A cool way to end the year-Subbing May 6th

Today I am subbing for an middle school English class. This is for the teacher that emailed me with her lesson plans yesterday. The students are working on a really cool project. They are doing a year in review video in groups of three to four. The students have to cover 4 of the g.l.e.s. They have to list the g.l.e., then create a video that demonstrates the g.l.e. With only one exception, the students are working well together. They are helping each other out, and they are excited about the project. They had to shot videos and pictures, add music, and captions to the videos. They had to story board the video before they got to work with movie maker. Not only that they are really engaged. There is not one student that doesn’t want to do the project. I am going to email the teacher to see if I can get the project packet because I really think that I would like to do this project in the future. Wilhelm says that students remember what they read if they create some artistic representation of it, I wonder if it works with literary concepts. One thing that I think I would do though is divide the g.l.e.s so every g.l.e. is covered, then I would see about combining the group videos into one video so the students have all of the g.l.e.s in one video.

The one exception mentioned earlier was a student that is on a special behavior plan. He wanted to work with the group and do the project, but he was frustrated because his team wouldn’t let him help with what he knew. The person that was working with movie maker, didn’t know what he was doing, and he actually didn’t save what they had worked on correctly and they lost the video they had been working on. At the end of class his group came to him and apologised and asked him to help them put the video together on Monday. I was happy that they apologised to him, but I think it might be too little too late.

I really like the behavior plans that this team has. If a student is not able to handle themselves in class they are removed to another class. It it gets to the point where this is happening often they are assigned to another class until they are able to earn their way back into their normal class. This is part of the b.i.s.t. system. They work their way through the levels then instead of being instilled back to the first level, they have to work their way back. This student is with the teacher I was subbing for, in the morning, but he has earned back some of his classes. This system works on controlling bad behaviors caused by anger or bad habits, like talking during class and gossiping.

Interesting note: It sounds like the middle school is going towards an English curriculum similar to Nancy Atwell’s, meaning the students get to choose what they read. Some of the teachers are worried about how this will work. I think this would be a good thing, but I think it is very important that the English curriculum across the grade levels is consistent, so the jr. high and the sr. high need to find ways to work in more, a lot more, student choice in regards to what they get to read for class.

Finally a teacher that wants their sub prepared! Subbing May 5th

Today I got an email from the teacher I will subbing for tomorrow. I have always wondered if teachers are able to access the subs email addresses because I have never gotten an email about what is going on in class. It was so helpful to have the lessons before the morning of a sub job. I will have to try to do this in the future when I am a teacher and will have a sub.

Today I am subbing for an English class at the high school. When I got to the teacher’s desk I could tell that she is always trying to better herself as a teacher. There was a professional development magazine on her desk as well as a book, Adolescent Literacy:Turning Promise into Practice. The book had flags with notes on them, and flags to remind her to copy certain pages. As I looked around the room I saw posters and pictures all over the walls. There were pictures of animals and landscapes, posters of books they read in the class, inspirational quotes from famous people, and some student work. In ways it was really neat, but in other ways it was really busy. There was no organization to it. Also there were no windows in the classroom. This might be why there are so many images of nature, to supplement the lack of natural light. What I did like about the class set up is the fact that the teacher’s desk was in the back of the room, and the teacher had a student desk she used during class. I also liked how she had her seating charts set up. She had a folder for each class, then inside the folder were post it notes with each student's name in the formation of the desks. She also put any allergies or special circumstances for the students, like unrestricted pass to the nurse’s, on the post-it note. This is great because many times subs do not have access to this information.

Today CAIII was reading Robert Frost. Before they started reading they had a journal to answer, Does a stoic demeanor indicate a lack of feelings. Most of the students didn’t know what “Stoic” meant. It took a while for the students to settle down and work on the question. Some were done, while others hadn’t even started. I wasn’t told to give a time limit, but as some students weren’t working on it, I decided to give them five minutes to finish. I warned them again at three minutes that they had a limited amount of time left, it was at this point that the class was completely quiet. I didn’t even have to comment about their talking, I just gave them a deadline. Next we started on Robert Frost, as I was not familiar with the poems we were reading I was not able to connect the journal with what they would be working on.  Very few of the students had ever heard of Robert Frost, which scared me. I read an “About the Author” and “About the Selections” section, then the students were to read the poem. There were 12 questions for the students to answer about each poem that they were instructed to read before the read the poems to give them a purpose, or something to look for as they read the poem. The students were really confused about the poems. The first poem was “Mending Wall,” some students were confused because they didn’t understand what was being said, while others were confused because they didn’t realize there was an actual wall. I wasn’t told to go over the answers with the class, but they were so confused that I went over the answers for the first 10 questions for the first poem, then they were to work on their own on the second poem. The students seemed to be more confident for the second poem, and very few of them had questions.

Recreational Reading class! Subbing May 3rd

Today I am subbing for a middle school English teacher. The day starts with a set time for reading for the whole school. I like the idea of starting the day of reading, its kind of like a bell ringer for the whole day, but with school starting so early, 7:20, it might be hard for the students to focus on their reading. I have a feeling most of them are just spacing off.

    My first class is recreational reading. The students are working on book groups. There are seven groups of around 4 students, each group reading a different young adult book. I am not sure if the students got to choose the groups and what they are reading or not. As this is recreational reading I would assume that the students got to choose what to read. I really like the idea of this class, but the classroom is pretty loud with some groups discussing and some reading out loud. Some groups are reading together quietly on their own (if that makes sense); are they able to concentrate on their reading with so much going on around them. It seems like most of the students are into their reading. I heard one student say “Spoiler alert! Where are you?” that means he is paying attention and cares enough to be a little upset that a student ruined a surprise for them.
    One great aspect of this assignment is how easy it is to differentiate within a class. You can encourage students to get in groups based on their reading ability and assign or have them pick out books on their reading level. You can also assign books that are just above a students reading level to encourage them to stretch their abilities with a book that they are interested in. This class can help fulfill Kelly Gallagher’s theory of 50/50, half of the reading should be “school” reading and the other half should be choice reading. I talked with a teacher next door and found out that this is a quarter long class. Each subject has a class, like math and the world for math, that the students take for a quarter. They are thinking about turning this hour into an RTI hour, which would be interesting, but some of the teachers are resistant because they use the quarter class to fulfill some of their curriculum requirements.
    I also talked to this teacher about curriculum and how it flows from middle school to junior high to senior high. The school district does not allow for time for the teachers from different schools to collaborate. This means that there is no continuity between the levels. Every body get frustrated because they expect the students to now this, or they don’t teach something because they expect it to be covered in the next level.
    An interesting tidbit. While the students in her ca class were writing/ typing their short stories, I overheard a student tell another student. “see in books when a new person speaks its indented.” This student was trying to point out to another student, using a book she was reading, the correct format for writing dialogue. I was so excited to hear this after having taught dialogue to the sophomores last semester.

The Dangers of Unsolicited Advice- Subbing April 28th

Today I subbed for an Industrial technology teacher. These are not my favorite classes to sub for. Usually we show movies, or just baby sit the students as they work on something I can’t even begin to answer any of their questions over. Today was the first time a teacher wanted me to watch the students while they were in the shop. They were not allowed to cut anything, just sand and glue, but they were at least able to do something productive. For the most part the students got to work on their projects, but there was one student who was trying to take shortcuts on the project. Another student was trying to help him, and tell him what he needed to do to do the project correctly, but the first student just wanted to get the project done; he didn’t care how well he did the project, he just wanted to get a c. Not only was he doing it incorrectly, he was making it harder on himself. Why is it students will settle for a “c?” This student was offered help and he refused it. He just wanted to do the minimal work he needed to do to get the grade he was okay with. What can we do to change this mentality? I think we need to change the grading system. We need to remove that c barrier so students don’t have something to fall back on.

6th grade boys gym and 7th grade boys health- Subbing April 27th

Yesterday I subbed for a middle school boys gym and health class. This was very interesting because the boys typically have a male teacher for this class due to sensitive subjects in health class and the fact that as a female I could not go into the locker rooms if there was a problem.
    The Health classes were the first three classes of the day. The boys were to complete a quick write which came from the reading they were to complete for the day. I found it odd that the quick write was from a future reading, something they were unfamiliar with, instead of a previous reading or topic from the class. While this will get the students thinking about health and prepared from the class, it doesn’t tie what they are learning with prior knowledge. This is a missed opportunity.
    Next we read from the text book. I took volunteers fro the first class, but this was like pulling teeth, so the next two classes I started out asking for volunteers, then if no one volunteered then we just went down the line and everybody got to read. There was a huge difference in time it took to complete the reading between the first class and the second and third classes. This was due to two factors, the before mentioned reluctance to volunteer to read and the student’s interest in the topic. First hour seemed very interested in what they were reading. They were asking questions about words they didn’t know and processes they didn’t understand. There were also some distraction tactics by some of the boys, but I cut those off as quickly as possible as they were related to some of the sensitive topics that could come up in a boys health class. However, most of the questions seemed like genuine interest on the part of the students. I really wish that most classes were like that. It shows that they are following along and thinking about what they are reading. We were reading about diseases and the students were asking about malaria and how vaccines work. When they asked a question I didn’t know the answer to, “What is dysentery?” I just honestly told them that I didn’t know the answer, and they accepted that.
    After the kids were done with the reading they had worksheets to complete. These worksheets seemed meaningless. They were worksheets that came with the book. From my experience yesterday, which I understand is just one day in the class,I think that the health curriculum in my district depends too much on the book, these are interesting topics that has a real impact on the students’ futures. I just think that there could be a lot more authentic learning going on with these classes than there is at present.

The second half of the day was 6th grade gym class. The school I was subbing at is connected with the community center, so the gym classes are able to take advantage of the facilities, including the pool. Yesterday was a swimming day. The boys were so excited to get to swim, and for most of them they really got a good work out. I was surprised that the students were allowed do to any manner of  flips off of the diving board and jumps into the pool. The it seemed really unsafe. Boys were jumping into groups of boys and jumping off of the diving board in ways that made me cringe. The lifeguards took over the class, but they didn’t seem to being paying much attention. The one that gave the kids instructions and went over the rules was on his phone almost the whole time, hardly ever looking at the boys, and the other life guard made very few comments to the boys. Later in the day there was a shift change, and the new life guard was much more aware of what the boys were doing.

My teacher voice got a good workout in the gym. Noise carries in the gym and it was hard to get the boys attention. I dropped my voice down, to my serious teacher voice projecting without yelling, and the boys all looked at me and did what I told them to do. I really have to work on this voice because my throat hurt a little after three hours of doing this, though the muggy, chlorine filled, pool room sure did not help. 

I actually felt like a teacher today instead of a baby sitter! Subbing April 26

Today I am was in an English classroom! This is quite rare. Not only was I in an English classroom, I got to teach English. A couple of days ago I was subbing at one of the middle schools and walked by a teacher with her son. She said, “oh, hi,” as if she knew me, and she looked vaguely familiar. The next day I ran into her in the teachers lounge. I had been thinking about who she could be, and then it came to me. She was my 7th grade English teacher. We ate lunch together, and towards the end she said she was going to be gone a number of times coming up and she asked if I would sub for her. I said I would be happy to. So when I subbed for her, I actually got to teach. The students were starting a research project based on biographies. I lead discussions on “what is a Biography?”, “What makes a person notable?,” “How do you choose a topic?,” and “What is plagiarism, and How do you avoid it?” These discussions were a lot of fun. It was interesting to see what the students came up with, using their back ground knowledge of biographies then adding on to it with more detail. Most of the students didn’t know what notable meant, so we broke the word down and found part of the word the students knew, note. From there we constructed a definition based on what the students knew. I was surprised that some 6th graders actually knew what plagiarism was and they had some great ideas on how to avoid it. When we were talking about the consequences of plagiarism many of the students connected plagiarism to the more common term of “cheating.” these students are much more familiar with the word “cheating,” so they were able to make a connection and add to the meaning of both cheating and plagiarism. I really like working at the middle schools. The students aren’t so afraid of being wrong, so they have more opportunities for being right!

What is the point of showing a pointless film in class? Subbing April 15

Today I subbed for an instrumental music teacher at one of the middle schools. Music teachers have a hard time leaving real assignments for students when they have subs. Unless it is someone they know, it is very rare that they will get a person that actually knows music. This teacher chose to leave Finding Nemo for his classes to watch. The students were excited, but what does this have to do with music? The teacher could have at least found a movie that focused on music in some way. Like School of Rock, Fantasia, Mr. Holland’s Opus, or The Music Man are a few that come to mind. Another approach would be to analyze the music in a movie that had an award winning score. The students could explore the effect of the music on the viewer, and talk about the feelings the music in certain parts portrays. If you just think about it for a little bit, its not hard to think about ways to make the music class productive while the teacher is out.

Why don't we teach some pop culture? Subbing April 13-14

For the last two days I have subbed for an Orchestra teacher. The class was watching Mr. Holland’s Opus, a movie about a teacher whose dream was to write a truly great piece of music. His teaching career started in the mid 60’s and he was forced to retire in the 90’s. This is a very good movie and actually worth watching in a music class, but the students had no assignment that I was aware of while watching the movie. Considering the movie probably took 4 days of class to watch, it seems that the teacher would want to enrich this experience with an assignment, other wise the students aren’t really paying attention to what is going on. I had no behavior problems during the movie, and the students really seemed to be engrossed in the movie. There is this part in the movie where the Mr. Holland is upset, because John Lennon died. I was shocked to hear a student ask, “Who’s John Lennon?” I asked if they knew the Beatles, and most did, but there were some students that didn’t know that. I explained that John Lennon was a very important musician who was one of the four Beatles and let the movie roll on. Later there were pictures of President Reagan and President Nixon; none of the students were able to name who they were. This made me very sad. However I got to thinking that we need to teach more pop culture. Kelly Gallagher states that students need context for what they are reading. Without knowing who a person is how can they read about them and understand what they read? We can do this in association with novels and history. This might get the students more interested in the times surrounding important historical events, and literature they are reading in the classroom. We could have inquiry assignments that the students lead, then they can connect them to what we are reading in class. They could interview their family members or neighbors to see how they saw the time period. I think it would be fun, and educational.

An Alternative School Subbing April 11

Today I started out as a sub for a para, but then a science teacher had to leave and so I took over for her. I was subbing at the alternative high school. This means smaller classes, more individualized learning, and bigger attitudes. I am always a little wary when I go to work in the alternative school, however, once I get there I quickly find out that I am worrying for no reason. For the most part these students are just misunderstood. They aren’t “bad” kids, they just have behavior problems. The alternative school deals with this by using a B.I.S.T. behavior model. I don’t know much about B.I.S.T. but I can see some of the differences between the alternative school and the regular secondary schools. The classes at the alternative school are much smaller than the classes in the regular schools. The Alternative school has a “grounding” time where the students and teachers talk about themselves. They start out with a rating for how they are feeling and functioning that day. Then they share something positive that has happened to them recently and then they give an answer to the question of the day. I think this procedure helps the students come together as a community better. They know more about each other and so they are more understanding. They also have resource rooms that are used more liberally for behavior type issues, to give themselves a “time out.” One of the important concepts for this program is, it is not okay to interrupt anyone else’s learning. I know that one teacher at the high school I student taught at is employing this system for her class though I don’t know how well it will work if it is not a school wide movement. This is definitely taking a more direct stance on appropriate behavior in class. I think I will look into it more and see what I can incorporate into my own classes in the future.

The students were simply doing book work, as the teacher didn’t have much time to prepare sub plans. I was once again relegated to head babysitter.

We need to teach the students to work around technology too! Subbing April 4-8

This week I subbed for an industrial tech, science teacher. He was out because his wife had their baby and the baby needed surgery because of a hole in its heart. As most of the classes were industrial tech, the teacher left a power point for the students to read, some worksheets for the students to work on and a few assignments. One thing this teacher did that I really liked was discussion questions on blackboard. He gave the students three questions that they needed to research and answer, then he had them reply to at least two answers from other students for each of the questions. The students complained about them at first, but they really got into them. They had a week and a half to complete the questions, but most of them finished the work a week early. When does this ever happen? This also allowed the teacher to observe their thoughts without being in the classroom. This is very similar to what we did in our Theory of teaching reading and writing classes.
    There was a big issue this week with technology. There have been issues with the drives that host the student and teacher files. ITS had been warning the students that they would need to clean out their drives, and that if they they did not clean out their files their account would be frozen, though they would still be able to access their files. Unfortunately, on Friday the student drive disappeared. I subbed for an English class in one of my off hours and they were working on presentations. The students completely shut down, they decided that they couldn’t work on their projects because they couldn’t access their files. I told them there was no excuse for not getting their presentations done. They only lost a class times worth of work and they still had their research. Some of the students had even had files they had emailed to each other so they still had access to those at least. Half of the students grudgingly worked on their projects, but the other half insisted that they couldn’t work on them. I am all for teaching technology and using technology, but we also need to teach the importance of backing up your work and finding alternatives when technology doesn’t work out. It is unacceptable for students to shut down just because they can’t access a few files.

Book Review "You Gotta BE the Book" By Jeffrey D. WIlhelm

This book really breaks down the process highly engaged readers go through as they are reading, and he encourages readers to become engaged by creating assignments that put them in the books. He wants them to think like the characters, or fill in the gaps that authors leave in a book so you can jump to your own conclusions. Jeffrey Wilhelm transferred from teaching high school English to middle school English, and in his new class load were three sessions of remedial eighth grade English. He tried everything he could think of to get these students to read, but the just gave up stating that they hated reading. At nights he would go home and read to his daughter, his niece and a neighbor boy. While reading with them he realised that they employ reading techniques that older students seem to lose along the way, such as connecting the text to their lives, acting out the text, and visualizing.

Wilhelm started his classes for four years with a reading inventory, asking if the students liked reading, and what they liked to read. He found that half of his students didn’t read outside of class. He also found that students who are not strong readers don’t enjoy surprises while reading. They feel that the author is trying to trip them up.

When Wilhelm started his year of research with his classes, he chose three highly engaged students to study. One was a male and the other two were female. He interviewed these students and recorded their reading habits and strategies. He found that while these students are all engaged, they still go about reading in slightly different ways. The male student would be sucked into the world of the book he was reading. He would essentially become one of the characters and temporarily “live” in the book world, meshing his world with it.  The girls were not quite so literal in their reading. When he first asked his students how they read, they replied that teachers don’t usually care about how a student reads. I think this information should be very important to teachers. Without knowing how your students read how can you teach them literature? Wilhelm persisted and eventually created opportunities for the students to show him how they read. He had the students participate in Symbolic Story Representations (SRI) . For SRIs the students recreated scenes from the book they are reading with cutouts. They would have a cutout to represent themselves and they would show where they were in the story while they were reading. Some students become a friend of the character, or they are invisible and can just see everything that is going on. I think this would be interesting to do, but it might be difficult to get students to take this seriously. I think I could get a similar result if I have students draw a scene and have them represent themselves in the scene. This would not take nearly as much time as the SRI. Wilhelm came to think of student responses to literature as in 10 different dimensions. He then divided these dimensions into three different categories, Evocative, Connective, and Reflective. By indicating the different dimensions, not only can we see how engaged the student is, we can also see that there are different purposes and ways of reading, Just because a student is reading a text one way doesn't mean it is the right or wrong way, they just might be trying to get something else out of the reading than what you intended.

Wilhelm discovered that to be engaged in the reading the reader has to see what is going on. In a conversation with a reader who said he didn’t experience anything while he was reading a story, the reader told him that he “can’t think about it, talk about it, do anything about it,” if he couldn't see it. With other readers he discovered that when they did describe a character it was not always consistent with the descriptions of the character, one boy describing a retired teacher by comparing her to his young athletic science teacher, even though he knows how old people are when they retire. Later Wilhelm realized that some of these students enjoyed and “got” comic books that have “sophisticated humor,” leading him to believe that the images along with the text helped them to understand the text. He brought in a number of illustrated texts, like comic books, graphic novels, and stories with illustrations. The reluctant readers ambushed the texts, while the engaged readers mostly ignored them. Later he has students draw what they read. He found that some students have sketchy ideas of what characters and settings look like before they draw, but when they draw they need to fill in the sketches, and this allows them to have a more complete image of what they are reading. Wilhelm also states that having students visualize the text in various ways helps students remember what they read. This is something I should have tried with one of my students last semester. He couldn't remember anything he read. He also had a hard time finding the words to describe something we had just read together. If he was able to draw things as they happen it is possible that he would have an easier time remembering. We say that we need to experience what we learn with as many senses as possible: we read it (see), we say it (feel), and we hear it (hear). Drawing is just a new way to experience what we read.

What are subs expected to do in terms of discipline? and a cool review idea, March 23

Today I subbed for a math class at one of the Junior highs, and I learned a new way to review for a test. The teacher called it review bingo, but it was different from bingo. The students were given a score card to write down the answers to the math questions on, like bingo, but then instead of doing the math questions one by one as a class, the students worked through the math problems as fast as possible, holding up their white boards as they found the answer to each question. As the teacher, I was to verify the correct answers. Let me tell you this is hard to do. Not only do you have 10 or so students with boards but in the air wanting to to tell them if they are right. You have answers to 5 different questions to check, and the students are racing so they want you to get to them first. It was a lot of fun for the students, and they were motivated because they were racing against each other, and any student that got a bingo got a piece of candy. I think it would be fun do do this in an English class, like as review for a test as an alternative to the jeopardy style review, but it would have to be tweaked. What makes it better than jeopardy is that every student is answering every question, so every student is accountable for all of the information.

After lunch there was a small incident. A couple of the students were horsing around in the hallway and a teacher caught them. She brought them to my class and told me to give them a detention. Well first of all, subs are not told the procedure for detentions. Is there a form that needs to be filled out/ Who do they serve the detention with? At the high school students serve detention with the teachers that gave them the detention. If this is the procedure at the junior high, do they expect subs to stay after school to supervise the detention. This is highly doubtful, but I have never been told what to do. Second of all, why couldn’t the teacher have given them the detention when she witnessed the behavior. I didn’t see what happened and the students were well behaved in class, so I left a note for the teacher to deal with the issue as she pleased. If schools want subs to dole out punishment, then they need to inform the subs of the proper procedures  for doing so. 

A day as a para, March 22

Today I was a para at one of the senior highs. I often wonder what the point of having a para sub is. Usually they only have subs for one on one paras, and this works because you are with one student the whole day and you have a purpose. But when you are a para to multiple students, it is difficult to know what to do, and usually I am just recording what the student’s homework assignment so the para knows what the student is supposed to do. Part of the problem is the student won’t talk to you to ask a question because no one introduces you to the student that you are working with. I kind of think that there should be a resource hour at the beginning of the day so the para and students can check in with each other. This could help the student get prepared for the day. I think the middle and junior highs do this durring SSR which is the first period of the day. I really think that all students could benefit from 20 mins or so to prepare for school, like a homeroom class.  

The first class I sat in on was world history and they were studying world war I. As the students came in, REM’s “Its the end of the world as we know it” was playing (was that significant to the lesson? or just a song that the student teacher liked. And if it was significant, why didn’t the he discuss it with the class?) and there was a question of the day on the board. After some time he turned off the music and asked for some students to volunteer their answers. He had two students give an answer, then he restated the answer. Next the students played a game called war. The students were divided into “countries” and each country had a ruler, an ambassador, and some subjects. when they went to war any of the subjects could be captured and taken to a new country if they were not able to answer a question related to what the class was studying. The students had fun and the information they were accountable for grew day to day.

After the game he passed out the new worksheet and the students found the answers in their book, there was no instruction that I saw, though he may have presented the information previously.

            Later in the day, I sat in on a science class. The teacher had a quote of the day on the board, though it didn’t seem to have anything to do with science or what they were studying. The students seemed to understand this as they didn’t really pay any attention to it. The teacher did discuss the quote, but once again it had little to do with class. This was a special education class, so I think it is slower than the other science classes but by the time he talked about the quote and explained an extra credit opportunity, the class was over. I was a little confused about what his goal for the day was, did he accomplish what he planed to teach?

First time sending a student to the office, Subbing history, March 14 & 15

For the last two days, I have subbed for a history teacher at one of the junior highs. He left a very interesting lesson plan. The students were studying the cold war, so he had selected you tube videos that showed various aspects of the cold war. There was a video about the atomic bomb testing and how it effected the citizens of the island were they conducted the testing. There was a video that they showed in schools about what to do if we were attacked with atomic bombs. there was a video that showed the images of the soviet army marching with some menacing music. Last, there was a video that showed the stages a missile goes through after it is launched. After the students watched the video they were to answer some questions that were provided, then the class was to discuss the questions. This was interesting  because the students got a good view of what the cold war was like through an assortment of videos from youtube, and the students were very interested in what they were watching. It wasn’t a documentary that went on and on with information that the students couldn’t care less about. Instead of telling the students what the cold war was like, he showed them, and let them come to their own conclusions with leading questions. I think that I will keep this in mind when I do Of Mice and Men again, or really with any unit that involves a historical context.
    It was also during the last two days that I sent my first student to the office. The students were not allowed to talk during the videos, but I had one student that just kept talking, I asked him a few times if I needed to move him, and he said, no, that he could be quiet. The next time I caught him talking I told him to move, then gave him some time to move. He didn’t, so I told him to move again, and when he said he wouldn’t, I said you can either move to a different seat or move to the office. He chose the office, and had a few choice words to say as he left. I don’t like sending students to the office. But I have finally found that sometimes its necessary. He didn’t have the right to distract other students from learning.

Whats so specially about gifted students? Subbing Gifted Math and Science, March 11

Today was one of the best subbing experiences I have ever had. It was for a PEAK (gifted) science and math class. The students were so well behaved. They had a test in the math classes, and they were watching Bill Nye the Science Guy in the science class as well as doing work sheets. I have noticed that PEAK kids are usually better behaved than regular classes. I have tried to think about why this might be. First I think gifted students are given more responsibility for their education. They are given more choices and they are given more interesting assignments. As a whole we expect the gifted students to behave better, and we expect the regular students to misbehave. What if we hold all of our students to the same standards. What if we take the more interesting ways that we teach the gifted students and teach it to the regular students. Of course the gifted students are going to do well on an assignment that involves creativity, so would our regular students, yet I don’t see this in practice very much. I know that gifted students have needs that aren’t met by the regular classroom, but why is it just gifted students that we worry about. I think all of our students have needs that are not met by the regular classroom. What students need is authentic learning, yet more and more when I go into regular classrooms they are working on boring worksheets. Why is that?

The Importance of Keeping promises and Leaving accurate sub notes- Subbing History- March 10

Today while subbing I learned the importance of keeping your promises and leaving accurate sub notes. I was subbing for a history teacher who, of course, left me a test to administer. (I understand that it is easy to leave a test for subs, as there is no teaching involved, but if there is a problem that comes up, the sub has little to no authority to make decisions regarding the test. This was a test over World War II. Towards the beginning of class a couple of students asked if they would be allowed to use their time-lines. The teacher had not left any indication that the students would be able to use any materials on this test, but the class insisted that he told them they could use it.

Up until now I would have trusted the class and allowed them to use it, but I recalled a conversation I had had with Deana about a sub that allowed the class to play cards because the class told the sub that their teacher allowed them to do it. Deana was very unhappy with the sub and asked why the sub would believe the students. I then decided that I would ask someone, the para who is usually in the room, but as her student was absent she decided to work in the resource room. She said that the students were not allowed to use the time-lines.    

At this point I am feeling a little confused. I informed the students that they would not be able use their time-lines. Let me tell you, there was a tidal wave of hate headed my way. Many students indicated that they were going to fail this test now, and it was all my fault because I decided that they could not use their time-lines. I tried to tell them that their teacher did not let me know about the time lines and that its safer for me to just say no. They were not happy with that answer. I emailed one of the paras that I know is in his class to ask if they knew if the students were allowed to use the time line on the test. The para said no, but the students were so insistent, I told them I would leave a note letting their teacher know about the discussion, which made them feel better, but they still seemed very upset, so I emailed their teacher. He emailed me back, thank goodness, and said that they were allowed to use it in the test. He felt really bad about not leaving me a note, but it still put me in a bad position. Students either don’t like subs or use them as an excuse to behave badly, why do teachers make subs jobs harder on them then it has to be?

I had probably one of the worst classes I have ever experienced. It was a class full of boys with only two girls. There were only like 4 students in the whole class that did their work quietly on their own. After the test the students had some worksheets to work on. They needed the books to work on them and they were supposed to work alone. They also needed to be quiet because other students were still working on their tests. This was a problem because the students felt that they should be able to work in pairs. They wouldn’t understand, and they kept making noise. I separated the students that were in the wrong seats, (I think from now on I will take attendance from the seating charts asking the students to raise their hand when they are called so I know who they are and that they are in the right seats)and that helped some, but then some students opened the classroom door, combat-rolled into the room, then left very quickly. I decided not to make a big deal out of it, hoping the students would follow my lead, but that was too much to ask for. During the passing period, the teacher next door, who was showing a movie very loudly, apologized for the class stating that it was impossible to control them, It would have been nice for the teacher to have left a note of warning. I guess what I am taking away from this experience is that as a teacher you need to leave detailed sub plans, because without them you are just making your sub’s job harder.

Subbing- Physical Education March 8th

Today I subbed for a physical education teacher at one of the junior high schools. They were taking their boating licence course so I mainly just watched the students as a highway patrol, water patrol officer taught the class. I wonder why we teach this and not other things, like CPR. I know that in order to drive a boat you need to have a licence now, but its not like we take time out of gym to get your drivers licence, a lot more of those students will be driving a car than driving a boat.

I also taught adaptive PE, a class for special education students. This was interesting because it was different from any PE class I ever had in middle and high school. The students worked the first half of the class on the treadmill or the elliptical, then they switched and worked on weights. The students were so supportive of each other while they were doing the weights, encouraging their peers to finish their reps. We need to find ways for students to encourage each other in mental tasks as well as physical tasks. Why is it that students only encourage their peers when they are running or lifting weights, when students need just as much encouragement to finish a chapter or write a personal narrative. I think that the journals Nancy Atwell talks about in “In the Middle” might be a way to do this. This is a way for students to encourage each other to read. If a student mentions that they are having a hard time getting into a book, maybe another student can encourage them to keep at it.

Day One and Beyond by Rick Wormeli

 I thought I should begin with the general and then read the more specifically geared books. Day One and Beyond is an all encompassing book for middle level teachers. There are tips and tricks along with some thought provoking questions of how do I want my classroom to work. Reading this now was great because I have already had a classroom and I have an idea of what works for me and what doesn’t. As the title would suggest Wormeli begins at day one. He gives suggestions on ways to successfully start out the year: get to know you activities, the ever present paper work and even “gasp” school work. I think that Wormeli has taught most subjects but it seems that he is primarily an English teacher. Many of his suggestions are geared towards the English classroom.
    One of his first pieces of advices is to teach subject material on the first day of class. He states that children are excited for school that first day, but the endless forms and hoops that we jump through kill the excitement. We need to balance the hoops and academics. He also suggests that you give academic homework the first day of class; this sets the tone for the rest of the year and gives them responsibility.
    Surprisingly Wormeli suggests that you do not introduce yourself first thing. He says he usually waits till the second or third week to go into any real details about himself. He states that this puts the focus of the classroom on the students, not on the teacher. However, it is very important that you do tell the students about yourself early in the year. They need to be able to relate to you.
    He also suggests that you ask the student how they learn best. This can help you plan your lessons. The students are getting to know their learning styles, but more importantly it can teach them to advocate for themselves. Along with this he suggests that you have your students complete learner profiles. Kimberly had the students do this, but I never really payed attention to it. I should have studied the way my students learn so I could learn to use that to my advantage. My 7th hour was probably very body kinesthetic, If I would have incorporated more movement into every day learning, I probably would not have had so much trouble keeping them under control. Wormeli stresses that you need to incorporate this information in your lesson planning.
    A problem that I had with one of my classes what that they didn’t like each other very much. That could have been due to a lack of a community feeling. Wormeli suggests that you give the class group problem solving tasks. Let the students explore their roles in the group, let them depend on each other to get something done.
    One big theme throughout the book is to put as much responsibility as possible on the students. One issue my colleagues and I saw at our high school was that the students are very dependent on the adults in their learning. The students are needy and have a sense of entitlement. They don’t like to think on their own; getting them to do this is like pulling teeth. What Wormeli suggests make sense, put as much responsibility on the students as possible, and they will step up. It makes them feel as if they have a voice in their education. Let the class come up with the classroom rules; it’s their classroom. Give the students choices as much as possible, This will make them independent and allow them to be leaders, especially in their own education.
    Next Wormeli focuses on Discipline. He suggests that you make the student tell you what he/she did wrong. He says that students begin with denial, stating that the did nothing wrong or they try to distract you with what others have done wrong, but you need to redirect them to what they were doing when you pulled them aside or out of the room. Get the student to reveal all of the details to you, then give the student a summary of all they did and ask if it is correct. piece by piece the student my not realize what they did was wrong, but the big picture may help them understand. Make the students take responsibility for their actions. Wormeli also makes the student think about how their actions affected their or their peers’ learning.
    Wormeli also states that we should be able to prevent misbehavior by planning ahead, making sure that the lessons are geared towards adolescent minds and keep them busy. This is where I think I had problems with behavior, not that my lesson plans weren’t at the students’ level, but that I didn’t have enough going on to occupy them. It will probably be exhausting at first but I need to keep the pace up, while still making sure that all of my students are on board with me. If I keep the students moving, physically and or mentally then they have less time to create problems. Also making sure that the lesson is geared towards every student will keep students from feeling left out, left behind or ahead of the group. I think that student choice is one of the best ways to do this, offering assignments/lessons that include student choice, where the choices are of varying levels assessing the same thing.
    Wormeli
    Overall I really like this book and I can see myself referring back to it time after time in the future.

Wednesday, February 23- Subbing- What is inappropriate behavior in class? And what changes between Junior/ Middle school and High school?

Wednesday, February 23- Subbing- What is inappropriate behavior in class? And what changes between Junior/ Middle school and High school?

Today I was subbing at a middle school for the first time. Up until now I have spent most of my time at the junior highs, grades 8-9. Today I am working with 6^th graders and I am in an English class all day; it’s been so long. I have enjoyed teaching other subjects, but its nice to be back to information I am more familiar with.

            This classroom was the most welcoming classroom, and it didn’t even have windows for natural light! There was a reading nook with big comfy chairs, a couple of lamps, and some pillows. There was a wall of bookshelves filled with books organized by genre. There was carpet and I think a rug. The room was a little cluttered, but it made it feel lived in instead of messy. It was nice. I think I like 6^th graders. They can be very witty, but they aren’t completely full of themselves yet. I was surprised at the levels some of these students were reading at, they were carrying around huge books and they willingly read when ever there was free time (something I have noticed at the middle schools and junior highs). One thing I don’t love about the 6^th graders is that they can be mean to each other. Some of them are becoming aware of hygiene and the bullies can use this against other students. One student in particular was very vocal about a student’s zits and another student’s possible nose picking habit. I told him that it was inappropriate, but he continued doing it. I should have sent him to a safe seat, another classroom, or even the office, but I wasn’t sure what was appropriate. Later I was working in the office, and two of the students that were just in my classroom were there writing up the incident. I was so proud that they were willing to stand up for themselves, but I felt really bad that I didn’t do more to prevent or stop what was going on. I need to work on what I am going to do when something like this happens again. I don’t think I have experienced this with the other grades I have taught.

            On a happier note I was introduced to a class I have sadly never heard of before, recreational reading. I don’t know if every student takes this or if it is an option, but it is a class were students read what they are interested in and submit journal entries and projects related to what they are reading. Even though they may not be reading the best material they are reading, and they still have their normal Language arts class that includes the more academic readings. I think most of the students were really enjoying what they were reading and the school is obviously a community of readers; every student had a free reading book, or had just finished it and needed to go to the library to get a new one. My question is, what changes when these students get to High School. Very few students at the high school carry free reading books, what can we do to encourage recreational reading in the upper levels?

Tuesday February 22, subbing- When to walk away...

Today I learned a valuable lesson: When to walk away.

I was subbing for a high school English/ ISS/ Plato teacher.  I.S.S. and Plato really didn’t take much thought, the students pretty much do what they are supposed to do. I haven’t decided what I think about Plato yet. Its nice that the students get to learn at their own pace, and it allows them to take classes that aren’t offered when they are able to take it or that they have failed previously. What isn’t great about Plato is the fact that there is no one up their teaching the information, there are very few activities that cement the information in the student’s brain, and a student has to get a “b” to pass the class so they can retake tests and assignments as many times as they need to in order to get a good grade. On the other had, since students are able to work at their own pace, they always have something to do, they don’t have to wait for the other students to catch up to them and this means they don’t misbehave. Idle hands and all that you know.

The English class took a little more thought. It was a small class full of students that didn’t fit in with the regular English class; it covers the same material, just in a different way. This class was not offered last semester, but it was really needed. The students were taking a post-test formative assessment, but there were only enough computers for half of the class to be on the comp. at the same time. While one half was on the computers, the other half was starting a new unit by looking up vocabulary and applying it to a poem. I think this was probably supposed to be closer to Valentines Day originally so the teacher had them using a Shakespearean Sonnet, “My mistress’s eyes….”

This was a good activity, it walked the students step by step through analyzing the poem, they had just looked up the definitions for the terms so they should know what to do, but these students need a lot of help. They want you to hold their hand. I think there were two things I would change about this lesson. I wouldn’t have had them working on the poem when the classroom needs to be quiet so students can take a test. Poetry is scary for most students and starting them out like this is like throwing them out in a lake and telling them to sink or swim. Which leads me to the second thing I would change, I wouldn’t start out with a Shakespearean sonnet. Not only is poetry scary, Shakespeare is ultra scary. And asking them to work aloe on a poem that they are not comfortable with is just reinforcing their beliefs that they hate poetry and that it’s hard. It would have been cooler if it was right around V-day but because of snow days that wasn’t possible. I would start with song lyrics from a popular song. This would show the students that they really are familiar with poetry, they listen to it and recite it every day. You can still do rhyme scheme and interpretation. The students may not be able to look for iambic pentameter, but for the first day of poetry working on your own is that really necessary?

My lesson of the day happened when it was time to switch gears halfway through class. A student had been working on the vocabulary, but when it was time to switch to computers for the post test, he didn’t want to take the test. There was an article to go with the test and he was a lower level reader. He claimed that he didn’t know half of the words in the article and that he was going to fail the test. I discussed this with him calmly telling him that we needed the data that he would provide, and that it was okay if he didn’t do well, but he wouldn’t take that as an answer. After a little while the Para caught my eye and told me to walk away, so I did. Right after I walked away the student got up and began working on the test. I was shocked! We are told what to do in these situations and what works and why, but I guess my stubborn mind has to experience it for my self in order to accept it. Looking back I recall being told to just walk away, that the students are just wanting to get a rise out of you and that if you don’t engage in the conversation then they will back down. Well today, thanks to the Para, I finally learned that. I can be told what to do, but that doesn’t mean I have learned it, I have to experience it first hand for it to click, and I need to remember this when I am teaching my students.