Teacher Toolkit

Hey all!

So, today's project of the day was my teacher toolkit. I bought a 22-drawer Stack-on storage cabinet from Lowe's. You can get these at any hardware store. I then covered the drawers with scrapbooking paper and put labels on the handles. I used colors that I plan on using in my classroom and I think it turned out pretty cute. I got the idea from Pinterest. These have been going around many teacher blogs and I thought I'd try it out. Overall, very easy to do, and I think it will be useful in my classroom. :)

Back to School

Hello!
The last time that I wrote in this blog, I was a student teacher. Now, I am a full-time special education teacher near Cleveland, Ohio. Last year, I was a long-term substitute at an incredible school in the district where I am now fully employed. I had an incredible experience as a first year teacher, but I now feel like I am entering the world of first-year teaching again as I am in a new school teaching new grades. Last year I taught first and fourth grade students and this year I will be teaching second and third graders. I will be doing inclusion (co-teaching) and resource room teaching. I am very excited for the school year to start and have spent a good amount of my time this summer scouring Pinterest for new ideas for my classroom! I have tried a few so far and expect to incorporate many more throughout the year. I love that the internet makes it so easy to collaborate with other teachers and see what they are up to in their classrooms. I recently got into my new classroom, and it is far from being ready, but I will be posting some of my progress as I go. 


Here are some pictures of my room from the first day. This is what I saw when I walked into the classroom:

I hope that you'll enjoy seeing the progress as much as I'll enjoy doing it! 


-Brittany :)

Teach for America: A Rant

Today in my "Perspectives in Education" class we had an impromptu discussion about Teach for America and it, to say the least, got me a little fired up, and not so much in a good way. Before I begin what I actually want to say in this post, let me begin by telling you the information that I know (or think I know) about Teach for America. I consider myself in no way to be an expert, but here is my knowledge on the subject:

• Teach for America is a program which places teachers into high-need areas in the country
• ANYONE with a college degree can apply to be in the program
• You do not need any sort of background in education to apply (i.e. an accounting major who has never worked with children can apply)
• This is known as a "fast-track" teacher prep
• I may be a little off on the actual time frame, but I have heard that only about 15 hours of educational training is provided before throwing these "teachers" into classrooms
• Many college graduates go into the program because they "want to make a difference" and want to "move to a new area" or "try something new"

If you would like more information on Teach for America, I suggest you visit their website at  http://www.teachforamerica.org/.

Now that you know some of the facts, here are a few of my opinions on Teach for America (please excuse the rant that this may become):

First of all, these "teachers" are entering the field of teaching without so much as a class on classroom management. Also, they are taking the jobs of people who went to school for 4+ years to become teaching. Many of the people who enter the program do it for the experience and not because they truly have a passion for teaching. I should also mention that the application does require that you include your grade point average in college and any awards and honors you may have received, but in no place asks about your feelings or experiences on working with children. I assume, and hope, that people who do choose this route love children, however I know for a fact that there are people in the program who simply want to live in a new place and have new experiences. Is it really fair that these young adults who lack any real training or certification are able to go in and have our jobs? And more importantly, is it fair to the children of this nation that they be taught by mediocre teachers who are not actually qualified to teach them?


Another major aspect of Teach for America deals with location. These teachers are placed in high-need areas, which includes areas with low income and low social economic status. Often times, but not always, the children in these schools come from unstable home lives that do not provide the care and support that they need. It is true that many teachers who graduate from a four-year college with a degree in teaching do not want to teach in these areas. Teach for America is a way of placing teachers in these schools where there is a string need for teachers. This seems like a great idea. HOWEVER, these teachers go into these schools with little training and with no qualifications to actually teach. I believe that by allowing these teachers to go into these high-need areas and teach, we are doing a terrible disservice to our children. These are the children who need the absolute best that we can provide them with. They are in situations where they are forced to overcome poverty, poor living situations, and a lack of good role-models, among other issues. Getting out of a cycle with those obstacles to overcome is extremely difficult. Excuse me for this generalized statement, but I believe it to be true that few people who are born and raised in poverty are actually able to overcome it and raise their social economic status. Some do, yes, but only when they are given the proper supports. Providing them with teachers who have never taken any college classes on education is not providing these students with the proper supports. We can do better than that. These children deserve better than that. They did not choose to be born into poverty or into the areas where they live. The life they have was given to them and was not a choice. These are innocent children and they deserve the best teachers that we have because they do have more to overcome and they need good role-models and support systems. They need people to love and care about them. When we send Teach for America teachers into these schools, they are on a 2-year contract. Most (I think someone said 80%) of these teachers leave after those 2 years and do not return to teaching. The majority leave the area where they were sent to teach after their contract expires. IF these children are forming relationships with these teachers and finally have someone to believe in them and encourage them, what does it do to them when after two years, they leave? These children put their trust into their teachers and the last thing that they need is someone else to break that trust.

At the same time, not many teachers are willing to take a risk and accept those jobs in the high-need areas. It's a double-edged sword. I don't know how we're going to solve this problem and provide these children with the education that they really need, but I do hope that we find a way. Children are our future. Doesn't our future deserve the best?

Apology for the Negligence

Let me begin by saying (to my few but loyal followers): I apologize for my negligence of this blog. To say that I have been busy would be a true statement. However, I really feel that is no excuse for leaving you all in the cold. So, without further ado: I'M BACK! And I promise to give this a good effort at least for the last two weeks of this student teaching placement.

So much has gone on that I do not even know where to begin...

I began full-time teaching a few weeks ago and continued for about three or four weeks. It was a lot of responsibility to plan and teach everything, but it gave me a very good idea of what it feels like to really be a teacher. And...I loved it! :)

I feel like a real teacher. A good teacher. And this is such a great feeling to have. I love my students and I get such joy from watching them learn and grow. They truly are sponges and seem to absorb all of the information that I throw at them. It is amazing to me how much new information they learn in one day and then can recall without difficulty days or weeks later. 


Today I subbed in my class because my teacher was sick. I am still planning and teaching full time on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, so I only had my plans to teach for today, which made it easier.


On another note, I have decided to list a few of the things that I have learned so far this semester:

• It is really unnessecary to write lesson plans that are longer than a page, however, it does help to write out the steps of your lessons so that you don't get lost
• Sometimes children just need someone to love them
• When a kid says their stomach hurts...take it seriously. And get a trash can.
• I love to teach, even if at the end of the day I am exhausted and stressed
• Reinventing the wheel is unrealistic-- use your resources!
• Ask LOTS of questions!
• It is very difficult to teach to students' needs and to differentiate instruction when you have a class of 20+ students, and this is one of the main challenges of teaching
• Making different spelling groups is one way to do this
• Guided reading groups are also effective
• It is important to implement reading intervention programs with struggling readers, long before they fall too far behind
• Making folders for each day of the week and filling them with the next week's copies the week before is a very effective method of organization
• It is VERY important to laugh and smile when working with children

 More to come in a later entry...
 

Conferences & IEPs [Special Education from the General Education Eye]

Today I sat in on my first initial Individualized Education Program (IEP) meeting. It was also the first IEP meeting in which my name was on the actual IEP and I was able to sign-in. We had referred one of the girls in our class for special education under the category of learning disability. It was very interesting to observe an initial IEP, because I was able to hear all of the assessment results from the school psychologist. He actually led a majority of the meeting and then turned it over to the special education teacher. The meeting was quick and the parent, whom we know very well as she volunteers in the school, was very compliant and understanding. I was very excited because I really felt as though I knew everything that was going on and could predict what would happen next. It is so nice to finally be taking all of the knowledge that I have gained over the past three years and putting it into practice. With this placement it is also very beneficial to me that I am able to see special education from the general education perspective.

For example, we are currently in the process of referring two of our other students to special education and I have been able to see their performance in the general education setting and how their disability (or probable disability) affects their performance within the general education setting and with the general education curriculum. I have also been able to witness the referral process from this side and have been able to watch the conversations that my mentor teacher and the school psychologist had to have with the parents, informing them of the referral and asking for their permission for further testing. Luckily, in both cases, the parents were very accepting and open to any type of testing and/or programs that could help their son/daughter to receive the help that he/she needs. I think this was a very beneficial thing for me to witness, especially being a special education major, because for the most part I will be seeing these students once they have already been tested and referred for services. I enjoy having experiences in which I can both learn about and experience the events that take place before a student begins special education services.

Smart Pens & Smart Kids :)

So, I recently introduced a new technology into my classroom which I will be using with my students in order to conduct research for a couple of Hope College professors. I volunteered for the project because I love technology and this seemed like a really innovative tool. As a participant, I was given three pens along with notebooks and am required to use them with three students in math. I am incorporating my pens into one math lesson per week and my three students were randomly selected. During the guided practice portion of my lesson, my students use the smart pens and the smart notebooks to complete the same problems that the other students are completing in their math workbooks. Now, about these smart pens...

 

 Using these pens and the special notebook that comes with them, the user can write while speaking into the pen and the pen will record both what the user has written and what he/she has said. The pen can then be plugged into the computer where it will upload the writing and the voice. It can then play back the writing and the voice at the same time, displaying the words one letter at a time, therefore displaying it just as if someone were actually writing and talking right then on the computer screen. Talk about technology!

 Now, the purpose of using this technology as far as our research goes, is to determine if the use of the pen increases a student's meta-cognition in mathematics. It should also (hopefully) increase the student's mathematical fluency.

Today was our first day actually using the pens during a lesson and my two students who used the pen (my third student was absent) did a spectacular job. They completed the guided practice problems just like everyone else, but they worked in their own notebooks to record the answers. First, they had to press the record button at the bottom of the page, and then they had to solve the story problem, talking through the steps as they worked through them. I was then able to plug each pen into the computer and bring up the work that the student had completed. The whole class would then watch and listen to the student work through the problem as displayed through the computer and onto the projection screen. This helped my students who worked with the pens because we could talk through which steps were correct and which were incorrect. We could also see exactly where mistakes were made and correct them on the spot. Additionally, my other students could hear someone else talk through the problem, which is another method of representation of the information. Having the information come from a peer makes it that much more valuable. In all, the lesson went very well, the students loved it (even the ones who did not get to directly use the pen), and I'm hoping that this will continue to be a positive tool in our classroom.

For more information regarding the Livescribe Smartpen, visit this website: http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/ 

I will be posting more updates on the success of the pens as we go along! :)

Bucket Fillers

I love teaching and I love my kids! I really feel like a teacher. And not just a teacher, but a good teacher! :)

Today, my students were EXCITED to have math homework! EXCITED!! I must be doing something right.

Also, I dealt with the mean girls issue today. This afternoon after gym, I had all of the girls come into the hall and I said, "We have a problem. Does anyone know what this problem is?" And my cute little Helen said, "Being mean." Yes, indeed.

So, I told the girls exactly what undesirable/disrespectful behaviors I had seen including talking behind backs, saying mean things, talking with an attitude, excluding people, not filling buckets, and tattling. I told them that it had to stop and asked them for some solutions. They said things like: say nice things, don't use an attitude, fill people's buckets, and write people nice notes. I then explained to the girls that the kind of behavior I have been seeing will not be tolerated and that next time they will all be staying in for recess.

At the very end of the day, we had extra time because all of the students were such good listeners and hard workers during social studies, so I had the students play a friendship game. I had all the students stand in a circle and then turn to their right. They then had to say one nice thing to the person they were facing. When we had gone around the circle, we turned around and told that person one nice thing. Everyone was so nice and polite! :)

Afterward I said to the students, "Look at all those smiles! Did that make you feel good?...And wasn't that easy?...See, we can fill people's buckets every day and it is that easy."

Everyone left happy and I am hoping (fingers crossed) to come in to much nicer children tomorrow. :)

If you are not acquainted with the term "bucket filling", then I encourage you to check out this teacher-made website that explains bucket filling and where it came from: http://myfunteacher.com/bucketfillers.htm

Stellar Lessons & Mean Girls

Pathetic. I just started this thing and I'm already falling behind.

Anyway, yesterday was a good day at school (I think...though now I can barely even remember). I went to bed nice and early last night and woke up to my roommate's mother calling, explaining that she could not get ahold of Brittany (yes, my roommate and I have the same name) and could I please tell her that they don't have school today?? I was excited at the prospect of having a surprise day off school and considering my school would be closed as well, considering that most of the other schools had decided to close due to bad weather conditions. So, I checked Wood TV 8 and guess what?? 50+ school closings and which schools do you think were still in? Grand Haven!! 

So, I went to school today, while all of my friends stayed home and had a pajama day. Though, it wasn't all bad because my kids were unusually calm today and my lessons went very well. I led the morning lesson, which was interrupted by a tornado drill (So the students would know what to do if there was an actual tornado--quite important considering a tornado warning was already issued for the county). Then I led a story with comprehension questions, which most students completed without any problems.


Later I taught math and today we were learning a whole new concept so it was an important day. We learned how to solve two-step story problems. My students were great listeners and we got through the lesson without any problems. About partway through the lesson I decided that the students may get more out of the lesson if they were physically involved. So, I had them act out the story problems. This was a lot of fun and helped my students to really grasp the concept. They really got it!! I was so glad that I stopped halfway through to try something new, because it went over very well.

Finally, at the end of the day I led them through a writing lesson. First we did Daily Oral Language using two Jane Goodall paragraphs. Daily Oral Language deals with editing incorrect paragraphs by looking at spelling and grammar. This is no longer required in the curriculum, but my teacher and I both think that it is important and that our students could use it, so we decided to implement it into our writing lessons. Today was the first day of implementing this and it went very well. After editing the paragraphs together as a class, I had the students go back to their Halloween stories that they had written and edit them just as we had done with the paragraphs. This seemed to work well and really incorporated the DOL.

While most things are going wonderfully in our classroom, there is one thing that we are having a real problem with and that is mean girls. Many of our girls (seriously, about half) are being very mean to the other girls. They use attitudes and say mean things and generally do not treat each other with respect. My teacher suggested taking the girls into the hall and talking to them about the issue, and while I think this is important, I also wonder if some team building activities would bring the girls together and make them realize that they need to be respectful towards one another and work together. I may do some further research on this and look up some games/activities that may be helpful. Any ideas on how to do this would be greatly appreciated. I just feel like something should be done to stop this before they reach middle/high school and turn out like this:

Sick Kids & Scarecrows

I had to send two of my students home today after they threw up at school. The second student had a fever of 103. I am praying this does not spread and hoping that I don't get sick. I don't have time to be sick and the last thing I want is to be sick on my weekend, which happens to be the only amount of free time I have. 

In other news, I will be teaching all afternoon tomorrow as my mentor teacher will be absent. I'm really excited about it. We're going to read a really great book called The Scarecrow's Dance and then talk about the vocabulary used in the book.

Observation #1

Well, I was observed for the first time today while teaching... 

I taught a math lesson on story problems with not enough information. The first part of the lesson went awesome. I was integrating technology by utilizing the SMARTboard, the kids were engaged and participating, and everyone was on the same page. THEN I had the students work independently on their student workbook page, which is precisely when I realized that none of the students actually understood how to do the problems on their own. So, I ran around the room like a chicken with its head cut off trying to answer all the questions until too many minutes had passed and I had realized that not enough of my students could complete these problems independently. That's when I called the students attention back to the front of the room and went through the worksheet with them on the document camera. After pulling them back together I felt like the students had a better understanding and I was able to clarify some things. Right when I was done going over the worksheet with them it was time for lunch and I had to dismiss them. I dismissed the students and walked over to my college supervisor, waiting to hear the worst words my mind could think of: "You are not going to be a good teacher."

Instead, when I sat down she asked me how I thought it went, to which I replied, "It went okay..."; she replied by telling me that she thought I did a very good job. Needless to say, relief washed over my entire body like a flood. Suddenly I remembered the purpose of this whole experience, which is simply to learn. She explained many things I did well and then concluded with some things I could work on, but the best thing she did was to make me think about what I would have done differently given the chance. I explained a technique that I thought would work well, which would address multiple problems. I would go through the worksheet with them one problem at a time, reading the question aloud, having the students solve the problem independently, and then going over the problem immediately afterward. My supervisor liked this idea and said that she was impressed with my thinking.

Overall, I am proud with how my observation went. Although my students had difficulty with the subject matter, that was not completely my fault. While I could have done a few things differently that may have helped with the students' understanding of the lesson, for the most part this experience served its intended purpose: to be a learning experience.


Hence the title of my blog: Learning & Teaching. :)