David's Story

As the semester draws to a close, and with just three visits left, I am finishing up the work on my inquiry project in my classroom. I am gathering the data, organizing it, and trying to make sense out of my findings- or decide if they even make sense. I am working specifically on my data analysis and trying to see a pattern or finding that emerges from it. With some help from my advisor, I saw something in my data that I don't know if I would have seen before. I knew that it was there, I just had not pin pointed it as something that had anything to do with my co-intern or I, and the work we had been doing in our placement.

In the past, my placements have been so obvious about the work I have done and the effect I had. I worked to tutor a young girl in kindergarten, and saw her read her first book, when I originally she could not recognize all 26 letters. In another placement, and young girl in danger of failing, passed the second grade above level in reading, because of my work with her in UFLI. These were obvious ways in which I had impacted a student. In this placement, I feel that it has been most beneficial to me, but I have no felt that sense that I have made a huge difference. However, the evidence was just not that obvious.

After going through the data and organizing it, I can see definite marked improvements in every student who we worked with in UFLI. And that was honestly to be expected I thought. The students we were tutoring were generally smart, just lacked motivation. No one who was in danger of being held back, and most of them were actually reading on or above grade level. And we did help these students, and they all are reading above grade level now, and I recognize that as a great thing. 

But the real sense of accomplishment came when my teacher helped me notice David. David is a young boy in my kindergarten class. He has a heart of gold, and is a genuinely sweet and caring child. David lacks focus, and was not excelling in class. He was not in danger of being held back because he was performing at grade level for all evaluations, however his class work was sloppy and he was extremely distracted. He did not display quality work. However, inside, you knew David could do it, he just needed a little attention. He was originally in a reading group with our mentor teacher, along with a few other struggling students. She was applying an intervention method, versus our normal UFLI because these students were reading well below grade level. When I began to implement my positive behavior system with my groups, our teacher decided to do it with certain students as well. David was one. She did not do it religiously or in the same way as I did, but she did it occasionally and when she did she noticed that David was in the wrong group, and really deserved to be in one with Holly or I, he just did not show this side of himself often enough for us to know. So, we made David apart of Holly's group. She implemented the system I had introduced her to, and by the end of their time together David had improved one level. This was not the big results we had seen in other students, but improvement was good in any form. I saw this, checked it off as a good thing, and moved on. When I took a second look at David however, I saw something much more then just a number in my chart.

David's entire attitude has changed since Holly and I began working with him. He is confident in himself and his abilities. He answers questions in class, and actually volunteers to answer. He has been promoted to table captain because he is showing responsibility for himself, his things and his work. He takes his time more often, to ensure that the work he is producing is quality. He has become a role model for other students in his group for what is expected of a good reader. Although his scores have improved in a way that might make him seem like a success story, he absolutely is. And in one of the most amazing ways you could be.

So looking back at this placement, I no longer see the benefit it had for only me as a future teacher. I see the impact that we made. And I can say that I touched a child's life, and that is the feeling that makes me do what I do. 

Reflection is working!

This week seemed very strange, and it was for many reasons. One was that we did not have practicum on Monday, and jumped right in on a Tuesday. So did all of the students and teachers, but with a shortened week, everyone's routine is thrown off slightly. And if that wasn't enough, we had also had the entire week previous to that off as well for the students' spring break. The first week back from a long break is always hard, especially for five year olds. We spent the majority of the week trying to get back into our routines and reminding everyone of the procedures. The students were trying to readjust, definitely, but I realized how much this type of week affected me too, as a teacher.

Similarly to my blog previous about the class right before spring break, in which our routine was thrown off, it was hard to get students back on track following a week like that, and us as teachers as well. I spent the two days this week trying to keep myself on track and level-headed because I had remembered how I had reacted the week prior, and had my reflection there to remind me how it made me feel as a teacher, and what I wanted to change. Because I had revisited my blogs prior to this week, I was reminded of that reflection, and was able to prepare myself for the situation I knew I would be in.

The students were particularly loud and off-task this week, and I feel like I did a good job keeping my temper to a minimum even though I was on edge from being out of practice. When students did things such as spoke out of turn or  tapped their pencil, ordinarily something that does not bother me, but I knew would irritate me on a week such as this, I reminded myself to take a moment, and simply remind them of the rules, or asked them to stop.

I definitely had my moments, and was not perfect the whole time. My teacher was in a bit of a panic because she had not finished her report cards that were due on Friday. She gave the entire class to me and my co-teacher, and we taught every lesson on Thursday. This was a long day after the way the students were acting, and the week we were coming back from, and we have never taught the entire class, all day long before. I definitely became irritated and at one point, the students were simply not listening to either myself or Holly, and we were working on a particularly difficult assignment. I shouted to the class "the next person who talks is getting their clipped moved, no matter what the reason". At the moment, I immediately felt guilty. I did not like being so harsh or being so strict with the kids. However, looking back, I realized that it may have been necessary at the moment. It was their third day back, and I needed to be able to expect them to be better behaved. Also, we were working on something important and a new concept, so it was necessary that they listen carefully. However, I still didn't like the way I felt about being so strict. I think that in the future, if I am teaching the lessons I am prepared for, and they are my students, I will not have to be so strict because I will have more control, however, I also need to learn that it is okay to command my class and take control when it is needed. I do not always have to be the teacher that is never strict. I have expectations and the students need to work to meet them.

Overall, I could see already how my blog was helping me as a teacher, and how my reflection had already forced me to grow and progress. And all-in-all I loved that feeling. I felt much more in control. more useful, and like I was being the teacher I wanted to be.

Revisiting With Reflection

What I wanted to improve on in my blogs was simply the act of reflecting. I have done a lot of restating and recounting in the past, but have not actually written much about how it made me feel, or how I want to improve my actions. Revisiting some of my blogs, I see where I was lacking in the reflection, because even now,  I know why I was feeling a certain way or what I was thinking about while writing those blog entries, but know that those reading it do not! I also realize it is hard to reflect a lot when I was previously writing my blogs based on my readings, and not authentically writing about things I saw. However, I still feel it is important to look back and see how I could improve some of my previous entries. So, I have decided to re-do one of my old blogs, and in bold, add in the reflection I could have included at the time or include now that those situations have ended.

Differentiation continues

As we continue to read Tomlinson & Imbeau's book on differentiation, I continue to wonder how it can apply itself in the kindergarten class that I am in. This week was our first installment of the lesson study, and our lesson on gravity was taught to a class of kindergartners. We did not have any differentiation planned for this lesson, and it showed when we taught it to Mrs. Campbell's class. However, even we had planned for differentiation, would it have worked since we did not know her students?

I wonder if planning blanketed differentiation will really help a class, or will it need to be individualized?

In my class, I know the kids well by now. I know who I need to give extra attention to, who will run the lesson if I let them, who not to sit next to each other, etc. However, we did not know Mrs. Campbell's class. I we won't know Mrs. Kirk's either. When we are planning for our differentiation, I wonder how we will go about making sure that her students can complete the lesson. 

I know for a fact that Mrs. Kirk has a student who spends half of his days in a fully contained special education classroom, and is being labeled as having language barriers. Would we think to plan for someone like him if I did not already know him?

When we went through the planning process for these unknown classrooms, I felt helpless, and looked even more helpless when we were in the actual classroom. I did not like the feeling of being out of control because I focused on one child I thought needed my attention, when all the while it was a student at an entirely different table. I felt that I did not learn anything from that experience, except that differentiation is definitely something that you need to know your students to apply. 
I think that some worksheets and programs that come with differentiation already in place, like the spelling worksheets my teacher sends home to different groups of students, cannot possibly plan for each individual child. As I read through our wall discussion about how important differentiation is to us as teachers and our students, I am beginning to realize how costly it will be on time, but also seeing that it was so beneficial to many of us as students, and how important it is to us all to include it in our future classrooms,

Our teacher continues to use these differentiated worksheets and I think that in some circumstances they make a lot of sense. But I also feel that they do not always work. A general worksheet designed at three different levels by a company cannot always apply to a classroom. I think that a lot of differentiation must be applied individually, on a student-to-student basis. I don't like the worksheets we use and I think that this is something I will try to avoid in my future classroom.
Our readings are helping me to become more aware of the need for differentiation and helping me to see that it is possible in my classroom. 

So even after all of my readings and teaching, I am still not convinced that you can plan for differentiation with out knowing the students. You can plan for certain levels but individuals need more individual planning. However, I think this is a good thing and means that you need to actually know your students, and shows that teachers still have a place in schools, and it is an important one. 

I do think that differentiation is something I will use and as we continued our lesson study, I felt that even more strongly. However I still struggle with the time constraints, but seeing our struggling students understand and use gravity throughout their day made me feel really great as a teacher, and made me feel like the time we put into the lesson was worth it.

I feel like this blog as a whole is much more informative and beneficial to me as a teacher, a student, and to those who are reading this, and this is why I feel like I want to continue to reflect deeper, and why I feel that a blog or journal is not something you use or write just once, and never look at again. 

Reflection Begins

I have been continuing in my pre-internship placement and am in the middle of my inquiry process. Overall, I am continuing to enjoy my placement and think I have learned a lot.

Based on our reading from last week of the Holly article about journaling and how to make it most effective in terms of professional development, I have decided to try to focus on my learning as a teacher, and reflect on this process.

I wanted to try to narrow my journals to a certain subject, but that is hard to do when so much happens during my pre-internship, and different things effect me enough to write about each day. So, for this journal I decided to tackle a different challenge to me of journaling, the reflection part, and hope a common theme appears.

For this week, I want to reflect on my classroom management skills. Thursday morning, I came into my practicum with one thing on my mind –spring break. The kids would be on spring break starting Friday, which means my second spring break started when I left on Thursday, and I will admit I had somewhat mentally checked out from the beginning of the day. I had taken a really difficult final on Wednesday and needed a break. My teacher was in much of the same mind set. She had been upset by something unrelated to us and was not in the right state of mind to be giving her all to the classroom that day. Needless to say, we were all a little useless that day.

I pushed through helping to do their morning work, getting them to resource, helping to arrange for class pictures, stuffing and writing on eggs for our scavenger hunt, and then reviewing for their math test later in the day. I was productive even though I did not feel like being, and we all did what we needed to do for the day. In the end, the students made a bunny bag to hold their eggs, reviewed and took a unit math test, and did a scavenger hunt for spring eggs that had sight words on them. On paper, it looked like a productive day and it would be easy enough for me to say that the day was a success. However, I knew that I was trying to be more reflective in my teaching, so when the day was finished and at certain points throughout the day I thought about how things were actually going, why I was teaching what I was, and how I was handling things in general. And it wasn’t good. I did not know why I was teaching what I was. I did not think that over an hour making a bunny bag was necessary. I understand that not every thing a student does has to have academic meaning, and sometimes there is a time and place for activities like this, but we were also having a scavenger hunt that was less academic than it seemed, and the next day was water day and a fun day for the end of the semester. I was following my mentor teacher’s plans and did not have a say in the matter, but reflecting on this situation, I did not see the value of the activity compared to the amount of time spent on the activity. I felt the same for some of the other activities we did that day, and I was not proud of the teaching that I was doing that day. Also, I reflected on my classroom management skills for the day. I noticed that more than normally, I was reprimanding children, for things that ordinarily I could ignore. Things such as tapping pencils, fingers in their noses, etc., that I would be able to ignore on certain days or calmly address, were suddenly bugging me a lot, and I was getting on the students for their behavior. My mentor teacher was participating in this behavior, and asked me to move clips for anyone not paying attention and sitting up during the math review, and proceeded to call children out by name until we had many students not on good behavior, which is normally not the case for our class. I think that our attitudes about the day were severely altering the way we were managing the classroom that day, and it was not necessarily fair. I did not by any means do anything wrong or punish students unfairly; I just noticed that I was not as calm or patient as I normally was. Everyone has their triggers, and I am starting to understand that a trigger for me is definitely when I am not at my best, I take it out in my classroom, and I did not like this at all.

I think that this reflective thinking will help me to be more aware of how I act in the classroom, why I am acting that way, and help me to improve my behavior. I am doing my inquiry to help my students to be reflective on their behavior to improve their focus, and I need to do the same for myself.

Journaling about Journaling

This week, we read about keeping journals, diaries or logs in Holly’s Keeping a Personal-Professional Journal. We learned the small details about the difference between the three, and I have found that this blog I am writing is, in fact, a journal, because it combines the structure and factual information that a log would, as well as my personal take on the matters, and experiences, which can sometimes be open-ended, which are characteristics of a diary. Together, these two elements help to make my writings considered journaling. It goes on to discuss different reasons for writing, and I believe that in this medium, I am writing both to clarify and to reflect. I can reflect on my past writings after this semester, or throughout the semester to see how I have grown throughout my placement, but I am also clarifying my thoughts and perspectives on the readings I am assigned, and things I see in the classroom.

After reading this article, I think of journaling in a different light, and think that it has many benefits to not only me as a teacher, but to students. My journaling can benefit myself to improve my life and my teaching, which will in turn benefit my students who depend on me as a teacher to work hard to improve and be better everyday. I also think that journaling could be something that could benefit the entire classroom if students were involved. They can improve them selves professionally too, as professional students, like I am now in my classes. Students can keep journals to reflect on their behavior and effort, how they felt during class, and how they want to improve, or what they want to see change. Students being able to write down their feelings about their day and their experience in the classroom will possibly effect a change in their attitude and effort as a student, improving both their experience as a student, and mine as a teacher, who will now be able to work with eager, focused students.

I wonder, can journaling become a part of the classroom routine, to help benefit students and teachers?

While completing my wondering, I am keeping different sources of writing such as logs and journals, documenting what happens within my groups as I implement the positive behavior system, and I am using them to reflect and see progress. I am considering implementing a place in this inquiry for the students to journal about how they feel the system is working, and their feelings on certain lessons, etc. I am not sure how this will go, and in kindergarten it may be more of me recording their feelings, however I think it will help me to gain insight into what can be improved, and if the system is actually working.

In my future classroom, I think I will try to implement a block of time during each school day, or once a week, where students and I will sit, write, and reflect. I want to see how this effects student and teacher behavior, and how it helps them to become more reflective in their overall lives, to make changes and improvements.

My wondering for this week is still open, but I think that after reading the article, and reflecting on my blog in the past, that journaling can be a way to help students and teachers make the most of their educational experience, and I now better understand the value it can have in all areas of life. 

The Beginnings of Inquiry

This week I began further exploring the inquiry process by completing my first draft of an inquiry brief. My ideas have all been swimming around and I now finally had a place to organize them. Being in a classroom for longer each day, and more days out of the week, gives me an opportunity to have more wonderings based on more significant observations than I had last semester. I am more involved in my classroom, working directly with the students, and truly taking a teacher role in the classroom.

Being in the classroom since January, I have witnessed a round of FAIR testing, and helped to administer running records for each student. This happened so early on that I only knew the students for a short period of time, and did not know what scores to expect. My mentor teacher, co-teacher and myself worked together to organize literacy groups based solely on these scores.

However, as the weeks went on, and I implemented UFLI with my small groups, I saw a lot of focus and improvement. However, back in the classroom during whole group instruction I didn't see the same attitude from certain students. I started to notice a pattern of these students working hard during any type of assessment or small group with a teacher, but not during whole group. Then, even effort in small groups started to decline as the students became more comfortable with my co-teacher and I. They were not working as hard to impress us. It became clear to me that these students were not intrinsically motivated, and therefore were not working to their full potential. Unless there was a grade associated with the assignment or someone is making a big deal and pushing the students, they did not try or challenge themselves. These students are very smart and it is hard to show my teacher that I feel that they have more potential, when they don't show her in whole group instruction.

My wondering is, can a positive behavior system extrinsically motivate these students to work to their full potential?

I have learned about motivation and reward systems and how implementing them with the appropriate weening system can be a great thing to motivate struggling students. After working with my peers, I have designed a system to implement during small groups with these students  to try and motivate them to focus and work hard in class. If they see that they can do it, and are rewarded for this effort, then they may apply it to other class time.

My wondering is not compete for this blog, but I feel more confident in my idea, and am excited to begin working on my inquiry in the classroom.

Is Differentiation for Everyone?

This week we have continued with our lesson study, and I was able to observe it taught this week in another kindergarten class. Like last time, we were unfamiliar with the students, the class set up, and any of their routines, and we were basically going in blindly when it came to differentiating.

This upcoming week we will be in our first home classroom, where two of my peers will be teaching to their own students, whom they know and are comfortable with. We were able to begin adding differentiation to the lesson and added other details such as whether certain activities would be best taught with the students at the carpet or in their seats. These small details are the ones that can sometimes make a difference in a portion of a lesson, or the overall lesson.

My coteaching partner and I have already begun discussing the differentiation we will include in our classroom, because we now know our students and can tell that they will need different instruction then the classroom we will be in this week. However, it is easy for us to accommodate for, because this is a science lesson, and everyone is basically on the same page. All students are on track for science, and the things we will need to differentiate for are behavior problems versus learning issues. However, I see the real difficulty come into play with other subjects like reading and math when it comes to differentiation. In Tomlinson and Imbeau chapter 7, they discuss some concerns teachers continue to have with differentiation and the common reasons that they do not use it. One that struck me was that the class size was too big. I feel that it is almost opposite in my classroom now. The class size is not too big, but the size of those struggling, is too small. There are four students that I am immediately concerned for when it comes to passing FAIR testing, and being capable to reach the levels expected of them to move on to the first grade.

My wondering for this week is, can differentiation help students who are the few being left behind?

My class is full of bright, motivated young students who are eager to learn, and are doing very well, almost all reading and doing math beyond their grade level. However, there are a select few at the bottom who are not reaching their potential and further more, are just struggling. They are included in group activities like reading and writing aloud, however how do we know that they are gaining anything from this instruction, and not just hearing their fellow students and copying their work? I know this is an opportunity for good modeling, but I am wondering if more one-on-one attention needs to exist at this age, or if these students will eventually just catch up.

Our teacher is good about differentiating homework for math assignments, my coteacher and I are implementing UFLI which is differentiated by level, and their literacy stations are differentiated as well. But during these times, since the teacher is not working directly with them, they tend to slack off, or goof around, and are not truly gaining anything from this experience. At home, they very may well be getting too much help on homework, and it is not truly reflecting their work.

I wonder if differentiation in a classroom like this should be so different and extreme to where it is the entire class working on one assignment, and three students with the teacher, almost at all times, to ensure that they are learning and progressing.

I think that overall I have learned that especially in this classroom, differentiation is important, but I continue to wonder how it will look in different classrooms.