Classroom Culture

December 24, 2010 at 1:28 pm (All, Methods, Observations, Reflections, Struggles, Student Teaching)

Something that keep popping into my head as I go through my teaching days is classroom culture.  Now that I’ve been out of the classroom for a week, I think I can finally say something coherent about it.

One of the problems that my CT and I have been running into lately is that our students don’t seem to be making the choices we want them to make.  In particular, they are off-task during class time.  Mostly they are just talking to one another about lots of stuff having nothing to do with math.  Some students are trying to pay attention, but I think it can be difficult for them when so many people are chatting.  Most of the students, even those trying to pay attention, act as if they are bored.

To this I would add something interesting I noticed regading a disconnect between what the students think they know and what we think they need to know.  The day before giving our last group quiz, an overwhelming number of students said they felt ready for the quiz.  As it’s a group quiz one might logically expect that those few that didn’t feel ready would get help during the quiz from their classmates.  But overall scores were very low on the quiz, telling me that the students were not actually ready.

After thinking about this, I think a major problem is that there is a serious disconnect between what we as instructors are expecting our students to do and learn, and what they think they’re expected to do and learn.  I have a feeling that the responsibility for this disconnect lies largely with myself and my CT.    There are a couple of reasons for this.

First, we rarely explain clearly what it is the students are supposed to get from each lesson.  We appear to assume that they’ll just figure it out.  The recent group quiz scores are evidence that this isn’t happening.  Second, I have yet to see anyone in the math department at this school engage in anything like long-range planning.  I am not sure that the instructors know what’s really expected, so it’s no surprise that our students are feeling lost.

What I know right now is that we have covered the exact same material this year that we did last year.  And last year they did not cover some pretty important material.  Continuing to do what we’re doing will result in our again not covering what we need to cover (and yes, I realize that covering material doesn’t mean students are learning it).  As a student teacher, I realize that I have little power to make changes in the way this particular math department operates.  But what I can do is start practicing good habits for when I (hopefully) have my own classroom next year.

Toward this end, I’ve decided that during winter quarter’s student teaching experience, I will be writing my own unit plans and doing long-range planning.  Whether anyone else in the department makes use of this information is immaterial.  What matters to me is that I have a sense of what we’re doing and where we’re going.  That way, I can begin to make small changes to our current classroom climate by providing more of a sense of coming from somewhere and going somewhere else.  I think fostering the idea that there is coherence in mathematics is important.

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Exhaustion

December 10, 2010 at 8:33 am (All, Methods, Reflections, Struggles, Student Teaching)

One of the biggest challenges I am facing right now is overcoming exhaustion.  I was home at 3pm yesterday – had I not had a bunch of work to do to prepare for today, I probably would have gone to bed.

Part of what’s making me tired is the mental effort required in learning for so many hours in a row.  I have a lot of sympathy for my sixth period students, who sometimes seem to have little brain power left so late in the day.  There are so many things to know and do well as a teacher that after a day of practicing, I am usually worn out.  I don’t think it needs to be this way for me, though.

Another factor in my exhaustion is that it’s almost the solstice.  Days are very short.  I always get tired at this time of year.  I sleep a lot in the winter, not so much in the summer.  When the sun’s up, so am I (most of the time).  Now that it’s dark for about 15 hours a day, I am really struggling to have enough energy. My body is pretty clear in telling me that it thinks I ought to be hibernating.

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Success (or at least a small glimmer of hope)

December 6, 2010 at 9:39 pm (All, Methods, Reflections, Struggles, Student Teaching)

My program requires that I tutor two students.  I don’t actually have students that I am “tutoring, ” because I think of that as academic help.  Since I feel like I’m helping all of my students academically (and because I already have ten years’ experience as a tutor and don’t really need this experience), I have chosen to help two students that need help with other things.  One of them seems to struggle with the whole “getting to school” thing.  I don’t know why it’s an issue for him, but he’s missed something like 49 days this year (I think some are partial days, but still).  Once he gets to school, he hits another obstacle, something called “learning.”

Last week on Thursday I asked him if he was going to start coming to school more often.  He said he just didn’t know, because it was really hard for him (something about buses being full).  I don’t remember exactly how I responded, but I did tel him that it would be really good for him to come more often, because I was starting to see some real progress in his mathematical learning, and the more often he came to class the more he’d learn – and of course then the easier it would all get.

Today, completely unprompted, he got my attention as I was walking past my desk.  He told me that he’d made it his goal to come to class every day this week.  This, I think, is amazing.  He set a goal!  It’s reasonable!  He’s likely to have success!  I was so excited about this that I was almost gushing to my CT.

Now I have no idea if my attention toward him has been part of his decision to put more effort into coming to school.  I suppose I could ask him, but it’s really not that important.  What matters to me is that two weeks ago, this same student would not do any math, because he felt completely lost.  He told me lots of people had tried to help him and it never seemed to do any good.  Friday, he did four math problems (400% improvement from the zero problems he used to do!) and today, he’s got a goal.  That tells me he’s found a reason to be hopeful.  He’s shifted from “I can’t learn math,” to “I might be able to learn math.”  Maybe I’m being a little overdramatic, but to me this kind of change is really earth shattering.  With this change in attitude, a whole universe of possibility just opened up for this guy.  My job now is to do the best I can to make sure he sees himself as having success and making progress, so he sticks with it.

Moments like this are why I teach.

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Direct Instruction Revisited

December 1, 2010 at 3:51 pm (All, Methods, Observations, Reflections, Struggles, Student Teaching)

I had a major Aha moment on Monday.

My first time trying to do an entire class period of direct instruction did not go well.  Based on that single experience, I decided that I was just not cut out for doing direct instruction.  Then Monday I got to step back from teaching and observe my coteacher again.  She did 50 minutes of direct instruction, reviewing the topics from the chapter in preparation for Tuesday’s test.

I realized quite suddenly, about five minutes into her talk, that I had not done anything the “right” way.  This is funny to me, because when I was actually doing it, and for the first few days afterward, I felt certain that I had followed her model well, but that I just wasn’t good at delivering it.

I am still not quite sure what I did, but it was nothing like what my coteacher does.

We have two sections of algebra, and today we worked out a plan where she would deliver instruction in the first class, and I would watch.  Then I would do it the second time around. Boy, what a difference.  This saved me for a couple of reasons.  First, I could take notes on the strategies she was using, so I knew what to focus on and what not to worry so much about.  Second, because we use the doc cam to write out the notes, I could use her hand-written notes to work from during my own delivery.  This worked fantastically.

Not that I don’t still need to improve.  I do.  Sometimes I am good at thinking on my feet.  Other times I really suck at it.  Today was one of those days.  We were talking about literal equations, and I could sense that the students were not happy and in some cases possibly even hostile to the content I was covering.  I had no idea what to do about it, though.  Zero.  And then I forgot that class ends at 12:55, not 12:50, so I found myself with about 8 minutes to spare at the end of class.  Thankfully, my brain kicked into gear right about then, and I spend the time talking with the students about what it was they felt was so different about the literal equations.  I don’t know how much it helped, but at least it gave the students a chance to voice their frustrations.  I think that’s important.

My coteacher agreed that I did a much better job today.  We have agreed that rather than have me take over completely for any long period of time, it’s better, at least for the time being, for us to really coteach.  I’ll teach and while, and then she can teach a while.  That will both give me a break, and a chance to process my experiences and then observe her teaching more in the light of this new learning.  I am really excited about next quarter… I can’t wait!

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Not enough time

November 17, 2010 at 3:00 pm (All, Methods, Struggles, Student Teaching)

I know teachers say that all the time, but I had my first real experience of that this week.

Monday during fifth period I ran into my first serious dilemma.  There are 3-4 students in that class who rarely attend class.  When they do, they’re unlikely to do any work.  Lately, though, they’ve started to change.  On Monday we did a task, and two of these students were both present and making a genuine effort at understanding the math.  The trouble is that they are so behind from years of poor attendance and effort that they seemed to require my full attention.  That would mean, though, that the rest of the class had to be effectively ignored.  That wasn’t really an option, either.  I finally settled for spending more time with these two students than anyone else, but I found that when I was not there to help them, they would not do any math.  This didn’t seem to be an attitude issue, but because they were just that lost.

What makes this such a dilemma for me is that I feel like the majority of the rest of the class could stand to work on their own for a day, maybe even two or three days.  For the most part, they’re getting the math and don’t really need my help.  The questions they want to ask me have more to do with easing their uncertainty by checking answers and methodology than in understanding what needs to be done.  These two students, on the other hand, are still struggling with basic arithmetic.

On the other hand, I know that even if I spent an entire week’s worth of classes helping these two students, they would still be way behind.  To really be successful, they would need to commit to come in for help before or after school or during advisory.  So far, this seems unlikely.  Just getting them to attend class probably counts as a success.  If they do work at all, that’s a major achievement.  Or am I setting the bar too low?

I just don’t know.

What I do know is that at least one of the students is willing to talk with me.  I spent a little time at the end of class talking with him about some of the choices he was making in terms of this class, and his responses, although hesitant at times, were very thoughtful.  He showed genuine concern for the success of his classmates.  Part of what prompted me to speak with him is that yesterday he chose to throw out his entire group quiz, rather than submit it with the rest of the group and risk hurting their score because of his lack of ability.  He would rather get a 0.  Through the course of our conversation he decided to give me his quiz so that I could look at the work he did get done, and spend some time thinking about how we could get him some credit for that.  Because he struggles so much with math, I feel that it’s especially important that the work he is able to do gets recognition.  Not in front of the class maybe (I think it’s a bit early for that), but between he and I.

Today I am hoping both students will be in class again.  We’re doing notes (direct instruction), rather than a class.  This can be less interesting for many students, but I think it would be a good opportunity for these two to strengthen the learning they’ve ben struggling to do over the last two weeks.

This is the kind of work I was hoping to find.  It’s something that I didn’t see much opportunity for in my previous school, and is part of what prompted me to request a transfer.  I just hope that the small success I’ve had leads to something more for these students.  It really saddens me to see people who are so young be so lost.

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Two Week Alternate Placement

October 6, 2010 at 7:23 pm (Methods, Struggles, Student Teaching)

As of Monday I have moved from a suburban junior high to a more urban high school.  This change has exposed me to a whole new range of experiences.

Unfortunately, I am having a difficult time thinking of things that I ought to be writing about.  I have been blogging for many years, and my writing style tends to be very personal.  Writing about my observations without talking about how they impacted me feels unnatural, and I think it’s beginning to give me a case of writer’s block.  This post is an attempt to overcome that by just sitting down and writing about what’s going on with me.

One of the difficulties I am running into is that until recently I’ve been in a junior high.  After five weeks, I can now say with some degree of certainty that I do not like working in a junior high environment.  The students are a confusing mish-mash of elementary and high school maturity.  I find myself having expectations about ability and behavior that exceed the students’ apparent capacity.  This might be partly due to the environment created by my CT, but I have a feeling this is just common to early teens in general.  I think they ought to be able to be more responsible than they are.  And to have more self control.  And a better sense of humor (or at least a little more sophisticated).  Really, though, it’s me.  I am not suited to work with junior high students.  It’s not fun for me.

High school is a whole different ball game.  I spent three days last week helping and observing at a semi-urban high school.  It was homecoming week.  Both students and teachers were engaged in a lot of silliness.  I loved it.  I even loved the hour-long assembly to crown the homecoming king and queen (something I totally disdained when I was in high school).  This week I have been at a different semi-urban high school, and although the instructional methods are very different (and it is not homecoming week) I still love it.

Which leads me to an Aha! moment from earlier this week (I knew just sitting down to write would help).  I started the week with a cold, and by Tuesday morning it was at its worst.  My CT had mandatory district training, so she had called in a substitute.  The sub asked me if I wanted to do the warm up.  I declined, telling her that I didn’t really feel well, and that I was supposed to just be observing anyway.  She was happy to let me sit quietly in the corner.  However, as she began going over the first warm up problem, she had to admit to the class that she did not know the answer.  She asked me if I knew, and suggested I step in and teach the warm up.  I agreed.  This is the first time I had stepped in front of a high school class to teach anything.  I wasn’t nervous.  In fact, it felt right.  I even managed to be a little silly with the students without feeling embarrassed.  I tried at one point to get someone to volunteer to share their sketch of a ray on the interior of an angle, but got no takers.

This was an Aha! moment for a couple of reasons.  The first has to do with the feeling of rightness I mentioned earlier.  The second had to do with something we talked about in my methods class Tuesday night.  One of the main points of the discussion was that it is never a good idea to take another person’s lesson plan and just teach it, without taking the time to make sure it works for you and that you know all the answers to the questions you’re asking the students.  The substitute had not done this.  I don’t know how she would have handled it if I hadn’t been there to step in and take over, but I can imagine it would not have been pretty.

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