I am eternally grateful for having the support I have to remind me of the good things that are happening in my professional life. Something came up where I had this idea that I might try working at an A school. I pitched my idea to a few friends. Their response was almost unanimous. What really touched me is that they were able to bring me back to where my passion truly belongs.
The message:
"You love working with bad students to transform them into something good."
"Why not bring our C school to an A?"
Admittedly, I get bogged down by the bureaucratic nonsense of teaching. I fail to believe there is a cookie cutter formula for evaluating teacher success. Therefore, I struggle with how much I care about my own appraisal. If there's a cookie cutter formula for evaluating teacher success, why do we have to differentiate our instruction to our students? woOoosaAaah Mark. You're getting off topic. Back track to positive. I do care to be best teacher I can possibly be. I don't need the recognition. My students will speak volumes to what's good in my class. I know this because my colleagues tell me :) Thanks folks!
So in the midst of my distractions of bureaucracy, I felt that I've lost a sense of what's important. I lost my perspective to where my real focus needs to be. I forgot that I was doing something that makes me happy. Odd. I definitely say "I love my job" more times than anyone can count. I'm so glad I wear my professional heart on my sleeve. It makes a world of difference when others can remind me of what really matters to me. Special thanks to those who helped me understand this. You're awesome.
'til next time!
-Mr.A
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
#EDUwin
Today was our monthly staff meeting after school when the students were let out early. I left work feeling pretty sour. Not going to expound on this though. During lunch, I met up with Jen (our school's tech specialist). She invited everyone to join her for lunch to watch a TEDtalk. TEDtalks have been very insightful to me lately so I thought I'd join. She ended up showing one that I've seen already, but I stayed anyway. It's nice to refresh a message that was inspiring and helpful. It was about "How to be happy at work." They talked about changing the mindset from success-leading-to-happiness and flipping to happiness-leading-to-success.
One thing that stood out for me was that keeping a journal of your success would be productive to maintaining a positive attitude. I thought about how I started this blog to rant. That only lasted one post. I'm glad that I switched to keeping a positively focused message on what I choose to expound upon. Since our staff meeting was quite miserable, I had to find something good that happened in my classroom.
It took a while, but I realized that I've been playing a lot of games lately with my students to foster learning. I introduced a content-modified version of Taboo to my Reading students. They LOVED it! I played game called "no peeking" with my Math students so can be more acquainted with the vocabulary they are using to solve measurements of various figures and circles. It seemed to be successful. Today, we did "dice races" and it kept most of my Math students engaged. We also did a carousel activity in my Math classes. Watching my students walk around spotting errors at each station was absolutely mind-blowing. Yes. These activities take some work to set up and carry out. I'd rather put in the effort to enjoy watching my students learn actively than shaving my own efforts to watch my students fail miserably at worksheet activities. Thanks. But no thanks. I'm looking forward to seeing how much my students have retained via the activities and differentiated repetitions they've been exposed to!
'til next time!
-Mr.A
One thing that stood out for me was that keeping a journal of your success would be productive to maintaining a positive attitude. I thought about how I started this blog to rant. That only lasted one post. I'm glad that I switched to keeping a positively focused message on what I choose to expound upon. Since our staff meeting was quite miserable, I had to find something good that happened in my classroom.
It took a while, but I realized that I've been playing a lot of games lately with my students to foster learning. I introduced a content-modified version of Taboo to my Reading students. They LOVED it! I played game called "no peeking" with my Math students so can be more acquainted with the vocabulary they are using to solve measurements of various figures and circles. It seemed to be successful. Today, we did "dice races" and it kept most of my Math students engaged. We also did a carousel activity in my Math classes. Watching my students walk around spotting errors at each station was absolutely mind-blowing. Yes. These activities take some work to set up and carry out. I'd rather put in the effort to enjoy watching my students learn actively than shaving my own efforts to watch my students fail miserably at worksheet activities. Thanks. But no thanks. I'm looking forward to seeing how much my students have retained via the activities and differentiated repetitions they've been exposed to!
'til next time!
-Mr.A
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Caught by surprise
My school invited parents of Reading students to come and get involved with their student's academics. Being a school zoned to serve lower SES families, it's no surprise that only 3 parents showed. Actually, I'm thrown by the poor attendance but such is life no? Anyway, I did this project with my kids to work on their summarizing and reading fluency in which they had to record their writing as a podcast. I thought it would be neat to show their parents what they did. Actually, this was all my school's Curriculum Coordinator's doing. She pretty much planned it out for me. I just had to carry it out. Thanks Aubrey! Anyway, the project had its ups and downs. The final drafts of their summaries were mostly atrocious. Discouraging. Flat out bad. So I wasn't looking forward to hearing their recordings. Much less, grading those bad boys. My sentiments changed over during Parent Night though. I shared the podcast with the one parent that showed up for my students. She was delighted to her what her son had done. The joyous expression on her face just said it all. So I decided to go ahead and take an iPod home and listen to all the podcasts. I was pleasantly delighted in the work my students had put out. It's always nice to find the good things that are happening in your classroom, especially when it's least expected. I always preach positive attitudes, but we fall victim to the struggles around us. Time to kick back and revel in something that puts a smile on my face.
Oh yeah. It helps that I got a SMARTboard installed in my classroom this afternoon!
'til next time
-Mr.A
Oh yeah. It helps that I got a SMARTboard installed in my classroom this afternoon!
'til next time
-Mr.A
Wednesday, March 7, 2012
Eye Opener
Today was the first day of the grading period. For me, that meant I closed up my gradebook and reviewed my data with my students. Today, I just reviewed with my 6th graders. Every grading period, I breakdown my grade distribution for each class. We take a look at the data to see the percentage of students who met the desired goal for the class - to earn a C or better.
In reaction to the behaviors I've been seeing in my classroom, I started keeping track of the data on the referrals I write. Ok. A large part was because of the one fight that broke out in my classroom on the 104th day of school. I wrote 22 referrals. 13 of which were tardy related. I frikin hate tardies! No surprise there. I broke down the referral data by class to come up with totals for each class.
Interestingly enough, the data did not reflect how I felt about my classes. My worst behaved 7th grade class was not accurately represented in the amount of referrals I've written. My best behaved 6th grade class was not my most successful in terms of grades and earning a C or better. My worst behaved 6th grade class had the highest success rate in passing. Strange. It's racking my brain trying to explain these phenomenas.
In presenting this to my students, I always try to present in a positive light. So I use them in harmony to manipulate a positive message to deliver. I'll have to update when I come up with something to provide some more insight on this.
'til next time!
-Mr.A
In reaction to the behaviors I've been seeing in my classroom, I started keeping track of the data on the referrals I write. Ok. A large part was because of the one fight that broke out in my classroom on the 104th day of school. I wrote 22 referrals. 13 of which were tardy related. I frikin hate tardies! No surprise there. I broke down the referral data by class to come up with totals for each class.
Interestingly enough, the data did not reflect how I felt about my classes. My worst behaved 7th grade class was not accurately represented in the amount of referrals I've written. My best behaved 6th grade class was not my most successful in terms of grades and earning a C or better. My worst behaved 6th grade class had the highest success rate in passing. Strange. It's racking my brain trying to explain these phenomenas.
In presenting this to my students, I always try to present in a positive light. So I use them in harmony to manipulate a positive message to deliver. I'll have to update when I come up with something to provide some more insight on this.
'til next time!
-Mr.A
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
Teaching Mantra
It was brought to my attention that I should blog more. Who knew people actually read this? Thanks friend-who-encouraged-me-to-do-this.
A couple weeks ago, I was asked to give a training session with one of my good friends and colleagues at my school. They asked us to talk about our teaching strategies for engagement. Well, she had other plans so it left me doing the session all by myself. woOhOo. 30 minutes of Mark rambling about how awesome he is. That was how I felt my colleagues participating in my session would feel. My goal was to just provide something to everyone so that I might plant a seed and possibly collaborate with them to get more detailed about it. So I spat out as many things as I could in the 30 minutes I was allotted. Of, course, I ran out of time. I tend to talk too much sometimes. I know.
I talked about climate surveys to determine the atmosphere I provide for my students in my classroom. I talked about an anonymous online comment box my students can use to let me know something they might otherwise be too afraid or shy to ask in person. I talked about the Google services and the miracles I've managed by using them. Seriously. I even blogged about Google earlier. I talked about a couple active learning strategies. I talked about some documents I use for behavior management purposes. I touched on my teaching mantra - Safety is Key.
I wish I had more time to elaborate on that thought as I feel this has been the guideline of all my practices as an educator. It's helped me establish rapport with most of my students. I feel that it's been instrumental in motivating my students to do work in my class. Don't get me wrong, I still struggle with them taking work home to complete.
Think about it though. If you're like me, and you teach a bunch of students who have not experienced success very often in the educational setting, don't you think they've had enough of failing? Or not meeting expectations? Persistent lack of meeting the standards are devastating to one's motivation as an adult. How about for a young mind who doesn't know much better? Let's not set these kids up for failure. They NEED to experience success too! So, is all that difficult content absolutely imperative to teach your students? YES! BUT... Don't you think they'd be more apt to trying if they are accustomed to success in your classroom? I most certainly do!
Most of my Reading students think I have one of the easiest classes. They all know exactly what needs to be done. I keep the bar set low for a loooong time before I raise it to meet what is expected out of them. I wish I was more well versed about this with my Math content so I could apply the same approach. Now, I'm stuck making the transition mid-year. It has to be done sometime. There are a lot of ways to make a child's mind feel safe in answering a question. Try asking questions where there really isn't an answer. Deflected questioning. It's such an awesome tool. My students discuss the answers and then they share what they've heard. That way the class cannot make fun of an answer because they won't be able to attribute it to a specific person. Maybe the answer did come from the student who raised their hand. Maybe it really did come from someone they spoke with. That's the beauty of it!
I could go on and on and on about this. Perhaps, I should think about breaking this up in sub-categories so I can go further into detail about what I'm talking about. Sadly, I realize I've already written a lengthy draft and I can still ramble on. So I leave you this saying:
ALWAYS practice safe..... content! I know you thought I was going to say something else.
'til next time!
-Mr.A
A couple weeks ago, I was asked to give a training session with one of my good friends and colleagues at my school. They asked us to talk about our teaching strategies for engagement. Well, she had other plans so it left me doing the session all by myself. woOhOo. 30 minutes of Mark rambling about how awesome he is. That was how I felt my colleagues participating in my session would feel. My goal was to just provide something to everyone so that I might plant a seed and possibly collaborate with them to get more detailed about it. So I spat out as many things as I could in the 30 minutes I was allotted. Of, course, I ran out of time. I tend to talk too much sometimes. I know.
I talked about climate surveys to determine the atmosphere I provide for my students in my classroom. I talked about an anonymous online comment box my students can use to let me know something they might otherwise be too afraid or shy to ask in person. I talked about the Google services and the miracles I've managed by using them. Seriously. I even blogged about Google earlier. I talked about a couple active learning strategies. I talked about some documents I use for behavior management purposes. I touched on my teaching mantra - Safety is Key.
I wish I had more time to elaborate on that thought as I feel this has been the guideline of all my practices as an educator. It's helped me establish rapport with most of my students. I feel that it's been instrumental in motivating my students to do work in my class. Don't get me wrong, I still struggle with them taking work home to complete.
Think about it though. If you're like me, and you teach a bunch of students who have not experienced success very often in the educational setting, don't you think they've had enough of failing? Or not meeting expectations? Persistent lack of meeting the standards are devastating to one's motivation as an adult. How about for a young mind who doesn't know much better? Let's not set these kids up for failure. They NEED to experience success too! So, is all that difficult content absolutely imperative to teach your students? YES! BUT... Don't you think they'd be more apt to trying if they are accustomed to success in your classroom? I most certainly do!
Most of my Reading students think I have one of the easiest classes. They all know exactly what needs to be done. I keep the bar set low for a loooong time before I raise it to meet what is expected out of them. I wish I was more well versed about this with my Math content so I could apply the same approach. Now, I'm stuck making the transition mid-year. It has to be done sometime. There are a lot of ways to make a child's mind feel safe in answering a question. Try asking questions where there really isn't an answer. Deflected questioning. It's such an awesome tool. My students discuss the answers and then they share what they've heard. That way the class cannot make fun of an answer because they won't be able to attribute it to a specific person. Maybe the answer did come from the student who raised their hand. Maybe it really did come from someone they spoke with. That's the beauty of it!
I could go on and on and on about this. Perhaps, I should think about breaking this up in sub-categories so I can go further into detail about what I'm talking about. Sadly, I realize I've already written a lengthy draft and I can still ramble on. So I leave you this saying:
ALWAYS practice safe..... content! I know you thought I was going to say something else.
'til next time!
-Mr.A
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)