I read an interesting article today. It argues that the world is entering a new stage of super fast evolution, as shown by a survey of mutations in human genomes. Humans have changed considerable in the last 10,000 years, leaning towards smaller bodies and brains, which is possibly evidence of a less significant need of old-school survival characteristics. Instead, we've evolved more to eat better food (lactose) and fight off new diseases (HIV).
Interesting. I would have thought the opposite true, that we were evolving more slowly than in the past. I was worried that we were becoming bananas, slowly losing the genetic diversity required to survive large-scale disease outbreaks. I guess we're safe for now. Let's just keep a handle on the antibiotic-resistant bugs we're creating.
I've also spoken to some interesting people lately. This weekend I was listening to stories from a couple of guys in my fire department who had fought in Vietnam. Not only did they have some cool stories of combat and training, they also had some tales about my hometown when they were in high school (class of '66). Apparently there were some gang issues in the school at that time. Who'd have guessed?
I've already made my copies for class tomorrow and Wednesday. I'm ahead of the game. I really can't resist these opportunities to plan ahead. I guess that's my weakness. I can live with that.
Monday, July 18, 2011
Monday Schmonday
Everyone here is having this sort of day.
I did have one major accomplishment today: I pointed out to our school director that the three hours of CM work time scheduled on Friday might be more useful earlier in the week, since our final lesson plans are due Thursday morning. Schedule changed. Yes.
In general, though, Mondays are intimidating. I can handle the thought of one day of work, but five days all thrown at me at once? Four days of teaching, four lessons to plan, and one whole day of PD? Oy.
But today's lesson went well. I tried some new ways to introduce more rigor and a higher level of understanding to the lesson. They were really getting more engaged. Besides, we were talking about vaccines, and who doesn't like vaccines? (Did you know that an estimated 300-500 million people died during the 20th century? And that the last case of smallpox ever was in 1978? I'm reading Demon in the Freezer.) The exit tickets were better (70% average), but I'll do even better tomorrow.
One of the students had to make up the midterm. She was NOT happy about it.
We had a session this morning that dealt with co-teaching. There are some interesting situations I might find myself in this fall, including having a co-teacher to deal with special ed students in my class. It would certainly be interesting having two teachers in the classroom. It would be up to us whether to split teaching duties, or have one teacher and one helper, or to split up the class. I can't wait to see what happens.
As for that, no news. They are expecting a lot of hires in the next few weeks, and I hope I'm one of them.
Back to planning. Next week we have to cram in the whole ecology unit before the final assessment on Thursday. Only 6 more days of instruction!
I did have one major accomplishment today: I pointed out to our school director that the three hours of CM work time scheduled on Friday might be more useful earlier in the week, since our final lesson plans are due Thursday morning. Schedule changed. Yes.
In general, though, Mondays are intimidating. I can handle the thought of one day of work, but five days all thrown at me at once? Four days of teaching, four lessons to plan, and one whole day of PD? Oy.
But today's lesson went well. I tried some new ways to introduce more rigor and a higher level of understanding to the lesson. They were really getting more engaged. Besides, we were talking about vaccines, and who doesn't like vaccines? (Did you know that an estimated 300-500 million people died during the 20th century? And that the last case of smallpox ever was in 1978? I'm reading Demon in the Freezer.) The exit tickets were better (70% average), but I'll do even better tomorrow.
One of the students had to make up the midterm. She was NOT happy about it.
We had a session this morning that dealt with co-teaching. There are some interesting situations I might find myself in this fall, including having a co-teacher to deal with special ed students in my class. It would certainly be interesting having two teachers in the classroom. It would be up to us whether to split teaching duties, or have one teacher and one helper, or to split up the class. I can't wait to see what happens.
As for that, no news. They are expecting a lot of hires in the next few weeks, and I hope I'm one of them.
Back to planning. Next week we have to cram in the whole ecology unit before the final assessment on Thursday. Only 6 more days of instruction!
Friday, July 15, 2011
Friday! Friday!
We had a session today about diversity and inclusiveness in our classroom that tried to get us to talk openly about issues while simultaneously making us feel uncomfortable giving honest opinions. It was an interesting insight on how to keep students comfortable in a classroom during a serious discussion. I think the punchline, though, was that it is important to believe that kids mean well and can become accepting.
We also have to remember not to overreact in a moment and be able to trust our own instincts, because we are adults. Ha.
I was starting to worry about placement, since 22 CT CMs had an interview on Tuesday, but it turns out the school only hired a handful of them. Unfortunate for TFA, but at least I'm not alone. The CT corps is probably around 50% with placement. Other corps seem to be similar. I've been told that August brings A LOT of public school placements.
In other news, it's Friday! Weekend! Fire house swimming pool Kindle weekend!
We also have to remember not to overreact in a moment and be able to trust our own instincts, because we are adults. Ha.
I was starting to worry about placement, since 22 CT CMs had an interview on Tuesday, but it turns out the school only hired a handful of them. Unfortunate for TFA, but at least I'm not alone. The CT corps is probably around 50% with placement. Other corps seem to be similar. I've been told that August brings A LOT of public school placements.
In other news, it's Friday! Weekend! Fire house swimming pool Kindle weekend!
Thursday, July 14, 2011
Results
I know you're all as eager as I was to get the results of my midterm assessment. You know what? It wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be. The class average was 65%, which is a big improvement from the pre-assessment average of 42%. Good enough to pass the Regents, but still room to do better. Now that I know how my lesson plans have failed, I'll be better. The most comforting news is that the student who still needs to pass the Regents got a 67% (passing is 65). Considering he missed the first 3 days of class, he should be able to succeed on the exam.
In addition, we gave surveys to our students asking them questions about whether the teachers make you feel comfortable and cared about, and whether the class is enjoyable and motivating. I couldn't believe how nice they were. My favorite answer is posted above (number 16).
My students like me. I can't wait to teach next week.
I'm so proud.
Eureka!
Here's your assessment for today:
Which of the following is most challenging to me?
(1) Delivering lessons in front of up to 25 high school students.
(2) Obsessively planning every hour of every day of our activity-filled summer.
(3) Making phone calls to the intimidating parents of our class to introduce myself.
For those of you who chose (3), you know me the best! 100%!
And guess what I did yesterday? (3) again!
And it wasn't even that bad. One girl's father was so nice and grateful. The other father I spoke to was defensive about his daughter missing class that day because she had to register for school, but otherwise nice. Whew.
I also had a Eureka! moment in a session yesterday. They presented an issue that we had all been struggling to name so for this summer. See, we were given a list of daily objectives to teach over the summer, and a couple assessments worth of questions. We were told to write lesson plans to teach the objectives only, and nothing extraneous. However, the level of the assessments were much more difficult than the level of the objectives. We were planning and executing lessons that didn't prepare students for success on the exit tickets. This is why my students were understanding the material but scoring so low.
Yesterday this problem was acknowledged officially, and we were instructed on how to increase the rigor of our objectives. I had to rewrite a couple of lesson plans (frustrating) to match the new objectives, but I did, and it felt good.
I'm not too optimistic about our Mid-term Assessment today, especially in light of yesterday's discoveries, but I can't wait to teach my awesome new lesson plans next week (vaccines! transcription! mitosis!).
Unfortunately, I learned that one of the kids involved in the fight yesterday was from the later biology class, which I subbed for, and he was expelled. He is a really smart kid and I hope he sorts out his life soon.
Which of the following is most challenging to me?
(1) Delivering lessons in front of up to 25 high school students.
(2) Obsessively planning every hour of every day of our activity-filled summer.
(3) Making phone calls to the intimidating parents of our class to introduce myself.
For those of you who chose (3), you know me the best! 100%!
And guess what I did yesterday? (3) again!
And it wasn't even that bad. One girl's father was so nice and grateful. The other father I spoke to was defensive about his daughter missing class that day because she had to register for school, but otherwise nice. Whew.
I also had a Eureka! moment in a session yesterday. They presented an issue that we had all been struggling to name so for this summer. See, we were given a list of daily objectives to teach over the summer, and a couple assessments worth of questions. We were told to write lesson plans to teach the objectives only, and nothing extraneous. However, the level of the assessments were much more difficult than the level of the objectives. We were planning and executing lessons that didn't prepare students for success on the exit tickets. This is why my students were understanding the material but scoring so low.
Yesterday this problem was acknowledged officially, and we were instructed on how to increase the rigor of our objectives. I had to rewrite a couple of lesson plans (frustrating) to match the new objectives, but I did, and it felt good.
I'm not too optimistic about our Mid-term Assessment today, especially in light of yesterday's discoveries, but I can't wait to teach my awesome new lesson plans next week (vaccines! transcription! mitosis!).
Unfortunately, I learned that one of the kids involved in the fight yesterday was from the later biology class, which I subbed for, and he was expelled. He is a really smart kid and I hope he sorts out his life soon.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
Chunking
In yesterday's excitement, I left out some of the particular highs and lows. First, I discovered that if you seek out information about TFA from a non-TFA-endorsed website, the picture is much different than I thought. However, upon arrival at St. John's, we were greeted with cotton candy and Sno-cones. They had scheduled events like an Inception screening, yoga class, and an "Ash's Full Body Workout" (which I can only imagine involves Pokemon fighting).
I spent the afternoon starting a new workout plan. I still can't seem to want to get running (a scraped toe doesn't help). Then, I decided to take a trip to Trader Joe's with a friend. No more dining hall packed sandwiches for me. Today I have pita and hummus, string cheese, and freeze dried banana chips (all the joy of bananas, but crunchy!).
There was a fight in the hallway this morning. I was working in the quiet room and heard a scuffle in the hallway. I walked to the doorway to see two (non-TFA) teachers pulling apart two students. One of them required tackling. The hallway was cleared quickly, which impressed me. No one was hurt. I wonder if my job description requires tackling students also.
Today I taught photosynthesis and respiration (organelles, reactants, products, and function only). I had a brilliant 2-part diagram on poster paper. One sheet showed photosynthesis, one sheet showed respiration, but if you overlay them...it's a cycle! I was so proud of it, and so sad to throw it in the trash after class. Way better than any Powerpoint or Smartboard presentation or any of those newfangled technologies that ALL OTHER CLASSROOMS HAVE.
We found an overhead projector this week. It was broken. I guess we'll stick with the poster board.
My exit slips averaged 67%; not bad, but definitely not class mastery. The student with the lowest score is frustrating to me. He knows the material, which he shows in class discussion and answering questions. He is not always paying attention completely (I know what that's about), but he has insightful comments and answers, and sometimes makes anticipatory connections that make me happy. However, he is not doing well on his exit tickets. There is some disconnect between his verbal knowledge and his ability to answer Regents multiple choice questions. I've seen this in other students, like one who scored well on the short answer part of the pre-Assessment, but got nearly all of the multiple choice questions wrong.
This one student, I suspect, is performing poorly for one of two reasons: he isn't paying attention to the questions and answer choices, or he is having trouble breaking apart the dense wording of the questions/answers. Today I addressed the idea that is possible to use context clues to interpret confusing test questions, but I think I will include more mini-lessons this summer. I think test-taking skills should be emphasized more; I saw assessments with multiple choice questions left blank!
After a one-hour review tomorrow and a brief discussion of “chunking” (breaking verboseness into smaller, more understandable chunks), they have their midterm assessment. I hope it goes well.
And now, I have some pita and hummus eagerly awaiting.
I spent the afternoon starting a new workout plan. I still can't seem to want to get running (a scraped toe doesn't help). Then, I decided to take a trip to Trader Joe's with a friend. No more dining hall packed sandwiches for me. Today I have pita and hummus, string cheese, and freeze dried banana chips (all the joy of bananas, but crunchy!).
There was a fight in the hallway this morning. I was working in the quiet room and heard a scuffle in the hallway. I walked to the doorway to see two (non-TFA) teachers pulling apart two students. One of them required tackling. The hallway was cleared quickly, which impressed me. No one was hurt. I wonder if my job description requires tackling students also.
Today I taught photosynthesis and respiration (organelles, reactants, products, and function only). I had a brilliant 2-part diagram on poster paper. One sheet showed photosynthesis, one sheet showed respiration, but if you overlay them...it's a cycle! I was so proud of it, and so sad to throw it in the trash after class. Way better than any Powerpoint or Smartboard presentation or any of those newfangled technologies that ALL OTHER CLASSROOMS HAVE.
We found an overhead projector this week. It was broken. I guess we'll stick with the poster board.
My exit slips averaged 67%; not bad, but definitely not class mastery. The student with the lowest score is frustrating to me. He knows the material, which he shows in class discussion and answering questions. He is not always paying attention completely (I know what that's about), but he has insightful comments and answers, and sometimes makes anticipatory connections that make me happy. However, he is not doing well on his exit tickets. There is some disconnect between his verbal knowledge and his ability to answer Regents multiple choice questions. I've seen this in other students, like one who scored well on the short answer part of the pre-Assessment, but got nearly all of the multiple choice questions wrong.
This one student, I suspect, is performing poorly for one of two reasons: he isn't paying attention to the questions and answer choices, or he is having trouble breaking apart the dense wording of the questions/answers. Today I addressed the idea that is possible to use context clues to interpret confusing test questions, but I think I will include more mini-lessons this summer. I think test-taking skills should be emphasized more; I saw assessments with multiple choice questions left blank!
After a one-hour review tomorrow and a brief discussion of “chunking” (breaking verboseness into smaller, more understandable chunks), they have their midterm assessment. I hope it goes well.
And now, I have some pita and hummus eagerly awaiting.
Classroom Management
Well, that was interesting.
My own class went...okay. I gave a great lesson on enzymes and my students made great cartoons describing enzyme-catalyzed reactions. But they bombed the exit ticket (average 40%). I learned that understanding the concepts and ideas is not exactly what is tested on the Regents, and my exit ticket was only Regents questions. If I want them to do well on tests, I have to practice test questions with them. But that takes time away from teaching concepts. What do I do? Teach for the test or teach for the knowledge? I'm pretty happy with their cartoons.
And then came substitute teaching. Oy gevalt. While most of the students were involved in the lesson, the classroom management was terrible. It started out with a student not taking notes. I told her she had to take notes. She said, "I don't gotta do sh*t."
Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. What do I do now?
I turned around, and caught the other student teacher for that class block (i.e. the collab of the teacher we were subbing for) and asked her to take the student out of the class. Whew.
Overall, the students were generally chatty, sometimes shouting across the room at each other and saying not nice things. It was frustrating to not be aware of their established classroom management plan, and therefore not knowing what the right series of warnings and punishments would be.
I think I could do better. First, it would help to have someplace to send misbehaving students to, like a principal or dean, rather than requiring another teacher present to speak to them in the hallway. Next, I would like to have an established series of rewards and consequences. Also, I would plan my lessons for a larger class! We just used my collab's lesson that he had done with our small class earlier. Definitely possible, just more work.
Anyway, it was exhausting. I can understand what it is like to feel ineffective. However, the afternoon class, a planned three-hour session of learning, began with this Powerpoint slide: "Happy TFA Day! Go home. The bus is here."
I shall be playing games and working out and buying food until further notice.
My own class went...okay. I gave a great lesson on enzymes and my students made great cartoons describing enzyme-catalyzed reactions. But they bombed the exit ticket (average 40%). I learned that understanding the concepts and ideas is not exactly what is tested on the Regents, and my exit ticket was only Regents questions. If I want them to do well on tests, I have to practice test questions with them. But that takes time away from teaching concepts. What do I do? Teach for the test or teach for the knowledge? I'm pretty happy with their cartoons.
And then came substitute teaching. Oy gevalt. While most of the students were involved in the lesson, the classroom management was terrible. It started out with a student not taking notes. I told her she had to take notes. She said, "I don't gotta do sh*t."
Okaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay. What do I do now?
I turned around, and caught the other student teacher for that class block (i.e. the collab of the teacher we were subbing for) and asked her to take the student out of the class. Whew.
Overall, the students were generally chatty, sometimes shouting across the room at each other and saying not nice things. It was frustrating to not be aware of their established classroom management plan, and therefore not knowing what the right series of warnings and punishments would be.
I think I could do better. First, it would help to have someplace to send misbehaving students to, like a principal or dean, rather than requiring another teacher present to speak to them in the hallway. Next, I would like to have an established series of rewards and consequences. Also, I would plan my lessons for a larger class! We just used my collab's lesson that he had done with our small class earlier. Definitely possible, just more work.
Anyway, it was exhausting. I can understand what it is like to feel ineffective. However, the afternoon class, a planned three-hour session of learning, began with this Powerpoint slide: "Happy TFA Day! Go home. The bus is here."
I shall be playing games and working out and buying food until further notice.
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