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?)
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