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.