This week I taught 75% of the teaching load. Teaching every day minus guided reading, vocab, and spelling was much of a step up, but I still love every minute. I continue to have a few students who test my patience each day. During our weekly teacher coordinator meetings I chose to seek some advice on the student who seems to have major task management issues each day. From this meeting I have decided to clean out his desk of anything "distracting" and place it in a box with his name on it in a location he can get to. These distractions will include anything but his 1 pencil and textbooks. I will begin this Monday and see how it affects the work completion problems. This week I also decided to plan a pumpkin unit for next week. I also set up a few observations during the unit. On Tuesday Mrs. Horner will be coming in to observe the "exploration" part of the unit. As I began to think about how to set up the room I decided have the students rotate to centers would be a good chance for students to get up out of their seats, work with a group, and explore different ideas about pumpkins. Emily suggested that I try having the students rotate to centers before an observation from the principal. I agreed, but felt it was almost unnecessary because how hard could it be to move to centers with a group? WRONG! On Friday I set up 5 centers around the room for a math lesson where the students explored using a pan-balance. The students were in 5 groups of 5 and had a sheet where they would collect their data. Supplies were laid out and when the bell rang they would rotate to the next center. Easy right? no...headache was more like it. It was one of the biggest learning experiences I have ever had while teaching. I seemed to have every problem- fighting, yelling, running, bossy students, mean students, tattle telling students, and the list went on. Mrs. Fawcett stepped in and helped monitor groups luckily. We finished the rotations and immediately had a "post-conference" about how we should have acted in the groups. We discussed whisper talking, walking, and treating each other with respect. The students could easily tell me how they should have been acting, yet no one could actually show me the correct way. I noticed very quickly that more directions needed to be placed at the centers, or discussed before having the students move around the room. I learned that you can never assume that students know how to work in a group. You can never assume students know the rules or expectations of rotating around the room. And finally students have fun getting up and actually being involved in their learning.
I am very glad we practiced centers before I was observed by our principal, but now I will worry it will not go well on Tuesday. I will cross my fingers and perfect my directions, centers, and groupings to make sure the students get the most out of the pumpkin exploration.
This week I taught 75% of the teaching load. Teaching every day minus guided reading, vocab, and spelling was much of a step up, but I still love every minute.
ReplyDeleteI continue to have a few students who test my patience each day. During our weekly teacher coordinator meetings I chose to seek some advice on the student who seems to have major task management issues each day. From this meeting I have decided to clean out his desk of anything "distracting" and place it in a box with his name on it in a location he can get to. These distractions will include anything but his 1 pencil and textbooks. I will begin this Monday and see how it affects the work completion problems.
This week I also decided to plan a pumpkin unit for next week. I also set up a few observations during the unit. On Tuesday Mrs. Horner will be coming in to observe the "exploration" part of the unit. As I began to think about how to set up the room I decided have the students rotate to centers would be a good chance for students to get up out of their seats, work with a group, and explore different ideas about pumpkins. Emily suggested that I try having the students rotate to centers before an observation from the principal. I agreed, but felt it was almost unnecessary because how hard could it be to move to centers with a group?
WRONG! On Friday I set up 5 centers around the room for a math lesson where the students explored using a pan-balance. The students were in 5 groups of 5 and had a sheet where they would collect their data. Supplies were laid out and when the bell rang they would rotate to the next center. Easy right? no...headache was more like it. It was one of the biggest learning experiences I have ever had while teaching. I seemed to have every problem- fighting, yelling, running, bossy students, mean students, tattle telling students, and the list went on. Mrs. Fawcett stepped in and helped monitor groups luckily. We finished the rotations and immediately had a "post-conference" about how we should have acted in the groups. We discussed whisper talking, walking, and treating each other with respect. The students could easily tell me how they should have been acting, yet no one could actually show me the correct way. I noticed very quickly that more directions needed to be placed at the centers, or discussed before having the students move around the room.
I learned that you can never assume that students know how to work in a group. You can never assume students know the rules or expectations of rotating around the room. And finally students have fun getting up and actually being involved in their learning.
I am very glad we practiced centers before I was observed by our principal, but now I will worry it will not go well on Tuesday. I will cross my fingers and perfect my directions, centers, and groupings to make sure the students get the most out of the pumpkin exploration.
Your "box" solution for the task completion problem sounds like a success story. I am so glad you shared it.
ReplyDelete