Monday, June 25, 2007

Blog 2

Looking back on this past year, I found that it was very easy to be critical of yourself. Especially with high expectations for your class, you immediately become self-critical when you're not seeing results. Because of this fact, I think I'll first talk about one of the learning goals where I thought I was least successful.

One of the biggest learning goals in middle school that seems to be integrated in nearly all M.S. math problems was the objective over adding and subtracting fractions. Now, I've always thought of myself as a pretty good teacher. I normally can assess how a student thinks and then I'll try to relate a task back to his/her interests and teach them the material. This became extremely hard to do with this prompt because I taught it multiple ways. I thought I should show the different methods one can do in order to solve for that objective. This confused my kids so much early on, because I could tell already that the task of adding and subtracting fractions intimidated them. They weren't very motivated, and they often complained about having to learn this task. So really, I think I just pretty much added fuel to the fire by not giving them a clear cut way of solving the problem. Now, some would argue that you need to show multiple ways because some students see things differently; but if I had to do it over again, I would show one standard way that everyone in the class would do. I thought I did a poor job of assessing my students attitudes towards the subject, and therefore just tried to do what I thought a teacher should do. I believe teaching is having the ability to get to know the students, and then to adapt your own teaching style to better compliment their learning needs. I also thought I did a bad job with my own patience. I'm normally a pretty patient person, but their frustration rubbed off on me. I couldn't see why they did not understand this concept. I should've asked for help from another math teacher or coach. Instead, I kind of just got frustrated with them, and kept on trying to force my lesson plans down their throat hoping that they would come around. I don't recommend doing that. My instructional procedures were okay, but I just wish I would've adapted to their learning styles a little better. As far as differential instruction goes, I tried to show a variety of ways to solve the problem. I had handouts, boardword, and a fraction chart that we stuck on the wall. I still believe though that some lessons are better if they are uniform for the entire class.

Now, I did think that I did an exceptional job at teaching multiplying and dividing integers with different signs, and it's even clearer to me now as to why I had success. First off, I took advice from another teacher, and then adopted her strategy into my lesson plan. Plus, I was a lot more confident with what I was working with, and I felt that I had an excellent strategy for teaching the objective. Plus, I think because I taught this towards the end of the year, I knew my students a lot better. I did a much better job of meeting their needs, because I knew what their needs were. It was awesome. My procedures were very clear the entire lesson, and once again, I used a variety of activities. In particular, my integer triangle that I had them make was a huge hit. I even saw them writing it down when it came time for the state test.

So in conclusion, I am a much better teacher when I don't try and force something on my students. I have to continue to make the effort to assess the students' learning styles and make an effort to be patient and work according to how they learn. It really is that simple; I was being sarcastic.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Blog #1

I definitely was a little surprised when I found out that we were only going to have two students in our 8th grade math class. I was even more surprised to find out that they were going to be the two quietest kids I've ever dealt with in one year of teaching. I'm laughing in my head just thinking about it. My initial goals for the lessons were basically to drill them with a variation of activities all pertaining to the first week's objectives. For instance, one of the first lessons was about adding and subtracting integers. I first gave them the basic notes over what an integer is and then we discussed them and made our own list of what we thought one was. I then would show a list of different positive and negative signs on the board and show them how they cancel each other out. We would then do a matching game with index cards, and then an activity where they were coming to the board and showing the rest of class how positives and negatives cancel each other out. Needless to say, I wanted to offer a variety of instruction that would cover everyone in the room.

I felt my learning goals were appropriate in terms of development, because in my one year of teaching I noticed that a lot of my students had only been exposed to one type of learning style. And since they didn’t pass the class, I’m going to take a guess and say that might be one reason why they did not master the 8th grade; maybe they just weren’t auditory learners. The learning goals I began with are very appropriate in terms of development, because a lot of them are foundational for excelling at the next grade. The majority of our lessons that we are going over include fractions, percents, decimals, integers. Since these are the building blocks for math, we have to make sure that we use all of the techniques available, so the student will for sure master the material.

And finally, the instructional decisions that we made were mostly geared towards having the student equipped enough where he/she could teach the objective to their peers. Because this was what we wanted, we definitely wanted to put into place a lot of procedures where the student has to figure some a concept out and present it to the class. I believe there is just something about orally presenting a concept that makes you remember it more. One particular inductive strategy that I used in my lesson plans was writing a list of numbers on the board and asking the student to group the numbers together however they wanted. They would, however, have to explain why they put the numbers in that particular order. This was extremely helpful just because it gave us a chance as teachers to see the student’s thought process. This definitely benefited our ability to now try and teach an objective to the student.

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Game Time

Well, it's just about time to leave for good 'ole Oxford, MS, and I'm trying to remember how I felt about starting the program at this time last year. I was just leaving Colorado, and I think I just capped that experience off with an equisite fly-fishing trip to Aspen. Needless to say, I was pretty pro-Colorado at the time. I'm amazed at how beautiful and different America is so many times. But anyways, I was actually very unsure of how it would go being that I had taken a year off from academically challenging myself with University material, and I was more in fear of how hard it was going to be to get back in to study mode. I guess I just believed that once you stop your collegiate experience, you forget all about how you made it through the whole thing. So I think that was what was on my mind at the time when I was making my way up Hwy.6. You can tell I was a rookie; I was taking Hwy. 6 at the time. What a tool. Hwy. 7 is the only way for those experienced Mississippi travelers. But then ofcourse after meeting everyone in the program and just seeing how exciting this program was going to be, I closed the experience with a high that I hadn't felt in a while. I was genuinely excited about the opportunity that I was about to be graced with. I was going to impact students' lives in Jackson, MS. Ofcourse, they had never had anyone who was as talented as I was, so therefore I'm going to absolutely dominate the moment I walk in the door. After all, I've been successful at a lot of other things. I mean seriously, how hard can it be. I'll have them saying O Captain, My Captain by the end of the first week. Then reality set in, and in the words of the great James Drake, "I felt like a chump." I was getting my butt kicked and I was on the phone complaining to my dad about how I felt so incapable of having success at my school. The high that I had after leaving summer training was over, and I did something that I think every new person should consider. I set a timeline for how fast I was going to have success. And when it didn't occur, I viewed my works as somewhat of a failure even though I wasn't doing half bad. But I didn't think I was the best in the building. I didn't think I had all of the kids' respect. I had to learn PATIENCE. Just like Axle Rose teaches us in the popular Guns 'n Roses song. "Just a little patience." You've got to learn that you are going in to an area of the world and being engulfed into a culture that most of us have no prior experience dealing with. You're going to have to take the time to get adjusted. It's a fact. You're not a character from a novel or a movie; remember that. Success happens for everyone at different times. Also, don't measure success by how your progress is compared to others in the program. It's a marathon not a sprint. You don't want to burn out too early. Trust me, it happens. But if you don't think I'm being completely honest about my time as a teacher in this state and in this program just read my blogs. Start with the first one ofcourse and just read until you get to my last blog before this one. I went from having kids make me feel like a failure to making me feel like family.....and that's the reality.

Witness!!!

It's official. I am an NBA basketball fan again. I know I should probably be writing some tips about teaching or something and I'm sure I'll get to that eventually, but come on....King James performance was unreal. I haven't felt a connection to NBA basketball since Jordan's swish over Bryan Russell. I hated the Lakers, grew bored with the Spurs, thought the Pistons won out of sure luck, and I often times forget that Miami even won it last year considering they exited out of the first round this year. I guess I've kind of claimed the Mavericks the last couple of years just because they're from Texas, and they are exciting to watch every now and again. But ultimately, the only basketball I watch is on the college level. Now this was quite the contrary in the Jordan Bulls days. I used to get permission from my father to stay up late just to "witness" greatness happening. He happily permitted me to do this, because he knows watching performances like Jordan's happen very rarely. Lebron's 48-point game....the magic is back. I can't stop talking about it with my dad and my friends from college. It was sick. Plus, the final game included a show-stopping performance from Texas's own Daniel Gibson; that's right I said Texas in case you weren't paying attention. He used to abuse me in the practice facility on campus, and now I get a great story out of it. My life is complete. I have significance.
Now if you read these blogs for educational/pracitical purposes, this is your time. My last week of school occurred last week, and I'm not going to lie it was a weird feeling. I'm actually going to miss a lot of those kids. One thing that shocked me as well was how emotional the kids were. I thought it was a going to be an atmosphere that was just "Partay!", but instead it was a time to put on Ne-yo and reminisce (not sure how you spell it and too lazy to put it on word and check). In fact, that's exactly what I did. One of my male students was like, "Coach can we just put our chairs in a circle, put on some soft music, and just talk about the year?" I was all about it. I was cracking up though inside. Middle school kids amaze me over and over. So the girls sobbed uncontrollably, me and the guys told jokes, and 99 jams soothed our ears as we took in the last hour and a half of the school year. We then polished it off with a nice group hug. I said some words and asked if anyone else would like to say anything. I felt like a pastor giving the benediction at a sunday service about to say, "And now go in the grace of God and honor him with your works." Ofcourse, I really didn't say that....gotta be P.C....haha. I did, however, tell them how much I enjoyed their company and asked them all to come back and see me this next year. It's crazy how things work out, because that was my most troublesome class of the year. I had so many days where I would leave that class absolutely pissed off because of something that they did. I guess they just wanted to see if I would stick or not. Well, I'm sticking.