I can't believe that there are only 3 weeks left in this school year! I am so grateful for this much needed Thanksgiving week-long break. It came at just the right time! There has been little consistency in this month of November. We have had so many changes in our school, from International Week to field trips, so the lack of structure has definitely been challenging.
As I wrote in my last blog post, the structure of my math block has been a cause of stress because of all the differentiation and planning. However, I have tried two things this month that have helped both my remedial, 3.1 (on-level), and 3.2 (advanced) groups. Something that I have started doing with both my remedial and 3.2 group is mini-math tasks. With my remedial group, I have tried to provide the appropriate amount of scaffolding so that the tasks aren't frustrational. With my 3.2 group, I try to give them a few tasks a week at the beginning of the math period so that I can work with my 3.1 group. This helps me manage my time a little better, so I'm not running around from group to group. Another thing that I have tried to do more regularly this month is number talks with my 3.1 group. My math coach at my school has encouraged us to lead number talks to build math fluency. I have realized that my students are still using their fingers to add/subtract simple numbers together, instead of using their knowledge of base-ten to help them. For example, it takes them a long time to add together 19 + 6, and they are using their fingers and are sometimes inaccurate (instead of adding 1 to make 20 and then subtracting 1 from 6 to get a total of 25). So I have been leading number talks so that my students can learn more efficient, accurate, and flexible ways to combine and separate numbers.
A pattern that has emerged in my connections for the month of November is having my kids internalize that writing is a cycle. It's hard for students to sustain interest have the endurance to work on a writing project for an extended period of time. I have noticed that many of my students think of each step of the writing process as something to check off their to do list. For example, students will prewrite because I have told them that they need to prewrite, but few actually have internalized the purpose of prewriting. Telling students the purpose of each writing stage is not sufficient -- this is not how students internalize knowledge. I know that I need to model how to stick with one piece for an extended amount of time, bringing it through each step of the writing process. I want them to know for themselves that writing is cyclical, and writing is not just done once you finish the first draft. If anyone has any helpful tips for how to help build writing endurance for our kids, please let me know!
One of the other things that has popped up in my connections is my composure and behavior management. I am struggling to strike a balance between being funny and goofy (being my true self) while at the same time being firm and authoritative. What often happens when I try to have fun is that my kids get a little too silly or a little too over the top and then things get out of control. Then I feel like I have to get super strict and mean so that my students can get back in line. I want to be consistent and I want to both be authoritative and myself. I don't want my kids to consider me a friend but I do want to welcome my personality and find myself as a teacher. I'm getting closer to this but I'm still not there yet. Again, if anyone wants to shed any light on how they strike this balance, that would be greatly appreciated :).
Just because I am in the Thanksgiving spirit, I want to take a moment to give thanks for all of you. You have all accepted me for who I am and you have decided to be compassionate instead of judgmental. You all are such an important part of my teaching journey and I would not still be standing if it weren't for all of you. So thank you, thank you, thank you :).
Friday, November 29, 2013
Saturday, November 2, 2013
October of Year 2
I've been reflecting up on the similarities and differences between October of year 1 and October of year 2. October is deemed one of the toughest and darkest months of the school year, and in some ways, this still stands true. Although I am in such a better place than I was last year (praise the Lord), I'm still dealing with some real struggles that have surfaced in a big way this month.
I have higher goals and expectations for myself this year, because I know more than I did last year, and I have more expertise and experience than last year. I am more aware when I am making good instructional and pedagogical decisions and when I am not. I have been struggling to find a teaching routine that maximizes time, student-centeredness (yes, I made up that word), and productivity. Even though it sounds silly, a big stress for me this month has been transition times. My students this year are a little bit slower in the sense that they like to take their time and they don't like to be rushed (which can sometimes be a good thing). I have also not been organized as I would like, so these two things result in slow transitions that take up a lot of time. Teaching so many subjects a day requires a lot of transitions and it's been really tough. I find myself running out of time for all of the things that I want to do which stresses me out. I have been trying to find a balance in accepting who my students are and how they work while also utilizing different strategies to maximize time for student learning.
Another pattern that has emerged over this month has been my difficulty in planning and executing my math lessons. I am planning 3 math lessons a day (one for remedial math, regular "on-level" math, and 3.2 math) and it has been very overwhelming trying to plan and execute these lessons. During my 45-50 minute math period, I have to teach 2 completely different curricula to 2 different math groups. I used to love teaching math but the structural and organizational changes of my math block this year have resulted in me actually disliking my math time. What I have found some success in is trying to only meet with one math group a day, but that is sometimes impossible because my 3.2 math group is expected to learn new standards very quickly (because their curriculum is sped up) and therefore that requires a lot of my attention. During the beginning of the month I felt as though I was giving my 3.2 math group too much attention and time which then resulted in not being able to meet with my on-level kids as much. Towards the end of the month, I have tried to give my 3.2 students more independent tasks to do which sometimes is successful and sometimes, they feel unsupported and express to me that they need more help. It's been really tough, honestly, and math is often the most frustrating part of my day. I am still trying to figure out how to organize my time and effort and how to make sure that I'm spending meaningful time with all of my students so that I can best support them.
I know that I need to celebrate, too, because there are always positive things (even if they're sometimes hard to focus on). Book clubs have been going well in my classroom (except for my lowest readers, who still need my support and have not independently led their own book clubs yet). There are two groups who have been independently running their own book clubs for more than a month now, which is really exciting. They are choosing their own books, coming to their book clubs with connections, questions, observations, and "Wonderful Word" sightings, and they are rocking it! There have been a few times where I needed to step in because of some conflicts (i.e. they couldn't agree on something) but for the most part I have really not needed to guide them in any significant way. What I am trying to work on with them now is to push their analysis and to deepen their talk so that they are critically and deeply analyzing what they are reading and are not just spending the majority of the time talking about what character they like, for example. My highest readers are going to start a book club on a chapter book next week, which will be exciting. I have been so impressed with this group that I had my whole class observe one of their book clubs (it was like a fishbowl) and observe how they were talking to one another, what they were discussing, etc. This was a great opportunity for the rest of my students to learn from their classmates and see a model for what they will soon be doing. To be honest, it has been difficult for my struggling readers to feel as though they can independently run their own book clubs because they are still learning how to read and decode. I know that their book clubs are going to look a little different and I'm trying to support them in whatever way I can.
Another pattern that emerged in my daily connections has been my experience with writing conferences. I started conferring with my writers more than a month ago and I have been trying to implement what I have learned in How's it Going? and they are going great with some of my writers and I have been really struggling with others. There are days when I feel great about my writing conferences and how much I'm learning about their interests, skills, etc. but then there are other days when I'm wondering if any of my writers are actually growing/improving. My biggest struggle right now is knowing how to help my lowest writers, who are barely writing sentences in English that make sense. However I am also struggling with my more confident writers who are just speeding through the writing process, publishing piece after piece, but not really reflecting upon what they're writing or how they're writing. I have recently implemented the "Writing Goals" tracker that I sent out to everyone to make sure that all students are consciously working towards certain, measurable goals. What I find is that my students forget what we discuss in our writing conferences and then no growth is made. To be honest, it's been really tough and sometimes it's hard to even trust that this is worth all of the time that I'm putting into them, but I'm hanging on to see if things improve.
Wow, so that was a lot. There is so much more that I could say but I'll stop here. Looking back across the month, I'm feeling discouraged and encouraged at the same time. This month has been tough -- I have been trying to implement big changes in my classroom, which is exciting and daunting at the same time. It has been awesome and terrible at the same time, and I'm learning to trust the process even if I don't see results right away.
I have higher goals and expectations for myself this year, because I know more than I did last year, and I have more expertise and experience than last year. I am more aware when I am making good instructional and pedagogical decisions and when I am not. I have been struggling to find a teaching routine that maximizes time, student-centeredness (yes, I made up that word), and productivity. Even though it sounds silly, a big stress for me this month has been transition times. My students this year are a little bit slower in the sense that they like to take their time and they don't like to be rushed (which can sometimes be a good thing). I have also not been organized as I would like, so these two things result in slow transitions that take up a lot of time. Teaching so many subjects a day requires a lot of transitions and it's been really tough. I find myself running out of time for all of the things that I want to do which stresses me out. I have been trying to find a balance in accepting who my students are and how they work while also utilizing different strategies to maximize time for student learning.
Another pattern that has emerged over this month has been my difficulty in planning and executing my math lessons. I am planning 3 math lessons a day (one for remedial math, regular "on-level" math, and 3.2 math) and it has been very overwhelming trying to plan and execute these lessons. During my 45-50 minute math period, I have to teach 2 completely different curricula to 2 different math groups. I used to love teaching math but the structural and organizational changes of my math block this year have resulted in me actually disliking my math time. What I have found some success in is trying to only meet with one math group a day, but that is sometimes impossible because my 3.2 math group is expected to learn new standards very quickly (because their curriculum is sped up) and therefore that requires a lot of my attention. During the beginning of the month I felt as though I was giving my 3.2 math group too much attention and time which then resulted in not being able to meet with my on-level kids as much. Towards the end of the month, I have tried to give my 3.2 students more independent tasks to do which sometimes is successful and sometimes, they feel unsupported and express to me that they need more help. It's been really tough, honestly, and math is often the most frustrating part of my day. I am still trying to figure out how to organize my time and effort and how to make sure that I'm spending meaningful time with all of my students so that I can best support them.
I know that I need to celebrate, too, because there are always positive things (even if they're sometimes hard to focus on). Book clubs have been going well in my classroom (except for my lowest readers, who still need my support and have not independently led their own book clubs yet). There are two groups who have been independently running their own book clubs for more than a month now, which is really exciting. They are choosing their own books, coming to their book clubs with connections, questions, observations, and "Wonderful Word" sightings, and they are rocking it! There have been a few times where I needed to step in because of some conflicts (i.e. they couldn't agree on something) but for the most part I have really not needed to guide them in any significant way. What I am trying to work on with them now is to push their analysis and to deepen their talk so that they are critically and deeply analyzing what they are reading and are not just spending the majority of the time talking about what character they like, for example. My highest readers are going to start a book club on a chapter book next week, which will be exciting. I have been so impressed with this group that I had my whole class observe one of their book clubs (it was like a fishbowl) and observe how they were talking to one another, what they were discussing, etc. This was a great opportunity for the rest of my students to learn from their classmates and see a model for what they will soon be doing. To be honest, it has been difficult for my struggling readers to feel as though they can independently run their own book clubs because they are still learning how to read and decode. I know that their book clubs are going to look a little different and I'm trying to support them in whatever way I can.
Another pattern that emerged in my daily connections has been my experience with writing conferences. I started conferring with my writers more than a month ago and I have been trying to implement what I have learned in How's it Going? and they are going great with some of my writers and I have been really struggling with others. There are days when I feel great about my writing conferences and how much I'm learning about their interests, skills, etc. but then there are other days when I'm wondering if any of my writers are actually growing/improving. My biggest struggle right now is knowing how to help my lowest writers, who are barely writing sentences in English that make sense. However I am also struggling with my more confident writers who are just speeding through the writing process, publishing piece after piece, but not really reflecting upon what they're writing or how they're writing. I have recently implemented the "Writing Goals" tracker that I sent out to everyone to make sure that all students are consciously working towards certain, measurable goals. What I find is that my students forget what we discuss in our writing conferences and then no growth is made. To be honest, it's been really tough and sometimes it's hard to even trust that this is worth all of the time that I'm putting into them, but I'm hanging on to see if things improve.
Wow, so that was a lot. There is so much more that I could say but I'll stop here. Looking back across the month, I'm feeling discouraged and encouraged at the same time. This month has been tough -- I have been trying to implement big changes in my classroom, which is exciting and daunting at the same time. It has been awesome and terrible at the same time, and I'm learning to trust the process even if I don't see results right away.
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