Final Reflection June 10, 2010

I am just completing my last few weeks here at Eckstein Middle School.  I believe the fact that the internship was a full year was a great asset to my development as a teacher.  Ms. Anex moved rooms before the year started so I got to help with that and do a lot of the set up and decoration of the room.  I got to greet the parents on parent night before school started, and I got to greet the students on the first day of school.  I feel this helped me establish some credibility with the students, as opposed to other programs where student teachers just show up as a new face later in the year and are expected to take over a new group of students.  I was able to ease into the role of teacher through a smooth transition.  The yearlong internship also allowed me to see the students develop over the course of the year.  Middle school is a time of big changes for many students. For many students there has been a visible difference in growth.  More importantly are the changes in personality over the course of the year.  It has been great to see students who started the year a little unruly mature and settle down a bit.  On the flip side there have been students who have developed the “I’m an adult and I know what is best” attitude; or those who have fallen into the wrong crowds and have tuned out.  I worry for these students and hope they can see their way back on track come high school.  I had only ever worked with children as a ski instructor so I was nervous to see the students and to work with them.  I think like most student teachers, my biggest concern in the beginning was classroom management and dealing with problem students.  When teaching ski lessons if a student didn’t want to do something or was having trouble concentrating, then they didn’t have to participate and the only loss was their parent’s money.  In the school setting, we are responsible for each student’s learning and we see them day after day.

I myself have had ups and downs through the internship.  I have gotten to experience what it feels like to give a lesson that just clicks and many of the students get it.  When exploring the interior of the Earth, the lesson involved the use of online simulations for students to see and think about followed by students acting out the properties of earthquake waves.  The students then were able to connect what they saw in their modeling to what they saw on the simulation video.  That lesson in particular is one that I recall hearing quite a few “oh’s” as what they saw clicked.  On the flip side there were times that my lessons just didn’t have the punch I would like.  I realize that 1^st year teachers don’t come in with a whole years worth of amazing lessons.  It takes years of trial and error to start to build your arsenal.  I still felt bad on the day where the main focus was a lecture/power point presentation with notes.  I tried to make them as entertaining as possible, and some students enjoy those lessons, but they tend to invite restlessness and loss of attention as the lesson goes on.  There were a couple of lessons that I just didn’t prepare enough for.  Timing and pacing are two skills that I need practice with.  There have been lessons I thought would only last 20 minutes that have taken whole periods, and there have been lessons that I thought would take the entire period that were over in half the time, leaving me scrambling for things to do.  I know I need to work on my planning.  It is always good to have too much planned and not get to it rather than too little planned and be left twiddling your thumbs for the last 15 minutes of class (not that the students mind).

In addition to my time in the classroom with the students I participated in professional development activities with the science department.  I collaborated with the other 8^th grade science teachers to come up with some common formative assessments for various units.  These meetings were good in that they were a chance for me to get to see how the other teachers taught some of the lessons.  If the students of one of the other teachers did well on the common assessment while mine struggled a little, it was to my benefit to see how that teacher conducted the lessons and how I can change mine to better help the students.

The SPU portion of the internship was a challenging one for me.  I had been out of school for 12 years before going back.  Needless to say my study habits were nonexistent.  Some of the classes were beneficial.  I feel like the classroom management class was helpful in that he gave us actual classroom examples and his take on those situations.   The teaching methods classes were OK.  We did some lesson planning and also a mini lesson.  I think it would have been more beneficial to have had more practice planning and teaching of mini lessons followed by critiques and ideas from the class.  I thought the feedback I got from the one mini lesson was helpful, but I didn’t get to turn around and try to apply it to another lesson.  The technology class was a broad overview of some of the technologies available free online.  The big project was to create a blog about one or more of the technologies for other teachers.  I feel like we would have been better served practicing creating a site for students to be used in a classroom.  I could see how some of the applications could be used in the classroom.  One tool called “etherpad” seemed like it had lots of potential for use in group projects in the classroom.

In the end the internship has been an interesting and fun experience.  Lots of people say that you are born to teach and you hear the calling to teach.  I was convinced by my girlfriend to give it a try.  Without that I doubt I would ever have thought about teaching.  I am glad I did decide to give it a try.  Will I be a good teacher? We’ll see.  I can see the potential in myself.  If I can keep my motivation up during the hard times I think I will be able to do it.  I am still nervous about the prospect of having my own classroom and being completely responsible for my students.  I think the year long internship will help me in my first year teaching.  Many new teachers have only had 2 or 3 months in the classroom.  Everyone says the first year is the hardest and if I can make it through it only gets better with time.  I have some time this summer to find a job and prepare myself to set out on my own.

First Period Can Be Tough April 26, 2010

I am sure everyone has experienced it throughout the year.  You decide how much of the text you might want to use, you try to add some more interesting content, and you plan your lesson.  At some point or points in during first period you notice something that didn’t work quite like you thought it would.  The questions you ask get only blank faces, or confused looks;  the activity you planned is hard to follow, or you don’t quite reach the objective of the lesson.  You make some adjustments for the next period and try them out.  By sixth period you’ve ironed out most of the kinks and the lesson goes mostly the way you want.  I can’t help but feel that first period gets a little short changed over the course of a year.  For a first year teacher, first period get to see every lesson the first time you teach it.

Having 4 periods of science allows me to see the effects of my lessons and to make adjustments.  If I had my own classroom the final lesson of the day would be one to take note of and think about how to improve  for the next year.  My one period of math is a little tougher.  I have to reflect on that lesson and make note of any changes I would want to make for other similar lessons for the current year or for next year.  I imagine this might keep some first year teachers from making big changes or trying new things with a new curriculum.  A lesson that flops can take up time and set you back in your schedule.

Dr. Wong video reflection August 12, 2009

In our classroom management class we watched a video by Dr. Wong dealing with various strategies pertaining to classroom management.  The following is a relfection done by me.

 

Erik Sanders

EDU 6130: Classroom Management

Cohort 8a

July 31, 2009

 Wong video reflection

 Dr Wong’s discussion about procedures was helpful.  The various ways to quiet a classroom were intriguing.  I was giving a little presentation to a friend’s second grade class a few years ago and she used the clap method to get her students attention.  I was both surprised and amazed at how well it worked.  You (Daniel Lee) seconding a voiceless attention getting technique makes it all the more worth while to look into.  A little effort at the beginning of the year in terms of procedures will payoff later in the year.  This makes sense in many areas besides classrooms.  Learning the rules of a game beforehand is more efficient than learning them as you play.  The more aspects of a job you know before you start the quicker you will be productive.  Having kids learn and rehearse procedures at the beginning of the year not only reinforces them but saves you form having to interrupt class time to make up and explain new procedures during the year.  His anecdote about the boy having to be reminded everyday about a particular procedure was good to hear.  At the end of the year that student leaves and you should hold your head high and not let that one student bother you.  I understand I have to try my best and I will not be successful all the time.  I can’t let an occasional failure trouble me. 

 As a new teacher I am somewhat of a blank slate.  I, as well as many others in the program, am hanging on every word you, Dr. Wong and anyone else who will give us management advise will give.  I just want to come out of this program with an arsenal of options that I can try.  I just hope I can find at least some that work for me. 

 I don’t know that I have any questions or disagreements.  Of course videos such as Wong’s and our texts are trying to tell us that these methods work.  The examples and stories they give are almost always positive.  We have to take them with a grain of salt, however, and assume that there are stories out there of these methods failing.  These failures may be due to the teacher or perhaps a particularly bad student or class.  I don’t have and allusions that all of Wong’s methods or all of the texts methods are going to work all the time.  That’s why I hope to have as many management options as possible when I take control of my classroom this coming school year.