Jared Y

Well, we had our first attempt at passing on some useful advice to the incoming cohort…

Lessons Learned:
1) Check to see how much of a response we get before committing. While we knew we only had one new cohort member who said they would be there, I think it was still worth it to go, but maybe we should be more tentative next time and wait for a greater response.

2) Make sure we get the phone numbers of those that say they are coming in case we need to find out if they are really coming, need directions, etc. Just seems like a good idea.

Overall, I’m pretty excited to pass on useful information and advice to the new cohort. I think it would be very beneficial to share our bits of wisdom that may make their lives easier.

However, I also wonder what exactly I would want to pass along because it is difficult to decide what exactly would be helpful. What should people discover on their own in this program? What would be truly helpful to know? Again, I am going to have to think about this. I think there are some specific things I would want to tell them are to know the portfolio principles to be met; figure out how to best communicate with your CT and always talk be on the same page about what is being done in the classroom and where things are headed; take pictures of just about everything you can; and to always keep some kind of record of what has been done during GRS camp, STARS, or a unit during student teaching–these things can be immensely helpful for reminding students where they have been, reflection opportunities, metacognition, students that have missed, and yeah…they’re just extremely useful.

I’m not sure how others would feel about this, but wouldn’t it be cool if we actually gave them something that contained our advice?

Let me know what you think.

Based on the chance that you might not get to the end of this post where I was going to write this idea: Be sure to thank those (friends, family, colleagues) who have allowed you to get through this program and grow exponentially as a beginning teacher. I was reminded of doing this by my last interviewer after apparently presenting myself and my views well. It may mean a lot to the people you thank.

On Tuesday I attended the Teacher Recruitment Day (TRD) and was pleased with how the day went overall and how I was able to share my thoughts about education, teaching, and learning.

Framing the Interviewing Process
I was originally disappointed because I did not receive any interviews with the local districts, but decided to go and check out the TRD USA event that featured districts from outside the area including some in New York State, Maryland, Delaware, Virginia, Florida, and Texas. Initially I was a little uncomfortable by the process in which the attendees had to essentially rush an area set up with tables of people representing all of the districts in attendance, get on their interview schedule, and then complete the interviews. However, I settled in and just decided to treated the event as a chance express myself and talk about education. As a result, I think the day went very well.
Lesson: Relax – look at the interview as more of a chance to share your thoughts than a quiz.

Different Styles of Interviews & Good Practice
I ended up with three interviews and thought they all went well, yet were all very different. The first seemed the most like what I had imagined–as a session in which I would be asked about how I go into teaching, about different situations I would face, and about how I envisioned planning and lessons. As such, it was the one one in which I really got to draw on the resources I had brought with me–including a two-sided sheet filled with pictures that represented assessment, communication, technology, different teaching methods and activities, and building community/relationships. The seond interview involved being read scripted questions that could be repeated, but not clarified. After the interviewer wrote down all of what she could write of my responses, she told me about the district and the next steps to take to pursue employment and ended with an opportunity for me to ask questions. The last interview involved the interviewer speaking a lot about the district with a few questions interspersed. Though this was his style, I took the opportunities that presented themselves to interject and share my thoughts. He ended by saying that he was very interested and to think about what we had discussed because he had given many “hints.”
Lesson: Have materials with you to refer to–I think they added an air of being prepared and will leave interviewers impressed

Overall, I felt much better prepared than I would have been if mock interviews were not held. I definitely drew upon that experience and preparing for it, and ultimately left TRD feeling pretty confident about my ability to share my views and practice concerning teaching and learning.

I went into my placement after school a few times this week and though I did not intend to work with students I ended up doing so on both occasions. My CT holds tutoring in her room a few days per week after school and I somehow ended up helping out this week despite my placement being over. As I side note, this was a refreshing experience as I helped one student in particular do unit conversion (I realized I was not really prepared to do so and afterward wished that I could have gone back and done it again after I had a chance to think about analogies I could have drawn to teach the concept before getting into the details). Like Ryan mentioned in his blog this week, it’s the little things…

To get back on track, as I was teaching unit conversion (or attempting to do so), my brain was forming a new question. As I was considering the material with this student, I wondered if she would ever use this skill again in her life. I did not ask what her intended career was or if she had any idea, but it got me thinking about what knowledge is essential for students to have (and what skills) to be informed and competent citizens in our society. I looked at my primary discipline, biology, and asked myself that question. I am not going to go through and outline my thoughts on the matter here, but I think it is a very interesting question that we should ask ourselves of our disciplines, of science education, and of K-12 education in general. I believe this also connects to Tyler’s post for this week as he considers what understanding we desire our students to have, which he also traces to larger questions of why do we teach. I think it is interesting to consider such fundamental questions. I think that our answers, and the process and discussions we use to generate them, could inform our perspective on education and our own practice. I can see how the way in which we answer could greatly impact how we approach the curriculum and how we teach it and the understanding that we ask of our students.

For instance, if we answer with a notion such as “we would like our students to be scientifically literate in modern society,” would that not affect the understanding we ask of our students? Wouldn’t this differ if we answered that we need to prepare them for college science? Maybe our approach or desired understanding would be different between these cases ,or perhaps it wouldn’t, but I still believe that if we engage in a conversation around the topic, it would add another dimension to our own understanding of our field of work and how we practice.

As my placement was winding down, my CT wanted to make sure that the students were exposed to human evolution even though it is not something they need to specifically know. After giving students experience with the material through a PowerPoint, we decided to do an inquiry activity with them concerning the topic.

The Process
Students were given the lab handout and a set of seven sketches of skulls. One skull was human, one was chimpanzee, and the rest were various hominids. They were directed to choose their own measurement to take for all of the skulls and to then create a phylogeny, or evolutionary tree, using their data, which they had to graph as an intermediate step.

Some Reflection
I think this activity can be valuable in a variety of ways depending on you may want to use it. On one end, I think it can be left completely open. Students can decide how they want to measure and graph with little instruction on the process. Other ways might include some instruction about being consistent and telling students what kind of graph to make. By leaving it more open, the opportunity arises for teachable moments that may concern taking consistent measurements and data representation. On the other end, it still remains a challenging and interesting activity even if it is relatively guided. The students still have to use their data to make conclusions and ultimately create a logical evolutionary tree. In short, they are doing the work of scientists. In addition, at the end of the activity, or even before, a nature of science discussion can be had. Human evolution is a branch of science that is rather contentious. There really isn’t one widely accepted view as in many other areas. The evidence is limited and leading scientists have come up with very different ideas concerning the organization of these species.

Other Thoughts
Overall, I think the students found it interesting, enjoyable, and challenging. It can be adapted and if you begin the year with evolution, it could be a great way to introduce nature of science and to see where your students are with doing open-ended tasks (making consistent measurements, reasoning from their data, and representing data).

Let me know if you would like the hard copy of the lab.

The past few weeks have been interesting as certain experiences have arisen concerning student violence and disciplinary action. Some of these have involved my students, while others have included conversations I’ve had.

The first topic is student violence. Over the course of my student teaching experience, I’ve heard about, witnessed, or been nearby fights breaking out in school. As I noted above, some of these have involved my students. It was extremely upsetting knowing that these kids, who I’ve seen as sweet children, can do a 180 and act in such a way. I had the privilege to speak to one of those students directly after being involved in a fight and heard the altercation be explained as, “just had to happen.” It really upsets me that students can resort to violence so easily. Why is this necessary? Why is this OK to have as a recurring issue in a school and not see anything done about it except handing out a suspension? Shouldn’t schools be invested in teaching students what is and is not appropriate behavior and how to be disciplined without solely relying on punishment? Perhaps I am overstating the issue, and so far I have ignored the role of culture outside of school, but it still angers me that I haven’t seen more done about this problem in school. It seems like it is merely accepted as a fact that it is going to happen, but it doesn’t help anyone to have students fighting, which leads to the next aspect of student discipline–disciplinary action.

I recently had a discussion that included allusion to how some students are frequent visitors of the in-school-suspension room, or ISS. Question: What is the point of punishing a student repeatedly with ISS during which time students are not in the classroom and are not learning? They are clearly not getting the idea if they end up in ISS over and over. For the policies and decisions that lead to this I offer the following quote (and I’m not sure who to attribute it to): “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” At some point, something else has to be done. These regulars of ISS need to be given some other form of attention. They need services; they need help. They are missing the point and missing out on their learning. We need to come up with better policies for handling these students because no one is winning with the current setup.

My first experience with parent-teacher conferences was fairly satisfying and satisfactory this past Tuesday. In my first placement I was unable to attend parent-teacher night, so I was determined to take advantage of the opportunity this time around. Overall, it went very well; I gained both insight and practice during.

The original plan was for me to observe and then possibly handle some on my own…not all things go as planned. The first set of parents to enter the room did so after my CT stepped out (who had run into an upset parent and was speaking with her), which left me to do my best without any observation or previous practice. Luckily the parents were of a student who was doing well in the class, so I checked to make sure that she was not missing any work, talked to them about the unit we were on (my innovative unit), and showed them some of their daughter’s work. I eventually got to see my CT run some other conferences and gained an idea of how to be positive, but real with parents about how their child was doing. I eventually got to run one more conference near the end of the night, which also went well.

It was great to see parents come out and have the opportunity to speak with them. It is always pleasing to see parents who are concerned about their child and their progress at school. I think I began to develop a better understanding of parents from this experience. It reminded me that in general, parents do want the best for their kids. They want to see them succeed and they have expectations and ideas that they can share about their child’s education and the school system. I think it gave me some additional perspective from which to view my future career and reminded me of the obligation we have as teachers to provide excellent education and do as much as we reasonably can to help our students learn and succeed.

This week I really saw the need for multiple experiences and ongoing assessment  in order for students to learn something and for teachers to know that they have learned it.

During the past week at my placement, the students have been working on making and reading dichotomous keys. I thought that this was going to be very easy for them to grasp and that we wouldn’t have to spend much time on them, but it turned out to be quite the opposite. It ultimately took multiple experiences and formative assessments before students seemed to grasp them. This was the first time that I really thought in depth about planning numerous experiences to build skill and knowledge.

While this seems intuitive, I think our “expert blind spots” cause us to overlook the time it is going to take students to understand a concept or build a particular skill. When we as teachers are learning or re-learning something, our prior experiences with the type of thinking required or related skills make it seem like such learning is easy and that our students will have a similar experience learning it as  we did. However, we need remember that they have not developed the same intellectual skills we have developed or the same thought processes and that their learning may require much more work than ours did.

As I approach my innovative unit, I am going to have to keep this in mind. I hope to provide ample time for reflection to help students wrestle with the major ideas embedded in the unit, but I can’t help but think I may have to come up with some activities and examples as we go to supplement what has already be planned to accommodate for the extra time students may need to learn the concepts. Herein lies the value of formative assessment!

In two of the classes at my current placement, students are putting together science fair projects. Some students are working in groups, while others are working individually. Some students knew what they wanted to work on, while others needed some ideas thrown at them. Some students are going to take it very seriously and are very engaged, while others are moderately interested.

Though it won’t be an ideal experience where every single student is coming up with a full-blown science experiment with an authentic question, some students will be affected by the experience. Earlier this week we had the AP Environmental students working on their projects and I took some students into the lab to retrieve some soil and I couldn’t help but feel somewhat energized as I watched the students gather the soil for their project. I had to say to them, “Doesn’t it feel good to actually be doing something?” I was happy when one of the students replied in the affirmative.

I think that overall this is a great idea. Students get to work with materials and questions on their own terms and ultimately present their findings to an audience. I think that this gives students an opportunity to experience science differently. Most of their academic careers they have to do something in science for a grade, and while there is an obligation associated to this project, they are doing science for the sake of doing it to a certain extent.

This would be a great way to engage students throughout the year in meaningful work even if you can cultivate an engaging learning environment in your classroom without it. Furthermore, how awesome would it be to make this an ongoing project in which students can conduct multiple experiments by basing each successive experiment on the findings of their last? Overall, I think that if it were possible to set aside time for students to run ongoing investigations that it would add another element to science education to make it more authentic and engaging. I hope to be able to do something like this during my career.

I came across this trailer over a month ago and realized I never really mentioned it to anybody:

www.racetonowhere.com (movie Website)

It was nice to remember this and poke my head out of the realm of education in Rochester and the demands of the program by watching this. I thought that the trailer got particularly interesting when it started questioning what kind of education we should have. I started to see parallels between those segments and what we have been reading about lately in Wiggins & McTighe about the types of activities we engage students in.

I’d love to hear what you think…

This past Friday I was operating as the lead teacher with my CT out of school for the day. Consequently, there was a sub in the room, but it was understood that I was going to be leading class. I felt good going into the day, because I thought that I had been in the classroom for long enough now that I wouldn’t have any problems doing what I wanted…oh, how naive of me.

The first class was the most disappointing. They simply did not want to listen to me. At no point during the 90 minutes I spent with them did they seem remotely interested in listening to me as a class. I was able to get through with certain students on an individual and small group basis, but trying to get the whole class to cooperate just wasn’t working.

This was extremely disappointing to me on a number of levels. One is that since I have felt privileged to have worked with a CT who taught me a lot about classroom management. I feel like while I may know it, I have not been able to put it into practice successfully. Perhaps it is because I need a certain personality to manage a classroom that way. Even so, it is still disappointing to struggle with implementing it. On another level, whenever we put ourselves in front of a class, we are literally putting our “self” out there. When students do not respond to a lesson, the instructions or suggestions we give them, or even at all, it can be severely upsetting, because it seems as though our self has been rejected or disrespected.

Consequently, I will be joining Ryan, and will now be thinking deeply about classroom management for a long while and how I can better handle the classroom, and as I say this, I see a connection to David’s blog about opening up more to our students. (Oh, but how dangerous that can be when our self is out there too.)