Jennifer+and+Darrin

__Monday - 8/23__ - Today I attended a school wide faculty meeting conducted by the principal and some of his support staff. The meetting focused on the logistics of administrative tasks that teachers are expected to do, policies and procedures, and code of conduct issues of both the district and the state office of education. One interesting point of policy brought up by the principal was the state's requirement to get a full criminal background check every time a teacher renews their license. Seems a good idea in this day and age... __Thursday - 8/26__ - Thursday - 1st day of school - 7:15 AM-10:30 AM. 1st Period, Algebra A - Most of the class period was spent assigning kids their lockers. Mrs. Ward went over her classroom rules via a PowerPoint presentation on a "smart board." After that, there was only about 10 minutes left of class, and she told the students they could leave their assigned seats and visit with each other. I was impressed with how well behaved the kids were. They were very quiet and respectful. Maybe this is the "first class of the day" personality? After class, I was surprised to find out that there are 4 classes of "Algebra A" in this school. They average about 25 students per class. That's about 100 kids out of about 450 9th graders that are in somewhat of a remedial math level. That struck me as high. I asked Mrs. Ward if that seems high to her too, and she agreed. She said that there were only two Algebra A classes last year, so they doubled year over year. I find this interesting, and would be interested to find out more about what has caused this. 2nd Period - Algebra A - No locker assignments had to be done, so there was a lot more time in this period. Admin tasks were addressed first again (e.g., assigning seats, classroom rules, etc.) Mrs. Ward told the students that they could use the last 30+ minutes of class to visit with their friends, catch up on their summer, etc. This class was larger, and definitely noisier, than 1st period. They seemed to know each other, and seemed full of "popular" kids. Of the three classes I observed today, this one definitely seemed like it will be the one with more potential behavior issues. The kids in this class seemed the most bold, and outspoken. However, they seemed respectful to Mrs. Ward. She seems to have a good balance between authority, and engaging the kids. She has good "presence" in front of the class. There was a special education teacher in both of the two Algebra A classes that I observed. She will be "co-teaching" them. Neither she, nor I, participated this first day. The special ed teacher was not there for very long in either period. TA Period - Nothing notable here. 3rd Period - Geometry... Unlike the first 2 periods, this class had some 8th graders. One observation, probably not that interesting, was how it struck me that the kids in geometry look "just like" the kids in Algebra A. Listening to the Algebra A kids talk, they seemed every bit as witty and intelligent as the geometry kids. In this class, I was most concerned about Mrs. Ward's 35 minutes of free time of the 3 classes. I noticed several kids who were either shy, or didn't know anyone, as they sat alone for the entire time and just looked around, or down at their notebooks. I was wishing there was a way to include them, without embarrassing them. I thought about approaching them, but since they sat alone, worried that I might embarass them even more by doing so. If I knew them better maybe... __Friday, 8/27__ - School Wide faculty meeting - 7-8 AM - More discussion led by the principal about workplace policies, then he went over the school's CRT test results, mostly by category and/or grade level. Seems like for the most part, this school scored very well when compared to other schools in the district. He said that Algebra only scored 65% passing, which was very low. Mrs. Ward's subjects, Geometry and Algebra II, scored an 88% in each. There was some discussion about "PLC's", Professional Learning Communities. Lastly, I observed some collaboration between math teachers of the same subjects. The departments broke off, and the head of the math department, Mrs. Ward (my mentor), went over some administrative tasks, then small groups of teachers (of 2-3 people each), broke off to plan and coordinate in cases where they were teaching the same subjects. I thought it seemed very beneficial to coordinate like that. It will be interesting to see how much collaboration goes on as far as teaching methods. 1st Period - Algebra A - Mrs. Ward had the students make folders, then let them use the rest of today's condensed class time as free chat time. 2nd Period - Algebra A - This period was used for a 9th grade "Welcome to School" assembly in the school auditorium. The assembly was like a pep rally conducted by some of the teachers, to get students motivated and excited about making the most of their education and their 9th grade year. It was a bit cheesy, but entertaining. 3rd Period - Mrs. Ward had a game with 37 small role plays, all very brief, in which the students acted out most all the various classroom activities they would do throughout the year. Many scenarios had students demonstrate how to abide by classroom rules. I saw a lot of value in the activity. The students were engaged, and it seemed a good creative way to teach classroom rules & policies that will keep the classroom environment organized and conducive to learning. __8/30 - 9/3__ - In Algebra A, I spent the first few days of "real class" observing Mrs. Ward conduct class. In the two Algebra A classes (I observe and occasionally help with an additional class 1st period), there is a special education teacher as well. Mrs. Ward, as I said before, has a good presence, and seems to have a good bag of tools for classroom management. She uses sarcasm, cynicism, even criticism, often, but 98% of the time the kids actually respond well to it. She almost comes across like the "stern mom" type that I've seen many times before, especially in the south where I grew up. Usually, the way she gets on a kid comes across funny to the other students, and she will pick on anyone, anytime. The kids clearly fear her a little bit, but because she is so genuine in her approach, she gets away with the cynical criticism in a way that most probably would not. The special education teacher and Mrs. Ward are both originally from the Northeast, Mrs. Ward from Pennsylvania, and the special ed teacher, Mrs. Sobrio, is from New York. That "New York" personality definitely comes out at times, and I'm still curious to see if the two personalities are going to work well together. We are all three still in the "Forming and Storming" stages of working together, but there are at times awkward moments because of what I see as a small yet not trivial clash in personality between the two of them. Observing Mrs. Sobrio's methods and approaches has been as interesting as observing Mrs. Ward. I was excited to observe Mrs. Sobrio, to see what tricks and innovative methods she might employ, after taking "Sheltered Instruction" at the U this last summer. However, so far I haven't seen Mrs. Sobrio employ much that Mrs. Ward or myself wouldn't already have been doing. She really just seems like an extra chaperone or teacher aide. That's not necessarily a bad thing, since the classes are large, but not what I expected. I pictured in my mind that a special ed teacher would be kind and patient. She, on the other hand, often puts herself in the role as class disciplinarian. She sometimes will get on a kid fairly aggressively, and her harsh tone surprises me. I think it surprises the kids too. My opinion is that those situations are often more negative than they need to be. When I said earlier that Mrs. Ward's techniques work 98% of the time, the 2% that I did not think worked well were when she would criticize a student a bit too much, in my inexperienced opinion. I concede that it's going to happen sometimes. I think at home, I am too harsh with my own kids 30% of the time, so 2% is outstanding. An example of the "2%," In the Geometry class, after Mrs. Ward had lectured on technique for a subject, and had gone over a few example problems, a student named Dallas raised his hand and said "I don't get it, any of it." Mrs. Ward responded harshly, and belittled Dallas in front of the whole class. I thought the approach maybe let Dallas off the hook, and made him feel bad at the same time. I almost think it's better to ask follow-up questions, and guide the kid to what he does understand, because clearly he knew something, and use it as a learning exercise in front of the class. In this way, you make the student own his/her learning experience more, and they can only make themselves feel bad. __9/7 - 9/10__- I'm quite impressed with Mrs. Ward's lesson planning. It has been a definite learning experience for me. I think had I not observed her first, had I been thrown in to teaching the same classes without help, I would have planned for too much teacher led instruction and guided practice, because I would have planned in too much content. Then the students would have had significantly less time to work on homework problems. Mrs. Ward seems to have a very appropriate amount of content instruction planned, followed by a consistent guided practice that is similar day to day, just differs on the concepts. Then the students have the rest of the class period to work on homework problems, and get help from us as needed. She does have them do more homework problems than many teachers probably do, and then gives them the opportunity to grade and score them, themselves. She also allows them the opportunity to rework those problems that they missed, regrade them, and raise their homework scores. It makes for a fairly rigorous course for both the students and the teacher, but I like it. From what I hear, Mrs. Ward's class testing results point back to the success of this rigorous "homework" approach. Ok so now it is Jenny journaling (say THAT five times fast) It has been about a week since Darrin wrote in this so I am not going to respond to what he is saying but am going to add some of MY observations. I think this program is fantastic but........one drawback I am noticing is that since the Fellows are only teaching two classes they aren't having the opportunity to "fix" their lessons. For example: Darrin is teaching an Algebra A class 2nd period and a Geometry class 3rd period. Most of the time he is able to observe or teach my Algebra A 1st period which is allowing him to see the gaps of misunderstanding in the presentation and then he is able to "fix" it during the 2nd hour but in Geometry we talk about what he could be doing differently to address misunderstandings but he isn't able to implement them until the next day whereas if he was teaching two of the same classes he could instruct and then in the 2nd class upgrade his presentation by implementing the improvements he noticed were necessary in the first class. Now we did talk about how if after the students began their guided practice we notice the gaps we can always call the class back together and re-teach something we might have missed but what does he do about fixing his presentation if he isn't teaching that lesson again? One of the many many things a teacher should be doing is quickly readjusting the instruction as needed per individual and group needs __10/4 -__ I'm really enjoying this program. I enjoy teaching, and feel like this program is really helping me prepare to be a good teacher. If I compare the experiences that I'm having to what someone would experience straight out of college, and thrown right into the fire, I think this program has a lot of advantages. I like the relationship that I have with Mrs. Ward, my mentor. I can tell that she cares about what's best for the kids to learn, so not only am I getting great hands-on experience on how to be an effective teacher, but it feels like I'm learning the right values I should have as a teacher too. I know that in past career positions that I've had, getting "constructive feedback," was not always easy, and at times even made me defensive. Maybe because teaching seems such an honorable profession, and not just about my career advancement, I actually look forward to feedback from Mrs. Ward. So, what I'm saying is that this is a new phenomenon to me, actually looking forward to being criticized. She does a good job with it. She gives me meaningful advice about how I lecture, typically about what I could do differently that might keep more kids engaged, and help them more easily comprehend what I'm saying. Being in the classroom "co-teaching," really almost makes the experience feel like a teaching "laboratory." The kids seemed to adjust to my presence very quickly, and I enjoy working with them. I find myself looking back to various times of my life, reflecting on experiences I had as a math student in high school and college. What I see in 8th and 9th grade math classes at Ft. Herriman Middle School is a much more rigorous math experience than what I had at that age. I guess that's a good thing, as competitive a world as we live in today, global economy and all. Last week, the geometry kids were picking up new concepts really well, about angle relationships, and parallel / perpendicular relationships as well. Today didn't go so well, however. Today I taught them how to find the equation for a line that is perpendicular or parallel to a given line, through a given point. I found myself having to go further and further back, to get to a common base of knowledge from where to start building. Maybe their brains are just rusty on the subject (something I can surely appreciate), but I found that the common base started at how to find the y-intercept. Once we went over several examples, and helped them understand what the y-intercept of a linear equation was, we were finally able to get off the ground. I could see and hear frustration with several of the students in the questions that they asked. I actually think that in the long run, however, the kids will absorb and comprehend the material better if they do struggle some at first. They were, at least asking questions, even though frustrated questions. I guess we'll see what tomorrow brings, when they will have to pick up where we left off, and come up with the equations of lines using what we talked about at length today for their homework problems. The class periods are only 45 minutes long, which seems so short to me most days, especially when the kids struggle with getting their heads around new concepts.

__10/6__ - From now on, so that this doesn't become an extremely long page, I'm going to journal as discussion entries. Darrin.