This is where I did my observation hours this quarter. Providence St. Mel is a private school located in Garfield Park. This documentary is coming out early next year and I thought it was pretty interesting.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
Thursday, November 19, 2009
I have become a huge fan of Google while taking this course. Google has so many wonderful features, that are easy to use. I really loved Google documents. Google documents is easy to use, it automatically saves all your work and you can share your information with everyone or just certain people. I am getting married in a little more then a week and I used it to organize all my wedding stuff. I save everything in Google documents and then share it with my fiance, my parents and my soon to be in laws. This way all of us can view it, make comments and add too it. It was very convenient and time effective. When i get my own classroom I plan on setting up a Google groups page for my class. This way I can view the work my students are working on before they and it in. If their is problem or if the student is taking the project in another direction then I would like I can address the problem before its too late.
I will never have to listen to a child's excuse to why their homework isn't done again. There work is all saved online and it cant be lost, destroyed or forgotten.
Another way to effectively use Google groups is through groups projects and collaboration. Members of the group do not need to physically ever be together to complete a project. Everything can be done online. I can assign a project on the parts and function of government and assessing everyone a different section. The students can post their work online and I can put everything together for the class to view and learn from. I can also have my students collaborate with students in different grade levels or even different countries.
I will never have to listen to a child's excuse to why their homework isn't done again. There work is all saved online and it cant be lost, destroyed or forgotten.
Another way to effectively use Google groups is through groups projects and collaboration. Members of the group do not need to physically ever be together to complete a project. Everything can be done online. I can assign a project on the parts and function of government and assessing everyone a different section. The students can post their work online and I can put everything together for the class to view and learn from. I can also have my students collaborate with students in different grade levels or even different countries.
Whats a teacher to do?
I had a very interesting situation occur today when I was observing and helping out for my practicum 1 hours. As I have mentioned in previous posts, my school environment is extremely structured and their is a rule for everything. The students are expected to use the bathroom before school, during lunch, after school and on their assigned bathroom brake with no exceptions(unless an emergency.) Each grade level does get a scheduled time each day to use the bathroom.
I was helping the third grade teacher with a math lesson and a child asked to go to the bathroom. My teacher is new and she used to let them go but things go out of hand because once one goes they all need to go. So now she follows the schools rule and just tells the students they have to wait. I told the child no but she kept asking so I sent her over to talk to the teacher, who also said it was almost lunchtime and to wait.
About twenty minutes later the child raised her hand and the teacher said just a few more minutes until lunch. The child responded back to the teacher that she has already went. Everyone was in shock as the embarrassed student rain to the bathroom as we rushed to find her a change of clothes and clean up any evidence. So was the teacher wrong, the school wrong? Now she lets everyone go when they ask and now the students ask nonstop and things are out of control. I am glad that I am not in her situation because I am not sure what I would do.
I was helping the third grade teacher with a math lesson and a child asked to go to the bathroom. My teacher is new and she used to let them go but things go out of hand because once one goes they all need to go. So now she follows the schools rule and just tells the students they have to wait. I told the child no but she kept asking so I sent her over to talk to the teacher, who also said it was almost lunchtime and to wait.
About twenty minutes later the child raised her hand and the teacher said just a few more minutes until lunch. The child responded back to the teacher that she has already went. Everyone was in shock as the embarrassed student rain to the bathroom as we rushed to find her a change of clothes and clean up any evidence. So was the teacher wrong, the school wrong? Now she lets everyone go when they ask and now the students ask nonstop and things are out of control. I am glad that I am not in her situation because I am not sure what I would do.
Not your typical school
I have never seen anything like the school I am observing in right now. You would never know that outside the classroom walls poverty and violence is everywhere. The school has students from pre-kindergarten to 12th grade. The school repeatedly sends all of its high school seniors off to college year and after year. Its not the most nurturing environment but they sure do produce results. Everyday at Providence St. Mel is careful planned by the administration and teachers. At 8a.m. every morning after the first bell rings all the third grade students are expected to be seated and ready to learn. Each day is started by a student reading a prayer over the loud speaker. Then the students stand up and all say the pledge of allegiance and the schools motto together. The school motto is rather lengthy but every student knows the words and says it with great pride.
Most of the third graders day is divided into 46 minute blocks of time, with 5 minute brakes in between, Every day of the week has a different set schedule. The daily agenda is on the board everyday. The third graders almost never change rooms so the five minutes is used as a bathroom brake but they normally skip the brake completely. They get 25 minutes for lunch and have no recess. Each day they have one subject that they get to leave the classroom for. The students have P.E,.(twice a week) art, music and have library resource time each week.
There is no talking allowed in the hallways as the students line up in their perfectly formed reassigned lines. They walk in silence with their arms behind their backs. For the first ten minutes of lunch there is also no talking and even their art projects are done in silence. The school is focused on structure and academics the entire day. If you brake a rule then you get a consequence, its that simple. The third graders have rubrics attached to their papers, receive letter grades and have final exams.
This is not the nurturing environment I am used to be but I admire what they are doing. This is the only structure many of these kids have. I am very impressed what they have done with the resources they have.
Most of the third graders day is divided into 46 minute blocks of time, with 5 minute brakes in between, Every day of the week has a different set schedule. The daily agenda is on the board everyday. The third graders almost never change rooms so the five minutes is used as a bathroom brake but they normally skip the brake completely. They get 25 minutes for lunch and have no recess. Each day they have one subject that they get to leave the classroom for. The students have P.E,.(twice a week) art, music and have library resource time each week.
There is no talking allowed in the hallways as the students line up in their perfectly formed reassigned lines. They walk in silence with their arms behind their backs. For the first ten minutes of lunch there is also no talking and even their art projects are done in silence. The school is focused on structure and academics the entire day. If you brake a rule then you get a consequence, its that simple. The third graders have rubrics attached to their papers, receive letter grades and have final exams.
This is not the nurturing environment I am used to be but I admire what they are doing. This is the only structure many of these kids have. I am very impressed what they have done with the resources they have.
Reflection on my first lesson taught
Last week I taught my first real lesson. All my other lessons I taught have been to a group of my peers. I used my prior observations and knowledge of my students helped me to develop my lesson plans. The third grade class I am observing is completing unpredictable. I have observed them comprehend an entire math lesson on Roman Numerals in half a class period and then the next day take almost three days to learn how to read a thermometer. I knew my lesson plans had to be flexible enough to accommodate either scenario. I prepared a couple pages of extra problems on overhead slides in case they needed additional help. I also went ahead and previewed the next section in their books so I would be prepared to introduce if I had extra time. Part of my preparations also included making sure I knew every child’s name. I had the teacher help me make a seating chart and after two days I had them all memorized. The children thought it was really cool that I took the time to do this. This definitely helped establish my credibility with the students at the opening of my lesson when I called on them all by name. The students were very excited when I announced I was going to be teaching them today.
The students at Providence St. Mel are taught in an extremely structured and strict environment. Sometimes towards the end of the day I have observed that their attention spans and behavior become less then exemplary. Since I am teaching a math lesson towards the end of the day, I decided that I would need to try and engage the students as much as possible to keep their attention. I was constantly moving throughout the classroom. I used the overhead in the front for part of the lesson and then used the side board for another part of the lesson. I was always asking them to raise their hands to answer questions or come up to the board and show the class their work. I asked some open ended questions to the student’s about they arrived at their answers. I didn’t expect for them to have so many different answers. More then half the hands in the class went up. I didn’t know how to stop calling on students and move on. I wanted them all to have a chance to share but to a point. They were so busy thinking of what they were going to say they weren’t listening to those talking. I talked to the teacher about this and she told me about, one, two, three, back to me. She picks the three children that she is going to call on, so the rest can put their hands down and pay attention. I thought this was a great idea.
I made sure never to lecture for long without student interaction. I didn’t want to risk losing the students attention. I called on volunteers to come up to the front of class and hold up objects as examples. This worked very well because all the children wanted to volunteer and you couldn’t get picked it you weren’t on task. Everything ran exactly as I had planned until we started working in groups.
I differentiated the lesson by having the students work in their math groups. The groups are based on ability. All the groups were given a similar worksheet but the numbers and working were modified slightly. Some were slightly harder and some were a bit simpler. Since there are no programs for children with special needs at the school the teachers have to find a way to accommodate everyone’s learning styles and ability. This allowed me more time to work with the lower ability children, while the higher ability children were kept busy longer with more challenging work. My cooperating teacher had my gear my problems and worksheets to the average student (majority of the class) and then helped me to accommodate the higher and lower ability groups. This was a successful and unsuccessful at the same time. The work I gave the groups was successful but I had d hard time keeping them on task. I was a new teacher and they were seeing what my boundaries were and what they could get away with. They viewed me as the nice lady that would come into their classrooms and help them and who never yelled at them, like their teachers did. They thought they could take advantage of me. They kept breaking their pencils on purpose so they couldn’t do their work and they wouldn’t get to get up and sharpen them. It was very clear that this was on purpose. So I gave them a warning that no else could get up to sharpen their pencils and if a student’s pencil broke then they would have to hand in their work as in and incomplete. They realized I was serious and stopped. I quickly understood why the teachers are so tough on these kids. I am in a rough area in the city and if you give these kids an inch they take a mile. Next time I am placed in the classroom I need to make sure the students see more as the authority figure.
My closing did not go as planned either. I was running short on time, so I let the children know they had five minutes left to finish up their group work. I had each group come up at the same time instead of individually to put their problem on the board. It wasn’t too big of a deal but I didn’t feel more rushed then I would like too. I quickly previewed tomorrow’s lesson and collected their work. Next time I will try and use better time management skills during the lesson.
After the lesson I took the rubric and the class list and started accessing how the students performed and recorded points in the teacher’s grade book. Several of the children were not on task during the group activates and lost points on that section of the rubric. A few of the students of work was barely legible but for the most part I was very impressed with the work they turned in. They really seemed to grasp the material better than I expected. All the students grasped the main objectives of today’s lessons. I just need to address behavioral and organizational (neatness issues) I realized from observing them today that will have no problem with the next lesson, skip counting. Most of them were skip counting in today’s lesson, without realizing it. I would set my goals high for next class period and plan on covering 4.2 and I would prepare to start teaching 4.3 as well.
Overall, I think the lesson went pretty well and was definitely a learning experience. This was the first lesson I ever taught in a real classroom. All my other lessons that I have taught have been to a classroom of my peers. It was great to be able to teach to a real audience and get my cooperating teachers feedback. I will definitely remember this experience and build on it
The students at Providence St. Mel are taught in an extremely structured and strict environment. Sometimes towards the end of the day I have observed that their attention spans and behavior become less then exemplary. Since I am teaching a math lesson towards the end of the day, I decided that I would need to try and engage the students as much as possible to keep their attention. I was constantly moving throughout the classroom. I used the overhead in the front for part of the lesson and then used the side board for another part of the lesson. I was always asking them to raise their hands to answer questions or come up to the board and show the class their work. I asked some open ended questions to the student’s about they arrived at their answers. I didn’t expect for them to have so many different answers. More then half the hands in the class went up. I didn’t know how to stop calling on students and move on. I wanted them all to have a chance to share but to a point. They were so busy thinking of what they were going to say they weren’t listening to those talking. I talked to the teacher about this and she told me about, one, two, three, back to me. She picks the three children that she is going to call on, so the rest can put their hands down and pay attention. I thought this was a great idea.
I made sure never to lecture for long without student interaction. I didn’t want to risk losing the students attention. I called on volunteers to come up to the front of class and hold up objects as examples. This worked very well because all the children wanted to volunteer and you couldn’t get picked it you weren’t on task. Everything ran exactly as I had planned until we started working in groups.
I differentiated the lesson by having the students work in their math groups. The groups are based on ability. All the groups were given a similar worksheet but the numbers and working were modified slightly. Some were slightly harder and some were a bit simpler. Since there are no programs for children with special needs at the school the teachers have to find a way to accommodate everyone’s learning styles and ability. This allowed me more time to work with the lower ability children, while the higher ability children were kept busy longer with more challenging work. My cooperating teacher had my gear my problems and worksheets to the average student (majority of the class) and then helped me to accommodate the higher and lower ability groups. This was a successful and unsuccessful at the same time. The work I gave the groups was successful but I had d hard time keeping them on task. I was a new teacher and they were seeing what my boundaries were and what they could get away with. They viewed me as the nice lady that would come into their classrooms and help them and who never yelled at them, like their teachers did. They thought they could take advantage of me. They kept breaking their pencils on purpose so they couldn’t do their work and they wouldn’t get to get up and sharpen them. It was very clear that this was on purpose. So I gave them a warning that no else could get up to sharpen their pencils and if a student’s pencil broke then they would have to hand in their work as in and incomplete. They realized I was serious and stopped. I quickly understood why the teachers are so tough on these kids. I am in a rough area in the city and if you give these kids an inch they take a mile. Next time I am placed in the classroom I need to make sure the students see more as the authority figure.
My closing did not go as planned either. I was running short on time, so I let the children know they had five minutes left to finish up their group work. I had each group come up at the same time instead of individually to put their problem on the board. It wasn’t too big of a deal but I didn’t feel more rushed then I would like too. I quickly previewed tomorrow’s lesson and collected their work. Next time I will try and use better time management skills during the lesson.
After the lesson I took the rubric and the class list and started accessing how the students performed and recorded points in the teacher’s grade book. Several of the children were not on task during the group activates and lost points on that section of the rubric. A few of the students of work was barely legible but for the most part I was very impressed with the work they turned in. They really seemed to grasp the material better than I expected. All the students grasped the main objectives of today’s lessons. I just need to address behavioral and organizational (neatness issues) I realized from observing them today that will have no problem with the next lesson, skip counting. Most of them were skip counting in today’s lesson, without realizing it. I would set my goals high for next class period and plan on covering 4.2 and I would prepare to start teaching 4.3 as well.
Overall, I think the lesson went pretty well and was definitely a learning experience. This was the first lesson I ever taught in a real classroom. All my other lessons that I have taught have been to a classroom of my peers. It was great to be able to teach to a real audience and get my cooperating teachers feedback. I will definitely remember this experience and build on it
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