A Slow Down in the Classroom November 12, 2007

I can breath a large sigh of relief.  I have completed my “required” teaching for GVSU and am now team teaching, or doing the lessons I find to be very interesting.  I turned in my Unit Plan and thought I was slightly ahead of the game, but this next week is still more packed than ever.

This past week I have taken the time to sit back and watch the class.  We are nearing the end of the trimester and it is interesting to see how the students have grown or stayed static.  I see changes in many and others I wonder how they are going to make it though (in a larger sense than just U.S. History).   I smile at many of the students who are working extra hard because they are getting down to two full weeks left.  I think of myself as a high schooler and often wonder, “Was I like that?”, and obviously my answer is no.  I know I was always on the ball:). 

Lately I have been putting myself back in their shoes and trying to think of what it was like to balance life as a young adult.  I now look at them and try to tell them they have it easy and they do not agree.  I tell them it wasn’t that long ago that I was in their position and they laugh because four (going on five) years is a long time to them.  I am so far removed in many of their minds.  I think it is because I am now on the “other side”.  Anyway, at times I do think we ask a ton out of these kids.  And that is what some of them are.  They are kids.  I find myself thinking about the girls on my basketball team that I have in class.  They are in school from 7:30 a.m. to 3:00.  I ask them to be ready to go for practice and on the court by 3:30.  Practice goes for 3 hours.  They get home by 6:30, eat till 7:00, take a shower, change, and have roughlty and hour of homework (or more for many of these girls).  It’s nine o’clock before they are done and they still have not gotten family or “me” time.  Where is their youth? 

For others not in a sport it may be work that takes up that extra time, and some have such hard family lives.  They spend a large chunk of their time going back and forth between mom and dad.  It is amazing when you think of how many things they are trying to balance as high schoolers.  I think we must all take a step back and take a look at what they are realing balancing in their lives. 

Just a sentimental week I guess. 

A Worthwhile Conference November 10, 2007

On Wednesday I was able to go with my CT to Lansing.  We attended the state History Conference on MSU’s campus.  I have went to conferences before and not really known how much I actually took away, but this was did not disappoint.  I was able to gain some great lessons and knowledge about the high school version of History Alive!, which is just coming out this year.

I did not know this program had not be established at the high school level until recently.  They just created the U.S. History set.  My CT is excited about this because our department is up for new textbooks in two years and she will now be able to get a set of these books to preview.  We talked with one of the distributors and they are setting everything up.  I think this is great because this is a textbook the students can really enjoy.  They need something that gets them to be interactive with their learning and this is just the thing.  I was able to get some pretty good samples from this demonstration.

My CT was not thrilled because all of the session times were messed up due to the opening lasting much longer than it was supposed to.  We did not get there early enough for the opening, so we were already out and in the first session, whose leader did not know there were people stuck in the opening.  Anyway, all of the sessions were then behind and we did not know what schedule to follow.  I thought this was not real convinient.   We did not stay through the last session because I had to get back to the school for practice, but it was a good day away from the classroom and gave a nice break in the middle of the week.

A Shorter Week November 4, 2007

Conferences couldn’t of come at a more perfect time.  I think the short week came at a perfect time.  For the students, they didn’t have to get up and come to school the day after Halloween.  This eliminated students who were overly tired from the night before, or the students who would still be buzzing from all of the sugar they consumed the night before.  For me, this gave a nice break.  There has not been one day off all year.  On Wednesday I will not be in school, my CT and I are going to the conference in East Lansing.  Other than that, there are only three weeks until Thanksgiving and then the end comes is in sight.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the school and what is going on, but I love love love Christmas. 

I thought I would get much more work accomplished on my days off, but obviously this didn’t work out as planned.  At conferences we had many parents (which is great) and I didn’t get the tests from Wednesday corrected.  I had to take these home over the weekend and they have taken a large chunk of my free time.  The students did not score as well as I had hope, and I wonder if it has to do with the fact that neither my CT or I were in the classroom when the test was given.  I would have liked to be there to give the students the time to ask last minute questions, but a sub was in the room.  My CT and I were looking at programs that tracked what students do well on tests and what questions are missed.  The programs were in use at Thorapple Kellogg and Hudsonville.  This was interesting and I am not sure if the school will be purchasing either of the programs.  I do believe they would be beneficial because with the new trimester system all students are supposed to be assessed with the same tests.  I would be nice for each teacher to see what objectives are being hit and where they are lacking.  It also will help show what type of teaching style the particular students are responding to.  I think I would like to know if I needed to lecture on a topic for the students to get the point, or if a hands on activity stressed points more sufficiently.  But, as I said, I am not sure if the school will be purchasing this system. 

Other than that, I am fired up for Monday because it is the first official day of Girls Basketball season!!! I am excited to see the students, well freshman anyway, in another arena besides the classroom.  It will be a learning year, being the first season of girls in the winter.  I think it will be interesting to see the attendance at boys vs. girls games.  My school is in the middle because the girls have always had a good crowd due to more success.  We will have to watch and see!

My First Conferences November 2, 2007

Not quite as much fun as the first day of school or anything, but overall my first conference experience on the other side of the table went well.  I actually thought it would be more difficult than it was, but my CT does a wonderful job with parents and the fact that she offered bonuse points for attending helped get many of the best students out.  Her philosophy is that the student should accompany the parent.  Who better to answer the questions like, “Why is his/her homework grade so low?”, than the student themselves.  As a teacher, you are not sure why and the student is the only one who can answer the question, so why not have them sitting right there.  Many parents seem to like this philosophy.  Why talk about the student, just talk to them.

I found this method of conferences to be very effective.  As I previously stated, my CT offered 20 bonus points to anyone who attended with a parent/guardian.  I wasn’t suprised to see the top students in the class jump at this opportunity.  I did think we would see more of the students who actually needed the easy points, but it was opposite.  We generally send a progress report home every week, so the parents should not be blindsided when they come in.  This progress report is supposed to be signed and returned as a homework grade.   If the parents are not signing them for whatever reason, the parents recieve a phone call after two weeks of not having them returned.  The parents who did know the students were doing well, I am sure it was easy for them to return.  I ones who are not so sure did not show us. 

 I was suprised at some of the responses of the parents.  In one class the best grade is a 95.  There was a student with a 93.9% in the class.  The parent of this student came in and was not happy.  She turned to the student and asked if this was acceptable to her.  The student didn’t know what to say.  The mother then asked, “Well, what can she do to improve this, extra credit or something?”  We had to tell her this was a great grade and we do not offer extra credit regularly.  This confrence would help her.  The mom just turned to the student and told her it was fine if she wanted to settle for this grade.

This was a great experience and I learned a ton about how to talk and communicate with parents.  I wouldn’t call it “telling them what they want to hear” but sometimes as I viewed these conferences I felt that was what was going on.  It was done to appease parents.  I am not questioning the validity of what my CT was saying.  I think she does great job, I just mean that underneath these students do not care about the grade on the paper and part of their problems are based on this.  This is the real struggle with many students and the parents do not always want to equate it to this.  It has to be someone else’s fault.