The Ones Who Got Away

This week was pretty normal. It was my first full week back in the classroom since before spring break (I was absent for Education Interview Day and Honors Day last week), so I definitely was exhausted by the time Friday was over.

For some reason, I have gotten out of the habit of holding my students accountable for their behaviors. That, combined with some of their natural adolescent sassiness and our trip to the book fair, caused me to lose control of them on Thursday. Friday, I tried to make some adjustments and introduced their new set of lit centers. We established their volume level for lit centers, discussed expectations, and I gave them the option of doing exercises out of their grammar book if they could not follow instructions.

However, I did not have alternative activities prepared for students, so that became an empty threat. I ended up assigning six or seven different students silent lunch, but some of the kids were acting so defiant that silent lunch alone seems to no longer be doing the trick.

When discussing this with my placement teacher, she suggested that I investigate some of Harry Wong’s techniques he teaches in The First Days of School and begin practicing these techniques in class. Wong, long considered to be one of the foremost authorities on classroom management, says that establishing procedures is vital for a well-managed classroom.

As I was speaking to Mrs. Ramsay, she suggested that I need to change the way I get students’ attention. I have been using “Look at me if you hear my voice,” but students are now continuing to talk over me when I do that. From now on, I plan to use Wong’s “Give Me Five” approach. Whenever I say “Give me five,” my students are supposed to count to five out loud with me. This is a way of taking their talking and redirecting it. Each number in “Give Me Five” represents a direction: eyes on the speaker, be quiet, be still, hands free, and listen.

I forgot to ask Mrs. Ramsay if the students in the period are already familiar with “Give Me Five”. Many of those students tend to forget what they are told, so I will introduce “Give Me Five” including the five directions when we go over the behavior contract on Monday.

Also, because they are no longer responding to silent lunch as a consequence, I am planning on assigning work during their silent lunch if they earned it. If it continues past that, they will have to create a written response addressing their behaviors in class in addition to the silent lunch assignment.

Although I put one person in charge of getting supplies at each table, there were a few (who I purposefully did not allow to be that person in charge) who were out of their seats for no reason. I think what I will do starting Monday is return to direct instruction. When I have my own classroom from day one, I will hopefully be able to train them to work efficiently. However, since I only have two weeks left in this classroom, I will not be there long enough to truly train them for that level of independence. 

Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven...

I've been meaning to write this post for a while, but it's easy to get caught up in all that is going on as my final semester of college winds down. However, I believe that this post is important because it is a reflection on my ten consecutive days of teaching for the entire day.

For the past couple of years that I have been in the College of Education, I have been saying that I believe project-based grading is the best way to assess the knowledge of students. Countless units that feature projects as a summative assessment were created by yours truly, but until this semester, I had not gotten a chance to try my plans out on a set of "guinea pigs".

My professors have done a great job of introducing me to differing pedagogies while drilling concepts such as backwards mapping and the Madeline Hunter model of instruction into my head. While the Madeline Hunter model was originally intended to be used for direct instruction, as a constructivist, I am able to take the components of her planning and incorporate them into student-directed instructional environment (also known as the lit centers we use in our classroom).

The summative assessment for my unit was a project we worked on in class. Although the prompt was the same, I had to differentiate the requirements of the assessment based on the skill level and time constraints of each class. For my general ELA/Reading, students were required to write a two-paragraph description, create a technical drawing, and write a ballad or ode about their inventions. For my honors ELA/Reading class, students were required to do the same things, but instead of two paragraphs, they were required to write a five-paragraph essay. My honors reading class was required to write three paragraphs about their invention (why they invented it, what the invention is, and how they plan to sell it) and present the invention.
On the due date for the summative assessment, students presented their projects to each other, and those learning about the projects practiced reading skills such as determining author's purpose and making generalizations/predictions about each invention.

The entire first week of my ten consecutive days was spent assessing students' writing and editing abilities. Additionally, they explored the steps of the patenting process, learned about inventions that were created by accident, investigated the Nikola Tesla vs. Thomas Edison debate, and wrote their invention proposals. During all of this, students were also preparing to take their nine week's exam, so I was also conducting small group instruction to address those needs.

The second week was completely dedicated to the pre-writing and editing processes of the various components of the projects. While it might seem like the students could have completed these components in a day, I had them pre-write, write, and rewrite about these inventions until they could have told me about the inventions in their sleep.

As I expected, I did not have much push back from my honors ELA/Reading class, but I definitely did from the other two.

If you've read my other posts, you know that my general class has been a challenge all semester when it comes to classroom management. What I have talked about a little less is that they are also a challenge when it comes to getting them to do...well, anything. I started them off in lit centers, but after demonstrating that they could not handle that independence, I had to take lit centers away and go back to a more direct instructional style. While I don't normally like to do this, I felt that it was necessary in order for students to be prepared for the summative assessment. Ultimately, I believe that this was a good decision because it resulted in a more engaged classroom.

During the planning of my ten days, I was not sure exactly how to approach this project with my honors reading class. As opposed to the two hours of class I have to teach the others, I only have fifty minutes with them. Instead of stressing myself out by trying to think of a solution alone, I took a cue from my placement teacher and asked the students for their input as to how I should conduct their assessments. With a few reservations, the class decided that they would prefer to do the project as a group, and they would like to present in front of the whole class (the other two classes were doing a version of a gallery walk). After further discussion, we decided that students would choose their own groups, there should be no more than four to a group, and they were allowed to work individually if desired. I informed the one student who wanted to work individually that he would have to complete all of the components of the project, and he agreed that he would do it. Because I only have the students for reading, I could only assess them on their reading skills. What this means is that I was evaluating students' abilities to sequence, generalize, and determine author's purpose.

As for my honors ELA/reading class, it pretty much went exactly as I had planned with the exception of writing the five paragraph essay. I reserved the laptop cart for one class period on our final drafting day (the day before the project was due). However, what everyone involved in the reservation process failed to realize was that the cart was being used for intervention at the same time. Fortunately, our librarian at this school is amazing and worked it out for me to bring the students to use the computers in the library for the second half of our class time. This ended up not being enough time for the students to complete their essays. It took some finagling, but I worked things out where this class could present their inventions during the first half and finish their papers during the second half of class the next day (the paper was not a required component of the presentation).

In retrospect, I would make some small adjustments to my unit. If I was in my own classroom, I would've extended this project to last over three weeks minimum. Although I have every confidence that my placement teacher has taught the students specific skills and techniques to use when writing, because I have not been with these students since the beginning of the year, it was pretty hard to jump in during the middle of the second semester and plan a writing-based assessment for them. With the additional time I would include in my unit plan, I would incorporate more writing practice.

In addition to the extra writing practice, I would allow students to utilize this extra time to post their entire project on Tackk or Blendspace. This would cut down on the amount of papers I have to keep up with, and it's a good way for the students to have access to each others' entire projects for evaluative purposes. Ideally, I would like to still have a more tactile presentation component, but instead of the poem and sketches, I would perhaps have students present their sketches from rough draft to final draft with the added component of a scaled model.

In my opinion, this unit would function well as a nine weeks assessment. This type of in-depth researching, writing, and creation has the potential to encompass multitudes of ELA standards. Based on the way many of the students appreciated the freedom of exploration that came with Innovation Day, I think that this would be a great way to adapt it to an ELA setting.

How I Learned to Love the Interview

By nature, I'm an introvert. When I was very young, I refused to speak to most strangers (unlike my little sister who has never met a stranger). Even as a young adult, I still struggle with the more social side of things like networking and interviewing.

As of about five years ago, my interviewing skills were horrible. I didn't know what professional dress was, nor was I particularly good at expressing myself verbally. After all, at heart I am a reader and writer. 

As part of the application process for RA's, we are required to re-interview for our jobs every year. For me,  this has always been a torturous process. I frequently felt as if I was a fraud during my interviews, and my interviewers were just trying to prove that I was. 

For the record, I was an amazing RA. I'm not trying to boast; I've had every supervisor tell me that for the four years I served as one. However, I lacked the confidence to act like I was great in my interviews, and it negatively impacted other people's impressions of me. 

Based on my previous experiences with interviews, who could really blame me for being terrified of Education Interview Day? I thought for sure that nobody would want me. 

As I was expressing concern for my performance during interviews, my placement teacher asked me why I was so worried about interviewing. When I explained my checkered interview history, she told me that I have shown tremendous growth in my confidence over the past semester, and I should not be so concerned. 

What she said to me next is what gave me the confidence to walk in the door to the recruitment room the next day. My teacher told me that regarding content and pedagogical knowledge, I was advanced beyond most interns that she had ever met.

While this statement did not make me become an extrovert or overly-confident overnight, I was able to walk around the room with my head held high, sign up for interviews, and meet with each of the schools I wanted. I even got a second interview with one of the school systems!

Education Interview Day

Exactly a week ago, I sat in a room where  a very nice and professional woman told me how I should present myself in an interview.

"Unfortunately, something like 80% of someone's impression of you is based on appearance."

That means I'm already at a disadvantage. You see, as much as we preach the acceptance of everyone in the classroom, I'm not afforded the same acceptance in interviews. If you don't know me, I'll explain what this means: I'm morbidly obese, and many people tend to make a set of assumptions about me because of this. 

Just because I'm obese does not mean that I'm sloppy or lazy or unintelligent. I'm about as opposite from those three items as a person can get. If you don't believe me, ask every boss I've ever had. I work my booty off (obviously not literally or I wouldn't be writing this post). I go above and beyond what is asked of me because I want to show mastery instead of simple proficiency. 

The reason why I'm writing this post all of the sudden is because of something that happened today. Since last week, I've desperately tried to find a suit to wear to Education Interview Day. After looking for several days, I found it online. It was glorious. I researched the type of suit jacket that is recommended for "full figured" women, and I ordered it...with matching slacks!

However, as I was tracking my package that was supposed to arrive today, I suddenly got a notification that said it had been delivered at three.

Nobody at my house had seen it. 

I panicked for a good five minutes as I was researching my next course of action. Then, while talking to my mom about the issue, I came to this conclusion: it's not the end of the world. 

If I have to, I will show up to Education Interview Day in some nice slacks and a nice top. No, it won't be the formal business suit that was requested of me, but that will do in a pinch.

I am in NO WAY saying that acting or looking unprofessional is appropriate at any point, but as my internship principal likes to say, "We're not into dog and pony shows here." 

Neither am I. 

UPDATE: I have located my missing suit, and it is now in my possession.

However, my point still stands, and it is something to consider. There are many in my profession who, in my opinion, who should dress and act more professionally. I know that my mother has personally had to deal with an intern who was inappropriately dressed the first time she met her. Was she wearing what I proposed (slacks and a nice top)? No. She was in cut-off shorts, a spaghetti strap tank top, and flip flops. This is an outfit I would not wear to the grocery store, much less to the first meeting with my placement teacher.

Despite this, I think that dress should be something that is less standardized in the interviewing process. As a teacher, and really as an adult, you know exactly what is and what is not considered appropriate. There is a dress code. The administrators should address these issues once the teacher is actually working for them.

Again, I am not saying that I feel I should be able to wear sweatpants and giant t-shirts to school/interviews. I'm simply saying that if a person does not have enough common sense to avoid wearing these items in the classroom, wearing a suit to the interview is only going to mask the problem.

The Dreaded Ten Days

Since my penultimate year of college, I've heard about the "dreaded" ten consecutive days of teaching. The people going through internship whined about them constantly. "You'll never be so tired or emotional," they've said. Frankly speaking, I never got what they were complaining about, especially since this is the first real taste of what it is like to get to be a teacher.

I've been nothing but excited to teach all day for ten days.

Now that I'm halfway through it, I understand the stress a little bit better. I have been tired, but I also think that is from fighting off the spring pollen floating around here. I am still able to wake up early and go to school, and I am still able to go to work every night from 5-10PM, Monday through Thursday.

I think that part of the reason why I am surviving is because my placement teacher and the other teachers at my school are so willing to help me and give me advice. After school on Friday, while I was getting all of the 9 weeks grades submitted, one of the other teachers walked in. She shares an adjoining door with our classroom and is also my placement teacher's mentor.

She asked me how everything was going with my ten days, and I expressed the fact that I was working on rubrics for the students' final products for Thursday. As soon as she heard that, she had me come into her classroom and showed me this grading system she'd come up with (it's like the GPA scale and honestly, I don't know why we haven't done it all along). She also shared some of her rubrics and told me how she approached creating them (hint: it involves not "reinventing the wheel").

Sitting at my computer and finalizing the details for what I expect the products to look like, I can't help but be overwhelmed not by stress, but instead gratitude. I'm so grateful that I have a placement teacher who is so open to collaboration and trying new things in the classroom. I'm grateful that the other sixth grade teachers are so willing to share their knowledge and experiences with me, so I can learn from them.

As I realize I only have about a month left in my internship, I am saddened to realize that I will be leaving all of these wonderful people far sooner than I would've liked. But that's a post for another day...

“Ms. Hudson, Why Are You Sweating So Much?”

This is a post that I began writing almost a month ago, but I forgot about my blog for a little bit. However, I want to talk about this approach I took in my instruction because it was one of my first real successes in the classroom. Ever since I introduced this less-traditional method of instruction, my kids keep asking me when I am going to teach them a new song.
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Thus far, I am loving the sixth grade. The teachers and other staff members are supportive, and my cooperating teacher encourages me to experiment with the activities I have my students do in class.

When my cooperating teacher told me a couple of weeks ago that I would be teaching the students about prepositions this week, I panicked for a minute. How was I possibly going to get eleven- and twelve-year-olds to memorize this massive list of prepositions when my eighth graders last semester kept confusing them for verbs?

Then I thought back to something my mother and cooperating teacher and numerous other professionals have told me frequently:

“Don’t try to reinvent the wheel.”

So I didn’t.

I “borrowed” part of what my cooperating teacher did for her eighth graders last semester. Through guided instruction, she taught her students to sing the list of prepositions to the tune of “Yankee Doodle” while performing choreographed movements that relate to the prepositions.

One on hand, she did fail to teach the students how to tell the difference between prepositions and verbs—believe me, the kids mixed this up a lot. However, almost every child remembered the whole list of prepositions BECAUSE they were involved in an activity that was repetitive and engaged multiple styles of learning/intelligence.

This brings me to my grammar instruction for my second period class this week. These kids are not in an honors program, and they have major issues with focusing on and completing traditional classroom activities. Although it was a struggle to get them to maintain appropriate behaviors on the first day of learning the song, once that was under control, they were able to learn the entire song/list of prepositions!

This song, coupled with small group instruction, led to an abnormally-high rate of success among even those students who do not study.  

One of the most helpful and insightful pieces of advice Mrs. Ramsay has given me is "Know your students." Already having seen this activity practiced in the classroom, I was very fortunate to have it "in my back pocket". However, if I thought for a moment that my students would not appreciate music and movement, I would never have planned this for them.

That being said, nearly all of my students in my honors classes perform some kind of instrument. Even in my general classes, the vast majority of students appear to have a visceral connection to music. These kids make music with everything they do, from tapping a pencil or foot to singing/humming/whistling in class.

I just gave them an outlet, and that outlet became a learning tool.

If you're interested in watching the Instagram videos of one of my classes performing the preposition song, you can click on the links below!
Preposition Song, Pt. 1
Preposition Song, Pt. 2
Preposition Song, Pt. 3

Tabula Rasa

This past Thursday and Friday were rough.

So rough that at the end of the day, long after most of the other teachers had gone home, I had a bit of a breakdown. I always thought that the interns who told me that they went home and cried every night were being hyperbolic. Not that I do that now by any means, but I can completely understand why they would feel the need to cry so much. 

I also now understand why they tell us that we should try to avoid having a job during the internship. It's hard. 

Working until ten every night and getting up between 4 and 6, depending on the day has left me extremely sleep-deprived on some days. Those days are the hardest because my emotional stamina is not as high.

Not that this gives me an excuse to strive for any less than a well-managed and productive class time every day. 

But I digress...

Thursday was the first day of regular class since two-thirds of the sixth grade were gone to space camp. It was also the day I was supposed to begin regaining control over my first period class. 

We did a warm up where they had to answer why they think we have rules and laws. They could tell me EXACTLY why we have them (safety, responsibility, no laws create chaos). Then we went over their behavior contract. They were able to analyze each rule, reward, and consequence. I also created a noise level chart to help hold them accountable for talking out of turn or above an appropriate volume. 

So you can probably imagine my surprise when I had to assign seven or eight students silent lunch. 

When reflecting on my lesson with Mrs. Ramsay, she told me not to get discouraged. I have to be a wall of consistency when it comes to enforcing rules. Students will have to constantly hit against my wall before they ever learn the appropriate behaviors. 

Instead, I feel like I'm the one ramming my head into a wall. 

Friday, I ended up giving almost the whole class silent lunch during first period. However, after stopping class to do some major redirecting, all but two earned it off. At the beginning of lunch on Friday, I sat down and talked to them about their behaviors. They knew exactly why they had silent lunch. They told me it was their decisions that led to silent lunch, not mine. 

I leveled with them and asked what would help them to achieve appropriate behaviors in my class, offering the school incentive of orange tickets. In so many words, they basically told me that orange tickets would not work as an incentive, so I asked what would. One of them said "cheeseburgers".

He was being serious.

In a split-second moment to make a decision, I informed the child that I would bring him a cheeseburger the week after next if he could keep his behavior on-target for the next week. I know that there are many teachers our there who would say that this was a major misstep on my part, but I did what I thought would work for him. I made it clear that he had to be on his best behavior. Additionally, I informed him that because I'm a broke college student, I couldn't do this every week.

Now, do I think he can earn that cheeseburger? I hate to say this, but not really. At least, not right now. He is one who has consistently had his name on the board for silent lunch at least once a week.

However, I'm hoping that I can graduate him from this extrinsic motivation to an intrinsic motivation over the next couple of weeks by showing him that things in class go a lot more smoothly when he cooperates with my directions. I'm actually hoping that all of them will begin to see this through my repetition of procedures, rewards, and consequences in addition to me addressing their behaviors when assigning punishments.

So, for Monday, I have written the words tabula rasa at the top of the board. For those of you who don't know, tabula rasa essentially translates to "blank slate" in English. Etymologically speaking, it comes from the time when wax tablets were used instead of paper. The Romans would heat the wax tablet and scrape it until it became smooth again, erasing all marks.

My reasoning for writing this on the board and addressing it on Monday is that I want my students to know that we start off with a tabula rasa every day, unless there is behavior that has gone unaddressed from the previous day.



My third/fifth period class was also an interesting experience on Friday, but I'll save that gem of a story for another blog post. This one is already long enough.