Test prep, and more test prep

Today, like every day lately, we reviewed for the state test that is coming up. First, we went over the packet that they had for homework, which was on meteorology, and graded it in class. Then, Bella and I handed out the passes to the students so that they knew when they were taking the state test next week. There are only 23 spots per room, so the test, which is a lab practical, goes over two days. When we handed out the passes, we called each student up individually, and taped the passes into their planners. Then we told them when and where their test was, and that they were not allowed to take the pass out of their planners until the test was over. After the passes, we had the students work on a very short density experiment to ensure that they knew what they were doing.

On the lab practical that they will be taking on Tuesday and Wednesday of next week, there are three stations: density, microscope and classification, and ball and ramp. In order to prepare the students for this test, we give them experiments very similar to what they are going to see on the test, and we also give them a practice lab practical. A lot of preparation goes into this test, which unfortunately takes a significant amount of class time. I understand the reasoning for state tests, but I do not always agree with the implementation of them.

Something else that I find interesting is that it seems that classes that are affected by state tests always seem like they do not have enough time to cover all of the material. For instance, Bella spent a significant amount of time during the year on Chemistry, but she also has to cover Physics. So much time is spent on Chemistry that she has to squeeze physics in. We spent one day on electricity and magnetism. I just wonder if there is a better way to pace yourself in order to cover everything that you need to cover. I guess this is something I will understand more when I have my own classroom.

Electricity and Magnetism

Today was a good day. First, the english teacher on my team told us that she is pregnant! We were all very excited and congratulated her. Also, Petrina came, and she gave me an excellent observation. She loved the lesson that I did. The only problem is that it wasn’t really my lesson. I did a good job with it, but Bella came up with the lesson should be. All I do is watch Bella teach the periods before I teach, then I do the same lesson that she did earlier (at least for now). I was happy to get the excellent observation, but I also feel guilty for taking it.

The lesson I did today was about electricity. As a side note, this is the only day we work on electricity. What we did for the lesson was have them do a couple of questions about circuits in the review book as a science starter (we had not talked about this yet, so this was a good introduction to the lesson). Then we went over that, and had them copy down seven definitions. We watched a short video clip, and while they were watching it they were supposed to write down the terms that corresponded with the definitions that they had previously copied down. We went over the definitions, and then we broke them up into groups of four and had them build circuits. Unfortunately, we did not actually have circuits for them to play with, but we did have a card game called AC/DC, which is a card game about building circuits. We did not have enough time to actually play the game, but a significant portion of the students enjoyed making the circuits with the cards anyway.

I liked this lesson because we touched on many of the different intelligences. The students weren’t doing the same type of activity for a long amount of time. And I really liked working with the card game. One surprising thing I found out about one of my students is that he does electronics for a hobby. He had brought in a book on electronics, which is funny because I do not think we told him that we were doing electricity today. So I told him that he could find a project in there to do during the last week and a half that I was there. I am getting more excited about that last week and a half as time goes on. I will ask them soon what their favorite part of this class is, and start coming up with projects for them. Yay for fun science and not test prep!

Superintendent’s Conference day

Well, I didn’t actually teach today, but I wanted to journal about today anyway. Today was my first Superintendent’s Conference day. I was actually dreading today because of how the other teachers on my team were talking about it. But really, it wasn’t bad. The only time I was really board was the second session. It was an hour and a half talk about new software that the district is getting. It looks like nice software, but really, software is better learned in a hands-on way. They do plan on having a conference day in September where the teachers and staff will be trained at computers.

The other two sessions that I had to go to were a science department meeting (the first session) and a guest speaker who spoke about poverty (the third session). The science department meeting was nice because it was real. The teachers talked about issues that were relevant to them. One such issues is having the students fill in a second scantron for the part 1 questions on the 8^th grade science test. The state is saying that the teachers are not allowed to do it anymore. The reason that the science teachers do that because they spend so much time reviewing that they count part 1 of the test toward the students’ averages. The science teachers at the meeting were arguing that the state has no logical reason to bar them from doing this. This is an interesting issue, and I’m wondering how it is going to play out.

The guest speaker was great. Although the talk was two and a half hours long, sitting there for that long was only uncomfortable because we were in the high school auditorium (nanometers of space between each seat). The speaker also gave us a small break, which helped a lot. The talk was interesting because she was talking about what middle class children are taught that children in poverty are not (she does not like calling them “lower-class” because that is derogatory; the statement that they live in poverty is a fact). I thought that that was an interesting, but true, distinction. She also discussed her personal life and marriage. She was born in a very middle class home whereas her husband was a thug growing up (I am assuming that he is no longer a thug because she married him). She also discussed the behaviors that prevent those in poverty from fitting in to a middle class society (and a bit on what behaviors prevent middle class society from fitting into the wealthy society). I have seen many of these behaviors in my students, and now that I am aware of them, I am wondering how I can help my students. This will be something to continue to think about throughout my career.

First week at new placement

This is the last day of my first week of student teaching at my middle school placement. It has been a long week, although not in a negative sense. Today I taught two out of the five periods that Bella has (Bella is my cooperating teacher), periods 8 and 9. Period 8 is the “advanced” physical science class, and period 9 is the “tough” class (although it is not the class with the most classified students). For today’s lesson, we reviewed types of heat transfer and quickly went through reflection and absorption. For this we used the review book (UPCO’s Intermediate Level Science Review). Then we had them hand in their science starter sheets. Science starters are essentially do nows, but Bella has sheets where they fill in their answers on this sheet (the answers are usually very short). Then we worked out of the packet we have been using all week to go over phase changes, which the students saw when they were learning Chemistry this year. We had a simple matching game where we had different types of phase changes and the students came up to the board and matched either a definition or a description to the vocabulary words (there were about six vocabulary words). By that point, it was the end of the period and I checked the review books (they had chapter 10 due) and they were done.

Period 8 was pretty chatty, and I threatened to send one of the students to one of the other team member’s rooms. It didn’t totally help, but it helped a little. This was also the first day I was teaching this class. Period 9 is the tough class, although they are usually not too bad for me. Or maybe it’s just that I have a different definition of bad. When I think of bad kids, I think of mouthy, attitudy kids. These kids are sometimes attitudy, but mostly they are talkative.

I like how in these classes, Bella has something other than problems to work on and lecture. In every class that I have seen her teach, she has a demo, a lab, or some game to play. And since I have been following her lead on what to teach at this point (I see her teach a lesson about 3 times before I teach it, and I essentially do what she does for a lesson), I have been seeing what she does, and it helps me see other ways of teaching besides just lecturing and giving problems.i

Last day at high school

So, today was my last day student teaching at my high school placement. It was a bittersweet day. I taught one class (1st block), and helped out with 4th block(which I never fully took over). The students said good-bye, and some said that they would miss me. I will miss my classes. Stella was really sweet, and she ordered some pizza and invited the science faculty and anyone else who stopped in to come and have some.

All we did today in class was review for their test on Tuesday. I checked homework, went over two homeworks, gave them a review sheet to work on, and read them the answers at the end. Kind of a boring day, but Stella overruled the Jeopardy game due to the thought that the students need more practice at multiple choice test because they don’t get enough practice in the elementary and middle schools. I had a discussion with Stella about this previously, and she said that the students cannot take the information out of a word problem an apply their scientific knowledge to it. I feel like I’ve heard this as a complaint by many teachers, though, so I don’t know if this is strictly a problem for this school.

One of the things I’m going to miss about the school is the people. The people I met there were great, and were very happy to help me when they could. That kind of community is great to have in a school, and I hope that the school I end up working for has a similar environment.

Changing times

Man am I tired. Today was an “A” day. A significant reflection that happened today actually happened during 3^rd block. I realized that I do not dread that block anymore. I was so excited to realize this. I just see it as the block that I will make the most mistakes in because it is the block that I teach a particular lesson in first. I usually do not make many mistakes, but as each block passes, my lesson gets smoother. I expect that as years start passing that even the first time I teach a lesson will get smoother.

Something else significant that happened today was that I had a substitute teacher with me 4^th block. Stella went home to run some errands, and a retired health teacher was the substitute that stayed with me. He just recently (last year) retired, so all the students still know him. He’s a very nice guy, but he distracted my students terribly. Thankfully, there were times that he left to give me some space, and that is when I got a lot of my lesson done.

I gave a quiz today, and it seemed like most of my students had a decent grasp of the material. There were a couple of students who didn’t do so well, but I do try to make sure that I get around to most of my students when we have group work in order to see if they understand what we’re doing. I guess that I always hope as a teacher that if a student likes me then s/he will work hard so they don’t disappoint me. I don’t think it’s true. There’s a couple of students who seem to like me, but still don’t do their work. I wonder if I can do anything to help them. If I were staying longer, I could see what interests them personally, and try to somehow work that into the lesson. I guess I can always find out what interests them and tell Stella so that she has that information.

Lessons learned in topic order

Today was an “A” day, although it went better than most “A” days. I found both classes to be pretty well-behaved, even 3^rd block, which is the class I usually have problems with. The big issue I have in my other classes are kids talking, but when I say something the student(s) generally stop.

At the end of 4^th block, the student often have a hard time staying in their seats waiting for the bell to ring, and today was no exception, especially with it being Friday. I lost one of my students who got out the door and disappeared before I could say anything (I was explaining something to another student at the moment), and there were a couple of more out in the hallway just hanging out or playing soccer. I gave the student playing soccer “the look,” and he immediately got back in the classroom. As strange as this is to say, that moment made me very happy. It told me that at least one student cared about me being mad at him.

One thing that broke up the classes today was a cool demonstration with a supersaturated solution of sodium acetate and a tiny amount of water. This is a really cool demonstration, and I think having the kids get up out of their seats and doing something other than taking notes was a good change of pace for them.

Other than the sodium acetate demonstration, in one block we did a demonstration with acetone dissolving a Styrofoam cup. I decided not to get off on that topic tangent in the other class because I felt that it was too far out of the way from what we were talking about, and that it took away from group time. I might do that topic during my next class.

I am not sure what was different about today that made the classes behave pretty well, but I am glad it happened. My time at NPHS is almost up, and I feel like I’m just getting comfortable teaching these students. Oh well.

How to deal with a rowdy class?

Today was a “B” day. I love it when Fridays are also “B” days because I only teach 1^st block on “B” days. So I teach 1^st block, then get other stuff done for the rest of the day. So many students were absent in today’s class. There are only about 12 students in today’s class normally, and about 3-4 of them were missing today. The past couple of weeks have been hard because everyone has been getting sick, including myself!

I announced that there would be a 50 point quiz/test/quest next week on Thursday, and what would be on the test. Than we dove into the lesson. I went over mole-mole ratios in balanced equations, gave them a practice sheet with multiple choice questions, and had them work on that. Then, they got to turn over that sheet and work on some more multiple choice problems to review for the test. I feel bad just giving them tons of questions to do like this, but there are a few reasons that we do it. First off, the students in this district do not get nearly enough practice in the lower grades with multiple choice, so by the time they get to the high school, they are really bad at it. This is reflected in their SAT scores which are not as high as you would expect compared to their GPAs. So we need to drill them on multiple choice, although I would rather write interesting, or at least funny questions for them to practice with. Also, my cooperating teaching is pretty heavy into teaching to the Regents test. But in this instance I cannot totally put the blame on her for this. At this high school, we have block scheduling, which decreases the amount of time that we have to teach the material. This makes us feel like we are continually trying to catch up on time. Not fun. Now that I am settled here at this school, I am trying to differentiate my instruction to at least make it a bit more interesting for my students, but I don’t feel like that is a priority at all for my cooperating teacher. One good thing is that it seems that she will let me try out some things even if she doesn’t totally agree with it. She is of the opinion that I have to find my own teaching style. I am grateful for this.

One apprehensive memory from today is that Stella had to leave me with 4^th block. This makes me apprehensive because they are the one block that I have not taken over. They are the most out of control chemistry class that she teaches. Their assignment was the practice and review problems that the other classes had, although they had to hand it in for 5 points with the following breakdown: 1 point for completing the sheets, 2 points for showing work, and 2 points for behaving. Maybe you want to read that again. They got more points for behaving then for actually completing the work. That is the type of class that this is. There is one student that I had to tell to get back in the room a couple of times. Although I dread taking on this class, I feel like it would be good practice.

Stella warned me that certain periods are harder to teach than others. I don’t think that 4^th block was included in this, but it does show me that not all periods are created equally. She specifically mentioned 3^rd block, which is when band meets. She said that any class you teach that meets at the same time as band is going to be slower because the “smart” kids are in band. I think I need more experience to have an opinion about this, but I also wonder if smaller classes would help those classes that meet during the same time as band be more manageable.

Use of worksheets

Today was a “B” day, so I only had to teach one class: first block. I am also feeling a little sick with a sniffly nose and a good cough. Other than that, today went well. My 1B class is a good class, and by the time I get to teach them, I generally have the lesson down pat. Today we went over empirical and molecular formulas. Not a very difficult topic, and with the small size of the class, we got through it pretty fast. I also had homework due today based on the lab we did last class. We went over that in the beginning of class. Other than that we just worked on worksheets for practice. I wonder if there is a better way to work on skills development beside doing worksheets. I will have to ask around and do some more research on that. I feel like we do a decent amount of work with worksheets, but I do not know if we can completely avoid it. The worksheets we use generally just have problems to practice what we are learning. Sometimes it is geared more toward notes where there is a basic outline of the lesson and they have to make their own annotations. I think that if there was a good way to use worksheets, the way we use them would be it. I have also observed a teacher who solely used fill-in-the-blank worksheets for everything in his class (history). This use of worksheets gives using worksheets a bad name. Just being aware of striking a happy medium with the use of worksheets and and being aware of their usefulness (or lack there of) is important.

Important lessons on flexibility

Man am I glad this week is over. It feels like much more than a week has gone by, although the days seem to go by fast. Today was an “A” day, so I taught two blocks: third and fourth. Third block has become my tough class. Fourth block is a great class. I was very apprehensive about teaching third block today because on Wednesday they got out of control due to their talking. I am sure that they (the students) also knew that Wednesday did not go well also. After class on Wednesday, Stella came up with a game plan for today so that we (the class and I) could put the troubles behind us and start fresh. That block was behind the other two, so we skipped the quiz that we had scheduled, gave a brief review of what we needed to do, and went on to our next topic. The class did go better than last time. Stella also mentioned that I am getting better because I am not trying to talk over them anymore. I think that this class and how the problems were handled offer an important lesson – flexibility. If this were my class, I may have punished them by giving them the quiz anyway, but Stella showed me how to pick up the pieces and keep going without punishing anyone. Definitely an important lesson. Also, the class did not totally get out of the quiz. They had to do the quiz as a 10-point homework.