Standard 3: Instructional Planning

The practitioner plans instruction based upon knowledge of subject matter, students, the community, curriculum goals, and state curriculum models. 

Today we continued reading strategies in 5th hour. All of the students put up a debate about completing the work. Alot of students argued with me and said that I lied to them because on Friday I said it was the only day we would be doing reading strategies. What I meant to communicate was that we were only reading strategies during the class period Friday. I didn’t mean that we wouldn’t keep reading them on another day, I just meant that we wouldn’t be doing two different activities during class on Friday. After explaining myself I apologized to my students for the miscommunication and then gave them a list of the agenda. I told them that we need to complete reading strategies 4-6 and the review, then we can take a break from the readings strategies and begin a new unit. After explaining that schedule most students settled down but some kept up the fight. I feel as if they were on a sugar high from the past halloween weekend. I don’t know if they ate some candy before they came to school, but normally they are tired in the morning and very compliant, not as hyper. 

After yesterday’s experience with reading strategies, I found some clips on youtube that pertained to the passage. Today we were reading 3 passages. One was about the trojan war so I asked the class who knew about the trojan war. Only two kids raised their hand, TJ and Logan. I asked them both to explain what they knew and they had conflicting views, so I picked apart their views and told the class which were true. Then I explained the two armies involved in the war and how the war started. Then I showed a clip from the movie Troy. The clip started with the Greek gift of the trojan horse and how the Trojans accept the gift and bring it into their city. The class got to see the walls that the Trojan army had built and how the Greeks came out of the trojan horse at night. This clip was helpful because the students were interested in watching. They were intrigued from Logan and TJ’s discussion and wanted to know more. After the clip we read the passage and answered the 3 questions following. There were only 3 questions, but the clip was only 2 minutes and saved me from an argument with the students. Instead of arguing we were discussing the Trojan war and most of the students were interested. The next passage we read was about the Olympian runner, Wilma Rudolph. I had never heard of her before so I googled her and found a clip of her winning the olympic gold medal in the 100m and 200m race. I decided we could watch the clip after reading the passage since the passage addressed her training during high school. After reading the passage and answering the questions we watched the clip and the class got very excited to see her win her races. This gave me some insight that the students really liked watching sports. We had about two minutes before class ended so I decided to show the class the x-games clip I found that pertained to the passage we read yesterday. The passage talked about sky-surfing so I was able to find the gold medalist jump of sky surfing and the students found it pretty cool. 

Standard 10: Computer Technology & Standard 4: Instructional Strategies

Standard 10: The practitioner evaluates technology and integrates it into instruction in a way that fosters learning, using technological resources both as teaching and learning tools in the classroom.

Standard 4: The practitioner understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students' development of critical thinking problem solving, and performance skills.

In science, the students took a practice quiz to classify 25 different materials as conductors or insulators. Afterwards, we played a game using the Promethean board. The students got to come up to the board, one at a time, and match the images with their respective energy. The students had fun with this game. 3rd hour was very energetic, it was hard to control the energy. We would have the students volunteer to answer a question. The student would come up to the board and use the pen to drag the image to the specific type of energy it displayed. If the student got the correct answer a specific ring tone would make noise. The students found the sounds amusing which encouraged more students to volunteer. Some students wanted to do it a second time but once you answered a question you couldn't return to the board. After answering a question the student would return to their seat and pick another volunteer. Some students didn't want to volunteer and that made the student's who wanted a second chance upset because they would have chosen differently. Kyler pulled me aside and asked why we weren't letting the motivated students go up to the board. "Why wouldn't you want us to go up to the board? We really want to go and these other students look as if they are being forced to go up." Kyler is an active participant in class when he chooses. He found this review game fun and chose to be actively involved. If he isn't interested he doesn't apply himself to the lesson, instead he will zone out and copy notes from his partner. With this review activity everyone could be involved, we didn't have the chance to loose any students from being involved, unless we gave all of the questions to the students raising their hands high in the air. This situation represents a catch-22, "Let only the excited students answer all the questions and loose the attention of the other students, but make the volunteers happy. Or involve everyone and aggravate the excited students by denying them the chance to answer another question." Either way someone is unhappy, but I would rather have everyone involved. Therefore my response to Kyler was, "I would rather have everyone involved. You are a pretty outgoing student where some may be intimidated. They could use some support going up to that board in front of the class. Maybe you could cheer them on? Show them some support?" Kyler said, "okay, I just really enjoyed going up there, it was fun to answer those question." I replied, "I know, give them a chance and let them see how much fun it is." After my conversation with Kyler, I started thinking about the reading strategies I do with my 1st hour class. As a class we read passages and answer questions to prepare the students for the district/state assessment. Each student reads a paragraph in the order they are seated. The students are not allowed to pass unless they have a 504 or IEP that specifically addresses reading out loud. We haven't had any problems but in this situation, students who would enjoy reading out loud are limited to a certain number of paragraph during class where the other students who do not enjoy reading out loud are forced to, most of these students complain throughout the class. In this situation it may be better to give the students class participation points for reading out loud, to prevent complaining/poor attitudes. The students would be motivated by the point system to read out-loud which would hopefully decrease their poor attitude in class.

Standard 9: Collaboration, Ethics and Relationships

The practitioner fosters relationships with parents, school colleagues, and organizations in the larger community to support students' learning and development. 

This past week we had student-led parent teacher conferences. During school on Friday, the students went to their homeroom to collect their assignments. The students were each given a black binder and instructed to put their assignments in the binder. The teacher passed back the assignments she wanted placed in the binder. The students were also given a sheet with each of their classes, a grade print out of all their assignments in each class, and an overall grade print out. The students had to fill out what they were doing in each of their classes and state two goals. Jun had asked what his two goals should be. I looked at his grades and saw he had a few low grades on his assignments. I asked him how he felt about math and he said he can’t stand the class but he gets his homework done, he just turns it in late. So we made one of his goals, turn in assignments on time. Then we looked at his overall grade report and he had a few absences in art. I asked why he was missing art and he said he was only tardy but the teacher doesn’t accept coming late as a tardy. So then his second goal was to be on time to art class. 

The students were responsible for walking their parents through their grade report and their assignments they completed in the 8th grade classes. The families would meet in one room and all the teachers would be present. There were multiple tables set up so the teachers could rotate from family to family. If the students/parents did not want to talk to a teacher they didn't have to and could collect their assignments and come and go at their leisure.

Thursday night was more shocking than Monday because of the discussions I heard and the family dynamics I witnessed. Almost every student had one parent or they had two parents, but they were divorced. One discussion that haunted me was when we had a student with ADHD and his two families present. His mom talked about his behavioral disorder and spoke of how drugs didn’t work the first time so we should consider a clinical program. Then his step mom and dad chimed in with their opinion. Everyone was in agreement but the student just sat their in between them staring down at the table, no nodding, just sitting there. The whole conversation made me uncomfortable because I felt as if the student’s opinion was not represented. Then I also thought about my years in middle school. We never had conversations with students about medication they were taking or the clinics they were attending. I feel as if our society has started to turn to the quick fix, such as drugs or having another professional address the issues, instead of confronting the situation and discussing it with the student. This student is very enthusiastic and responsive in class. He just needs to know his boundaries. However he has to be reminded constantly. This conference influenced me to get to know this student better. I interacted with him the next day during social studies. He was talking with his partner about abstract things and not completing their assignment. I came over and asked how it was going. His partner showed me one of her sheets that was completed and I explained that she needed to complete the second sheet (which was blank). Then I asked him how he was doing and he said that he was stuck on a problem. His partner knew the answer because she completed her paper and started to tell him the answer. Then I said, “wait, let’s let him figure it out.” He took the challenge and started to figure out the problem and came up with the answer on his own. Then they started working on the second sheet together. They said that it was hard because they didn’t understand what the question was asking and they didn’t know where to look in the reading. Together we broke down the question and scanned the titles of the paragraphs in the reading. They both were able to choose which paragraph pertained to the question based on the title and worked quietly together. It was awesome to see him being successful but also channeling his energy towards his work and not distracting other students. I would have wanted to share this experience with his family on thursday and to reassure him that he has been making a positive effort in class. 

Standard 8: Foundations, Reflection and Professional Growth

The practitioner continually evaluates the effects of the practitioner's choices and actions on students, parents, and other professionals in the learning community, and activity seeks out opportunities to grow professionally.

During today’s lesson we were building hot and cold houses. The students were given two cardboard houses and the following materials to choose from: cotton balls, newspaper, black construction paper, cloth, socks, and roofs (reflective, clear, or tinted).  The students were to decide what they needed to insulate a house (cool house) and what they needed to absorb energy  (hot house). Before starting the lab the students read the activity and defined the terms : absorb, reflect and transmit. During hour 2 and 3 Mrs. Ash asked the class to define the terms in their own words. However during hour 4, she asked them to define it using the book’s definition and provide examples. Mrs. Ash explained to me that 4th hour can be challenging because a few of the students are fast learners and a few are level 1. To counterbalance the range she changes up her delivery of the lesson for that class. Some students described “absorb” as to capture, take in or collect. One student said, “hostaging energy?” During 2nd period lots of students had insulated materials in both houses or they chose a tinted roof and covered it with a clear roof. I don't think they understood the activity or they didn’t understand the main picture. So the flaw could be in the directions, maybe we need to clarify that one house need to remain cool the other needs to be heated. Maybe we should provide the students with  more context such as a scenario, to give them some reasoning/purpose to create their houses. During 3rd period while the students were making their houses I circulated the room and knew exactly what to look for. I suspected some students would start using multiple roofs, forget to fold down the flap for the thermometer, block the thermometer, forget to record initial temperature, etc. We learned from 2nd period and adjusted accordingly so the data collected would be reasonable and  help the students answer the analysis questions. 

Standard 5: Learning Environment/Classroom Management

The practitioner uses an understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to create a learning environment that encourages positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation.

I would describe my FoS class as positive, energetic, curious, social, and talkative. I would say that having a positive, energetic and curious class enhances the learning. However the social aspect makes the class very talkative and the class can get off topic often. I have learned that assigning partner-based projects have a negative affect because the work takes longer to complete. The students find themselves off task and talking to each other about non-related topics. After learning about this we made projects individual and if we needed to do group work we would allow no more than two students to be paired together. This required a lot of teacher circulation to answer questions and keep students focused and on task. During lessons all of these adjectives enhanced the lesson. I had some students answer a question and I would refer to them throughout the lesson. If students answered a question I was sure to give them credit for their answer and to keep referring to them throughout the lesson. When we were discussing the lava types of volcanoes we talked about the pyroclastic ash and I asked the students, “imagine if you were out running the ash, where would you go?” Travis answered, “I would get caught in the ash but I’d pose like this...” which added humor and the class laughed. The class also had curiosity:  I had a student confused about how hot magma was and I ended up asking if he was a star wars fan. He said yes and I asked if he watched revenge of the sith. He said yes, and I asked if he remembered the lava battle. He said no and the interest of the class was peaked so I said if we had time after notes I would show them a short clip. Then Dawson asked if they could deactivate volcanoes and we talked about star trek. He said he never saw it and I explained that it takes place in the future and they find a way to do that. If we have time I’ll show you a clip. We ended up not having enough time so I didn’t get to show the clips to them but I thought it would be cool for students to see the visual effects that movies can provide to compliment science. The only negative side to having students ask too many questions during class is that we weren't able to complete the notes. Which we would have to continue tomorrow and I wasn't able to show them the clips to answer their curious questions. 
In the following days we started to review for their volcano assessment. The students were instructed to complete a volcano practice assessment and Travis came to class early after lunch and asked for help on understanding subduction zones. I was flattered that he came to class early to know this topic better. He said he was ready for his quiz and that he wanted to do really well. I had a few students say that they didn’t recieve a practice assessment so I thought that we should at least cover the three types of volcanoes as a class and I figured it would be quick. However when I asked about the lava type (high or low viscosity) the students had two different definitions of viscosity. I knew Travis would have the answer so I asked him to give an example of high viscosity and he said honey and explained why the composite and cinder cone volcano would have high viscosity. Then Reese explained why a shield volcano would have low viscosity. I tried helping the students remember the three types of volcanoes by using mnemonic devices such as: shield- shore, strato- st. helens, cinder cone- cinderella’s dress. Both of these students are normally the social butterflies of the classroom so when they are participating  in the lesson the rest of the class is focused and intrigued to hear what Reese and Travis have to say. This week's rewarding achievement was learning how to channel their energy towards the lesson.

Standard 7: Assessment

The practitioner understands and uses formal and informal assessment strategies to evaluate the continuous intellectual, social, and physical development of the learner.

September 26th- Thursday

Today in chemistry we passed back unit 1 exams. The students got to view their exams and the rubric to see how it was graded. A few students were upset when they got one point wrong and it brought them down to a level 1. I walked the students through how to read a rubric. I explained that “if you missed 1 question but it was a fundamental question that is why I could only give you a level 1 in that skill. Even if you got the advanced question right, it puzzles me that you couldn’t get the fundamental question correct. These topics will be in the unit 2 test and I want you to do well in that so you may spend some time viewing your exams outside of class and retake the sections you want to improve on.” My 1st and 2nd hour classes were the very upset with their grades and had the hardest time reading the rubric. Most likely because these students are very amped about their grades. However these students do not come in for extra help after school because they are very involved with their extra-curricular activities. A few parents have complained about the approach to grading, the standards based grading, is not making their students happy. So Ms. Brown had a few conferences during the week with these parents to straighten out what was communicated from student to parent. Ms. Brown and I talked about how the students blew out of proportion what happened in class, “I only missed 1 point and now I’m at a level 1.” The students had not clearly read the rubric they were give to see how to get a level 2, 3, or 4. 

After the exam, we administered a pre-assessment about the atomic structure. I had the students correct their own quizzes using the SMARTboard because I did not want to grade anything after grading all their exams and I wanted to know if anyone was currently at a level 4 so I could record it in the gradebook and give them an extension activity, rather than an activity that they already have mastered. I had about three students from each 1st and 2nd hour class that needed an extension activity. The rest of the students got a packet on isotopes and ions. These packets were POGIL activities, so inquiry based learning. The students had to challenge themselves to figure out the puzzles they were presented with. They also had to analyze data tables and make their own conclusions. Ms. Brown and I walked around the room if there were questions. But I was sure to set the expectation that I wanted them to challenge themselves. Most students got through the isotope packet and started the ion packet. What they did not finish in class they completed at home. Again they don’t receive points for any homework/assignments, only their test scores. So I just said, “these packets will be good for your notes to prepare you for the lesson tomorrow and your exam, be sure to complete it.”

Standard 2: Diverse Learners

The practitioner understands how students differ in their approaches to learning and creates instructional opportunities that are equitable and are adaptable to diverse learners.


September 25^th- Wednesday 
Today the classes were 30 minutes long. For today’s lesson we gave them a reading on The Mighty Atom, an excerpt from Bill Bryson's, A Short History of Nearly Everything. The reading was about 11 pages and most students completed it in class. The students were asked to take notes on 5 scientists: Dalton, Thomson, Rutherford, Bohr and Schrodinger. These names were written on the board. I told the students it would probably be easier if you took notes while reading the excerpt because you won’t have time to go back through the reading today. Some students were flustered because they weren’t able to focus and they felt timed. I had a few students request to take the article home and I said that there were not enough copies. I had one student ask about the vocabulary. Another student was not paying attention and was on his phone so I came over to Maurice and asked, “are you tweeting your notes?” He laughed and I asked, “what’s your hashtag?” He looked at his reading and made up a creative hashtag and we laughed about it. Then I said, “I’m flattered you would tweet your notes but I need to read them too so write them down please.” He nodded his head and put his phone away, I didn’t see it out the rest of the hour. Then 4th hour I had a student, Gage, who refused to do the reading because he thought it was lame and he claimed that he couldn’t read. I told him that it was a very interesting reading and I wouldn’t assign it if I didn’t think it was helpful. He said he couldn’t read, then I asked him how he was reading phone in class. He said it was easier to read his phone than the reading in front of him. I asked him to try to read the passage and I walked away. I saw that he wasn’t getting anywhere he was just looking around up at the ceiling. So I came back and asked how he was doing. He said he couldn’t read the passage, then he asked could I just read about these people on the internet using my phone? I said if he did that then he would be changing the source and how that would affect his notes. He said that it was too hard for him to focus on the passage in front of him and it would be easier to read off of his phone. So I made a deal with him that he could use his phone but I needed to see notes about each scientist before the period was over. He said okay and went to work. He had all of the notes I had asked him for by the end of the period and I could see him working during class. It didn’t look like he was on any social media. I couldn’t understand if he really needed a different source or he was just too tired to read the passage. In this case i comprimised with him because I had the option to keep arguing with him, allow him to do nothing and stare at the ceiling for the rest of the hour, or try to get him to take notes with such accomodations. I decided on the latter because he still was involvled during class time. 

September 27^th- Friday 
Today in Chemistry  I started the day with saying we are going to have some fun and learn some exciting things. I had a student ask enthusiastically, “are we doing a lab???” I said, “not today, but we are doing an experiment and taking notes on the atomic structure of the atom. I was pleased that this student associated “fun and exciting” with labs because those are my favorite lessons to plan! The students were actually intrigued by this lesson, probably because of the anticipatory set yesterday and the day before. A Lot of their reading correlated with the power point and then at the end of the lesson we talked about isotopes and ions. During the lesson we discussed J.J. Thomson and the cathode ray tube. Ms. Brown was able to find a cathode ray tube so we could show the experiment to the class. This moment made everyone get out of their seats and was exciting. At first I explained the experiment using the powerpoint so the students understood what was happening then I showed them the actual cathode ray tube and they could see it for themselves. A Lot of students were excited and that helped with explaining the rest of the lesson.  During 4th hour, after the lesson, we have announcements and I had 3 students come up to talk to me and ask questions about the lesson. We showed a clip in class “The Space Between” and it seemed to blow a lot of the students minds. That was the idea though, it talked about the real-size of an atom and the components of an atom. One of the professors explained that it may look like I’m sitting in this chair but I’m actually hovering in it because the electrons of the chair and I are repelling each other. Gage asked me questions, “how could you be hovering in your seat due to electrons repelling themselves, but defy gravity?” Then he took an expo marker and started to draw on the board. “If I draw on this board, am I really drawing on this board? Shouldn’t the atoms be falling down?” I was so excited that he was so involved and enthusiastic. We broke his question down into one main question, the atom vs. gravity.  We talked about the forces holding the atom together and how it is indivisible. Then we talked about how gravity is a weak force compared to the strong force of the atom. That made him nod and he agreed. I was so happy that Gage had asked a question like that. It means that he was involved and now I know what captures his attention.  He is “one of the boys” in my 4th hour class that you observed Thursday. He sits in the back row and causes some trouble with his attitude toward learning. If the lesson isn’t engaging he’s not motivated to help himself. For example, Wednesday he gave me rough time with the reading.