I cannot believe that our Master’s program is approaching its end. Most of this implausibility is probably rooted in the fact that there is a &@*^! ton of work that is hovering over my (our) head (s), and just doesn’t seem to go away. Shoo, work, shoo!
Well, that didn’t work, but taking a moment to think about the past year is making my head spin a little, thinking about GetREAL Camp, STARS, student teaching X3, lesson plans, unit plans, meetings, meetings, meetings… What what resonates are the memories that evoke those feel-good feelings from the people I have met, the relationships I have made, and the network of support that I have behind me. And, honestly, for the first time in my life thus far, I am sure of myself and the decisions that I have made in choosing a career, despite the rockiness of these travels. Psshht. I live for the unexpected bumps and turns anyway…

For a moment, I want to pause and dedicate my thoughts and time to those who have made it possible for me to make it through these beginning stages – to become a professional and passionate teacher of science.
I will begin with recognizing the people that I would see on the daily – whether they liked it or not – my colleagues and fellow cohort members. The combination of the unique knowledge and energy that each person brought to the group was not only enjoyable, but motivating. I cannot think of a better way to learn other than with a group of spectacular and brilliant people.
My supervisor and mentor(s) – probably saw me more than they would have wished, but have kept me as mentally/emotionally sane as possible. I don’t even think words can do them justice.
My instructors – the most caring professionals I have worked under in academia. Passionate, compassionate, thoughtful with the right balance of criticism, motivators, and selfless. Your work has modeled what teaching should look like in any setting. You certainly bring life and hope to education.

Ok I’m getting side-tracked by the workload that’s weighing down my shoulders begging to be tackled down. Ugh. Impending doom awaits.

This note of thanks does not do justice to the amount of gratitude that I have for the people that have been apart of this journey. Thank you all.

Jigsaw Falling Into Place

Hmmmm. What to write. . . After reading over several of my colleagues’ posts, I feel like I am in a completely different place. Just as most people are transitioning into another chapter in their book – Titled “Journey into Job Land” perhaps – I feel as if I am starting over my chapter as “Little Grasshopper is Still Learning.” Meh, or maybe I’m just rewriting a few pages. Even though I cannot wait to move forward and have a destination in sight after student teaching, I am really happy with where I am and what I am learning. I still am experiencing some feelings of apprehension and being behind, if you will, thinking about interviews and such, because right now, I am still focused on student teaching. I know some of these feelings will dissipate, because just as every GRS cohort member has articulated, Warner has thoroughly prepared us to become the best science teachers we can be. And I will take that to my grave.

The mock interviews this week were helpful, and they made me realize how much work I need to do in order to better articulate myself and organize my thoughts for responses. As Becci and others know too well, I can often get sidetracked and scattered in mid sentence.
Becci has offered a lot of useful tips on her blog (as per usual) and if you haven’t seen them, I would advise to check it out.

Here’s what’s happening in my student teaching: Next week is Spring Break, but when we return, I am beginning my innovative unit on bottle biology. SAH-WEEET! I am especially thankful for the wonderful teachers that I am working with, because due to their scaffolding and development of a true community of learners, this unit will be so much fun to see what the students come up with ON THEIR OWN! I will make sure to take lots of pictures and videos. That’s it for now. It’s Friday night… and my brain is FRIED.

PS. I got a call (on speaker phone) from my 7th graders this week asking me when I was going to come back. Meanwhile I have been doubting my growth and effectiveness as a teacher. I guess you really never know exactly how much you make an impact on these kids.

Everything is falling into place, it seems.

Energy management is the new classroom management.

I just completed week one of my new placement, and, WOW, I have not yet experienced this many consecutive days embedded with so many POSITIVE learning experiences that are contributing to my growth as a teacher. Every day I leave my school thinking, how does this woman do it? Luckily, she is willing to share ALL of her deepest and darkest secrets. . . . meh, actually, it’s just pure wisdom.

Well, for now, I am going to focus on just one thing that we talked about: ENERGY. This seems to have the biggest influence on shaping this classroom’s culture. Why? Because energy is central to the learning that occurs every day.
Oh, hold on. Before I move on, I need to clarify one thing. I am not talking about the energy that supplies our lights and electrical outlets. No no no. I am talking about the energy that each individual brings into the classroom every day – the energy that tells you (teacher) that today is a day that we (the class) might be tired, but we are able to be pushed and challenged, or maybe it’s just a day that we are all about the “business” – you give us the stuff, we get the job done.
What I am realizing: this is not the easiest task to defeat – that is, being an energy reader/facilitator. However, it is WORTH IT, and, just as a lot of the other complex challenges we are facing in teaching, IT TAKES TIME!
So once you get the hang of this, what might it look like, what are the effects, and why is this important? Luckily, I am a witness to the endless positive results of energy management.
First of all, what does it look like? Well, to my knowledge thus far, this requires not only the teacher to be cognizant of the energy, but the teacher to CONTRIBUTE to the energy. Positive, positive, positive. I cannot stress that enough. We all know this – kids can read you like a book. If you want your class to feel good when they enter and leave the classroom, well, then have a smile on your face, use humor, and don’t be stuffy and closed off. There’s a few to start with. THEN, TELL YOUR KIDS WHAT YOU ARE THINKING. If you take a pause to rethink the path of instruction, if you have hit a fork in the road, whatever decision or stump you have been confronted with, let them know. If we have the goals to “teach kids how to learn, then walk them through your thought processes. How do we guide them to become metacognitive thinkers? How do we guide them to become reflective learners? Model it as much as possible, and embed it into your practice. This goes along nicely with setting high expectations and holding students accountable for their work and success – expect nothing less!
The effects: self directed learners, self-motivated learners, mature students, collaborative and PLEASANT group work, a safe and happy learning environment, cultivation of leaders, a place where inquiry can be used at its fullest. . . this list can go on and on and on.
The importance? Well, for the students, this can an experience that forever changes their views of what school is and what it feels like to be in school. For the teacher, it might vary from person to person, but for myself, it’s developing thinkers who can think for themselves in so many ways, and it’s also a matter of leaving my job with a smile on my face and looking forward to coming back the next day.

This is one of the first times that I have been so unsure of what to post. I have already exited a placement, and have not yet fully moved into the next. I have been home in Pittsburgh for nearly a week due to a loss of a family member and the holiday. It’s amazing how disconnected one can become in such a short time. One thing is for certain: family can be such a remarkable healing mechanism. It has felt so good to reconnect with family that I haven’t seen in years, as well as catch up with my close family on current events in my life.
Actually, this brings up a very good point. I think that a lot of us can get very caught up in our roles as teachers, since this is something that we are so very passionate about. I have had several conversations with some close friends about being able to walk away at some point, because it’s only a “job”. However, I am still seeking clarity in this debate. I can see both sides very clearly:
One one side, there is the profession. Hopefully, it is one that we are all passionate about, and want to continue to become better and better, knowing that one will never find perfection, but always be seeking it.
One the other side, there is the personal life – what keeps us healthy, balanced, and sane. This past week I have been able to gain some sanity, being that I have felt so unhealthy in so many ways for some time. How have I done this? By surrounding myself with people that are important to me.
It’s so easy to get caught up in work. For me it is a challenge to keep a balance, and this is something that I truly hope to figure out.

So, on the fly, here are some quick links if you are seeking more info on personal wellness:

Balancing work and Personal life

5 tips

Quiz

Mayoclinic

Feel free to share any tips on how you find your “balance”

As some may know, Friday was my last day at my 8-week placement. I am leaving with no innovative unit, little confidence, and a long list of lessons learned. As time progressed, I was feeling more and more frustrated with my self-perception of becoming a failure and incapable of teaching. The reason for leaving. . . well, there are many. I recently made the decision to continue with a third placement, hoping for a better space to learn, grow, and develop as a professional teacher.
My last week was emotional and frustrating. However, I came to a huge realization on the last day: never underestimate the impact that you have on students.
As I was blinded in frustration with the production (or lack thereof) of evidence of student learning and effective teaching, I lost sight of the value of relationships with students.
Many of our top priorities as teachers is to develop truly meaningful relationships with as many students as possible, based on trust, respect, and an interdependency for learning. As I was planning my exit from the classroom, I did not tell students until my last day that I would be leaving. Why? I didn’t think that it really would matter to them.
I was wrong.
The students that I thought would be in exaltation of the news were the ones that adversely responded the most. My toughest group of students were the ones who were begging me to stay and come back to visit. I am sure we have all experienced this feeling with our last placement, and many of you will be looking forward to experiencing it once again next week. I predict that every time we have these experiences – that leave us feeling valued as teachers and aware that we left even the smallest impact on a child’s life – it will feel as strong as the first. In other words, the feeling that we gain from being valued by another person can never lose its strength.
I have heard from many people, and now I am experiencing it for myself: it is the relationships that motivate you to come back every day – that motivate you to become a better teacher. That is why I am going to continue the school year in a 3rd placement – to become a better teacher.
Committing to be a teacher is a commitment to life long learning. The ongoing challenge is to motivate and guide our students to become life long learners, themselves.

The over the past three weeks, as many of you know, I have been repeatedly facing an overwhelming amount of frustration, uncontrollable emotion, and daunting challenges. I know I am not the only one, but it is so easy to get caught up in the anxieties of teaching that you just feel like you are all alone.
First of all, my advice to anyone who may feel overwhelmed: talk to people, then talk to more people. I have never felt so much support before as I do now. However, in the end, it is up to us, as individuals, to get the job done. Most importantly, the best we can.

I have been making several attempts to get myself back on track in the classroom.
What I have learned:
- If it doesn’t make sense to you, it most likely won’t make sense to the students.
- Do not get caught up in the overwhelming amount of resources out there – first, stick to your goals and accomplish through the simplest and clearest ways possible. Then you can build on that. Scaffold scaffold scaffold.
- Classroom management takes precedence over inquiry, especially when there is are no consistent management practices set in place.
- When poop hits the fan, start over.
- Go with your gut instinct.
- Take baby steps. Change can be disorienting.

Since the first day of my placement, I notices the ineffectiveness of giving regents questions as bellwork. It turns into a high demand for one-on-one time with students, and teacher running around like a chicken with its head cut off. I actually just found out a few days ago that the purpose of bell work is for students to work independently while the teacher can take attendance, pass back papers, and have a smooth transition into class. Not until yesterday, have I experienced the serenity of a quiet classroom after the bell rings. What was the trick? A simple crossword puzzle with vocab that the lesson is focused around. It was recommended by another teacher who has been trying to help me get straightened out again. Margaret Warner might be turning over in her grave right now, but if that’s what it takes to get back on track, I’ll take it. Next week, I will move on to something a bit more challenging. What’s the difference between this and a regents question? Students feel successful. There couldn’t be a worse way to start class than by frustrating students. Baby steps, it’s all about the baby steps.
Not only did class start off well, but the transition into the lesson was nearly flawless.

Although haven’t been able to experience very many feelings of success throughout this placement, I am certainly am learning a lot in terms of what effective teaching is, what it looks like (or doesn’t look like), and what it entails. I have learned that science cannot be taught effectively and meaningful unless your classroom is functional and manageable. One of my first priorities as a science teacher when I am on my own: building a safe learning space, building a community of learners, making clear boundaries and setting expectations high from the beginning.

Actions speak louder than words.
There was a point in my student teaching experience where I felt that mixing theory and practice is just like water and oil. They just don’t mix. Of course this is not what I believe, but I am beginning to realize that I have created such an ideal vision of what teaching should look like, but I have not yet factored in what it might take to get there. It’s like painting a picture. You may have a vision in your head of the final product, but you have yet not planned out your strokes. Therefore, you might be unsure of how to make your vision into a reality. These are things we struggle with everyday, but as we have heard it over and over and over again before, life is a journey, or the journey is where the most learning takes place.

I am guilty of this, and I know that most, if not all, of my fellow classmates are as well: we are so critical of ourselves, perhaps over-critical. A part of our learning “journey” as teachers is to find what works and what doesn’t. I am realizing that I may be focusing too much about what doesn’t work, and sometimes this snowballs into a increasing amount of fear that might stop me from taking even more risks. I also realize that I may be overlooking the practices that do work, and thus I am not taking advantage of them and play with them to find out how to make it better than it was before. Get my drift?

Yesterday I took a chance and tried a new approach to implementing a lesson. I wanted the students to think about the bigger picture of what we are talking about: DNA and its affects on the structure and function of living things. Of course, I wanted them to come to this discovery themselves. Some may have, some may have not. But one thing that I realized is that some of the theory-based practices that we have talked about in class about really stuck with me, and I came to a late realization that I had made a subconscious action to modify the class activity so that the students were more active. Therefore, I am going to give the list of informal assessments that we came up with in Lisa’s class, because you never know when the chance to use them in your classroom might pop up.
- Ticked out the door
- Bell work
- Whip around
- graphic organizer
- sticky note slap-up
- concept map
- 1 finger, 2 finger
- 3-2-1
- daily reflection
- journal
-check-in points
- thumbs up/down
- scattergram
- checklist
-writing with new color
-brainstorming
- think, pair share
- Signal cards
- role-playing games
- KWL
- POE
- observation notes
- graffiti board
- word splash
- white boards
- playing cards
- 4 corners
- snowball
- take a stand
- index card : big idea understood, statement or question about something not understood
- question box/board
- one minute essay
- analogy prompt

For the next two week I will be implementing completely different types of lessons: actual scientific experiments/labs using actual tools. I am nearly confident to say that most of the students have never done labs with this type of equipment. I will need to do A LOT of scaffolding and careful planning in order to have success. I am pretty stoked though. I just want to say thank you to MIchael Occhino for helping me get back on track. More will come next week. . .

I know that we are all dealing with the pressures of maintaing a balance in our lives. We are struggling to stay afloat in our coursework while taking on the role of a full time teacher – and the challenges that come with this vary among each one of us – yet, we still have our family and personal lives that carry their own ups and downs. Each one of us deals with these pressures in different ways, and the tolls, physical and emotional, that it takes are yet another factor to consider in the balance that we struggle to maintain. This is nothing new, but it is constant. This is something that we have been and will always be striving to do throughout our lives.

The reason why I feel like this is the most appropriate thing to post about at the moment is because this past week has felt like the worst week that I have had this entire year. The placement that I am in is challenging, and thus I am struggling even more to stay afloat.

I thought that the transition into taking over the classroom would be a bit easier for me since I had made a huge effort to really get to know the kids during my first few weeks. I thought, “I’m set! They respect me, I’ve kept it real, this should be seamless.” However, I have found myself getting more and more frustrated that I cannot even finish a sentence without losing train of thought due to disturbances in the classroom. Is this because they do not see me as a “teacher?” Is it because I have not established myself in a more “authoritative” sense? I dislike the idea of authority or hierarchy in the classroom. Yet again, this is commonly how classrooms are run. Maybe they perceive me as being a push over. Or maybe I just do not know how to implement rules in a classroom that does not have any. I know there is a way to make a change. There has to be. What I have learned is that there are answers, but they are unique to every one of us, and it is our challenge to find them. Which goes back to my last post on shaking it of and stepping up.

Continuing with my struggles in the classroom, even though we have been doing so much planning and scaffolding in class, I still feel like I am overwhelmed in a mass of confusion as to where to go next. Every day I have been staying up all night – and I mean alllll night – trying to figure out how the hell I am going to present new information to the class. I find myself being so unsure of what to do. I find a disconnect between all of the theory that I am so committed to and what is actually happening in the classroom. This is a problem, I know. Right now, I am going to continue to keep trying new things until I figure it out. However, contributing to this anxiety is the amount of teaching overwhelming amount of resources there are. I will spend so much time searching through what is out there, but meanwhile I should be thinking about what is best fit for my students, and what they should be walking away with at the end of the day. And as each day comes, I am with little to no sleep and unsure of what is ahead of me. Aside from the support that I have received from my classmate and supervisors, I still feel like I am completely alone in the classroom, and this has become increasingly more overwhelming as each day passes.

And then there’s the coursework. As valuable our coursework is to our growth as teachers, I find that the issues I am having within the classroom are taking over. I cannot focus or think about anything aside from what is happening at school. And yet we have this HUGE responsibilities as masters students to meet writing requirements in our lesson plans and unit plans etc etc etc. To be honest, the last thing that I am even thinking about is writing a fluid and comprehensive paper with narratives and introductions and the list goes on and on. I realize the value of the connections that we need to make. But it is so hard to balance this load of work during this placement. I’m not saying that there are not things that can help me to catch up, but this is how I feel right now.

The protagonist of this story of struggling and maintaining balance is our friend, Time. Time is such a huge pressure in our of lives. For me, it’s quite possibly the biggest at the moment. And that pressure never goes away. The question is will we own time or let time own us? That is the real challenge. I find myself looking forward to weekends for catching up with work, yet what is most needed is catching up with sleep and a healthy mentality. Classwork consumes most of our time, and then BAM! It’s Monday, and here goes another whirlwind of restless teaching, absence of sleeping, and kicking to stay afloat until the end of the week. I am sick of this vicious cycle. I refuse to let every week to go by like this. I also do not want to exit this student teaching experience disappointed, regardless of the lack of support and structure that I may have in the classroom. Just as John said, I must take responsibility and full advantage of opportunity, even if it entails a repetition of falling down over and over again.

I have been recently suffering from a lot of frustration . . . and sometimes being frustrated can make me really unmotivated – enough that I did not even want to write a blog post. As we all know, lack of motivation doesn’t get us very far. At first I was going to vent on my most recent experience in the classroom. However, I am sick of venting about it. Thanks to Mike C., I have realized that what I think is a sucky and unfortunate situation is really something that I can just run wild with and try new things. Go crazy. What is there to lose?
With this new perspective, I want to share a story that my high school swimming coach used to share with our team. This coach has been one of the most memorable and influential figures in my life thus far. One of my favorite practices were Saturday practices, despite the fact that they were three and one half hours long. A segment of the practice was devoted to a team “talk”, which was led my my coach. He would sometimes share motivational stories (as I will share), visualization practices, and sometimes just simple life lessons, such as healthy dieting. This story has stuck in my head ever since. It may seem silly and juvenile, but the simple words, “Shake it off and step up” have penetrated my mind ever since.
Enjoy.

Yesterday I took two of the NYSTCE exams with some of my fellow classmates.
My brain is still fried, my body is still tired from lack of sleep, and I am struggling to even write this post.
I do not even know how to express my feelings about these exams. Here are some of the feelings that recurred throughout the day: insulted, bored, dumbfounded, concerned, and “am I in high school again?”
We have been discussing issues with standardized assessment since the beginning of our Warner Program. I think it is a bit ironic that while we are continuing to develop as reform-based teachers, we are still subjected to the standardized tests that have no insight on whether or not we are actually “prepared” to become teachers, other than knowing between which two organisms lichens share a symbiotic relationship. Sweet.
It’s like after all of the work that we’ve done, it comes down to a test to determine whether or not we are “competent” enough to become teachers.
I’ve always hated taking tests and that still stands. Where’s the differentiated instruction or authentic assessment that we talk about so much? Shouldn’t the same methods still be used in preparing teachers to become teachers? Yes, we know that that’s the Warner way. If these are the strategies lead us to building understanding, becoming reflective thinkers, then how can we make sure that every teacher ed. program is doing the same? Why is it that these competency exams are the make or break of the teaching career. That is somewhat of a concern.
Here is an article that I found addressing the pros and cons of such teacher competency exams:
Pros and Cons of Competency Testing for Teachers
Anyway, I know I am probably rambling, not making much sense, but taking those exams yesterday made me feel like I took huge steps backward in terms of preparing to become a teacher.