Since this will be my last blog post ever….I just wanted to thank all of you for the last year. I know that the only way I could have gotten through this program is by having this awesome group of people to help and support me throughout the year. So, thank you-I feel like I’ve learned so much about myself this past year and I have tons of great memories! Thanks everyone!!!!

Just a quick summary of the talk on Wednesday….

1) The new bacteria he designed could eventually be used for many different areas: they could use CO2 and then produce food or fuel–how cool is that?!

2) He was pretty critical of the government grant system. He called it risk adverse–so as a researcher, you wont get a grant if your idea is unproven, no matter what your track record is. However, once your idea actually works, you will get funded for everything you want to do relating to that topic.

3) Basically, I really miss my genetics courses. His explanation of various genetic procedures he used, and the ideas he had were so cool, and I wanted to immediately go and read the articles he was referencing. And his creativity and ability to problem solve was so impressive.

4) Most importantly, thanks to Harvey for driving through the tornado warning and super bad storm!!

So I was reading this article thanks to the daily email from the u of r. I wanted to share it because I think it has implications for how we teach our students in high school. While college classrooms have traditionally embraced the lecture/transmission model of education, this article describes the workshop model that the u of r started to use to encourage learning outside of the classroom. Basically, workshops entail showing up for 2 hours outside of lecture time with a group of students also taking the class. Your TA for the section facilitates any questions/concerns for the assignment during the workshop but does not give you the right answer. Now, I experienced the workshop model mostly in my chem and bio classes, but as the article describes, it is used across the departments. One of the problems of this model is that if the TA does not know how to guide the student to the correct answer, or doesn’t even know the correct answer, then it is hard to run the workshop effectively. How can the students know if they are heading on the right track or learning the wrong information?

While I was reading this article thinking about my college experience, I couldn’t help but think that the workshop model is exactly the class structure we want for our students–we want them to work together and only be guided by the teacher. They should create their investigations and report the results. However, the same concerns that I described above hold here too. If a teacher cannot think ahead to what the potential correct answer to a specific question on an assignment is, then how can he/she guide the students to the answer? Then, after thinking about that, I started to wonder, is there value in students getting information wrong, besides for discrepant events? In my opinion, I think it depends on the length of time the students hold these misconceptions. If the students work hard and spend a lot of time to create a project that is full of misconceptions, then I don’t think that this is helpful for the students. I also think it is the job of a teacher to monitor the learning that is taking place on this long term project and to guide the students to the answer. I just thought that the link between higher education and what we strive to teach in our own classrooms was interesting and I wanted to share.

Yesterday at teacher recruitment day, I was speaking with a district participating in TRD USA. The person conducting the quick interviews at the beginning of the morning (to decide whether or not you would get to sit down with him for a full interview) asked me, when I got to the front of the line waiting to speak with him, how I would explain mitosis to a student that “doesn’t want to learn it.” I started by saying that I would sit down with this student individually and use pictures and other visuals to describe it. Then, he put a stack of papers, two pens and a napkin in front of me and said “show me–use just these materials to show the student how mitosis would work.” This was the spot that it took me an extra few seconds to formulate my thoughts before I spoke. But once I did, I set up the pens in the middle, used the papers as the centrioles and then split the pens and their caps to represent the sister chromatids separating. And the recruiter really liked that-in my interview later, he told me that he had never seen anyone separate the pen from the cap before (to me, it made sense because one was a pen and one was a highlighter so they weren’t really sister chromatids because they weren’t the same). Anyway, the whole point of this post is to describe a potential scenario in an interview: the classic, we want to see how you think on your feet, so figure out how to teach X, Y, Z now!

As a side note, a few of my college friends used to complain about how often we had to learn about mitosis. The running joke became that we would have to draw mitosis out on the back of our diplomas before we could get them! So, I thought it was particularly funny that mitosis was back again–and could potentially help me get a job in the fall! Hope everyone else is doing well!

During the last week of our placement, I really enjoyed hearing the students give their presentations. I felt like during the last two weeks, I was really able to bond with the students more than at the beginning of the placement. Like a few other people have blogged about, this placement really went by so quickly, and we were walking into our CT’s classroom, which already had a classroom culture, so it was a little harder to form the connections that I did at my first placement. But I do think that this placement gave me many ideas to think about as to how I would like to set up my classroom in the fall. And I am really grateful for the opportunity to co-teach. I think I have a lot of positive things that I can reference in job interviews as well as just having the opportunity to work with a like minded peer was an invaluable experience.

The interviews last night were another very valuable experience. I appreciated the opportunity to speak with the people that are making the hiring decisions in our area today. Instead of having to learn from our first job interview and apply it to the next, we have a really big advantage walking into that first interview.

In the spirit of reflecting, I do wish I had prepared a more in depth portfolio, but I ran out of time. I was able to print out a few pages of pictures that I did use, but thinking about what I could have done, it could have been better. I think that this would be a very valuable assignment for a class. I also have felt like, even though I have a blog to write about these things, I was never forced to articulate my thoughts on who I am, and other important classroom procedures that were asked in interview questions. But I think that in preparing for these interviews, I am now better prepared for interviews in the future and I do not think I would have had this experience anywhere else. Anyway, these are my rambling thoughts tonight…

So Molly and I having been watching our student presentations that they worked all last week on, and I’ve been thinking about similar ideas as my last placement so I wanted to see what everyone else thought of these ideas:

1) How do you hold other students accountable while other groups are presenting? In both placements, I’ve given students questions to answer. While on the one hand, students have sometimes used these as appropriate questions to ask the presenters, on the other hand, if we are timing students and the audience just missed the answer to a question, when do we cut off that presentation? Should we let the group answer, which would go over the time limit? Or, do we cut the presentation off and not allow the audience to write down the answer to the question (which in turn would harm their grade on their report sheets)?

2) What do you do when students present incorrect facts? Or, if students do not know how to pronounce words on their slides? Do you correct them in the moment of their presentation? Or, wait until later to have a general review of presentations so that it doesn’t point out any one student, but it does provide the correct ideas.

3) How do you get the audience to be respectful of the presenters? We talked a lot about being respectful listeners and yet I still have to quiet students down while other groups are talking.

4) How do you create an order for students to give presentations in?

5) How do you deal with presentations of unequal quality? For example, we told students to accomplish 7 things during their presentations and groups ranged from 1 to all 7. (and the reasons for why these were not accomplished range from being absent to not using class time productively) Those 7 things were part of the assignment and students should have been able to complete all 7 in around 3 classes tops if they were working productively. And since the projects were of unequal quality, how should I go about looking at grading the projects? And how does the audience look at it? The students were able to choose their topics (from a list)  in the most recent class but not in my first placement, which should theoretically give the students more ownership of the project.

6) How do you teach and model for students how to present? Advice like don’t read off the slide, have clear roles for who is going to say which part etc. We tried to go over this with the students, but we still had the groups reading off the slides. However, with my older students (and with the added requirement that they had to use 3 media in their presentation), there was less reading directly off the slide and more drawing pictures and only explaining examples that were placed on the slide. So, could this be a function of age group?

Anyway, I know a lot of people are having their students give presentations during their innovative units so what are your rules and regulations? And how do you enforce these?

So today, thanks to Molly for teaching our students, I was able to attend a professional development opportunity about co-teaching. It was very educational, although it still did not answer my main question of how to get common planning time if your school does not work it into the schedule. If teachers are set to leave right after school and their schedules do not line up, then how can there be time to plan together? Even just trying to collaborate with the other adults in our classroom, we have had to use instructional time with the students to spend preparing the other adults for the following lessons (which should NOT be a solution). Anyway, I wanted to pass along some of the strategies that I learned today….

First, a fact: according to this website, 3,000 students across the US drop out of school every day. That works out to 1 student every 26 seconds. The number one reason why was listed as not having any positive relationship with a teacher. Thus, even though as high school teachers we might have students who already have their minds made up about school, we can still be there and make every student feel welcome to try to change that for at least our one class.

Ok, onto strategies:

For auditory learners: “whisper phones” allow students to read to themselves so that they can hear the information they are reading-they whisper the text to themselves and the “phone” amplifies it. This would work great for guided readings or individual work time so that auditory students can have the same access to the material. (I have one if anyone would like to see or try it out).

In a similar manner to the red, yellow or green squares, for math problems (or science ones), students put these next to the problems they are working on, depending on how well they understand it. This enables an instructor to quickly walk around and create a flexible group based on students who do not understand problem #37 (for example). I think the cards might be more practical, but it also depends on how you use it. So, if students have to get the dot signed off or something along those lines, it might work well too.

An easy piece to add to any classroom: page protectors! Cut them along the side and you can slip them over any textbook page. While the student is reading, he/she can mark up the “page” in any way to help him/her remember the information! Also, if there is a classroom read aloud, a teacher can say “stop, draw a symbolic representation of what we just read.” (Helpful for the visual learners because it is right next to the information.

I think one of the best strategies I learned helps all students student for an exam. It is called the “5 box review study.” Basically, you just draw five boxes next to each other on the top of an assignment. After a teacher announces that there is going to be a test on certain notes, after you study it once, you put your initials in the first box and continue until you have studied the information 5 times (which presumably means you are prepared to take the test). The reason why this strategy is effective is because when we announce a test is next Friday, that benefits the auditory learners tremendously. But what about the tactile and visual learners? Neither of these groups have that same advantage by just hearing something. However, by doing the act of initialing and seeing the 5 boxes get filled in, both visual and tactile learners have the benefit of seeing their study progress.

She also stressed the SLANT strategy that the middle school where we did STARS uses. When I heard about it there, I thought it was a little demeaning and it treats the students like individuals that have to be controlled. However, after hearing about it from our lecturer, it sounded a little better, but I’m still not sure I agree with it. I do think it is important to pay attention to the speaker and ask questions, but why is leaning forward so critical for learning?

Lastly, I don’t know if I have shared “clock buddies” with you all before. but basically it is a quick way to form partners. It takes a little bit of time to set up but then it is all ready for the entire year. Basically, each student gets a blank clock and has to fill in the name of a different student for each number on the clock. Then, once all of the individuals’ clocks are filled in, a teacher can say “Ok, everyone get with your 4 o’clock buddy” and the students are automatically paired and ready for group work.

And I just wanted to finish with a word about co-teaching between a special and general educator. For it to be effective, both teachers need to co plan, co instruct, and co assess. Otherwise, students can tell that there is a difference level in the teachers and how can they treat you equally if you are visibly equal in all of these processes. One thing I am definitely learning is that it is super important to have a set routine and expectations that both teachers follow. Everything from a clear bathroom policy to accepting late work (or not) is important to figure out and communicate ahead of time. Even figuring out how to let the other teacher know who had permission to leave and who did not is important. Anyway, I really like the idea of co-teaching done properly. I think it is a great step towards including all students in the class. However, I have not yet seen it implemented well (between a general educator and a special educator), and I wish that if it is used in a classroom, that it is at least done well.

Here are some resources I promised a few posts ago:

Blooms-MI Master Planning Matrix blank

Blooms-MI Master Planning Matrix

09_Bloom-Gardner_Matrix-example-2009

MultipleIntelligenceActivities

Please check them out cohort. They are a really good tool to make sure that the assessments planned during a unit appropriately target all of the intelligences and through the various Bloom’s levels. One thing we stressed was that every unit doesn’t have to have an assessment in every box, but over the course of the year, all of the boxes should be filled out. And at least 3-4 intelligences for each Bloom’s level is a good goal to strive for each unit. I just wanted to share with everyone. Hope you find it useful!

So I am officially done with all of the observations for this placement, which partly signifies the end of my 8 weeks. Overall, I think we did very well with all of them. One thing that I have been trying to incorporate more of because of my observations is a closure activity for every lesson. I always seem to either run out of time or I can’t gather the students back in fast enough to have a closure activity–sometimes I just get the students attention and then the bell rings. But I can now see how important this closure activity is to the classroom. To discuss the most important topic again or draw connections between new and old topics is really what can draw students back to the essential question and the bigger ideas of what we really want the students to learn.

I have also appreciated other topics from my debriefing sessions after my observations. I have seen how much I have grown from the first observation I had until now: instead of focusing much of the debriefing about classroom management or my quiet voice/nature, I noticed that we started to talk more about what I could change in the future if I were to do these activities again. I am taking so much away from these conversations–how to go about reflecting upon my own lessons as a future teacher and how I can change to make them even better. I have always known that I have wanted to reflect on lessons and learn and make lessons, but I am not sure I really knew how to do this. I feel like during these last few debriefing sessions, I have really had this skill modeled for me and I feel more confident in my ability to think about the bigger picture and how I could go about doing lessons differently.

Anyway, those are my thoughts for the week. 12 more days everyone…..

So I’ll have more multiple intelligence resources later, but for now, check this out. I think it is important to think about MI when planning units so that all students have the opportunity to showcase what they have learned. It also is important to see how all of our students have different learning styles, which most likely are not the same as ours.

Yesterday at our placement, there was a sub in for our CT. It was an interesting experience in that this particular person had no interest in teaching full time and only subs for the extra money. He walked around making students move seats if they talked, even though the students had assigned seats (which we did tell him about). He also yelled at the students on more than one occasion to be quiet. This yelling (I mean full out, angry tone) was the first time I have experienced a teacher yelling at his/her students. Right after he yelled, the students did get quiet, but there was an awkward atmostphere in the room for the rest of class. (In the second class, the students went right back on talking and it didn’t accomplish anything.) And it literally sent shivers up my spine when he did. I am all for students learning how to pay attention in class and not speak with their friends, but I don’t think this skill can be taught by yelling at the students. Aren’t we supposed to be creating a safe space for the students to learn? How can we do this when we yell at the students? In one sense, this inappropriate behvior made Molly and I look better in the students’ eyes. Comparitively, the students could see that we cared about them and want them to succeed. Thus, even though it was not the greatest situation, it seemed as if the students liked us more. So I guess its a small upside for us? But I don’t think it was worth the students getting yelled at….Has anyone heard teachers yell before? Either from your high school or your CTs experience?? I just think it can’t be good for anyone–the students, the teacher etc. Thoughts??