Content v. Bells and Whistles

I had an epiphany the other day, and it’s really quite a shame that it’s taken me so long for this to really hit home. Every day is a constant battle between how to present a whole bunch of information that, to be honest, I don’t have a total grasp on myself. For example, today I taught three different classes the same lesson about Enlightened Absolutism. It’s been a real long time since I looked at this material, and so had to brush up a whole bunch. While I do know a little bit about this topic, it was quite difficult for me to get a proper hold on the details that I wanted to get across (most of my personal background being in African History). So while worrying about the fact that I didn’t exactly know what I was teaching, I was also worried about how I was teaching. For the most part, I lectured to the class, trying to incorporate some of the big ideas from previous classes.

Now, going through my head all day were a few main thoughts:

1. “Holy crap! I don’t know what I’m talking about!”
2. “Oh man, right as I am saying these words, the kids are totally bored.  All I’m doing is talking, and getting like three kids interested.  UTeach would be MAAAD.”
3. “How can I assign them to work in groups if I don’t know what I’m talking about.”
4. “I know I’m not supposed to lecture, but I’m all out of ‘constructivist’ ideas.”
5. “Is there another way for these kids to get this info?”
6. “Seriously, why do the only ideas I have somehow incorporate giant sticky notes and markers?…  wait… I know why.”

On top of all this, I am setting up a student blog site on airset.com , and have become totally engrossed in the minutiae. Yesterday I spent three hours trying to work out all the details, and as a result I wasn’t really able to study up on the aforementioned material of Enlightened Absolutism. So I’m discovering now that being creative and coming up with new ideas really needs to follow having a strong grasp of content. Revolutionary right? Not really. It just never seemed so real until now.

Moving on…

I worry about a couple of my students who consistently don’t show up to class. These kids basically have a 50% attendance rate, if that. One girl seems like all she cares about is dropping out, and today she told me that is going to A-Plus, the credit recovery center because, “I just don’t do any work in here.” Obviously she knows what she’s doing, and the CT says that she really is just biding her time before she drops out completely.

Alright… enough for now. Fortunately tomorrow we are talking about the American Revolution: something I know quite a bit about

Jigsaws Part 2

I continued today with the same activity as yesterday, considering our school is on an A/B schedule.  In order to alleviate some of the logistical issues I faced yesterday, I planned the groups beforehand by putting each students into a group instead of randomly choosing.  This worked in a couple of periods, but due to a whole bunch of absences and a bus video we had to watch, two periods we were unable to complete the activity.  Also, it seems that group work is harder and harder to pull off when there are more students.  In addition to the management issues involved in making 6 person groups work, the simple lack of space in my class makes it rather difficult to maneuver.  Perhaps in the future, I should have the desks set up in groups before the kids come into class.

Also, I’m finding that the biggest trouble I have when planning a lesson is the ultimate product I’d like the students to produce.  Most days, I have a vague and nebulous concept of some thing I’d like to be done.  Obviously this lack of foresight on my part causes a certain measure of confusion on the students’ part.  When the students have a goal to accomplish, they tend to go for it, as opposed to just learning for the sake of learning. To have a product in mind would also make the group have something more concrete to focus on. Yesterday I mentioned guiding questions.  These could have been used as part of the final assessment which would be something like a worksheet that the students needed to fill out.

Several of my students have also been quite interesting to deal with.  One student continuously skips class, and hasn’t turned in a homework assignment the entire semester.  When given a slip asking why a project wasn’t completed, this student circled “I choose not to do projects in this class.”  In speaking with this student’s parents, my Cooperating Teacher indicated an unwillingness on their part to either acknowledge that there was a problem nor do anything about it.  This is really quite unfortunate because this particular student is quite bright, but just refuses to work.

That’s enough for today.

Day One? Is Blogging Really Worth It?

I suppose I risk being just a little cliche when I start talking about how this is the first I’ve written a blog. And it is probably equally as cliche to claim that I feel a little bit uncomfortable with people reading what I write. Unfortunately though, this is exactly how I feel, and it doesn’t help much to hide that fact. So it is with a bold (ok maybe not that bold) foot forward that I attempt to keep up with this journal.

First and foremost (another cliche), I think it is important to relay my goals for this blog. Or in other words, to describe what is I plan on doing with this site, and why OH why should I even keep it up. As a student teacher struggling to keep up with the enormous load of work currently being dumped upon me, it seems quite crazy to expect that I will even have time to write anything. But, my goal for this current semester is to become a reflective person, one who observes, questions, and evaluates each decision I make while in this experience. Blogging will hopefully provide an avenue for me to discuss how certain events affect my outlook and philosophy on teaching, and to receive feedback (if anyone reads this) from other educators.

I’d like to emphasize that this site will not be a place for to complain about how bad students are, how they never do homework, can’t read, or just smell bad. I don’t want to focus on how kids can’t or won’t do something, or how badly behaved Johnny was today. Instead, the focus of this blog is to analyze the way I teach, and to try and gain some sort of perspective by considering how my students respond to my methodology. When students act a certain way, it won’t help to say, “Well that’s just how Sally is.” There has to be something a little deeper.

An example might help here. Today I asked my students about whether or not they liked the way we discussed a particular unit. I explained that as a student teacher, I am currently learning to refine certain methods, and to gain as much knowledge about how they learn so I can become a better teacher. Some classes (I have four) were more mature than others, and the conversation we conducted was quite fruitful. As a result, I learned from my students that they liked using the whiteboards I had them write answers on. However, they found it to be a bit cumbersome, and so we discussed ways that it may work better.

OK, this blog was a little disjointed – but it’s my first one so I get a break (just ‘cuz).