Events of the week (what shocked, puzzled, excited, etc. me):
- During bullying prevention "class", the students were asked to come up with possible reasons someone may judge someone else before getting to know them and "the color of their skin" was not mentioned.
- I spent all of second hour on Tuesday teaching a student everything he had missed (he had gotten a 17% on his unit exam). That student took the exam again the following day and made a 95%. Yay teacher validation!
- The students are starting to request that I teach lessons now. ("Ms.Cholette, when are you gonna teach our class? I heard you taught third hour).
- I got to sit in on my first faculty meeting and the love that these teachers have for every single one of their students is incredibly outstanding and inspiring
- I witnessed (and learned from) my co-teacher perfectly handle this entire event: a student told my co-teacher that she thinks her friend is self-harming or may be thinking about it and she was worried about him
- An english teacher asked me to tutor one of her students one-on-one during my lunch hour since he had missed a few days in math (the teacher asked me to do it, not my co-teacher!)
- I got to observe my first staffing for an IEP, again the love and support the staff has for every single student was evident
- During skills, a student told me and my co-teacher that she had witnessed bullying and I (with the support and encouragement of my co-teacher) dealt with the situation and I think it went really well
Each of these events, along with my specific teaching experiences from this week, have shaped who I will be as a teacher (obviously). Everyday I think I'm closer to becoming a confidant with the students and since that is at least 50% of the reason I want to be a teacher, it feels really good to know I'm slowing moving towards that goal. In regards to the actual lessons I taught this week, I think they went pretty well. They listened to me for the most part and I got to practice discipline (which is always something that can be improved upon). In regards to improvement, a few hours after my lesson was done I began thinking on loop about everything that I wish I had changed. I didn't ask Jake if he understood the material until the very end of class. Even though the other students understood very well, I wish that I had spent more time moving around the class so I would've noticed Jake slipping earlier. So, I will work on that for next week. Also, I've met and became closer friends with at least 5 other faculty members (yay friends!), so I'm really happy to be moving closer to that goal as well.
I also think that one of the reasons that it is going to well right now is because I know my student very well. I honestly think I know all of their names and I know most of their personal life stories. I have found that this connection is what I look forward to every morning when I'm getting ready to go to school. That connection is what will keep me from burning out too and it has been surprisingly easy to remember the info about their lives. I also think this is because my co-teacher knows her students VERY well, so of course I'm asking her every question I can think of about the students (i.e., "are her parents around/involved?", "Is he in basketball or band or something?", or "what's her favorite subject? she's an amazing writer")
I also think that one of the reasons that it is going to well right now is because I know my student very well. I honestly think I know all of their names and I know most of their personal life stories. I have found that this connection is what I look forward to every morning when I'm getting ready to go to school. That connection is what will keep me from burning out too and it has been surprisingly easy to remember the info about their lives. I also think this is because my co-teacher knows her students VERY well, so of course I'm asking her every question I can think of about the students (i.e., "are her parents around/involved?", "Is he in basketball or band or something?", or "what's her favorite subject? she's an amazing writer")
I start my unit a week from Monday, so I am expecting the most reflection on my teaching from those lessons (and I await said reflections eagerly).
For the intern checklist:
- I met the school counselor today! - I met her during the IEP meeting today during plan and wow she loves these kids. She is very well informed and obviously cares very much so it felt good to know I'm working in such a loving school community.
- Exchange contact info with your classmates - We started a group message! I chose this as one of my items to discuss because that group message has saved me at hard times and it has only been two weeks. It feels really really good to know everyone else is having bad days sometimes too. Also, I'm just glad to have gotten to know everyone, they're all so amazing! (I only knew Natalie before the internship- yay for new friends!)
- Meet your department chair/colleagues - my co-teacher is the department chair (lol). But, I have met the other department faculty members and they're great! All the 8th grade math teachers congregate in the hall between every class and talk crap about kids or administration (who are actually pretty amazing), or just about how much we love our jobs. I'm slowly coming to look more and more forward to our little hall chats.
Can't wait for Monday. Teaching is hard. Teaching is rewarding. We got this. Love you all.
Emily Cholette
I am glad to read you are having such wonderful experiences in your field placement! I think the connections you are making at school and among your peers will be valuable as you move forward.
ReplyDeleteI am curious to read/hear about some of your observations on instructional practices and students' successes or challenges with math.
It has been really interesting to find patterns in student work, like how they all miss number whatever and even cooler is that they all get the same incorrect answer. I have used this information to adjust instruction and give personal time to students that are demonstrating that they would benefit from more specific help. It regards to success, the lowest test grade in the class period I taught was an 84% and several students were ecstatic to tell me about their 100%'s the day following the exam. They have a lot of foundational issues with integer rules which is frustrating since they understand the difficult algebra but forget that two negatives multiplied gives a positive. I have to spend a lot of time going over this but it only takes a few extra minutes to ask someone to explain why negative 2 times negative 2 is 4, as opposed to just going past it. Also, the repetition has led to less computational errors, I have found.
DeleteHi Emily- So glad you are continuing to enjoy your palcement and your students. You mentioned that you did not check in with a particular student until the end of class and wanted to work on that- what is your plan of attack? Are there any specific formative assessment strategies you are thinking of trying?
ReplyDeleteI usually walk around class as much as possible so I can look on students papers and overhear mathematical conversation to look/listen for errors in reasoning or computation. I regret not having done this enough during the specific lesson where Jake got a tad left behind. To combat this, I will plan to make sure I don't get hung up on staying with one group (no matter how many follow-up questions they ask) and making sure to visit every single student, even the quiet ones (like Jake).
DeleteWhat do you mean you only knew Natalie?! We met two years ago, and last semester we worked on a project together! We even have each other's phone numbers! But alright Emily....I guess that friendship was just one-sided.
ReplyDeleteSHOTS FIRED (still love you em)
Deletelmao I'm no sorry jen. I was only thinking about EDMA when I typed that. I love you, lets forget this happened
DeleteI'd like to make a claim, that I've known her the longest and she's met my dad and I've met her dad. So yeah.
DeleteEmily! It sounds like you are so far ahead of me and its stressing me out. I know you had them last semester, but I wish I was that close with all of my students! I want to hear more about the IEP meeting. I haven't had the opportunity to go to one yet, so I am curious. Can you walk me through yours and your co teacher's role in the meeting? How was this meeting different than what we were told we would expect in EDSP?
ReplyDeleteTo be completely honest, I was happy to find out it wasn't too different than what we were told would happen. It was me, my co-teacher, 2 other general education teachers for the IEP student, a special education teacher, the school counselor, the school speech pathologist, and the high school speech pathologist (since this meeting was centering on this students transition to high school). My co-teacher didn't do much as the meeting centered mostly on deciding on new tests that the student should take and a new IEP that this student would take, when they begin high school. The general education teachers were mostly their to give their account of how this student acts in class, with their friends, at recess, etc. The teachers gave quite a bit of insight into this students' personality too which the counselor and speech pathologists seemed to really appreciate, since that will effect the students' new IEP and those are aspects that usually only teachers can observe.
DeleteHi Emily, I'm glad everything is going well for you.
ReplyDeleteI'm curious about the situation where the student reported suspicion of self-harming. (Share as much as you want, no pressure) What did the teacher do first? Who did the teacher talk to? What made it a flawless response?
Hey Aaron! I'll share anything/everything! So this student, we'll call her Sarah, came up to my co teacher at the beginning of the hour and just sort of whispered, "I need to talk to you. It's private." My co immediately took Sarah out in the hall to talk (my co-teacher was fine to simply walk out of the room since I was with the rest of the class). Then after the class my co filled me in with the conversation. Basically, Sarah had seen her friend, we'll call him Joe, writing "I want to die" and "I'm going to kill myself" on his arms during last period. All within about 5 minutes, my co-teacher had talked it through with Sarah, sent her down to the counselor's team or talk it through, called the principle down to the class, and had Joe (super casually and quickly) removed from class and sent down to the office to talk it out with counselors/administration. I was amazed because 1)Sarah chose my co to come to/felt comfortable enough to do so, 2) my co handled it all without any other students knowing or caring, and 3) Joe and Sarah got the emotional help they needed. After class my co followed up with Sarah, gave Sarah her phone number, and said "call or text literally anytime you're feeling sad, scared, lonely, or anything at all. I love you. You did the right thing."
ReplyDeletedisclaimer: The counselors have since informed us that Joe is doing well.
*to talk it through
Delete