Blog Wordle

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CRCT CRUNCH TIME

Yes, this week starts the dreaded the CRCT. The two weeks that every elementary student fears from day 1. They knew it was coming, they knew sooner or later it would get here, but the real question is...are they ready? Not only do we as teacher's ask ourselves this questions but over the past few weeks I have overheard students talking with one another questioning their own knowledge, and if it would be good enough. If the actual test weren't stressful enough for them, we have successful managed to completely psych our students out with "cramming." Cramming for math, cramming for reading, cramming every subject and topic that might have the slightest chance of showing up on the test. So just in case our students didn't feel prepared, we have thrown them a years worth of schoolwork at them and probably have done more damage than good. I feel like the kids are already dreading taking the test so why do we feel like we need to bombard them with practice tests? I've seen my students fill out standardized tests before and they do a brilliant job of bubbling the "best" answer. Lets try to tame this stress that our students are facing right now. It is still possible for them to learn but lets try taking their minds and ours off of this test.

School on Lockdown

     We are told to expect the unexpected when it comes to teaching, well I don't think anyone could have expected this past week's events. Last Wednesday there was a shooting that resulted in the death of an Athens police officer. Needless to say Athens was in a state of shock and panic. Schools went on lockdown immediately which only intensified the fear in others. This was a new experience for me, I had no idea what to or how to go about daily school life. School went on as normal for the most part on Thursday. There was no recess or outside activities which was to be expected. Friday on the other hand was a completely different story. I quickly learned that "Soft Lockdown" can mean many different things. We were technically on soft lockdown the day before but for the most part school life went on as normal, whereas Friday students were not allowed to leave the classroom. Lights were turned off, movement was minimal and announcements were made every 15 minutes. If there is one thing that I can take away from this situation it is that we as teachers and adults can foster fear or handle the situation in a way that comforts students. With every announcement I could see that panic in my students. I understand that in a situation like this it is so important to make sure that teachers and students are aware of what they should be doing, but coming over the loud speaker to tell teachers how important it is that students do not go anywhere by themselves only made students question the situation more. I think that the situation could have been handled in a much better way. I think that the teachers should have held a morning meeting to discuss what was going on and answer any questions that the students had and that announcements to the teachers should have been done in private through emails. 

     This situation taught me a lot about myself as well as how to handle tough situations. I hope that I never have to face another situation like this but if I do I will be so much better prepared. 

Closer to Feeling Like a Real Teacher

      This past week was the first time in my college career that I was in an elementary classroom for an entire week. I will admit I was a little apprehensive and somewhat terrified to teach my lessons. Monday morning came quicker than expected but was gone before I even had time to realize what had happened. I was so relieved to find that my lesson plan went off without a hitch and even more thrilled that my third graders actually liked my lesson. For this week I taught a lesson the integrated Social Studies and Writing. My mentor teacher gave me the daunting task to teach MAJOR historical figures in just 5 days. This in itself was a task but I jumped right in, head first, trying to figure out fun and exciting ways to teach these figures.
     The first day I taught about Susan B. Anthony and we created a KWL chart to start the lesson off. I was afraid the kids wouldn't like this but I was surprised to see that the students were really in to it. What I thought would be a short list for each column turned into an extensive list with all kinds of questions. There was a short lesson to help answer these questions and then I had the students complete a worksheet that had Susan B. Anthony's picture on it. One of the question said this: "Draw a speech bubble or thought bubble as to what you think she would say or is thinking." I really didn't read into this question too much but I was pleasantly surprised to read some of their responses. My favorite though was quite funny, it read, "I may not be alive for much longer." Indeed she was old in this picture and did look a little scary so I had to agree with this student and laughed over his response. These types of instances occurred all week long and I found my fear of teaching slowly disappearing. I found that as long as you present students with interesting subjects and assignments they will go above and beyond with what you expected of them. The main thing that I can tie back into the article as well is that giving students the freedom to choose something that interests them is key to creating successful projects and assignments. The last day of my teaching I allowed each of the students to pick their favorite figure, the key to this though was that the students were not limited to just the people I had talked about. I told them that there were many people and are many people that have done great things for us. The main thing I wanted my students to take away from my lesson are the characteristics of these people and sure enough they did. I really enjoyed reviewing their work and seeing how they had been able to relate to these people and create connections to their lives.

Recipe for Culinary Conferencing

Cook time:  2-7 minutes

Temperature: Cool and comfortable classroom

Serves: Approximately 22 hungry minds

Ingredients:

1 Teacher

1 Student

1 Piece of Writing

2 Somewhere’s to Sit

A fistful of knowledge (pg 164)

Record Keeping Materials

Directions:

Preparation time: At least one class period for writing for child. Teacher should sift one fistful of knowledge down to deliberate teaching idea, use only freshest ingredients

Combine teacher and student with one piece of writing at 2 somewhere’s to sit. Allow to simmer to low boil (ideas).

Increase heat to direct instruction mode, stir occasionally with open ended questions for student.

Occasionally monitor reason for teaching objective.

Serve hot to friends and family, no holding back!!!

"I don't want my body to be a distraction from my talent or my brain." ~Shania Twain

  


      Distractions, we know as teachers that our students will face so many distractions during a school day, because lets face it, so will we. The way we handle these distractions is what makes us or breaks us. Ray does a great job of reassuring me with ways to handle distractions during Writing Workshop. One thing Ray said that really struck me is that we need to have faith in our students to stay engaged while working for longer periods of time. She brings up the fact that when students are all working on a uniformed task like a worksheet, we never second guess if they are staying on task but we do when we allow them to have the freedom to choose what interests them. Why is this? Shouldn't the opposite be true? Again, I think it goes back to having faith that our students want to learn and that they are interested in things and are willing to explore and put in the time.
     One key ingredient to having a successful Writing Workshop is the space that you allow your students to use. I can remember back when I was in elementary school I can remember teachers having lofts in their classrooms and how exciting it was to get to use them to do your work. So having these experiences makes me appreciate the use of different classroom spaces. At the same time I am nervous about using couches or bean bags in my classroom because how can we fairly determine when and what students get to use them? Ray brings up a great point by saying that you could let the students themselves set up some sort of system to determine who works best in what spots and what type of rotation schedule will be used.
     Chapter 8 scared me a little. Writing Workshops will indeed be hectic and challenging. The key is to have them planned out enough to understand how to deal with them when they veer in a different direction then what was originally planned. I love how Ray talks about how terrible Writing Workshop "kits" are. Isn't the great thing about Writing Workshops the freedom to choose what you want to write about, so by using kits we are secretly limiting our students to what WE want them to write about. Again, bringing this time meant for them back to meet Our standards as well as the schools. There are ways to have students follow what you would like them to do, but simply letting students pick from a few topics is not the way. "Kits" are an easy way out and as teachers it's not our job to short our students just because it takes less effort on our part.

Conferencing

     The dreaded student teacher interaction. When I think back to my experiences with conferencing, I remember my teachers telling me what I needed to work on, making me feel inadequate. This is not the type of conferencing that Ray discusses. This should be a productive and useful tool for both teacher and student. Its an open ended conversation for the teacher to find out where students strengths are and what needs work, not simply by telling students what they are doing wrong but by prompting questions so that students can evaluate their own work. I think that this is the key to holding a successful conference. Also, Ray puts such an importance upon conferencing that the students really respect it. Ray mentions how important the way we ask questions can be. Even a small change of a sentence can change a one worded answer into an explanation. Going even further in depth, Ray attempts to help teach us, wanna be teachers, how to and how important the right question is. I feel as if I have never had an issue with posing meaningful questions that expect insightful comments but it is nice to have a few guide lines to fall back on.