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.