LaToya’s blog

This week started of horribly but ended wonderfully. Thursday and Friday I made three huge triumphs that made my week sooo much better. I realize how much you can make a difference by simply talking with a student and showing them you care and want to see them succeed. I had one students who refused to do work or participate in the lab. So I sat down with him and just talked with him. I asked him about basketball and March madness. Then asked him what was wrong and just let he talk away. I discovered that he did like his grade in the class which is why he refused to do work. We had a heart to heart and I explained how he could improve his grade by making up lab and after school he was the only one to show-up to make up labs.  My Ct was highly surprise because that student never tried to make-up work before.

My next triumph occurred when I again took the time to get to know a resistant student who refused to work and by building a relationship with him I was able to get him to participate in the lab and complete it. At the end of class he was able to answer the closure question and was so proud that he understood the work. When I saw him after school as I was walking to my car he was so happy to see me and so nice. This made me feel great because teachers around the school noted to me he was trouble and I am glad I didn’t believe the hype.

My next triumph was that a student, whom I have keep in contact with from Wilson, confided one of his biggest secrets to me and I was able to be there and support him and I could tell how much he appreciated it.

Overall I was able to  remember why I want to be a teacher and I was able to once again experience how building relationships with students can make a powerful impact!

A great tool for enhancing conceptual learning is a misconception wall. At my current placement my CT does an after school program called dial a teacher and he noticed many of the students where confusing weather and weathering. To combat these misconceptions he put up a poster on the wall labelled misconceptions and addressed the different misconceptions he noticed. I think this is a great idea for any classroom because deeper learning is often sparked through misconceptions.

Now whenever a student talking about the weather outside instead of weathering I can simply refer to the Earth Science misconceptions wall and explain the student the differences. The misconception wall also helps to remind teachers of possible misconceptions so that while teaching they can make sure these items are addressed. So far I’ve seen great ah ha moments come from the wall and it has definitely helped lots.

Another great tool is a questions to address later wall. This wall is very useful when students ask great question that are off topic or that you do not know the answer to. You can simply write it on  the wall or have them write it on the wall and revisit the question after you have time to research the topic or when there is extra class time. This allows students to see that teachers are human and do not have all the answers and lets every students feel their question matters. We just put a question to address later wall up, so I’ll let everyone know how that goes soon.

Today was my first day at Jefferson and what I learned is KIDS ARE KIDS! I was really worried about switching schools. People kept telling my how lucky I was to be at Wilson and how great the IB kids are. People made comment like wait until you’re in a real city class without IB kids. As if the IB kids were so much better than every other set of students in RCSD. I learned today that it really doesn’t matter where you are or whether you have advance kids or the struggling student, KIDS ARE KIDS!

I now truly believe that planning well and setting an appropriate classroom culture can greatly reduce classroom management and behavior problems. Of course students are going to bring outside baggage to the classroom and you may have to diffuse all kinds of issues or have students with an off day that just won’t focus but this can happen no matter where or what students you have its just in the city/urban areas you may have more incidents like this.

My experience today made me so happy because I now know no matter where I get a job I can handle it. As long as I stay strongly embedded in my teaching philosophy, encouraging choice and critical thinking, promoting social justice, maintaining high expectations to combat the culture of low expectation seen in urban areas, and creating an environment of mutual respect.

At an interview/observation I was asked if you were teaching in a non-IB classroom would your teaching style change. Will that answer is Clear NO, because KIDS ARE KIDS! and I strongly believe in my teaching style and I know what I stand for. I encourage all of my classmate to find out what you stay for because as you all know, ‘if you stand for nothing, you will fall for anything’. If you fell that you need to change your philosophy depending on your environment maybe you need to re-think your philosophy!  A good teacher in the city should still be a good teaching in the suburbs and vice verse because just like KIDS ARE KIDS, STAR TEACHERS ARE STAR TEACHERS no matter the environment.

I am sorry this turned into a rant but I got into a serious debate today about teaching and coaching and how my experience coaching in the suburbs can not be applied to city kids. This outraged me. I stated “I coach like I teach and no matter where I am I will always be the same!” I strong believe in this so I wanted to share/vent.

I’m leaving my first students teaching placement so I decided to write this poem to express what I’m feeling:

The Gardener by LaToya

Early September I stepped into the garden and look around

I looked at the gardener confused, all I saw was empty ground

The wind began to blow and one by one little seeds began to appear

“Plant them” he said “one here, here and there”

He handled me a book called curriculum

Said it would show me the rules of gardening

He handed me the water pail of knowledge, the weight of this pail was astounding

Said you must fill it every day and one by one sprinkle some on each seed

Then he showed me the way

Most importantly he said, up there is the Sun of hope

And you must always make sure it shines bright as can be

This is the best way to grow these seeds

So one by one I began to plant

And over the last six months watched as they grew

They bloomed so beautifully and ways I never knew

The gardener said “the time has come

You’ve done all you can do, it’s time to move on”

I replied “they are a part of me now, how can I leave?

I am afraid this process cannot be complete”

“There are many gardens” he said “all with seed in need

You are now a prepared gardener and I know you will help them grow

This is why you must go”

Today I took the Liberal Art and Science Test for NYS teaching certification. The exam was a pm exam so I didn’t have to be there until 1pm which was really nice. That actually was one of the only thing that was nice today. I left the house 20 mins early in case I got lost and surely enough, I did get lost. I was driving to Brockport from home in Hilton and I mapquested it. Will mapquest sucked cause it gave me the wrong street names and I got lost in the middle of NO WHERE!. I called and asked for direction and was asked “what land makers do you see”. NONE cause I was surrounded by fields and nothingness!!! So at this point I begin to freak out because after paying $88 I do not want to miss this test. Then it hits me, I grabbed the wrong bag and guess what the purse I’m carrying has no pencils. So now I’m lost and I have no pencils to take the test with. I decided to turn around and back track and just before the tears began to fall down and flood my car, behold a Irish mom and pop restaurant appears. I was then able to state a land mark and get semi clear directions. After talking to two more different people for directions I finally the church like building they call Brockport Middle School. Upon getting to the school I became the ultimate moocher bumming pencils off all the actually prepared teachers. I manage to locate three pencil and find my way to my testing site. I sit down look around and thought to myself people are going to trust me with their children! :/

Testing issues

Tuesday I gave the students a quiz on the material we worked on last week. During the quiz the students were very distracted. They were making annoying nosies to bother other students, yelling random comments, laughing and talking. I had to repeatedly ask students to quiet down and some students began to complain about not being able to focus. I threaten students zeros on their quiz if they continued but I did not feel comfortable given a student a zero, especially since in IB tests and quizzes are 71% of the grade. I caught one of my students giving another student the answer to a question and I was forced to give that student a zero. I believe the loud environment and lack of consequences allowed students to think they could cheat. After the quiz was over I was very discouraged and hurt at the lack of respect for me and their classmates. After a discussion with my C T we came up with the conclusion to warn students once and if talking continues to take off 5 points and if they talk again to give them a zero on the quiz. I felt more comfortable with this method because it allowed for a warning which I hoped would work so I wouldn’t have to give out any zeros. We took another quiz on Friday and unfortunately the students still didn’t take me serious and I had to subtract 5 point from one students and given another a zero. Both students after having points subtracted refused to complete their quizzes and one even stormed out the classroom. I felt really bad and I find myself questioning if I did the right thing. After the quiz I discussed with the class why I felt the need to give out a zero, how they need to respect their classmates and allow them quiet to concentrate. Some of the class expressed an understanding but the students with zeros still felt like I wronged them and gave me serious attitude. Giving the consequences worked because once the class saw one students get a zero about two warning everyone stopped talking and for the entire test their was silence. I’m having a lot of trouble with this so any thoughts?

Stream Tables

This week we worked with stream table investigating how slope and volume effect stream velocity. I wanted the students to participate in more guided inquiry because this is a difficult lab to design because of the abstract concepts. I provided the students with a problem, a big question and four essential questions they should be able to answer at the end of the lab. From there the students created their own hypotheses and procedures. To step up check point the students had to get their procedures approved before they could begin.

This was really fun and messy. The students loved getting dirty in the sand and creating streams.

I found that even though this lab was more guided the students still struggled. The main struggle, was with understanding how to calculate the volume of the stream. The students need to measure volume by figuring out rate of discharge and then figure out the velocity and use the time from the velocity to figure out the volume during their trial. The students really had trouble understanding this and way you need rate of discharge. They couldn’t understand that the rate of discharge is a rate and there simply changing the time wouldn’t have an affect on the rate of discharge.

Next week after break we are continuing working with stream tables and will be investigation glaciers. For this lab I wanted to students to be more independent since they already have experience with the tables. I’m in sure what data they can get from investigating glaciers with stream tables so if anyone has an suggestions let me know.

In the spirit of inclusion I decided to do have my students do a project on the  hydrologic (water) cycle that allowed them to multiple forms of intelligence and show their creative sides. In the activity I gave the students the option to write a poem, write a rap, write a song, write a news article, or create a poster to depict the water cycle. Here’s the activity handout below. The kids really loved this activity and did a great job with it. A few of the boys in my class who never complete their work with 100percent effort worked really hard and wrote and amazing rap, which once I get their permission I will upload. I had one girl write a poem that was really creative and just about all the posters were colorfully and great. Having the students create their own projects allowed the students to participate in the higher levels of bloom taxonomy. They were able to be creative and that is the highest level of blooms taxonomy. After the projects were presented I gave the students practice Regents questions on the water cycle for homework to complete. Today we when over the questions and about 85 percent of the students got all the questions right. This was a powerful experience. It shows that you can allow students to have fun and be creative and still prepare them for their Regents exams.

The Hydrologic (Water) Cycle Activity

You will have a total of one class period to complete this activity (half of a period today and half of a period tomorrow). Any work that cannot be completed within the given class time will need to be completed for homework. Complete Assignments are due Tuesday February 2^nd in class. No late assignments will be accepted because knowledge of this information is needed for Tuesday’s class.

Water is continually cycled between the lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere. This movement of water is called the water cycle. Use your Physical Science text book pages 589-596 and the information packets given to complete your choice of the following activities.

1. Write a poem about the water cycle
2. Write a song or rap about the water cycle
3. Create a poster/drawing that shows the water cycle in detailed
4. Write a news article that’s designed to inform people about the water cycle

Be sure to include and define or provide examples of the following terms

• Evaporation
• Precipitation
• The water table
• Ground water
• Transpiration
• Condensation

Be sure to include and define or provide examples of at least 6 of the 8 terms below:

• Infiltration
• Permeability
• Saturation (zone of)
• Aeration (zone of)
• Porosity
• Runoff
• Aquifer
• Capillary

You may work with other students but everyone must turn in their own individual work.

Recently I have begin filling out the online application for Rochester City School District (RCSD). Which is located at the following website . In order to fill out the application I have been faced with the challenge of updating my resume. I find the task of updating my resume very difficult because I have never had a real job. I worked all through college but since I was a full time student I only worked part time. I fill as if my resume lack and this kind of scares me. I have had participated in a lot of volunteering which I use to fluff up my resume but the online application does not really allow for this. So my question to anyone reading this is how do I sell myself better when completing an online application?

Second dilemma that I have been facing this week is getting my coaching certification. In order to get your coaching cert you need to complete the following and providing proof to Boces:

1) Copies of current CPR and First Aid cards

2)Certificate of completion for FREE child abuse identification and
reporting seminar.
(The child abuse workshop is part of coaching class component #2-Health
Sciences so it is unnecessary to retake if you have completed Component #2
already since 1991 and show documentation)
Otherwise you can do it for FREE online at:
http://www.nysmandatedreporter.org/
click on “New online Trainings” and click on “Self-Directed Online
training”.  It is the first one listed.

3) AND the Safe Schools against Violence workshop.  This can be done
online for $25.00 on:
https://ideas.gstboces.org/training/online/save/

4)  Completion forms for any coaching classes you may have taken already
through BOCES #2 or BOCES #1 or another BOCES OR official college
transcript if you took coaching classes through a college/university in
NYS.

I have completed all the requirement and mailed the information to the Boces office and currently have not been able to get in contact with the Boces office to get the okay. This is so frustrating because currently I am volunteer coaching with the Wilson team, which is a LOT of work and if I get this certification I can get paid for my work. Seeing that I am a full time Graduate student with no source of income getting paid would be a wonder gift!

When creating quizzes I think it is important that we allow for authentic assessment. Multiple choice test just won’t cut it! I do think that its important that students are exposed to regents type question because they will have to take a regents at the end of the year but that doesn’t mean our focus should be on only regent type question because authentic assessments will allow us to see our students process better and more conceptual learning.

During my series of three I created a quiz to assess students’ knowledge on topographic maps. The quiz I created consisted of all opened ended discussion type questions. I decided to avoid the use of multiple choice questions because multiple choice questions typically do not show conceptual learning. I really enjoyed correcting the test because the last question on the quiz allowed the students to be creativity and apply their knowledge to a real-life situation. The question asked “If you were a hiker planning to hike Ash or Oak hill, which hill would you choose to hike and why?” I was able to get really funny answers like “Ask hill because it’s taller and I want to work my calfs”. The students really had fun with the question and many of the students displayed an understanding. There were a few students who were not use to having question like this and one stated “this is an opinion question, how am I ‘pose to answer that”.