Week 3: The Adventure Begins.

Surviving in the Jungle - Chapter 1


Monday started out fairly normal in the jungle this week. Seeking out two new classes of high school students, this meerkat (me) was able to conquer Animal Science lovers, however the the Horticulture enthusiasts slipped away - their witty attitudes surpassing mine.

At the watering hole (also known as the cafeteria), the Queen of the Jungle (Mrs. Hoover), was able to overthrow two fierce animals whose bold and malicious statements were sure to cause destruction. It was this lioness's sharp thinking and cat-like reflexes that were able to bring peace to the jungle again. Her trusty meerkat was able to aid with the peace keeping procedures.

Tuesday gave the meerkat a second chance with the horticulturists. This meerkat needed to take advice from the lioness and show the students that she could roar, too. The meerkat was nervous and scared, but could not let the animals of the jungle see or smell this fear. If they did, it may cause an uprising. Luckily, the meerkat succeeded this time. The lioness assured the meerkat, it gets easier with time.

make lists of how soil is
used in different areas.

The horticulturalists worked together to  

Wednesday led to an uneventful day, but Thursday the meerkat was left in charge when the lioness was not able to be there. While there was a lion in training (substitute) in the habitat, the meerkat held her ground. She was proud when the day ended. She was able to maintain order in the jungle that day, teach classes that lioness was still in charge of, and remain organized and composed all day. She was surprised and impressed.

                                                  

                                                              The fearless lioness sent the meerkat a gift
                                                                 for leaving her in charge without much notice! 

Gold medalists: Riley, Karis, Destiny, and Chloe

The week was coming to a close and the lioness and meerkat took some jungle animals from their preferred location to one across the way to battle for the trophies of milk quality. After a full day of battling in tasting, smelling, presenting, and showing some skills, our "kids" came out with gold and bronze medals in the overall team competition. Furthermore, many did well in the individual competitions including more gold and bronze medals. The glory was taken home to celebrate with the rest of the pride.

Competitors worked hard to identify strange and unknown cheeses and milk impurities. 

 

Bronze medalists:
Alex, Haley, McKenzie, and Morgan

                    Stay tuned for next week's adventure... 

Fearless Competitors:
Camila, MacKenzie, and Crystal

Fearless competitors:
 Cheyenne, Peyton, Ashlin, and Reagan

First Class - Great Beginnings

This week I started with my first class! We battled 2-hour delays most of the week, but overall, I think it went pretty well! My first class was Agricultural Leadership and Communications. The class consists of seven seniors. The goals of the week were to meet me, identify and define SMART goals, and complete proficiency applications.

While I think that the classes went well, I find it really hard and awkward to teach a class that small. I feel like if I stand up in front of them and put on my "teacher voice" it is really formal and again, awkward. Mrs. Hoover would put them all at one table a lot and sit with them which I think works well, but feels almost too informal. I think it will take me some time to find a good teaching method for this kind of class.

My first day, I went over my classroom expectations and procedures with the students and tried to get to know them a little bit. They all have some interesting facts they wanted to me and asked me some really good questions as well. I am looking forward to doing this with two more classes next week - however, I need to slow down a little I think. My brain sometimes goes faster than the words coming out of my mouth and I need to keep that in mind.

Mrs. Hoover and I also got a lot done, I worked a lot on my lessons for the next couple of weeks, and observed some classes. (Check out my observation blog!) I was also able to attend an IEP meeting this week and that was a really good experience! While this week left me with a lot of time to observe and prepare, and not a lot to write about, I look forward to picking up more classes over the next few weeks!

Classroom Observations

This week I have had the opportunity to observe two classrooms outside of Mrs. Hoover. I observed a middle school math class as well as a high school chemistry class. It was very interesting to see the way the classes were run in comparison to the agricultural classrooms that I have observed.

Students in the chemistry class came into a well-organized class took their seats, ready to start the day. Students got out their ticket-outs from the previous day and went over them with the teacher. The teacher thoroughly went over sample problems. He also let the students volunteer to go over problems and complete them on the marker boards at the back of the classroom. He also used analogies to explain confusing and abstract theories.

The math teacher probably had some of the best classroom management I have ever seen. All of the students came into class and immediately put their bags in a taped off area in the back of the room. All the students got out their homework and the teacher began checking it, while the students copied down their homework for the next night. Then the teacher used a randomize to select which students needed to go up and complete the homework for the rest of the class to see. The teacher then gave the students other practice problems on the Smart Board. First, the students needed to complete the problem on individual marker boards. Students were given directions clearly and followed them with ease. She also used a reward system to help motivate the students. 

Weekley Investment #10 - Classroom Management

The last weekly investment of the semester is on classroom management!

My summer reading talked a lot about classroom management, rules, and expectations. If you missed in my previous blogs, this book was "What Great Teachers do Differently: 17 Things that Matter Most" by Todd Whitaker. Whitaker emphasizes that a teacher's classroom management sets the stage for student learning. He also says that great teachers focus on expectations while other teachers focus on the rules. The least effective teachers focus on the consequence of breaking the rules.

The best teachers, according to Whitaker, establish clear expectations at the start of the year and follow them consistently as the year progresses. For example, they may have three guidelines:
 - Be repectful
 - Be prepared
 - Be on time.
These teachers expect good behavior and generally that's what they get. "Great teachers focus on the behavior they expect of their students, not on the consequences for misbehavior." 

Some teachers focus on rules. While rules have their place and "school" and "rules" generally go together, they have their drawbacks. Rules mostly focus on undesirable behaviors. Stating what not to do, may actually lead to students doing just what you did not want them to do. Most people, especially our most challenging students, are typically contrary by nature. When someone says not to do something, you may not have even been thinking to do that thing until they said not to.

Consequences are yet another battle. "Rules outline the boundary between the acceptable and the unacceptable." Everyone is familiar with consequences. Take sports for example. Referees do not just point out the rule that was violated, they also assign a penalty. The purpose of consequences is to discourage people from breaking the rules. Whitaker points out that consequences frequently do just the opposite. He says that students are experts at cost-benefit analysis. "If I skip one hour of class, I'll have to go to two hours of detention. Is it worth it? How many of my buddies will be in detention?" Whitaker points out that the fear of the unknown can sometimes be a more powerful deterrent than a list of predetermined consequences.

I really enjoyed Todd Whitaker's book and his reasons for classroom expectations and consequences. In later chapters he also discusses meaning what you say. He reminds teacher that if they are saying the same thing over and over that they may be the problem. Remember to allow yourself time to think about inappropriate behavior before acting on it - and when you act on it, mean it.

Other reminders:
                            - You do not ever win an argument with a student.
                            - Treat students and parents with respect.
                            - Practice the "golden rule"
                            - Do not yell at students (unless in a true emergency.)
                            - Use your "bag of tricks"
                            - Remember the teacher is the variable.

"When a student misbehaves, great teachers have one goal: to keep that behavior from happening again."

Micro-Teaching Reflection Blog

Last week I was fortunate enough to teach 3 days of lessons at Bald Eagle High School. I taught lessons on soil nutrients and fertilizer. I thought my first day went really well with great feedback from Mr. Biddle. I used a power point and use of a couple activities - including a nutrient activity asking students where plants get their nutrients from and an activity to help students realize what pH different substances were. My lesson also included an interest approach and bellwork that asked students what they thought soil nutrients were and then the interest approach was a video that helped to define soil nutrients further.

Day 2 could have went a little better. It was a good lab about pH and soil pH, but would have been much better if it was split into 2 days with more summarizing activities. The first part of the activity was to help the students better understand pH in general, so they tested the pH of several different liquids with pH test strips. Second, I taught the students how to use the Cornell pH test it. I wish I would have spend more time on this and done a 3 step demonstration with the students - teacher says, teacher does; teacher says, student does; student says, student does. On my feedback forms, a couple of students commented that they had trouble getting the pH indicator separated out of the tray. More time for a proper demonstration would have solved this.

The third day was the review and the quiz. For the quiz I used some techniques we used in 412 for our quiz. After most of the students were complete with their quizzes, I allowed them to use their notes for two minutes. After the end of the two minutes, I gave them about one minute to finish their thoughts and then let them ask someone beside them one question. This seemed to go over well with the students and they did well on the quiz. While the review and quiz went well, I had about 3 or 4 minutes left at the end that I could have managed better.While they were taking their quiz we passed back some papers Mr. Biddle had for them. Many of the students were looking at these after they finished their quizzes and I lost control of the room and was not able to gain it back.

Please take a look at my video on Edthena or here!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5RD0r5Ah2I

 

Fort Cherry - 1st Day of School!

The meet and greet:

Yesterday, during my first day of school lab, I chose to meet and greet everyone at the door to introduce myself. This is definitely something that I enjoyed doing and would keep as part of my lesson plan. I feel that it is a good way to see how each student is doing and to see how there day is going before they walk into my classroom. (Mental Note! Don't forget to close the door!!)

The bellwork:

I do think I would change my bellwork. I think I would hand them notecards when they came in the room and have them write 3 things they want me to know about them on it and 1 thing they want to know about me. This way when I collect the cards I have a stack of things I now know about the students and things they may want to know about me. I can then take this knowledge and maybe incorporate it into my classroom throughout the semester. I also think that I would go over my objectives first before going into the rest of the class. 

Who is Mrs. Wright and what does she want from me:

In my classroom, I would spend a little more time talking about me and making connections with the students earlier before I talked about the classroom procedures and expectations. After this I would lead into students searching the classroom to find my expectations and procedures. (Also, I need to add that I would make sure I remembered where I hid all of the note cards, there is still one hanging out in Ferguson 214 somewhere.) I feel that this helps to get the students more involved in the class instead of me just telling them a list of do's and don'ts they have heard on their first day of school for their entire life.

The Connection:

In my full lesson plan, I have a activity planned to play a game where I can get to know a little about the students and they can know a little more about their peers. This game will help show how different we can be and how similar we can be. This game will help lead into my first unit with this class on soil. Students "ticket outs" were to think about and write down their definition of soil. I like this because it helps get them ready for the next day when we will be diving into the basics of soil science. 

Minor errors, all-school assemblies, and parents - Part 3

The final section of our book led Mrs. Hoover and I to some great conversations about classroom management. The topic of Chapter 12 was “the ability to ignore”. Mrs. Hoover emphasized how important it is to ignore minor errors. This does not mean that you are ignoring your students by any means, but you are able to differentiate between giving students attention that they need and attention that they want.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, high achievers need to be handled in their own way as well. High achievers, just like the best teachers, are much harder on themselves than anyone else will be. Mrs. Hoover said these can be both her most challenging students and best students. Sometimes they are students who go above and beyond on every project or they might be more concerned with other classes than their agriculture class. She said it takes time to help the latter student realize that her class is just as important has their math class.

Another topic we talked about were school assemblies. “When the best teachers take their students to an assembly, what do they do? They sit by their students – and not just any students, but the students who are most likely to disrupt.” We discussed that many teachers have negative attitudes toward all-school assemblies, because they feel they could be doing something more productive. Mrs. Hoover described one time when she was at an assembly and she looked around and she was the only teacher there. She said while she could have been prepping for a class as other teachers skipped out to do, supervising school assemblies was part of the job. We also discussed how you can use the principal of sitting next to the worst students in your classrooms. You can always rearrange and adjust your classroom for the better. If you keep doing the same thing and getting the same results, you need to change, not the students. If the same people always pair up for partner work and don’t get work done, the teacher can make the decision to change that in the future – i.e. “randomly” selecting partners, or simply saying you must work with someone you haven’t worked with before. The goal of this is to help the students perform better.  The best teachers always keep the students’ interests in mind when making decisions in their classroom.

We also talked about how to handle belligerent parents. When a parent is arguing with you, they are in their prime. They don’t mind arguing and they want you to argue with them. When a parent is upset with their child’s performance, it is much better to let them know what the expectations are and what assignments need completed instead of arguing with the “why”. You don’t need to elaborate that Jimmy missed 3 days of classes this week, disrupted class, and was on his phone multiple times. That type of parent wants to argue with you about the “why”. Instead you can stop the argument before it starts by focusing on tasks that need completed. Mrs. Hoover explained that she has had to deal with parents in the past and when she takes this approach, she doesn’t have issues with the parent like other teachers and administrators have described.   

What Great Teachers Do Differently - Part 1

Mrs. Hoover and I chose "What Great Teachers Do Differently: 17 Things That Matter Most" by Todd Whitaker to read together this summer. So far we are both really enjoying it! We think that it is real. The author wrote this book on real life observations and behaviors he has noticed through his time as a teacher and principal.

In the beginning of the book, he discusses discipline a lot. He says that great teachers focus on expectations not rules. As a teacher - especially an Ag teacher - you may not always get the "cream of the crop", but great teachers will adapt to everyone and have the same expectations for everyone. These can be simple: Be respectful, be prepared, and be on time. When we focus on expectations instead of rules, we are less likely to lead students to doing something against the rules. Most students are more fearful of the unknown. If they know what will happen when they break a rule - for example detention - they will weigh they costs and benefits. If they don't know, then they are more likely to meet expectations. Maybe more importantly, the teacher needs to remember to think before they react. Is it really worth arguing with or yelling at this student? Is that an appropriate reaction? All teachers have the same "bag of tricks", but the great teachers use their bag less often and choose the right reactions at the right times. 

Mrs. Hoover said in her FFA program she expects students to behave in all school aspects to be able to go on field trips and participate in other activities. So if a student was kicked out of school or had another disciplinary action against them, they will probably not be allowed to go on a field trip with the FFA. 

Furthermore, we need to remember as teachers that we may be the problem. That we are the variable in the classroom. If students aren't paying attention in class or succeeding, we need to make a change in what we are doing. 

Lastly, one quote that stuck with me was from a teacher the author was observing. She had been teaching a long time and still had so much enthusiasm in the classroom, so the author asked her, how? She replied, "This may be my 38th year teaching 5th grade, but for these students it is their first time around." Really puts things in perspective!