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Field Trip

3/30/2014

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I went on a field trip with my CT and the entire 8th grade class to see a production of Pirates of Penzance and it was an interesting experience. Not only did I learn about the procedures of field trips, but I was able to experience second semester 8th graders on a Friday morning in school before the field trip. They were incredibly excited to venture off as a class and see the play instead of participating in their typical routine at their school. Needless to say, they were full of energy.
I was not very nervous because I work summer camp and we go on weekly field trips. I am in charge of the seven and eight year olds and I am used to the responsibilities that come with a field trip, such as medicine, head counting, and keeping the entire group together. I felt like my experience at camp would help me during my first experience with 8th graders on a field trip. I was wrong; 8th graders are different from eight year olds. 

The bus ride was an experience in itself. It as sort of funny when my CT was taking role; when he gave the bus driver the head count, including teachers, he said the number of students and three adults, including me. The bus driver questioned my CT and looked at me and my CT laughed, along with the 8th graders who were sitting toward the front of the bus. They would constantly tell me that I look like I am in middle school because I am short; many of them are much taller than me. I was also able to hang out and talk to the students about their everyday lives. We talked about a basketball tournament and the anticipation of soccer season. It was great listening to the students talk about something that they are passionate about. 

While at the field trip, I had difficulty with managing the students. Because not all of them have seen me in my CT's classroom, they did not respect me as much as the students who are familiar with me. Two students in particular did not listen to me when I asked them to stop climbing on something, even after I repeatedly asked them to stop. Then another teacher walked over to them and asked them to stop; I did not want to believe that. That was a little stressful because I thought that I deserved a little bit of respect from them. I learned that establishing a teacher-student relationship is important if you, as a teacher, want to be able to manage a group of students.

Today was also my last day at this practicum. Although I am ecstatic to be wrapping my last semester of course work, I was sad to leave the school and the students that I have worked with. These students have no idea what they have taught me. This was my first experience in working with 8th graders and I was a little bit nervous about it at first, especially since this is the second semester of their last year in middle school. It was obvious that many of them were more than ready to start high school next fall, and that meant that sometimes they got a little out of hand in class. There would be sudden outbreaks of chatter or several distractions, but I learned, from my CT, how to get them to focus on their learning. It was a wonderful experience and I have acquired so many lessons that I will apply throughout my teaching career.
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Teaching Experience

3/26/2014

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After spending a great amount of time at my assigned middle school, I have been able to teach the class. Not only was it a requirement for my class, but my CT was very excited to see my teaching skills at work. Although it was my first time teaching a lesson without any assistance from my CT, I think it went pretty well. I taught second hour a lesson on written poetry and song lyrics. During the lesson, we compared and contrasted our thoughts on analyzing poetic elements through watching a play and reading the text. Many of the students said that it was more enjoyable to hear the song, but they said that it was easier to analyze poetry in text because they have the text in front of them and are able to look at the words, rather than listen to them once. The rational for this lesson was to prepare them to listen to a play. As I thought about the play, I noticed the relationship between poetry written and sung lyrics in a play and thought that it would be an excellent lesson to both review poetry and prepare them to view the play. 

I learned that saving paper may not always be the way to go in an English class. Even though saving paper is being friendly to the environment, it may be more beneficial for students, especially those who are kinesthetic learners, to have a piece of paper with text on it in their hands that they can write on and take notes. I learned this today, among other things, from my lesson evaluator. On a positive note, she said that it was a good lesson and was also very organized in planning. I was a little nervous to teach and be evaluated because it is a little nerve wrecking when someone is in the back of the room judging every move that you make.

Some of the students today, during my lesson that I taught, were a little disruptive. During second hour, when I was being evaluated, one of the students was sitting incorrectly and fell on the floor. Not only did this completely disrupt my class, but it caused me to lose track of what was going on. During 5th hour, when my CT asked me to teach again, another student almost did the same exact thing. To add to that, two students were being disruptive and not participating in the work and I was a little disappointed that my evaluator was not present to see how well I handled those two situations. It was during individual work, and the two students were off tasks, so I walked over to them, asked what they were doing, then asked them to not waste any more time and resume work. I think that I  handled it well because both students resumed their individual work.
Overall, I think the lesson that was evaluated went well. Although it was not perfect and I found room for improvement, I think that the students enjoyed it and now I know where I need to work harder. This is a learning process, and I would rather make mistakes now and work out the kinks so that I will be able to be the most effective teacher that I am able to be. 
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Finished Product

3/26/2014

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At my practicum, I was able to see some of the students present their analysis of poetry. I had worked with them during the middle of the week and was able to see them present this morning during class. I could tell that many of them were very nervous about getting up in front of the rest of the class and reciting their poems. One of the requirements of the project was to memorize and recite the poem that you chose to analyze. It was awesome to see how proud students were of themselves for memorizing at least 14 lines of poetry. Some of the students decided to further challenge themselves and memorize as many as 28 lines. I was very impressed with their accomplishments today. 
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Sub Day

2/21/2014

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All of the 8th grade teachers were participating in training today, so my CT had a substitute teacher in his classroom, but invited me to attend. I took the opportunity to take a lead on the class. Although the students were just finishing up their poetry projects, I felt like I was the leader in the room and in charge of the class periods that I was in.

My CT left an excellent video tutorial, which served as a reminder of how to work the computer program that the students were using, and how to correctly save it as a different file. He also left a one page reflection assignment that the students would have to finish in class.


It went very well, considering that it was Friday and many of the students were nearly finished, meaning they had a lot of free time during the class. Because this was two days after the tragedy that was mentioned in my last entry, I allowed students to have a little freedom, as long as it was organized. I made a deal with the students; if they kept the noise level to a minimum, they would be allow to talk with each other and look at each others' poems on the server. They agreed with me and it worked pretty well. I was surprised by how well two of the three periods that I attend cooperated with me.


The students were more open to share their work with me. The student who I mentioned last class who raps, rapped something for me and I could not help, but smile because this student appeared to be back to his old self, as many of the students were.


I noticed many of them smile and laugh, which did not happen at all during my last visit. Each class was somber, especially the second period class, which was when the news was very fresh in the students' minds. I was glad to see that things were much cheerier than my last visit.
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Difficult Day at Middle School

2/19/2014

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This morning, my CT informed me about some unsettling news concerning his school. One of the members of the faculty had been arrested. I did not understand what was happening until I turned on the news in my car. When I parked my car at the school, I noticed that the local news station was parked across the street. When I walked into the school building, I noticed that it was not as cheery as it usually is, and there were policemen standing by the door. When I walked into the main office, I was asked to show my I.D., but they had not done so since the first day that I arrived. There was no chatter or small talk about weekend plans. Instead, I walked down the halls with everyone's cautious eyes upon me. I had no idea what was going on, but this was the first time that I did not feel welcome in this school.

My CT had a writing prompt ready, but ignored it for today's purposes. He first shared his writing. He told them that writing is important to him, and emphasized the importance of expressing feelings and emotions in writing. He told the students to write for 10 minutes about how they are feeling about the events happening around them.


The class was asked to share if they wanted. Usually, the students are encouraged to share a little of their writing in small groups or the whole class, but that was completely optional today, due to the circumstances. During 2nd hour, one of the students mentioned the death penalty and another student made a mildly inappropriate comment about the faculty member. During that same class, four female students excused themselves because they began to cry. Two of them went to talk to the counselors. 


My CT was very upset with what had happened and made it very clear to the students. He showed them that it is okay to emotionally react and to show your feelings, but he exemplified this in a healthy way. 
As I spent my day at the school, I thought about safety. Is anyone actually safe in schools? Are students safe when they go to middle school everyday? How can they trust their teachers and people who work in the building if someone they trust is accused of a terrible crime? Unfortunately, they are growing up in a world where students have to fear adult mentors.


Throughout the day, all of the students handled this in different ways, but they should not have to handle this at all. Some of the students who were very vocal were quiet. For example, one student likes to write raps during free write and would rap a piece of it for me during the workday. Rapping is his passion and the students say that he does not go to school one day without rapping for everyone. My CT encourages it and thought that that specific student should use his raps as inspiration for his poems. Today, unfortunately, this student did not rap. He did not speak a word. It broke my heart into pieces.
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Classroom Management in Action

2/14/2014

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I was very excited to attend my CT's classroom again after a very successful experience during the previous meeting. I could not wait to interact with the students as they would work on their poetry packets.
Today, I noticed my CT's classroom management skills. Because it was Valentine's Day, and Friday, the students were extra excited and chatty. Because they are in middle school and some of them are dating already, Valentine's Day is a big deal. I noticed a little bit of side chatter during the free writing time, which my CT handled in an interesting way. Instead of addressing the negative behavior and causing a scene, he ignored it. At first, I thought that he did not notice it, but when he looked in their direction, I was sure that he was aware of what was happening. Then, when he stood up and walked over, and the students saw him walk in their direction and heard the sound of his feet tapping a little louder than normal, it caught their attention. Instead of ignoring him, the students calmed their talking and resumed their writing. I did not think that it would work because I have been taught to either give them a "teacher stare" or touch the back of their chair to let them know that I realize that they are not following directions.


Another student did not take this hint that my CT uses, so he had to bring him out to the hall. Instead of making a scene, my CT glided over to the student, asked him to meet him in the hall, and stood out there with the door cracked. I did not hear my CT's voice rise above a whisper, but I noticed that he simply said "Your behavior is unacceptable. Please stop disrupting my class." Then my CT turned around and walked into his classroom as if he had not had a quick discussion with a student. It worked too! The student went back to his free writing notebook and worked until the time was up.


I had a small issue with two of the students because they want to know everything about my personal life, in depth. Because it was Valentine's Day, one of the students asked me if I had a boyfriend and what we were doing. I simply responded, "That is a personal question and I am not going to answer it." Surprisingly, my answer worked because the student reluctantly turned his face to his computer and resumed working. 
The free write prompt seems to always have a reason, or offers a bit of history, as it did today. For example, my CT wrote a little info paragraph about St. Valentine, who Valentine's Day is named after. He offered a little history about the holiday and asked the students why they thought such a bloody and violent occurrence would lead to a Hallmark holiday of love? I thought that this was an interesting way to tie in a current event to a writing assignment.

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Meeting the Teacher and Students

2/12/2014

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Today, I met with my cooperating teacher (CT) this morning. He gave me an introduction to his classroom routine and quickly showed me around the school. As I sat in the back of his classroom and observed the layout, I noticed that he had posters all over the walls. The posters were helpful hints for writers, such as a reminder to revise and edit your work. There were several handmade posters of his that reminded his students of the different types of sentences, but my favorite one was the reminder that students should always write to impress because the reason for writing is communication. Whether or not that audience that you are trying to impress is yourself, your teacher, or your peers, it is writing that will be published for a purpose.

My CT also had a poster of my favorite literature quote from Dr. Seuss, "The more you read, the more you know." Under the poster, there was a library with a plethora of reading selections from historical fiction to mystery and fantasy. After getting to know my CT, I learned that he is very persistent in making his students get into the habit of reading. Not only does he have a small library in his room, but the students go to the library once a week and he assigns 30 minutes of reading a night and requires his students to fill out a reading log.


Writing is also a very important part of this class. The students write for 10 minutes 2-3 times a week. There is a writing prompt for the students to become inspired from, but my CT encourages them to just write about whatever they would like to. He emphasizes that writing is how he pours his thoughts out and copes with the world around him. My CT wants his students to try writing as an outlet, and I noticed that the students actually do write for almost the entire time. I was very impressed by the affect that he has had on them.


My CT has his class objectives posted on the board in the front of the room, along with the homework, which is read for 30 minutes every night. I thought that his homework assignment is a great idea because students should make reading a habit because once it becomes part of their routines, it will not longer seem like a chore, but an enjoyment.


Today, in class, my CT talked about the poetry project that his students would be doing. Because my CT is eMINTS certified, he is able to work in a classroom with computers. While I was present in my CT's room, I circulated around and helped the students and encouraged them to let their creativity pour onto the screen. There are enough computers for two students to share. His project required students to make a plan, then write the poem next to the plan, and then to publish the poem in a beautiful and esthetically pleasing way. The students would have to each make their own individual poem, and then work with their partner in creating one together. I was very impressed at the way that the students worked together so well. I did not notice any disagreements or arguments arise between partners. They were also very comfortable with the technology in the classroom, which showed me that they were used to using computers. It was a very good first day at my practicum.
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    Ms. K

    Here are reflections pertaining to my experiences as a practicum in an 8th grade middle school classroom.

    “Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life, those the art of living well.” 

    -Aristotle
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