Carli’s blog

Before I left my last placement I gave my students an e-mail address they could use to contact me. One of those things you desperately hope they will use but in the back of your mind lies some doubt. After Monday’s rather hectic and anxiety-inducing class, I came home and for some reason decided to check that e-mail account. Again, wanting something to make me smile but not getting my hopes up I anxiously clicked “sign-in”.

Much to my surprise, I had seven different  e-mails from students and my cooperating teacher.

As I read them, I found myself holding back tears. My CT wrote “the kids already miss you-you really had an impression on them”. Some of the student e-mails explained how much they missed me and inquired about my next visit to see them. A couple of them just wanted to say thank you… “hi mrs. mooch ..its ***** i just wanted 2let yu know i passed the midterm with a 83 thanks 2yu!!” (the subject of which was “passed!”). And then there were some about cheerleading competitions and the upcoming talent show. Such comments may seem insignificant and I am sure some people are thinking “so what?” But to me, they mean the world.

Students I thought never cared…but obviously did.

Students I thought never listened… but obviously did.

Students I thought didn’t want to learn… but obviously did.

And students I was told couldn’t learn… but obviously did.

They proved me entirely wrong-and with such simple but genuine e-mails.

After I had finished reading them, I thought to myself how writing stellar Warner lesson plans is such a small part of the big picture. Important, of course and time consuming, yes. But if that’s what I need to do to continue to impact students, then I willingly accept the challenge. My ideas about making a difference and changing lives had suddenly become more clear. Built into well-planned lessons with creative, innovative and exciting activities, we form all kinds of relationships-bonds that make this fifteen-month program and ALL that it entails, totally worth it.

I may not get e-mails from every student and those seven may be the only ones I receive. But they made me feel like I had an impact. And they will ALWAYS mean the world to me.

As I re-read this post I notice that I have found the words to describe this past experience. And now that I know that feeling-the feeling of making relationships and having an impact-I will continue to work for it because simply put, teaching is nothing without it.

I went into my new placement this week. Upon my initial inspections, everything appeared to be drastically different from my urban placement. Yet a few things remained exactly the same.

First of all, I was SO surprised and slightly taken aback at the jaw dropping, completely horrified looks numerous people gave me when I had told them I just finished student teaching in the city. As if a white middle class woman could ever survive such a thing? Well much to their surprise, I did survive and completely enjoyed myself. I repeatedly conveyed how much I missed those kids.

Secondly, let’s talk about technology–or more accurately the absence of it in the city and the overwhelming presence of it in this suburb. Smartboards, microscopes, projectors, ELMOS, laptops, and microscopes hooked up to video cameras. Talk about intimidating. I am beginning to miss the simplicity of a white board although I quickly realized the sky’s the limit in this technologically advanced classroom. I hope to use all of this to my advantage in the upcoming eight weeks. What else fills this sixth grade classroom? UGGS in every color, shape and size, Abercrombie, Hollister and pin straight hair. I ashamedly admit, this is close to what I expected.

Thirdly, directions only need to be said once. Not sure where to go with that but I remember how frustrated I was repeating myself twenty times in a matter of ten minutes at my last placement.

Moving onto the similarities….

Let me begin with the lecture style, teacher-oriented classroom structure. Although my last placement was in tenth grade and this is a sixth grade placement, the teaching styles of my cooperating teachers are quite similar–leaving me at the total other end of the teaching spectrum once again. Thankfully I have learned how to maneuver this spectrum without crossing any boundaries or stepping on any toes and I am ready to do it again!

And perhaps the most apparent and most important similarity…they’re kids and they come to school to learn just like the kids in the city. Whether they can verbalize that or have obstacles in their life hindering their ability to learn may depend. But deep down, every child whether 12 or 16, city or suburb, Black, Hispanic, White, Asian or Indian, has a craving for new experiences. It’s my job to provide each of them with such experiences while invigorating their minds and of course, having fun.

So this begins a new chapter….

Saturday was an amazing way to close our time with our STARS. The videos rocked! I cannot imagine how less creative and entertaining the conference would have been had it included powerpoint presentations instead. The videos are a more holistic look into the last ten weeks and are actually something the girls and us can keep forever!

The interactive stations went well as well. We should all have done demos like elephant toothpaste as visitors really seemed to enjoy it (Nice job blue team!). We should have also catered more to the younger kids that were there. We could have had activities that were solely for them to experience. Most of the people there enjoyed that they were able to take something home with them after visiting our station. Hopefully their plants will grow!

Although the week before the final conference was perhaps the most stressful of the ten weeks, it was truly amazing to see the final culmination of our student’s work. I couldn’t help but smile during the videos.

I will miss our East High Stars and I am looking forward to seeing them again in January!

This article is short, sweet and to the point. It discusses how as new teachers we try to use various forms of inquiry that often take time to fully develop and perfect. We are often too preoccupied with the “delivery of our lessons” which hinders our abilities to focus on student learning experiences. It gives a great run-down of what an “interactive lecture” entails–something that we can all be attempting right now! It seems to be a great starting point for beginning teachers and student teachers alike.

I went on a field trip a while back and during one portion of it the students utilized these “Science take-out” activities. Check out their website.

They provide the supplies and instructions for hands on activities that help students to understand concepts like pH, yeast respiration, DNA structure and proteins and many more! They are presented in a manner that gives students ways to reinforce concepts that can be quite complex and abstract.

R - Ridiculous amounts of “work”. Lately (as expected) I have been feeling slightly overwhelmed with the amount of coursework. I am not complaining about doing the work, I just find myself questioning how some projects will prepare me to become a better educator. This is partly due to the enormous disconnect between what I am learning in classes and what I am observing and doing in my placement. Teachers DO NOT write 250 page unit plan documents…or at least I have yet to meet one that does. Portions of constructing a unit plan were beneficial-specifically collaborating with others and learning the importance and intricacies involved in assessment. But other portions of it (compiling ten lesson plans and creating appendix after appendix of student work) seemed rather unrealistic in terms of what practicing teachers do.

A-Another reflection? Please see John’s OH SO creative post titled A Poetic Reflection on Reflection! On a more positive note regarding reflection, I had an amazing experience with our girls in STARS as they reflected on their ten week investigation through the construction of a timeline (see my previous post).

N-Nothing against arrows… but do they really need an entire project devoted to them? I have two major issues with this upcoming project. I get the whole idea of learning from “mistakes”, I really do but the mistakes I made in STARS were: 1. barely existent according to my feedback and 2. occurring in a totally different setting than my series of three. For me to draw connections between two things that seem extremely disconnected is quite difficult. Positive feedback does make you feel good, but when is it in equal balance with negative/needs improvement feedback it is much more meaningful. My arrow for this arrow project is to make sure we receive relevant and useful feedback when we are being observed. It will make targeting such areas much easier and purposeful as compared to developing arrows retrospectively. While simultaneously participating in STARS and my field placement, I have realized how different their teaching and learning environments are. Developing arrows from one setting and implementing them in another is quite challenging because they feel like very distinct and separate experiences–>5-6 girls vs. 25 girls and boys, support in inquiry teaching/learning vs. teaching someone else’s class… and the list goes on and on.

T-Taking all of this one step at a time and remembering to laugh!

I’m going to be honest. I was dreading STARS this week. I’m not sure why I had such a negative attitude. I thought that my failure as a teacher was going to be exposed right in front of my face—and it would be caught on camera for all, including myself, to see. Perfect.

I couldn’t help but wonder if our girls would obtain the success we tried so badly to set them up for.  Or maybe we didn’t try hard enough. I wasn’t sure prior to Thursday. Dead plants and a lack of data was all that stuck out in my mind.

The co-constructed timeline our girls did had ALL of us ready to go. There was so much energy and excitement as the girls reviewed what they did everyday of STARS from the past to the present. They remembered details that Erin and I had totally forgotten. They were able to discuss what we did at every meeting from going to Wilson, to video conferencing to doing PB&J protocol. Everyone watching was amazed. If any groups have some time to spare, I would highly recommend doing this (and to think I was against it to begin with…thanks Erin!) It served as a review before the video assessments and also demonstrated the power of reflection!

Because the video interviews have yet to be analyzed, I can only speak to the experience in general and a few particular quotes that stand out in my mind.

With smiles on their faces, a newfound attitude in their voice and a surge of self-confidence in their presence, I couldn’t help but smile listening to our girls articulate what they had accomplished and how they felt about it. It was a truly amazing experience and instead of summing up each individual interview…I will let the quotes work their magic. Below are some funny, exciting, and almost tear-jerking lines from the interviews.

“If everyone on earth lived like me, there would have to be four earths.”

“To meet cool people.”

“Did you meet cool people here?”

“Yeah. I met you. And you’re funny.”

“What would you do differently next time?”

“I would probably get an Aqua Globe!”

“If you had to draw a scientist now, what would it look like?”

“Regular person. Sneakers, skinny jeans, plaid shirt.”

“How would STARS be different if boys were involved?”

“Some girls would be easily distracted no matter how cute the guys are. This is our time to shine to prove to the boys we are better at a lot of different things including being scientists. We don’t need the boys all the time. After school…this is our time.”

Today I administered the test I made.

I thought it would be too easy, but that thought was quick to fade.

The lowest score was a 15 and it made me feel so cruel,

I first examined MY actions to follow Haberman’s rule.

It’s easy to blame students–”They can’t learn, they forget.”

But what about ME? What about TESTS better yet?

Why do we use tests to asses understanding?

Can you read? Can you write? The state thinks that’s demanding?

What about the real stuff-the science, history and math?

Do they care what our students have learned about that?

I don’t want to write another test, because I truly believe

Student knowledge goes well beyond the red mark of fifteen.

So throw away your scantrons and number two pencils,

Students’ ideas and experiences will be their primary utensils.

As this scientific journey is a time to discovery

More about science, yourself and one another.

Yesterday I was faced with the wonderful task of creating a test AND developing “some kind of review” of the material to be covered on the test. I now completely understand why creating a test is so difficult–especially because I refused to merely copy multiple choice questions from old exams, the text book or the regents review book. I instead compiled everything we have covered over the last week and a half–which mainly consisted of bell work, notes, concept maps, worksheets, homework assignments, and class discussion. Although a lot of these activities would be in less quantities in my future classroom, this is what I’m currently working with so I tried to go with the flow. Little did I know that writing the test would be much easier than developing review material for it!

A couple of weeks ago we did class Jeopardy to review for a test–so Jeopardy was out. The students enjoyed this game but I wanted something different. If you’re interested check out this website-all you need is a log in name and a password to get started! From that experience I learned that having something for the students to take with them (in this case, a print out of the all of the blank Jeopardy squares so they could write down their responses) is really beneficial. This website allows you to print out blank squares and a full set of squares with the answers to each question. You can assure students that it’s okay if they don’t get EVERYTHING written down. They can write key words and use the handout with the answers (but don’t tell them about that until the end!). Review games allow students that may otherwise be uninvolved to become more involved and it can serve as a study guide. It is pretty difficult to only verbally review and then ask the kids to recall that information or that question the next day on a test.

As I was searching the internet I found some really great websites. This website has a variety of games that can be adapted at any grade level. I was particularly interested in the baseball game and the Who Wants to be a Millionaire game! This website offers a variety of review games in power point format. It allows you to input your information into the powerpoint. You would then have to email it to yourself or save it to a memory stick. Powerpoint review games are nice to use because you can print out the slides for students as well. This website has templates for Bingo (which would be fun with younger students) as well as Jeopardy, Taboo, Baseball and many more! Check it out!

I was looking for an online type of review game so I would be able to access easily in school and use it with the projector. I found an awesome Who Wants to be a Millionaire website that allows you to create your own, save it in a “game library” and access games that other educators have created. There are a bunch of other resources on this website–group generator, game board review and hang man review to name a few.

I broke the class up into two teams and they each used a different template with different questions. This way they were exposed to 30 review questions and could work on smaller groups to come to an agreement on the answer. The students got really into playing the game and my CT seemed to enjoy it too–how can you not get excited when you hear that infamous Who Wants to be a Millionaire tune?

On a more personal note, because today went really well I noticed a huge change in myself as I was walking to my car. My whole attitude was different-I still had energy, my entire body wasn’t aching and I genuinely felt good. It’s such a drastic difference compared to how I feel when things don’t go so well. I think the students had fun and accomplished the goal for period which was to review. I think I was able to turn something that can be very boring and mind numbing into something interactive and rather entertaining!

If you ever are faced with the tedious task of developing review material, don’t give a packet or a worksheet a thought. Check out these websites instead!

Erin wasn’t able to make it to STARS this week so I had to do the lesson by myself. I realized how much I depend on her every Thursday to help make the lesson go smoothly. It is much easier when there are two people who can explain ideas, concepts, and directions to our girls. Not to mention, we have really enjoyed are small group work but without the two of us keeping each group focused, their conversations can quickly go astray. Thankfully, I was able to have a conversation during pizza with our team to tell them that Erin wasn’t feeling well and that I was going to need some “extra” help today. Although disappointed about Erin’s absent, they were ready to do whatever! I also had additional support from the other adults involved in STARS–thanks Kim for all your help!

Because the pizza arrived later than usual, we didn’t get to our room and set-up until almost 2:30. I decided to skip the pH candy activity we had planned because I absolutely wanted to get to the video interviews we were planning to do at the end. Unfortunately in my quick decision making, I didn’t think about the fact that without the candy activity the girls would be sitting for a while. I noticed the effects of this toward the end of the day as one girl in particular was becoming rather unengaged. This particular student is also close with Erin as she sees Erin most of the days of the week during her placement. This may have had something to do with her being unengaged. Hopefully Erin and I can discuss this and address it next week.

This week we used a rather complicated soil testing kit to measure the nutrients in our soil samples. The girls did an awesome job and really worked as a team to collect and record data. The locations our girls chose a few weeks ago (while the blogs were down) are in the picture below.

For the rest of this post I will use pictures and videos to tell our story over the last couple of weeks….

What is a PROCEDURE?

The product of our PROCEDURE

Collecting DATA via OBSERVATIONS

More soil testing...

Soil testing data

I am really excited we were able to do our video interviews-unfortunately they are refusing to download to my computer at the moment. It was structured so that the girls were interviewing each other using pre-written questions. Some of the questions involved aspects of our investigation (what is our dependent and independent variable, what are our constants, what is our investigation question and so on). Other questions addressed aspects of what STARS is all about and opinion questions about why they think STARS is only for girls. The girls seemed to have a lot of fun doing this-they LOVED the interaction with technology.

Despite Erin’s absence, the day went rather smoothly with the exception of not discussing or measuring pH. I was really impressed with the way all of our girls worked together as a team helping each other collect and record data as well as working together to explain certain aspects of our investigation to one another and the many visitors that were there. Listening to them articulate what we have been doing over the last two months is absolutely amazing.