Blog 11

Prompt: How can curriculum mapping assist you?  Do you have one?  Does your school/district curriculum map?  Where would/will you start in creating a useful curriculum map for your classroom? 

I believe that curriculum mapping is most useful for students, although it seems like they are the stakeholder that isn't at the table making mapping decisions. Curriculum maps help teachers organize their lessons in a manner that maximizes student understanding of material. For some topic areas, like mathematics, order of instruction can be very important for mastery. Curriculum mapping also helps students connect their learning across disciplines and enrich comprehension. In short, curriculum mapping assists me in planning, starting with the end goal in mind. 

Our district has a curriculum map that is based on a wiki used by several districts called Beyond Textbooks (BT). I've been told that map is aligned with Common Core, although the standards are still labeled as Arizona's College and Career Ready Standards. Some of the standards are also organized in an order that I find confusing and out-of-place. This is just my opinion, however, and it's probably due to the way in which I was taught specific standards when I was in high school. Regardless, our district insists that we stick closely with the BT curriculum. They claim that students in other districts on this curriculum show significant improvement on the AIMS, and I'm also sure that is tied to some sort of funding. It usually has to do with money.

For the most part, I do follow the curriculum on BT, although I don't see where the mapping is relevant across disciplines. I recently had a chat with our biology teacher and we talked about how it would be nice if his standard on genetics and probability was aligned with my standard on probability, combinations, and permutations. It would make sense to have the math teacher cover these topics so students could apply it to biology. There has been some talk about curriculum mapping opportunities at the district level, but the Board has told us that any changes in the curriculum must be district-wide. For most planning, it is departmental here. I meet with my team lead and we discuss how we are progressing along in our classrooms and what standards must be covered next. It's difficult because the majority of our students are missing basic fundamental math skills so the pacing has been atrocious. Still, if there is no change in the status quo, our students will just keep failing and failing and failing. Something needs to change so that our students can all succeed.

I think that being a first-year teacher makes it difficult to map a curriculum well. For me, I'm actually re-learning most of what I am teaching to my students. This is good because I can relate to their understanding a little better than if I was a math major or expert. Still, I feel like the trial and error period is necessary to build a more holistic view of the year. After this year, I feel like I will better prepared to join the discussion on what students need to know and what order works better for them.
 

Blog 10

Prompt #10:  Do you differentiate instruction? Why or why not? What is the importance of differentiating instruction? What impact does it have on student learning?

Quite honestly, I don't differentiate instruction for every lesson. Sometimes I feel like it is not necessary since I introduce completely new material and assume that all students do not understand it. With this mindset and backwards planning, I build up to a standard slowly and try to take into account all the essential questions that are necessary to comprehend and complete the objectives. I try to teach as if all of my students do not understand any of the material, and include as much reference to prior knowledge as possible. I also reiterate previous concepts in detail just to ensure that there are no questions about previous objectives either. This leads to much chagrin with my high-performing students, however, since I take great pains to help my lower-performing students. The main reason I do not differentiate instruction as often as I would like is due to the time constraints I face. The amount of work that is demanded from this position is preventing me from spending extra time on developing differentiation strategies for my students. I also am still experimenting with different teaching methods and do not know which method works best for students of each performance level yet.

Differentiating instruction is very important for keeping students engaged, developing deeper understandings, and keeping students invested in the material. If students are not appropriately challenged with the material or understand the instruction clearly, self-efficacy generally decreases and learning suffers. The idea of a one-size-fits-all education is flawed because all students learn from different types of instruction and students perform at different levels of competency. In order to maximize performance and understanding, instruction must be differentiated for each individual student.

Blog 9

Prompt #9: General Education Teachers: When working with special education teachers, what are your challenges? Strengths? What could be done to increase your skills in this area?

Well, for starters...my greatest challenge is finding time to work with the special education teachers. As a first-year teacher, I feel like I am spending most of my time scrambling to finish everything on time and anything additional might ruin my sanity. Still, I realize that working together with special education professionals is an essential piece to helping all of my students succeed. It's very difficult, however, when the culture of the school is not focused on addressing the concerns of special education. Our special education administration and staff has seen quite some turnover in the past few weeks. I lost my paraprofessional, several IEP meetings were cancelled, some of our special education staff don't know their case load, no one has any additional time to meet after school to discuss co-teaching plans or addressing specific IEP goals. Some of the staff have expressed to me that the number of IEPs in the district are inflated while others believe that every student should have an IEP.

I tried giving my IEP students different worksheets in addition to the classwork that addressed their IEP goals, but after one student faced ridicule from their fellow classmates about their "dumb kid homework" I stopped trying to discreetly hand out the extra assignments. I also tried to explain that additional practice was always a good thing, but the teasing appears to be a cultural norm and even the targeted student seemed to internalize what was said regardless.

I don't suppose I have very many strengths with special education. Then again, I don't see a very good support system here either. To increase my skills within this area, I believe the special education services need to be addressed first.

The only thing that seems to work (slightly) is my recognition program which rewards students for being "a teacher today." Students that finish their assignments early during independent practice get a chance to sign a "I was a teacher today" poster on the wall after I have checked their work and they have helped a fellow student. Being a "teacher" enough times will earn them several rewards including extra credit, good phone calls home, and even a letter of recommendation for future use. Students seem to response better to their peers, but students aren't always able to finish their work before class ends. Hopefully I'll get better at designing this program in a way that will create more cooperative learning.

Blog 8

Prompt #8: When using technology with your students, what are your challenges? Strengths? What could be done to increase your usage of technology in the classroom?

I believe that my students need more exposure to technology in the classroom. Many of them have cellular devices that allow them to play music, browse the Internet, and use applications. On the other hand, some of my students have no access to a computer or Internet at home (and our public library is not open on the weekends). For some of my students, their only access is during school intervention. I've seen some incredible hacking on some computer settings and students bypassing security measures on our sever. Of course I do address the illegality of their actions, but it is fascinating how innovative they can be when given constraints and curiosity. I'd love to give them more time to explore and "create their own learning objectives" but most of the time I am challenged by the varying desires of each student. Some prefer to spend time dawdling on Youtube, watching video after video of the same rap artist or amateur stunt  gone wrong. Others are exploring articles on Wikipedia that pique their interests or playing math games online. At the same time, I still feel like this experience is a learning opportunity for them, so I'm at a loss on how to construct a lesson surrounding it. I also feel like the vast potential of information offered by the Internet makes in-classroom teaching more challenging for me. I'm trying to connect concepts to their lives, which are so complicated and interwoven to many different ideas that keep expanding as they get exposed to more information around them. It's no wonder why they struggle to stay focused in class.

As far as the classroom goes, my technology is quite limited. I do use a document camera which is fixed at the front and allows me to keep myself oriented toward students without turning my back. I'd much prefer a tablet that I could use around the classroom (so I could keep moving). I would also use it to get student participation during class--literally bringing the whiteboard to the desk. I sometimes use Powerpoints or Prezis for lessons that are vocabulary intensive (or when I'm dressed up like a ninja for Halloween and remain silent the entire period). I also include Youtube videos when I am able to bridge a learning objective or concept to a clip and build some relevance to their understanding.

Blog 7

Prompt: How prepared do you feel in effectively teaching your students reading? Is this one of your strengths? A weakness? Have you started to plan to the Common Core Standards? If you have, how is that going? If you haven't, why not? What support do you need?

I don't particularly feel effective when teaching my students reading. It is definitely one of my weaknesses, as I tend to shy away from word problems due to the difficulty in composing them on my own or finding ones that align to the standards that I am required to teach. I do include reading strategies when I do show students math problems. I usually point out key words and focus on helping students identify the main question in word problems. I also make it a point to use context clues when helping students understand words that they might not recognize. It is a bit difficult since their vocabulary is quite limited. The pacing calendar I am using has formative assessments with plenty of word problems, so I do use those files for end-of-week assessments. My focus tends to be primarily on addressing the steps on solving specific problems. My students tend to lose focus when I dig deeper into the application or proofs of certain concepts. It may be due to the fact that my applications or interests in a standard are not interesting or responsive to them, or that they are just there to learn about a foolproof formula that works every time. I feel both of these cases are true.

Supposedly our pacing calendar is aligned to the Common Core Standards. Indeed, we are focusing more on fewer standards at a higher level of rigor (using the assessments provided by the calendar). The more and more that I look at this curriculum and benchmark testing, the more I feel like our district is being data-driven. I'm being rushed to finish the objectives for this semester even though our students lack the basic fundamental math skills needed to comprehend higher levels of algebra. I still want to focus some more time on skills like integer operations and manipulating fractions. My students are not necessarily demonstrating the mathematical practices expected with the Common Core. They need to show more perseverance in finding their solutions, attend to precision, and reason abstractly and quantitatively. I hardly see any of the other mathematical practices in place, and that may be due to my poor lesson designs. Still, I believe the aura of lethargy that comes with almost every student is astounding. It's almost a cultural norm to have "nothing to do" and this want for "nothing to do". How do we invest our students into what we are teaching them when all we are showing them is something they could learn through a computer? How do we break this cycle without working ourselves into the ground? I'm behind on so many other things (Rio Salado work included), and I don't have as much time as I would like to lesson plan each week. I've gotten better at planning and improvising, but I'm always so stretched for time.

I think some Common Core lesson plans on the objectives that I teach would be very valuable. I'm definitely planning as I go, or as they used to say at Institute: "building an airplane while it's flying." Perhaps this is just first year blues. I hear it gets better the second year...

Blog 6

Education World
Classroom Management: Ten Teacher-Tested Tips
http://www.educationworld.com/a_curr/curr261.shtml

Reflection: reading the article helped me think about my current classroom management strategies and how simple modifications could change the outcome of my students' behavior. The question I kept coming back to was how I handled rewards and consequences in class. I have yet to come up with an effective punitive measure to address students that violate the rules multiple times, although I am now asking students to sit in the "focus" seats at the front of the room closest to me when this occurs. I've emphasized that students who sit in the seats will become more focused and successful in my class as a way of keeping the "consequence" positive. Whether this will work is still up for questioning.

I really like the concept of student regulation of behavior. I do have enough rapport with some of my classes that students will "shush" each other during a lesson. I generally stand still and quiet when there is a disruption and the class naturally quiets down before I continue. This isn't the case for all of my classes, but it was oddly fabricated as an expectation from the students to each other without my prompt. Perhaps I need to make it a unified expectation or habit for all of my courses.

Prompt #6: How effectively is your classroom management system working at this point in the year? What are your struggles? What are your successes?

On a scale of 1 to 10 (1 being the lowest; 10 being the highest), I would say that my classroom management is an average 6. The values for my classroom management are 'love and respect for each other.' And while this moral vision has kept my questioning and management positive, the vague nature of this expectation has caused students to stretch their interpretation of the concept. I continuously have specific students that try to defy my authority, cause disruptions in class, and display aggression towards me. While that number is small enough for me to count on one hand, dealing with them every day is draining.

While it hasn't been the most effective strategy, I've been categorizing certain behaviors as either: disruptive to the classroom or disruptive to the individual student. Generally speaking, I prioritize the disruptions that affect the entire classroom and address them publicly. The first warning is merely verbal and involves a choice of respecting the learning of others or sitting in the focus seat. The second warning involves moving the student to the focus seat. The third warning (which has only happened once) forces me to take the student out into the hallway for a one-on-one conference.

I've decided (through trial and error) that I will not be issuing additional homework as a punitive measure. It creates the idea that homework is a punishment and the current issue of students turning in incomplete assignments is bad enough as it is. While I have issued lunch detention to students for infractions as well, it has only worked for students that comply. I have no real way of enforcing lunch detention (especially on my students who have courses after lunch) on my students. Once again, I've turned "lunch help time" into a more positive, optional service rather than a punishment.

At the beginning of the year, I created several seating charts, but some of the arrangements were problematic. Students were not on task because they were chatting with their friends, but as soon as I moved them they would shut down and do nothing. Literally nothing. For weeks. The motivation and self-esteem of my students is so low that I'm concerned whether tipping them in the wrong direction even in the slightest will have highly negative effects. And then it brings back the question of how effective are my teaching strategies. Is it really the students' fault in this case that I might not have the clearest expectations, the most relevant and engaging objectives, or the time to focus on every student's needs?

I'm not entirely sure what I'm doing is correct, but, if anything, I'm trying. I'm trying new things. I'm making mistakes, and I'm learning. I hope my students can do the same.

Blog 5

Prompt #5: “Reflect on your use of assessment in the classroom. On a scale of 1 – 10, ten being highest, how would you rate yourself. What are your plans for becoming a “10” if you are not there already? How are you using assessment in the classroom to guide your instruction? Describe how assessment results are used to differentiate instruction within your class.”

I would rate myself as a 3 out of 10 on my use of assessment in the classroom. On a weekly basis I provide students with a formative assessment that is aligned with our district pacing guide and math department. The rubric that our department uses is still undergoing some experimentation. Students are given a score between 0 and 4 based on their mastery of learning objectives and this translates into an equivalent score for their grade at the end of the grading period. According to my math department head, it is not sufficient just to get the right answers; students must demonstrate certain mathematical practices to receive perfect scores. While I agree on this rigorous approach to assessing our students, the standardization of this grading scale is extremely difficult. Most of my grades are adjusted based on my informal observations on student performance during the week. Whether this is an accurate representation of true mastery is still up to debate, but it is at least helping me identify student levels of understanding on a lesson-to-lesson basis.

I give my students at least two formative assessments on the same objectives. I keep the score of the best assessment for each student. While this works for some students who show improvement by the second assessment, it is the opposite for others. It makes me wonder how students are comprehending the material. Of course, if the entire class shows low performance on a particular objective, I use that as a sign that I need to reteach the objective. Still, I am behind on my pacing guide and our principal is pushing us to catch up. It's becoming harder to take up days for reteaching. 

I look at the tests of students that consistently score low on every objective. Most of these students also have IEPs, although some of them seem to have negative attitudes in my class every day. For my IEP students, I've provided alternative assessments along with the formative assessment that every student takes and give them to choice of taking one or the other. I tried to give different assessments to individual students based on their IEP goals, but it became too much of an organizational disaster. Without a paraprofessional in the room, it becomes even more difficult to even address each student's IEP goals. Some of these students remain lost for the entirety of the class, and I'm constantly thinking of ways to reach out to them and address their needs. It's going to take a lot more investment on my part, and I don't like calling parents.

I've met with several parents during parent-teacher-conferences, but I do need to start calling parents--especially those of the students who are having attitude issues in my classroom. 

I also need to find a way to help all students who are having difficulties (not just the ones who raise their hands every time during independent practice) during class. I need ideas.

Blog 4

Prompt #4:  “Reflect on your time in the classroom to this point.  How are you feeling emotionally, physically?  Do you feel that you are getting through to your most difficult students? What strategies are working?  What strategies are not?   What are your next steps with student engagement within your classroom?”

My classroom at this point is still questioning itself. Well, it's hard to aggregate the sum of my experiences since I have multiple classes and each one gives me different joys and heartaches. I would say that emotionally, I am torn and drained. Physically, I am managing my time better than my first week, and it has significantly improved my stamina during the week. Still, I am constantly thinking about the backlog of work that must be done on my part and there is never a moment that I feel comfortable relaxing or taking time off for myself. It's always rationed portions of time devoted to my own sanity. I'm fine, really. It just seems like I'm still on edge all of the time. I feel like I'm making some progress with my most difficult students. The difficulty does not lie with my relationship with them--I now know that my attitude and approach has everything to do with how they work with me. I'm beginning to see them and their problems better, but it is the lack of time I have with them and their varying competencies that is slowing my efforts. Developing a rapport by talking about their lives and my own seems to be working as far as developing a foundation to begin learning. They have quite the sense of humor, although it has taken some adjusting on my part to realize their intents. Working one-on-one is showing the most promising results, but once again, I do not have enough time to devote one-on-one instruction to all of my struggling students. I can, at most, deliver a few minutes at a time. Providing differentiated worksheets hasn't shown much benefit since I can't always reach every student that has different levels of competencies. Plus, students don't have a way of receiving the immediate feedback that is so important to developing self-esteem and self-motivation. Additionally, I fail to monitor and correct students in this manner. On top of it all, it seems like they are receiving something that might be embarrassing to reveal to other students. It doesn't really help all that much. Still, I'd like to give students something that they can comprehend and do successfully. Perhaps I should start including an answer sheet?

I've recently used whiteboards taped to the walls as a bellwork activity for students to engage in as I take attendance and prepare my lesson for the day. They are able to use this time to copy notes down at their pace and walk around (it really helps my first hour wake up). How often I should do this is still a question I need to ask myself. If it becomes a routine, I need to continue it. I'm considering keeping it up for the next few weeks and see how it goes. I've also included an on-screen timer during practice and activities (using TimeLeft software) to give students a visual that will encourage them to stay on task. It seems to work...? Sometimes I do give too much time for some students and they start disrupting others who are still working. We shall see how well that fares in the next few weeks too.

Blog 3

Prompt #3: Regular Education - “What are you doing to meet the needs of your special education students? If you do not have special education students, how are you meeting the needs of your low students? Have you met with your school’s pre-referral group about these students?”

After several weeks of observing student performance on formative and formal assessments and reading student IEPs, I've tried to arrange a curriculum for students that have special education needs. I'm very conflicted with what I'm supposed to do, and I currently have no real guidance or any idea on if what I'm doing is correct or working. The first adjustment was rearranging the desks and seating assignment to move my low-performing students toward the front of the room, closer to me when I am instructing. I would like to move around the whole classroom more when I'm teaching, but the majority of the time I spend near the whiteboard where my ELMO is placed, facing the class. I've found that this has helped slightly with behavior issues, as some of my IEP students also tend to be the most disengaged and disruptive students. Then again, I also have students who are excelling in class that tend to do the same, so I can't say this is a foolproof setup. Lately I have been reviewing specific IEP goals for my students and have created different worksheets for their specific level of mastery (as I've informally assessed). While their IEPs do call for specific mastery of content that is pre-algebraic, I have decided to give my students work that is aligned to the lessons I am teaching at a lower level of rigor for mastery. It's not 100% aligned to their IEP, though, although they are still building skills that will help them at any level of mathematics (namely, integer operations). I've made some progress with students that have sat down with me one-on-one to work through several practice problems. Still, it is like juggling 25 dishes at the same time without any experience juggling. I have mentor teachers telling me that I need to move on with my curriculum and stay on schedule with my pacing guide (Beyond Textbooks). I have paraprofessionals in some of my classes, but they have not done much (which I don't entirely blame them for). One, I'm not very good at planning lessons for co-teaching, and two, I don't know how I would plan a lesson with a co-teacher. Still, they have told me that they are not supposed to help specific students ("targeting" as they phrased it) consistently due to an "all-inclusion" policy. Also, the paraprofessional in my classroom with the most IEPs was removed to fill a vacancy in the district...leaving me with a classroom of students of differing levels that it is depressing for me every day. I have one student that should be in an accelerated course (who I have asked to help me tutor other students with questions). I have three other students who are general education students that are understanding the material but are talking or sleeping because the material is too slow-paced. I have four students that are also general education students that are struggling with the material despite my pace, one which asks for help, the other three fall off task easily. One student is failing due to excessive absences. I have two new students (recently added within the past two weeks) who are desperately trying to catch up a whole quarter's amount of material, and I have six IEPs, each with different math learning goals. One of my IEP students cannot do integer operations without assistance and takes quite some time (sometimes a whole minute of thinking) to do basic arithmetic like 7+9. It is by far my most challenging class. I spend more time with my lowest performing students than the rest of the class...is that what the goal of that course should be? Catching as many of my lowest performing students up to speed or keeping the pace consistent and losing half of my class? Will my special education students just get passed along the system like they have been for the past 9 to 10 years or will I be doing a disservice to those students in general education who need the curriculum at a faster, more rigorous pace? I want to do both, but how?

Blog 2

Prompt #2: In a profession as challenging as teaching, honest self-reflection is key. That means that we must regularly examine what has worked and what hasn't in the classroom…” This year, what has worked and what hasn’t in your classroom. What will you do differently?

This year is my first year. Many things that I have tried in the classroom have worked temporarily (e.g. using whiteboards for CFUs, a group point system for collaboration, a seating chart based on class performance, etc.) until the students find some loophole or method of "cheating the system" (i.e. copying answers, stealing the spotlight, not helping each other, etc.). Rather than being mad at my students, I'm actually quite impressed that they found the drawbacks to my ideas. Still, I'm having trouble with designing systems, procedures, and routines that meet my expectations, are relevant and appropriate for my students, and stay consistently functional despite the attempts of my little, innovative debuggers. I suppose this answers the second part of the first question. What has worked in my classroom? I would have to say...a positive attitude. There are days when I feel distressed about the mistakes I have made in class, the groans and frowns of high achievers and misbehaving students, and the constant denial of existence from my greetings in the hallway. But if I manage to grit my teeth and give out a genuine compliment despite all of that, I've been able to reach some students...and they've done better in class too. It's an uphill battle, though. I don't ever feel like I have enough time to reach all of my students this way, although I really want to eventually. I need a better way of managing my classroom and differentiating the instruction to all of my students. I've started this week with an ELMO in an attempt to start facing my students rather than turning my back to them while I write on the board. Unfortunately, the camera blocks my eyes when I use it, so we'll see how long that lasts. Also, I've planned for another day of re-investment, begun re-writing lesson plans to include essential questions, and started thinking about more culturally-relevant instruction. I also need to reinforce procedures and routines, improve my gradual release techniques, and possibly create an incentive program for my students. I met up with another TFA corps member this weekend for our TFA All-corps meeting and he said that I should really focus on doing two to three things well. It's a bit flustering to think about, since I have so much to do for everything. Still, I think for the sake of my sanity, he might be giving me some good advice.

Blog 1

Prompt #1:  “Write about 2 things that are going well in your classroom that you are proud of.  Write about 2 things in your classroom that you wish to improve.  What steps will you take to improve these items?”

Prompt #1: After the first quarter of teaching, I am most proud of the relationship I have built with some of my students in class. While this is not the case for every student, there are at least a few students (or one) in every class that is willing to respond to my questions. Compared to the first two weeks of absolute silence, I feel like this is an indicator of some progress. There have also been some moments in class where students have checked each other for understanding, sometimes for the sake of competition. Although these moments are brief, it still is heartening to see that light of excitement in the classroom as students correct each other and show a sense of urgency. As far as improvements, I have more than two things that I would like to address. My biggest weakness is lesson planning, followed quickly by differentiated instruction for students of varying levels of understanding. I walk in every week with a skeleton of a plan and a whole plethora of contingency plans for the worst case scenario. I don’t feel particularly attached to my plans when I make them and if I think of something before the period starts, I scrap everything and improvise the entire hour. This has created a variety of results (most of them disastrous) and I don’t feel particularly confident each day when I walk into the building. Even worse is coming home and feeling absolutely exhausted, even though I feel like there are so many other things I need to address. It’s like I can’t prioritize the things that will help me get out of this vicious cycle of uncertainty. I have a large backlog of other demands that have accumulated since I started teaching and it seems that every time I do have some time to address these concerns, taking a break to maintain my sanity takes precedence. I am determined to start planning backwards, starting first with an end-of-the-year test and working backwards through summative and formative assessments, eventually getting down to unit plans and lesson plans. My goal was to have it finished by next weekend, but I have an obligation with Teach for America that will eat up my entire Saturday then. Hopefully during the week I’ll be able to plan ahead as far as I can so each weekend can be spent with refining my ideas and feeling more prepared each day. To improve my differentiation for students, I will be rearranging the classroom this week into groups based on their test scores from my previous assessment on integer operations. Because integer operations are crucial to the entire unit, I want to be able to focus on helping these students during independent practice. If they’re seated together, it’ll be easier to address them all together, in my opinion. I’m also curious to see how they will respond to this arrangement, though. It could be a terrible idea at the same time.