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.