OnlineReflection#4- KATE Conference

I thought that Clare Vanderpool’s presentation was the most inspiring just for the fact that it seemed like Moon Over Manifest was her absolute destiny in her life. It was inspiring for the fact that she knew what she wanted to do with her life at such a young age and then put in the effort and had the patience to see it through. Even though I am not a mom I am a parent and could identify with her struggle to find “her time” to work or write especially when her kids were young. I can’t imagine how tough if must have been to piece together a book for ten years; I would have given up for sure. After she was done speaking I felt so happy for her having reached her life goal and attaining so much success and recognition for her life’s work, I can’t imagine what that must feel like after so much work went into that book. In addition, I think her keynote speech was really inspiring to all of us that are on the cusp of being teachers and I took away the message of don’t give up and above all else have patience and success will find you.

The breakout session I liked the most was the Survival 101: How to survive a new school. This session gave suggestions for first year teachers and teachers in a new building, district, etc. The ladies that gave the presentation were really honest about what we should expect from other teachers when we arrive fresh and new and full of ideas. I really appreciated the fact that they shared such candid information with us because I feel we get the sugar coated version of teaching and not the nitty gritty truth. In addition to ideas on how to survive the staff and co-workers they also gave a ton of suggestions on how to organize your classroom as well as worksheets and grading systems. For example how to color code your worksheets for each unit, each class, keeping all things neatly organized and readily available for you to grab off your desk and not waste time looking for handouts. Everyone at the conference was so willing to share anything that could be helpful to us, “just send me an email” they would tell us and they would give up anything they had that we thought we could use, it was great. I am definitely going to try and implement the color coding organization system to my classroom. I think it is such an easy way keep me organized and it will save me and my students time handing in/out papers and being able to grade quickly for each class.

I talked briefly to a couple of the presenters of the sessions I attended and I also touched base with my old English teacher from my high school. I think that talking with the presenters helped me by putting my name to my face, even if briefly, when I email them they may have a better shot of placing me at their presentation and feel more comfortable sharing their teaching tools with me. On talking with my old English teacher it may be a way of networking beyond him, he may go back and talk with people at the district and mention he saw me and it could lead to principals or others asking more questions about me and hopefully lead to a possible interview.

Honestly I don’t know what I did not get a chance to see but I was really happy with the sessions I chose to go to. A suggestion I might give to one of the presenters would be to not do writing sessions with the group their presenting to. I thought it took up to much time and took away from them giving us helpful information or strategies. I would want them to just have it on a power point presentation ready to go and be able to walk us through the changes they would want to see in their student’s writing.

Online Reflection #3- Clear as mud.

I can’t quite put my finger on it, but in the last week or two students have been readily excelling in selective hearing. I know, I know all 7^th graders excel at selective hearing, however these students have taken it to a new level; I’ve heard rumors of several kids qualifying for nationals! I just don’t understand, everything was running smoothly in class and the students were taking notes and listening and participating as well as you could hope for; then it happened. I think there must have been some sort of an alliance that was set up among all 7^th graders and an agreement was set forth that they all would tune out every other word any adult spoke to them. I must applaud their efforts, their alliance is strong and it looks like it has the legs to reach clear to Christmas break. Okay, okay all kidding aside now; what can I do to get through to these students?

This loss of focus on behalf of the students has thrown me for a loop, even my CT looks at me in wonderment at the lack of attention paid by the students. I have found my CT having to repeat simple class instructions time and time again, it’s like the students purposely take turns asking, what was that?, what did you say? My CT can’t speak more clearly and direct than he already does so what is he to do? How can I help him? I know this may seem like I am just complaining so I want to give an example of what is going on in the classroom.

The students have been studying a unit over Mexico for the last week and a half and have taken notes covering geography, history, economics, government and culture. My CT has led them slide by slide telling them exactly what to write down and giving them ample time to do so. As a review activity my CT had the students make a Mexican soccer ball, out of paper as a foldable activity, which they had to write three to four bullet points of information on, covering each of the topics listed above in this paragraph. The only thing the students had to do was literally copy their notes from their notebook and transfer them to the appropriate section on the soccer ball sheets. I can’t tell you how many questions of “where is this in my notes?” or “what do I write under government?” I had to answer in one class period. I thought I was being clear enough when I would respond by saying “turn to your notes on Mexico in your notebook, find where it says government and then write down what you have in your notes on your soccer ball sheet under where it says government.” Clear as mud. I must have had a temporary lapse where I was speaking a different language because that was the type of look I would get from students after I gave them instruction on what to write. Help me!!

How can I help my students? In what ways can I give instruction more clearly so that students won’t have the same questions over and over again? I was really at a loss by the end of that class period when not one student had finished their sheet, not one. I felt defeated, useless and incompetent. How could I have failed so miserably with such a simple task as having students copy notes? 

Over the next couple of days, as the students continued to work on their soccer balls, I reflected on my frustrations and talked to my CT about them. Come to find out he has the same frustrations, but what sets us apart is he has the experience to know how to handle times like these and make appropriate adjustments in class. While talking with my CT he reminded me that as a teacher you can do only so much as some responsibility has to be put on the student. We can’t take pencil in hand and write their notes for them or do their homework or take their tests, they have to put forth the effort. I definitely felt better and not so defeated after our conversation and looked forward to returning the next day to work with students again.