I trust you've had a wonderfully fun and relaxing vacation this past week and that you're back in the classroom with energy and excitement.
I read your last post, including the reflections from ED 102 and I'm VERY impressed with your honesty, insight, and rationality. Here are my comments on your reflection piece:
I think you're frustration and anger with how the two skeletal comparison lessons transpired is completely normal and expected. When we are excited about something, we tend to raise our expectations of how that particular event will go. When we build up the expectation in our minds, it is easy for things to fall short. While I'm guessing you were being a tougher judge of how things really went that you should, I can understand your frustration in wanting things to be great and not experiencing that sensation. However, tying that emotion to what you see in Joy's teaching illustrates a wonderful and important point: that teaching is a learned practice!! I'm sure your plans and organization for these lessons were superb, but sometimes there are aspects of a great lesson that you can't think about until you have some time in front of kids, experiencing what gets them excited and motivated. While the idea for the lesson is good, the plan is solid, and things appear lined up for a "knock out", there is lack of experience (at least in the beginning) impacting the decisions you make before and during the class - and that's completely normal!! So I'll restate your own advice: learn from Joy. It's OK to set your expectations high and even to compare yourself with Joy. But realize that her experience informs her decisions and that you are in the process of building up your own experience to pull from in the future. That is just part of the process.
What I'm very happy to see is that you made an adjustment regarding the seating chart, stuck to your 'guns' (are you referring your biceps by any chance?), and witnessed a positive result. To me, that is the sign of learning strategies and ideas from Joy that will help you in designing future lessons. The take away message from your reflection is that you were reminded (because I think you already know this), that it takes time to become a good teacher and that taking advantage of the resources you have at BAA will help you achieve that goal.
Moving on to the questions:
I think you've been very honest in listing your strengths and weaknesses and I'm excited to revisit these in the future to see how they may have changed. I want to focus on one thing you wrote: "use student questions that I don't know answers to as springboards for further discussion and research". This is a powerful idea/strategy, but also very difficult to achieve. What are some strategies you might employ for this technique? Let's brainstorm some ways for you to begin to strengthen that skill.
For the time being, here is another question for you to tackle when you have some time!!
Q: Your relationship with Joy and the students at BAA seems very strong and positive. My question is whether things could possibly be "too good" at BAA, such that you are not placed in situations that really challenge you and help you to learn. Can you talk a bit about the challenges that you have faced thus far? Secondly, I realize your classroom is fairly secluded, do you feel any impacts or detriments as a result of not being "close" to the rest of the school? (Not that you should, necessarily, just curious!)
Good stuff Kimmeh - keep it up!
Monday, February 25, 2008
Sunday, February 3, 2008
two weeks in!
before i answer your three questions about strengths and weaknesses, i'd like to share some reflections from last week. for my ED 102 class, i am to write a reflective narrative for each week. here's my reflections on last week:
Several times this past week I felt like a big failure. I was simply angry and frustrated with my teaching on Wednesday and Thursday. Those two days I was particularly excited about the lesson, as it was a two-day inquiry into skeletal comparisons between hominids and primates. Although I felt decently prepared and had made detailed lesson plans, I found myself struggling though my lesson and could feel the consequential lack of “punch” to my teaching. Additionally, and probably as a result, I began to have some minor classroom management issues. I was discouraged and frustrated with myself, and desperately wanted to recapture the energy and pace my teaching had the first week of class.
I observe Joy teaching the same curriculum in the class right after mine. I love this opportunity, as it highlights our differences in teaching and grants me incredible insights into her pedagogy. I try desperately to soak up her class like a sponge! At the same time, however, I sometimes berate myself, wishing I had framed the lesson better, or used clearer words in descriptions. Particularly during this past week, I felt like such an amateur. And then I realized, I am. Joy has been teaching for 10 years! I am wise to learn as much as I can from her, but incredibly foolish to compare my teaching with hers. Thankfully, by the end of the week I was over myself and my amateur-ness.
On Thursday, I attempted to address some of the excess talking and lack of focus in my class by instituting a new seating chart. For the first week, I had seated my students in alphabetical order, in order to quickly learn their names. This arrangement was proving to be less than ideal, however, as many students were seated next to their close friends. The new seating chart I created this week – which divided friends - didn’t go over so well. I felt a lot of resistance, and several students voiced frustration. I stood firm, but shortly into the class I had my students rearrange into their groups from the day before to finish an activity. Unfortunately, I failed to organize them back into their assigned seats at the culmination of the activity. To no surprise, this led to a difficult follow-up and teaching time afterwards.
Friday I knew I needed to stand firm with the seating chart, but part of me felt like caving into my students’ desires. Joy told me that they were testing me and that I needed to stick to my guns! So I did. I went into Friday’s class with a better attitude than the day before, and confidently laid out my expectations with the seating arrangement. I was unwavering, using humor and encouragement to convince my students that the seating chart was a good idea. It was tough! But, I kept with it, and Friday’s class was great…my students were focused, contributed some great thoughts during discussion, and really worked hard on their quiz and during S & E time. I ended the week on a high note, and hopefully gained (more) respect from my students.
so now that that's out of the way (whew!), answers to yo' questions:
1. What do you think are your strengths as a teacher? creating a "safe" classroom; giving students a voice; energy and tempo of teaching (most of the time); relationships and use of humor
2. What do you think are your weaknesses? framing lessons (i.e. what is the context?); my "teacher voice" (i.e. projection); sometimes limiting student inquiry, giving them answers instead of letting them formulate on their own; background knowledge (particularly for the evolution unit)
3. Can you propose ideas for how your strengths may help to develop your weaknesses? make students' questions and ideas more foundational to the rhythm of the lesson; as i grow to know my students, frame lessons with direct relevancy to their lives; laugh at myself when i have laryngitis?!? (which was the case Friday, and might be even more tomorrow...yikes!); use student questions that i don't know answers to as springboards for further discussion and research (extra credit, perhaps?)
Several times this past week I felt like a big failure. I was simply angry and frustrated with my teaching on Wednesday and Thursday. Those two days I was particularly excited about the lesson, as it was a two-day inquiry into skeletal comparisons between hominids and primates. Although I felt decently prepared and had made detailed lesson plans, I found myself struggling though my lesson and could feel the consequential lack of “punch” to my teaching. Additionally, and probably as a result, I began to have some minor classroom management issues. I was discouraged and frustrated with myself, and desperately wanted to recapture the energy and pace my teaching had the first week of class.
I observe Joy teaching the same curriculum in the class right after mine. I love this opportunity, as it highlights our differences in teaching and grants me incredible insights into her pedagogy. I try desperately to soak up her class like a sponge! At the same time, however, I sometimes berate myself, wishing I had framed the lesson better, or used clearer words in descriptions. Particularly during this past week, I felt like such an amateur. And then I realized, I am. Joy has been teaching for 10 years! I am wise to learn as much as I can from her, but incredibly foolish to compare my teaching with hers. Thankfully, by the end of the week I was over myself and my amateur-ness.
On Thursday, I attempted to address some of the excess talking and lack of focus in my class by instituting a new seating chart. For the first week, I had seated my students in alphabetical order, in order to quickly learn their names. This arrangement was proving to be less than ideal, however, as many students were seated next to their close friends. The new seating chart I created this week – which divided friends - didn’t go over so well. I felt a lot of resistance, and several students voiced frustration. I stood firm, but shortly into the class I had my students rearrange into their groups from the day before to finish an activity. Unfortunately, I failed to organize them back into their assigned seats at the culmination of the activity. To no surprise, this led to a difficult follow-up and teaching time afterwards.
Friday I knew I needed to stand firm with the seating chart, but part of me felt like caving into my students’ desires. Joy told me that they were testing me and that I needed to stick to my guns! So I did. I went into Friday’s class with a better attitude than the day before, and confidently laid out my expectations with the seating arrangement. I was unwavering, using humor and encouragement to convince my students that the seating chart was a good idea. It was tough! But, I kept with it, and Friday’s class was great…my students were focused, contributed some great thoughts during discussion, and really worked hard on their quiz and during S & E time. I ended the week on a high note, and hopefully gained (more) respect from my students.
so now that that's out of the way (whew!), answers to yo' questions:
1. What do you think are your strengths as a teacher? creating a "safe" classroom; giving students a voice; energy and tempo of teaching (most of the time); relationships and use of humor
2. What do you think are your weaknesses? framing lessons (i.e. what is the context?); my "teacher voice" (i.e. projection); sometimes limiting student inquiry, giving them answers instead of letting them formulate on their own; background knowledge (particularly for the evolution unit)
3. Can you propose ideas for how your strengths may help to develop your weaknesses? make students' questions and ideas more foundational to the rhythm of the lesson; as i grow to know my students, frame lessons with direct relevancy to their lives; laugh at myself when i have laryngitis?!? (which was the case Friday, and might be even more tomorrow...yikes!); use student questions that i don't know answers to as springboards for further discussion and research (extra credit, perhaps?)
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
We're off and running...
There are some really great answers to the questions I posed - nice work! You are correct, they are very loaded, but I did that on purpose. I think sometimes you can ask a question that won't necessarily get answered, but in the attempt to answer some really interesting stuff emerges. And that's what has happened!
I'm not sure it's necessary to respond to everything you wrote at this moment, but there are a couple interesting points that I would like to touch on.
First - I think your comments about goals for the spring are interesting. What I read in that section is two levels of goals. There are the goals that pertain to your classroom practice and everyday actions with students, and goals that are performance or time-line based. I think your concern for the progress of students with IEPs and male students of color are admirable. Do you think it's possible to state these goals more specifically as a safe guard against excluding other students in your teaching? What I mean is, I think your goals are great but I would want to make sure that you don't become too focused on specific groups of students. It's tricky! And I don't expect you to be able to articulate your exact thoughts, but be aware of how you attend to students as the weeks progress and see if you are able to offer the one-to-one help you wish to. The bottom line is that effective and equitable attention is something that will take time for you as a teacher to develop.
The second level of goals, the performance or time-line based goals are also important. We talked about lesson planning and perhaps instead of having everything planned out by Sunday night, we compromise. I think having Mon-Wed clearly defined with Thurs-Fri sketched out (but kept flexible) is a very reasonable place to start. What do you think? Have you talked with Joy about this? Also, the goal of having 5 students pursue honors is great! Perhaps you should chat with Joy about that and see whether even more is reasonable? She is a great resource and your relationship with her seems fantastic, so take advantage!!
I would like to get back to your points of anxiety, nervousness, etc. - but we'll do that later. For now, how about addressing these three questions in the next post:
1. What do you think are your strengths as a teacher?
2. What do you think are your weaknesses?
3. Can you propose ideas for how your strengths may help to develop your weaknesses?
2 days in and we've already tackled A LOT!! Going great though, so:
I'm not sure it's necessary to respond to everything you wrote at this moment, but there are a couple interesting points that I would like to touch on.
First - I think your comments about goals for the spring are interesting. What I read in that section is two levels of goals. There are the goals that pertain to your classroom practice and everyday actions with students, and goals that are performance or time-line based. I think your concern for the progress of students with IEPs and male students of color are admirable. Do you think it's possible to state these goals more specifically as a safe guard against excluding other students in your teaching? What I mean is, I think your goals are great but I would want to make sure that you don't become too focused on specific groups of students. It's tricky! And I don't expect you to be able to articulate your exact thoughts, but be aware of how you attend to students as the weeks progress and see if you are able to offer the one-to-one help you wish to. The bottom line is that effective and equitable attention is something that will take time for you as a teacher to develop.
The second level of goals, the performance or time-line based goals are also important. We talked about lesson planning and perhaps instead of having everything planned out by Sunday night, we compromise. I think having Mon-Wed clearly defined with Thurs-Fri sketched out (but kept flexible) is a very reasonable place to start. What do you think? Have you talked with Joy about this? Also, the goal of having 5 students pursue honors is great! Perhaps you should chat with Joy about that and see whether even more is reasonable? She is a great resource and your relationship with her seems fantastic, so take advantage!!
I would like to get back to your points of anxiety, nervousness, etc. - but we'll do that later. For now, how about addressing these three questions in the next post:
1. What do you think are your strengths as a teacher?
2. What do you think are your weaknesses?
3. Can you propose ideas for how your strengths may help to develop your weaknesses?
2 days in and we've already tackled A LOT!! Going great though, so:
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Tuesday, the day after tomorrow...
so i wasn't sure if you wanted me to comment on your post, or make a new one...so i'm opting for the latter.
these are loaded questions! i've been thinking about them over the past couple days, and here's some of the ramblings extracted from my head...
What do you think your role is going into this semester?
i think up until this time, i have been The Intern. on Tuesday, i will still be The Intern, but instead of the role i have played as a "co-teacher/assistant to Ms. B" i will be The Teacher! very exciting, and concurrently very overwhelming. i am a bit anxious as to how my students will perceive me...though this is a new semester and i will have brand new students, a few of them were in my seminar class last semester and ALL students at BAA know who the interns are. despite whatever labels might already be fixed, i'm jumping into Tuesday morning as a teacher, as their teacher, and i'm psyched.
What does it mean to be a teacher and why are you interested in it?
to me being a teacher means investing in kids' lives, daily introducing their minds to new knowledge, challenging preconceived notions of themselves, and enhancing their innate thirst for learning. teachers - many times more than parents and friends - are in a position of incredible power to influence, to encourage, to motivate, and to love kids. these reasons are at the forefront of why i chose to pursue a teaching career. additionally, my heart is for the poor and overlooked of society, and granting more equitable access to education is paramount for closing economical gaps in our country and worldwide. i desire to empower my students...it's my job to give them the academic tools for success, but knowledge, skills, and resources without confidence and reassurance from their teacher limits kids' true potential. being a teacher means helping kids' reach their dreams, and for me, i can't think of a better job.
What are your immediate goals for the beginning of the semester?
it's difficult to articulate my goals, but generally most of my goals center around my students who have IEP's and my male students of color. i want to grant one-on-one instruction and attention to these students as much as i am able. i tend to create goals that are very bullet-pointed and mathematical...like, i would like to have lesson plans developed and ready for the week by Sunday night, or i want to see five of my students pursue honors for my class. these are good goals and all, but i've been thinking more out-of-the-box, and for that reason i haven't completely wrapped my mind around all the goals i have for myself as a teacher and for my students in this, my first, class. so stay tuned...
What are you most afraid of? Most anxious of? Most nervous about?
i'm afraid i'm not going to know the curriculum. i'm nervous that i might not know answers to students' questions, especially answers i should know! classroom management freaks me out sometimes too...but as i learned last semester, i set the pace and tempo of the class. if i don't have my stuff together, managing the class is destined to become difficult very fast. i'm a little afraid of the workload, knowing that as the semester progresses work is going to pile up, and sometime in there i have two grad classes. i'm nervous that some days i might not find my "teacher voice," and then what? overall though, i'm way more excited than stressed, and my experiences from last semester have given me a lot of confidence for this semester!
these are loaded questions! i've been thinking about them over the past couple days, and here's some of the ramblings extracted from my head...
What do you think your role is going into this semester?
i think up until this time, i have been The Intern. on Tuesday, i will still be The Intern, but instead of the role i have played as a "co-teacher/assistant to Ms. B" i will be The Teacher! very exciting, and concurrently very overwhelming. i am a bit anxious as to how my students will perceive me...though this is a new semester and i will have brand new students, a few of them were in my seminar class last semester and ALL students at BAA know who the interns are. despite whatever labels might already be fixed, i'm jumping into Tuesday morning as a teacher, as their teacher, and i'm psyched.
What does it mean to be a teacher and why are you interested in it?
to me being a teacher means investing in kids' lives, daily introducing their minds to new knowledge, challenging preconceived notions of themselves, and enhancing their innate thirst for learning. teachers - many times more than parents and friends - are in a position of incredible power to influence, to encourage, to motivate, and to love kids. these reasons are at the forefront of why i chose to pursue a teaching career. additionally, my heart is for the poor and overlooked of society, and granting more equitable access to education is paramount for closing economical gaps in our country and worldwide. i desire to empower my students...it's my job to give them the academic tools for success, but knowledge, skills, and resources without confidence and reassurance from their teacher limits kids' true potential. being a teacher means helping kids' reach their dreams, and for me, i can't think of a better job.
What are your immediate goals for the beginning of the semester?
it's difficult to articulate my goals, but generally most of my goals center around my students who have IEP's and my male students of color. i want to grant one-on-one instruction and attention to these students as much as i am able. i tend to create goals that are very bullet-pointed and mathematical...like, i would like to have lesson plans developed and ready for the week by Sunday night, or i want to see five of my students pursue honors for my class. these are good goals and all, but i've been thinking more out-of-the-box, and for that reason i haven't completely wrapped my mind around all the goals i have for myself as a teacher and for my students in this, my first, class. so stay tuned...
What are you most afraid of? Most anxious of? Most nervous about?
i'm afraid i'm not going to know the curriculum. i'm nervous that i might not know answers to students' questions, especially answers i should know! classroom management freaks me out sometimes too...but as i learned last semester, i set the pace and tempo of the class. if i don't have my stuff together, managing the class is destined to become difficult very fast. i'm a little afraid of the workload, knowing that as the semester progresses work is going to pile up, and sometime in there i have two grad classes. i'm nervous that some days i might not find my "teacher voice," and then what? overall though, i'm way more excited than stressed, and my experiences from last semester have given me a lot of confidence for this semester!
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Getting ready for Tuesday
There are a few questions that I'd like you to write about in preparation for Tuesday and your first class. Only answer the questions that you feel like, and write as little or as much as you please. This is intended to begin a dialog between us about your experiences, impressions, and thoughts so that in May or June you may reflect on these writings.
In preparation for Tuesday...
What do you think your role is going into this semester?
What does it mean to be a teacher and why are you interested in it?
Who are your students? What do you expect of them?
What are your immediate goals for the beginning of the semester?
What are you most afraid of? Most anxious of? Most nervous about?
These are big questions - more than I expect you to answer. But write whatever comes to mind. Hope this works!!
In preparation for Tuesday...
What do you think your role is going into this semester?
What does it mean to be a teacher and why are you interested in it?
Who are your students? What do you expect of them?
What are your immediate goals for the beginning of the semester?
What are you most afraid of? Most anxious of? Most nervous about?
These are big questions - more than I expect you to answer. But write whatever comes to mind. Hope this works!!
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