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?