of the school.  I may have to take more crap than I'd like just to keep control, or I may be fortunate in being able to discipline more sternly and frequently.  Either way, I'll need to adjust.

See, Jeremy?  You did teach me some stuff.  Thanks.

I still feel that there I have a great deal of improving to do before I can say there is only one thing left to improve on.  I know that this blog is about the single thing I most need to improve on, but I feel like its nearly the same questions.  Singling one aspect of my teaching out as the worst is difficult.  So many choices.  I'll pass on things like varying my questioning techniques and classroom management (I haven't really had much practice in this, so it very well could be awful...) and talk about lesson planning.

I have noticed that I have become increasingly efficient in my lesson planning, and am able to write better less in far less time than was required a month ago.  However, I still think that it takes me quite a bit of time and would like to reduce this as much as possible, without sacrificing the quality of the lesson.  The quality of the lesson, is the other issue I would like to improve on.  This, too, is better than a month ago.  However, there is certainly room for improvement.  I need to differentiate my modes of instruction more and find ways to students to teach themselves while I watch.  I'm still stuck in the "college lecture" format of teaching, which is terrible, especially when you're not teaching college.  Eighth graders can take about 10 minutes of lecture before coma.  I've also fallen into a rut of showing video clips in almost every lesson.  While I think that using media is generally good, I need to mix it up more and include different forms of media.  Beyond the fact that I think variety is better than the same thing day after day, I  don't even know what kinds of resources I'll have at Chastain, so I can't rely on having a projector.