Professional Organization reflection

          This year’s theme for the Promising Practices Conference was “STEM Education in Urban Environments.” The crowd at the conference was very diverse, there were teacher candidates like myself, professors, teachers from local high schools, presenters. The conference addressed issues in urban education and innovative pedagogy in STEM through a variety of topics including social justice, youth development, health equity, economics, and career development.  Here are the proposal submissions which addressed awareness about correlating and addressing social issues and systems with outcomes in STEM education. Ideas of having confidence, exploring issues of student/teacher identity, and purpose. Making connections and exploring relationships between STEM and everyday life was something that was expressed deeply by the keynote speaker Dr. Edmin. Finally, he talked about the concept of being creative and to examine new approaches to engage students, teachers and community in learning.  
      I certainly struggled with this conference. There were definitely some useful things I learned and could see myself doing in my future classroom and some other things made me go hmm. The first session I attended was the hands-on learning were the teacher taught us to create models of earth systems that explain ocean currents and other density driven Earth processes. This presentation was fun in the sense that we got to see how she sets up her classes and how everything is basically hands on. The description in the catalog does not do her justice of what she actually did because in that presentation we were her students. She went through an assessment she would give, question by question and went over the answers. I know this presentation was geared toward science concepts being learned through activity but this presentation felt like we were in science class again instead of showing us many different ways of doing hands-on learning. After the presentation she asked how many people in the room were there for science and only 4 people raised their hands out of 30. Most people in the room were very disappointed because we knew the session was going to be science based but we wanted new ideas, new strategies, not copies of her assessments.      
      The second session was on comedy in the classroom and again it was not what I expected. The presenter and the TALL University students showed us their Learning Strategies. The students were all elementary age and they showed us how you can use comedy to develop critical thinking. The students showed us how they have songs for learning about math, something most students think is hard, but through singing the song they see that math is easy. We did lots of activities that made us feel uncomfortable at first but after seeing everyone else being a bit awkward too, it lightened the mood. I think the presentation was good, they showed us how you can sing songs, do skits and ice breakers to lighten the mood, but I never heard anyone say ‘using comedy in the classroom’ I didn't really find anything in their very funny and to be completely honest it was primarily geared to elementary education. I was hoping that this would be about how you can do funny activities with your students or teaching in a humorous way, not about getting in a circle and singing math songs because realistically if a teacher grades 6-12 were to start singing about math the students would automatically be turned off and would not find it funny.  I remember in my high school Spanish class, my teacher expected us to sing. At the beginning of the year set the rules for the class and made us aware that we would have to sing, so it was something we were ready for. Once a week or every other week she would print the lyrics to a current song on the top-hits of Spanish music and we would listen to the song first and then sing it. Of course some of us giggled at first because singing in high school with 25 kids isn’t exactly ‘fun’ but we expected it so many of us didn't mind.

Please post about my Microteaching II- All suggestions and comments are welcome, Thanks!

SED 407 Observations

The What:

      For my observations my co-teacher and I went to Ms. Garces classroom. She teachers English 10 and currently has a RIC student teacher, Mr. Bonaldi. Together, they're teaching the book Lord of the Flies. In some classes Mr. Bonaldi takes the lead and in the more challenging ones Ms. Garces takes the lead.  When Ms. Garces hands the class over to him she's still a asset to the classroom by watching the student teacher and looking about the classroom to see if students are following directions and how they're responded to a different instructor. Some of the things I noticed first was that each student was handed an agenda for the day. It had the "do now" on it which gave them choices of which questions to answer and relates to what they're doing (symbolism). The agenda sheet on the  exit slip on it as well as the do now so that could hand all 3 things in before leaving class; the do now, day activity, exit slip. I noticed the school starts at 8am when most schools start much earlier. After the bell rang, there were some brief announcements addressing dress code.  After the announcements its a bit noisy as students settle down and many were walking in late. I saw the essential question on board and the objectives for the lesson.    

During the lessons he asks a lot of questions, some lower level, vocabulary based but talking about personification and he asked them to give examples. The were reviewing personification of previous chapters. He forgot to give everyone agenda handout with the do now and some didn't ask until he was done going over the do now. This is something that might seem minor but if 3 students didn't have the handout then they weren't following along but still could have been listening. At another point in class he was asking for the answer to his question and then says "Lay it on me guys". This was meant to be a care-free way of asking for the answer, but I found it a bit inappropriate. The kids didn't seem to think it was a big deal but one student might find it inappropriate. After reviewing the do now, they began to read another chapter of Lord of the Flies. They did Popcorn reading where you read a paragraph and when they're done or don't want to read anymore you say popcorn and something continues. While the students were reading the student teacher and the teacher would stop the reading to discusses what's going on, check comprehension and understanding of concepts in reading. Ms. Garces asked the question, What does it mean to you? and asked them what images come to mind after reading a passage.

The so what:

      

    At the beginning of the class I was just observing. I was looking what was on the walls, listening to what was being said and seeing what was going on in the classroom. When I finally had my ah-ha moment was when all I kept thinking was distractions distraction distractions! At the beginning of the school day, 5 students came late at all different times. Throughout the lesson students kept asking to use the bathroom. People coming and going from bathroom, students were not paying attention, talking, getting distracted. As people walk in late or come back from the bathroom the student teacher had to catch up people who are behind. One of the 6 students who went to the bathroom was gone for 15 minutes. Other students were in the bathroom 8-12 minutes at a time when there is only 65-69 minutes in a period.This makes me wonder because this student is going to be behind because he's missing the material but also what is he doing during that time.  Two cellphones went off in class but Mr. Bonaldi didn't take them away, he just asked the students to shut the sound off and put them away. Ms. Garces saw that students had their hoods and headphones in the ears and she asked them to put the hood down and the headphones away.

While they're reading Ms. Garces said she wanted to "Hear more voices" asking for different readers for participation because it counts towards their grade. I thought this was important because she's giving them opportunity to participate and reminds them of the need to be active. On another observation day the student teacher gave students the option to read in roles or just to read in paragraphs. One student said it was hard to follow when everyone has different roles so they chose to read in paragraphs. Within 10 minutes a group of students said it was boring so they went back to roles now they did it yesterday. He should have just done it the way he knows works, and not give students the option.

The now what:

Now is when we look at the bigger picture and see what it all means.  One of the big things I noticed was lateness. I found it extremely distracting watching the teacher constantly having to refocus his thought because students kept opening and closing the door. But reality is; a large majority of the students walk to school. That day I was running a little late myself and as I was driving towards the school I could see students walking. Due to the location of the school I always have to park 2-3 blocks away and walk. This usually takes me maybe 5-7 minutes depending how far I park. Imagine living 10 minutes driving from the school, that could take up to 20 minutes. I think going forward, we can't lower our expectations for the students simply because they are walking to school. But maybe have empathy and have a conversation with students who are late after class and discuss how to use the morning time more effectively and to leave at the time that allows you to get to school on time.

Another topic I thought about was how to avoid having bathroom distractions. I thought it would make sense to allow students to go to bathroom at during the first 5 minutes of class during the do now, while the teacher is taking attendance, not during the middle of instruction. If it's an emergency then it's ok to go during class. Perhaps discussing with the class how to use transition time between classes more effectively and to use the bathroom then. The teacher could talk about how going to bathroom during class is disruptive and distracting to the teacher and the students. After thinking about this for the three observations, I asked Ms. Garces what the bathroom rule was and she said they weren't allowed to go during the first or last 10 minutes of class. So this was a really dead moment because you're left with an unsolved problem because students are leaving the class during instruction time. I also thought about how sometimes teacher have to pick and choose things to let go, especially when they can't win. I thought about maybe the thing for Ms. Garces was, bathroom breaks, because she seemed equally as frustrated with the distractions.

One of the last things that made me think was the toss up between different reading strategies. Reading as a whole class can be hard because everyone learns in different ways. This class might do better in reading groups since the students were split. Some like reading in roles and some liked just reading by paragraph.

Some lasting thoughts...Ms. Garces was absent the day before our third observation and only twelve students came to class. Where were they? Library? cafeteria? I asked if they were punished for skipping class while the student teacher was there and she said no because once the administration finds they're skipped class its too late. During the last observation the fire alarm went off and took up 10 minutes of class time. When the students all came back to class Ms. Garces addressed that they have to refocus and get back to reading. This reminded me how something so small as reminding kids to refocus can be very helpful because high school teens don't know how to refocus they have to be taught how to and told.  She did this by talking about it for a little, getting it all out, and then getting back into Lord of the Flies. The student teacher speaks really quickly and it was hard to follow sometimes. It reminded me of myself because I often mumble or talk fast so for myself I can see this as being something I have to work on.

Struggling readers

        In this first chapter D&Z wrote about how in order to get close to struggling readers and do  research they needed to hear from students who haven't had it easy.  They about how students are unfamiliar with the content and lack background knowledge of the reading. When students read and construct of picture in their minds they still need to be able to understand how to search through the paragraph for information that might help solve the problem (.p234) 
          The authors interviewed students who weren't going to tell the researchers what they wanted to hear but rather the truth. The students who were interviewed were very clear about the mental tools they had been given. D&Z outline strategies that are effective for all students and they're crucial for students who see themselves as not being good readers and for those who have felt failure in school (235). Turning the the words they read into mental pictures (p.233)
           In the chapter they noted that teachers say I'm the math or physics teacher not the reading teacher (p.234) When I read this I thought about teacher education and I thought about what in the world do colleges and university teach teacher candidates. In 406/407 and at RIC we learn about how ALL teachers teach literacy and how no matter your content reading/writing skills are important. I do agree that teachers sometimes get caught up in the content and forget that they have to teach students how to write a lab report or an argumentative essay but that's the catch of being a teacher, you kind of have to do everything.
             D&Z list the key strategies for helping struggling readers; building supportive relationships (p. 236) modeling through thoughtful reading and activities that build engagement (p. 239 promoting student's self monitoring and using materials students can successfully read (p.240  providing books and articles on tape (p.242). The strategies I found most interesting was building supportive relationships, activities that build engagement and providing books on tape.  Building supportive relationships with students seems easy, but it really is hard to show students you care about their reading and believe they can succeed. Especially because you may think you're showing you care but in actuality it might look like something different. I thought it was helpful when they said that we can always find ways to signal our encouragement and support like thinking of a catch phrase as soon as you see a student starts to daze while reading. Activities that build engagement are key in my eyes because in order to remember something you have to do something meaningful.  Answering simple fact based questions at the end of section reading isn't meaningful, instead of questions that are meaningful and ask students to do higher level blooms taxonomy questions. One of the activities explained in the chapter is sketching my way through the text (p.120-121) where students draw simple pictures of diagrams to help them conceptualize  ideas from the reading. This is extremely helpful for visual learners. Another activity is writing a paragraph about the topic to help clarify the students thoughts. Lastly, those infamous books on tape! I remember being in elementary school and being able to read books while having the voice narrator reading the story to me. I loved that. To me I was following along and words I couldn't pronounce, narrator was and I was able to learn from it.

SED 406 Observation #4

In this observation assignment, the goal is to create an assessment for the lesson I observed. and then write a 10 minute quiz that will determine if students can meet the objective. This assignment is for the lesson I saw in the third observation.

1) What do you think the objective is?

The objective of the lesson is for students to use the video as a review for the test.

SWBAT: 

• recall 3 new things they learned by watching the video
• name 3 things they found interesting, cool or didn't know before watching
• what 3 things did you already know about the Human body before watching the video.
• make a judgement of the video and decide if the material presented was meaningful/important or not.

2) What level of Bloom’s Taxonomy is that?

Knowledge is at the base of the assesment but in question D, the students are being asked to analyize and take the new things they learned and separate it to decide what they want to learn more about. The last question addresses evalutation where the students have to give their opinion

3) How will you assess it in 10 minutes or less?
I would asses it in 10 minutes or less by simply glancing over each students answer to see if they have answered them with relevant information from the video. The idea is to get the students thinking about the content for the test and to make sure the students were paying attention to the video so there is not one correct answer for each question.

Here is a 10 minute quiz that will determine if students can meet the objective.

Questions:

A. What are 3 things you learned by watching the video?

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B. What are 3 things you didn't know that you saw in the video?

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C. What are 3 things or examples that you already knew about the human body?

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D. What are 3 things you would like to learn or discover more about?

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E. What are 3 things you learned in the video that you think are important/essential to your life? OR not important or not essential, explain why or why not.

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explain:

SED 406 Observation #3

                                    

For this observation assignment I observed a Biology II class at the Seekonk High School. My goal was to observe classroom management. As soon as the bell rings for students to change classes, students pour into the classroom and are a bit noisy. The announcements are taking place over the intercom. They find their seats, some linger around the room looking at all the bones and posters displayed around the room. The teacher is at his desk and seems to be doing attendance because he keeps looking up from his computer and looking for the student in class.This is the time we learn about when teachers allow for those loud and noisy five minutes of talking because they need five minutes to do attendance. Then they say the pledge of the allegiance and I noticed some students weren't even saying the pledge and some weren't even paying attention.

    As class is about to get started the teacher leaves his desk and starts talking. As soon as he starts speaking the kids all get to their seats and start to to pay attention. He starts to talk about the human body and asks students questions. It seemed like the teacher was reviewing for something bigger. It's first period of the day and the teacher shares with the kids that they're going to get to watch a video on the Incredible Human Machine by National Geographic. They automatically get excited and start to make noise. The teacher quickly responds that the video is to help for their test and its a not a free period.

He asks for two volunteers to pass out the sheet that goes with the video. I quickly got a glance of one and it looked like a multiple choice checklist to follow as the video went on. By the students passing out the papers it freed up the teachers time and he talked about the worksheet that went with the video. He told the students they would be allowed to use this worksheet on the test if they completed it and it would be a homework grade. If it was half done they wouldn't be able to use it but they would still get credit for doing half.

Before the video a couple students went up to him and asked if they could use the bathroom, he allowed them to even though every time the door closed it made a loud noise. I thought this was interesting because then they would miss the video, however you can't tell a student they can't go to the bathroom. Although a teacher can suggest going to the bathroom at the beginning or end of the period not during a lesson. At the same time the video was just review so if students missed 5 minutes I suppose it wouldn't be that big of a deal anyways. The beginning of the video it's starts talking about skin and the sense. Students started to giggle and be a little awkward because the girl wasn't wearing clothes and her hair was covering her body parts. These are one of the things teachers have to consider when showing a video that certain areas of the video might contain some nudity and it might need to be addressed before the video beings. During the video a couple of students were talking and not paying attention. The teacher looked over at the students, gave them a look and said " ahem" and they stopped and got back on track. Another student asked if he could go to the nurse and the teacher said he could go.

At the end of the video the teacher did a recap of the video and they talked about what they liked, learned, and saw in the video. He then had asked a student to go around and collect the assignment, but before collecting he asked for everyone to make sure they had their name on it. He reminded the students again that he would be checking for completeness and that if it was complete he would hand back the sheet and they could use it on the test. For homework, the teacher told the students all they had was to study for the test.

Overall I think the teacher did have classroom management. He used his time effectively and used the resources he had to address other issues. By having the students pass out and collect papers allows the teacher to keep an eye out or give directions. When the students at the back of the room were misbehaving by talking and not watching the video he corrected it as soon as he heard them talking.The classroom management affected student learning by the students being able to watch the video. When there was distractions the teacher dismissed them. Even the distraction of the door closing when the students would go to the bathroom the teacher would say "ahem" quietly close the door.

SED 406 Observation #2

SED 406:  Observation Assignment #2

In this observation assignment, your goal is to reverse-engineer a lesson plan. Watch the class, and write the lesson plan that teacher is using.

Do this by OBSERVATION, even if the teacher is willing to share their lesson plan with you. This is about improving your observation skills, not getting ‘the answer’.

Lesson Plan Template for SED 406 and 407 part 1 = planning
Teacher Candidate: Amy Marques	Subject: US History 1	Grade(s): 9-10
Name of Lesson: The Gilded Age
Learning Objective(s), including Bloom's taxonomic level: (label A, B, C, *D) *optional Knowledge: Students will be able to answer the questions about the gilded age.                         Students will be able to share their opinions about the content of the video.
Student Standards (GSE or/GLE or Common Core-in draft for math/science- list which): UCLA History Standards: THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE INDUSTRIAL UNITED STATES (1870-1900) Standard 1: How the rise of corporations, heavy industry, and mechanized farming transformed the American people Standard 1B The student understands the rapid growth of cities and how urban life changed Standard 1D The student understands the effects of rapid industrialization on the environment and the emergence of the first conservation movement. Standard 2: Massive immigration after 1870 and how new social patterns, conflicts, and ideas of national unity developed amid growing cultural diversity
Teacher Standards (professional society and/or NETS  and RIPTS-list which): RIPTS Standard 2: Teachers have a deep content knowledge base sufficient to create learning experiences that reflect an understanding of central concepts, vocabulary, structures, and tools of inquiry of the disciplines/content areas they teach.
Rationale: Why this lesson? How does it fit into the curriculum and context? Is this the introduction, conclusion, or somewhere in the middle of the unit of instruction? This lesson fits into the curriculum by introducing the subject or could be used in the middle as an example or at the end to wrap everything up.
Materials/Resources needed, including technology: Video/ VHS player
Accommodations and Modifications (special needs and learning styles) For example:  Dr. Kraus has poor vision and needs written material to be at least 12 pt. font.  He also reads two grade levels higher and needs appropriate reading material.  A couple of students of the class are in a behavior program called BEST and the teacher allowed them to go to BEST and work on their study guide (quiz grade for test and could use on test) instead of watching the video.
What content resources support this knowledge base? (list at least 2) Textbook & the standards
How confident are you in this topic as you start this lesson? The teacher seems very confident as she started the lesson. She is the head of the History Department so she really had her stuff together.  When she starts her lesson she speaks with knowledge, not looking at any notes and once ready she plays the video.

Lesson Plan Template part 2 = action
Bell-ringer: How will you get students seated, and ready for academic work? (without your voice) She pulled down the projector screen as soon as the bell rang and the students sat down right away.
Anticipatory Set: How will you introduce the material, interest the students, show relevance of topic? She  introduced the video as a reinforce for what they had been learning about industrialization and she related it back to New England which I thought was interesting because that’s where we’re from.
Phase (change as needed)/Time 60 minute period	Teacher action	Student action	Questions/Assessments
e.g. Intro/5 min.	Explaining directions, discussing the purpose of the  video passing out questions sheet	Students listening	Teacher  is looking out to the class while she’s talking to them
2 min.	Go over questions, expectations, get video ready	Students listening, asking questions	Teacher asks if anyone has any questions about the worksheet
Presentation 30 min video	Plays video	Students watching video	Students writing down answers and teacher looking for who’s watching.
Guided Practice 10 minutes added to video	Teacher stops video in between each 7-8 minute segment for 1-2 minutes so student can write responses or grab an answer they missed	Students ask other students for help/write down answers	Students writing down answers
Closing/ 10 minutes	Teacher stops video, goes over answers, discusses importance and relates to their textbook	Students listen, add information to their worksheet
HW/Application/ 3 minutes	Teacher says ,“study for test tomorrow and do your study guide”	Students listened, some wrote it down in planner
Review and Reflection: How will you review for students who are still having trouble? Students didn’t seem to have trouble with the video but if they did she could offer for them to come after school and re-watch the video.
Extension: What will you offer to students who have mastered this? Nothing seen but if students have mastered this and want to practice/study more about the Gilded Age for their test the teacher could give them websites to look at.
*Closing: How will you review the material, and draw conclusions? (may be listed above) She reviewed the material by a large group lecture/discussion highlighting the major points of the video.

	Lesson Plan Template pt. 3 = reflection
WHAT?	What went well?   Students completed the questions and watched the video.
	What area of weakness needs addressing? Asking more questions to the students that are higher blooms taxonomy.
	Which objectives were met? What is the evidence? She met the objectives and the proof is the worksheet they completed and there was a whole group discussion.
	Which students did not meet objectives? The ones who were apart of BEST did not because they weren’t in the room.
	Was time managed appropriately? Time was managed well. Although the 1-2 minute window was shifted depending on which video segment had more questions. On some she gave them only a minute and others they need 3.
	Did any teacher mannerisms or actions detract from the lesson? No, the teacher did move around a lot from her podium (on the side of room) to the middle. I thought this was helpful to keep focus versus staying in one spot.
	*What were the strengths and weaknesses of classroom management? Her strengths are that as soon as she speaks the students listen  but a weakness is that if she’s not looking, ( working on grading at her desk while they watch video) they were a little chatty and not watching video.
SO WHAT?	Was the lesson engaging? I thought the video was interesting but the narrators voice made it a little boring at times. It was helpful that each segment was only 7-8 minutes because it allowed for a transition in between topics
	*What did I learn from my peer observation (address at least one aspect)   I learned  that you really do have to keep your eyes on every student in the classroom because while you’re not looking some students feel like it’s okay to sit back and not pay attention.
NOW WHAT?	How will this experience influence your professional identity?  This experience will influence my professional identity by being all eyes and being attentive.
	How will it influence how you plan/teach/assess in the future? This  experience will influence how I plan and teach because I like how she gave the students time in between the video to catch up, grab some answers, and talk to one another because it doesn’t make it as boring just listening to the same monotone voice as many history videos can be.