Freedom! Nope, Not Yet.

          This isn't going to be the end.  Where did this semester go?  This is it though.  The last of my classes.  I have my practicum this fall, just a small class that goes along with that, then my student teaching.  I refuse to say it's over.  I'm scared, I have no idea what I am going to do.  I started the semester so ready and full of ideas, I'm worse off than before it started.  My beliefs, sure I thought I knew what they were, they haven't changed much but how I approach them has.  This can't be it, can it?
           I am ready for the next chapter, I think.  I don't really have a choice though at this point.  It's coming, I'm going to be the one in charge.  I have taught all my life in some way or another, I should easily be able to do this.  I should be able to stand up and deliver.  I should be, because I have to be.  I'm excited and scared, but enough of that, what have I learned in this process?
          I felt when this class first started that everyone could learn, that still holds true, but just based on my in depth Pinterest inquiry, I have found that that may need to be adapted a bit for my students. I found that technology can and should be used in different ways.  There are so many websites and resources available to help.  Gives me some sense of relief actually.  Hope, for the tired, for the weary.  RESOURCES!!  What an incredible gift that people have compiled to help new teachers, and veteran teachers looking for new attempts.  So here were my first four teaching beliefs.  Let's look at them and figure out what has changed/adapted.

1. Every student has the ability to learn something new. This is broad I realize but one that I firmly hold to. I have worked with special needs students for a long time and going back to school as an adult I know that it is hard. However, every student has the ability to learn something new, something from a different perspective. I still hold to this.  I believe every student can learn.  Debbie Miller taught us that if we set the classroom up the right way, that every student can indeed learn.   
2. Teaching/learning is fun. This is a core belief and one that has to be stretched by both the students and the teachers to hold true. It may be boring material but the process can be fun. Holding with my first belief I feel that that process of learning and teaching can sometimes be the most important part of the process. Through our OTSMA, our blogging, our Pinterest board, our writing analysis, our think alouds, our blog partners, exit cards, roundtable discussion and instructional conversation, I learned that fun might be overrated but I did learn that you can change things up constantly to make it a movement towards novelty.   
3. A relationship can be built in even just a short period of time. Impressions are made in just a few seconds, relationships can be formed off of each of those. It is important to give the pair, whomever that pair may be, time to form and build a lasting relationship. The teaching should be personalized as much as possible which will help this considerably. When Theresa and I started together this semester she was just as unsure of me as I was of myself.  Now that we have worked together on numerous projects when she sees me in the hallway she gives me a head nod.  That's saying a lot for a student with a behavior focus.  I am proud of that relationship and hopeful that my student teaching will be in this school to continue that relationship.   
4. I believe in my students. I believe they can do anything they put their minds to. I believe they are creative, imaginative and successful and will go many places with the right guidance.  Nothing new here.  I truly and firmly believe this one will stay the same.  There is always hope for our students, no matter what we do.

          Whew, that's it.  I am going to continue this blog.  It has been a great insight into myself, my teaching and my beliefs.  The map is still being written and paths are still being chosen.

Where are We Now??

          It is a whirlwind kind of an hour, day, week.  There are so many things to be completed between now and then, then being whenever because it doesn't matter there are so many things to be done period that there is no possible way to finish them all.  Blog posts, Pinterest boards, topics of inquiry, adolescent reads, schedules, trainings, meetings, work sites, added on to all of the regular laundry and housework, a girl's head is liable to spin right off of her head. 
          The purpose of this blog is how it relates specifically to this class that I am taking but also to what I am going to be doing in Education.  Is this post even relevant then?  Absolutely!!  Besides the fact that I am writing it and whatever I say has credit it's important to remember that our students will often times feel this way.  Both of my kids are getting ready for AP tests and it's all about studying for those, getting ready for regular finals, finding summer employment and hopefully helping some with that above named housework. 
          If my head is going to spin off, what does a teenagers look like without guidance?  No wonder the depression rates and suicide rates are higher among kids.  How does a student go forward?  What if they don't have anyone to go to?  As educators we need to be aware of all of that and be able to help our students.  We need to be able to see when they are becoming overwhelmed and help them find some relief, some stress relief. 
          Where are we now?  What can we do to help the teenager?  I'm not sure I have the answers to that question.  I'm still trying to figure myself out.  I can say with certainty that they need us.  They need the added guidance.  As a parent it's nice to have someone on my side too whether it be from a teacher or coach.  Kids are getting so many influences from outside directions that it's nice to have someone backing us up. 
          As a coach I know there are times my athletes need a mental health day.  How that athlete handles the day is an important part of who they are.  I have had swimmers yell that they aren't leaving.  I have had swimmers happily go on their merry way.  Help them no matter what though, anticipate their needs and guide them in the right directions.

The Wave of the Future

          My Pinterest board has been a process of including technology.  How does a classroom look if there is technology in it?  What does it look like in terms of learning for the students and how does a teacher ever stay on top of everything they should be using?  I have struggled with this considerably.  By doing this blog I am saying, yes I want to embrace this.  I'm not sold on it however.  I think that there has be a time and a place for it. 

I think that there needs to be consideration given for students who may not have access to the technology itself or to the internet required for some of it.  I have seen many a Smartboard under-utilized in a classroom.  I actually saw a teacher once use it as a blank canvas for her overhead projector.  That might not be the best way to include technology in the classroom.  There has to be a combination of not only having it in the room but using it, for all of its advantages. 

          There are websites, tablets, apps, and devices that can make the learning process more engaging and can help a student bridge the gap between what they think of as boring and what they can do to learn the material.  In reality everything should be as interactive as possible.  This can be done via technology but it can also be done in simple activities.  Using different websites to research material would not have been anything I had thought about.  Who knew there was more to this universe than just Google. 
          As teachers we need to figure out what is out there, we don't necessarily need to know anything about it right away, but we should make attempts to figure it out quickly.  Students are so much better at the technology, use it as a learning process to allow them to teach others and yourselves.  I'm scared, I use technology regularly, what I think is, but there are so many more things to learn.  My mom struggles to turn her computer on.  I blog regularly, I use email, Pinterest, Facebook, other social media, an iPad, a laptop and a desktop.  I can text without looking at my phone.  I am familiar with dropbox and other websites to be used for classroom work.  However, I still use Internet Explorer which my children tell me is drastically outdated.  I can search for things but just discovered Google Scholar this past year. 
          Technology is changing so quickly, sometimes before we have learned what is here right now.  I'm not going to have all of the answers, but I'm certainly going to try.  I owe it to my students.

A Conversation for Instruction

          An Instructional Conversation is a simple way, ok maybe a detailed way, of talking with a student to figure out how best they are learning.  Of course there is so much more to it than that.  It is recommended for use among learners who are struggling as well.  It is the talk in which ideas are explored rather than answers to questions being provided or evaluated.  Claude Goldenberg has five critical features of this interaction.
          1.  It is interesting and engaging.
          2.  It is about an idea or a concept that has meaning and relevance for students.
          3.  It has a focus that, while it may shift as the discussion evolves, remains discernible throughout.
          4.  There is a high level of participation, without undue domination by any one individual,  particularly the teacher.
          5.  Student engage in extended discussions--conversations--with the teacher and among themselves.
           What an amazing way to work with a student.  Of course getting a student involved this way is a trickier step than one might think.  My goal is to work in Special Education, particularly a Behavior Focus classroom.  I passed one such classroom just the other day and heard some impressive swear words coming out of it.  So with a student like that, how does one engage the student?  I wish I knew the answers to this.  So often I see students I have worked with that are being arrested or tried on illegal acts.  Is an Instructional Conversation even possible?  And for what purpose?  I'm hoping to be able to use this in my own classroom.  Without having done it yet, I'm hoping that in my classroom the conversation will always be open to allow students the ability to possibly engage in a way they aren't used to.
          Oftentimes in my coaching I am asking a swimmer how something felt.  If I don't necessarily have the answers right away I use the tactic of helping them to define what is going on.  This allows them to be more in tune with their own body.  An Instructional Conversation isn't any different.  I'm excited to take what I already do in the pool setting, into the classroom setting and help students learn differently and pull things out of them that they didn't know were in there.

One look at an Analysis of Writing

          This writing analysis has been the hardest project for me so far.  Not just in this class but it ranks right up there with any assignment that I have done.  I haven't put much thought into the fact that when I am done with this journey I will be required to teach a multitude of subjects.  This blogging has been good for me, because I don't write traditionally.  I have no idea how to give an assignment let alone how to grade an assignment for writing.  So this is my fumbling attempt at what I was able to accomplish with just a little thought.  I'm only hopeful that years from now I will look on this and laugh.
          The students in class are reading To Kill a Mockingbird.  This book holds a lot of in depth material that we are asking the students to grasp.  There are 8 students in this behavior focus classroom, high school level, grades 9 and 10 for this sample.  I devised my own lesson plan and then adapted based on their needs in this class.  I will go more in depth at the end of this but there are definitely changes that should be made moving forward in this process.  For this post I am not including the lesson plan but we asked the students to write a personal opinion paper on what their thoughts and feelings were about using the "N" word in schools.  As a student did they feel it was appropriate to use the word in the book.  Could another word have been used and still portrayed the same meaning.  We suggested a couple of paragraphs and gave them the grading rubric we had devised for the assignment. 
          One of the things that I enjoyed the most about the assignment for the students was that it gave them a voice.  They were able to butt the system a bit by using a word that they have been told isn't appropriate in school.  Not that any of these students don't use it but it came at it from a different angle.  Each student got the chance to voice if they felt that the school should then teach them that in a required text.  This group of students is typically stifled in what they can and cannot say and they usually have been directed to be specific about their answers.  This was personal opinion, would we be able to hear what they had to say.  I strongly feel that they were able to do that in these writings.  One student chose to use it multiple times as the ending of his paper.  This response was a quick generated piece but it would be fun to use this as a jumping off point.  Could they use this in a poem?  Maybe more in depth would help them open up even more.  I was however still able to grasp who the students were in their writings.
          It would have been easier for me to just have them give their opinion to a passage in the book, it meant more to choose a word that they had already grumbled about in the beginning readings.  I would challenge the students to push themselves a bit and yet we didn't have many errors in terms of what they were doing.  Anderson says in his book, "If we see students' errors as something bad, we overlook what some of those errors are telling us about the ways that students are growing as writers."  I would agree and press the students that we didn't have a problem with grammar, punctuation, etc but would like to look more in depth from them their response and where it came at in relation to the reading.  As writers we write most things to be read and while they knew a teacher would be reading these it would be interesting to get different responses if they knew for example that these would be opinion papers to go in the school newspaper for example.  Many of these students often refuse to write anything. One student stuck to that but we were able to get the voices of many our students on this writing.
          I can't wait to do another writing analysis.  This helped me to grow as an educator and I am going to be looking for ways to improve before I have to "judge" students again in the future.

Happiest Day of the Year

         

One of my favorite parts of my year is Special Olympic day.  This year was no exception.  I have coached for 20 years and am able to take a different approach these days.  Now I run the meet.  This means putting together volunteers to run it, making sure the coaches have everything that they need and making sure that the athletes have a great experience.  I am a good people director.  Someone told me I am just bossy which might be another way of saying it, but I can get people to where they need to go.  This year I was able to combine Washington with Jefferson, Kennedy, and Linn-Mar and we had 50 volunteers from those four schools.  It was a tremendous experience to see competing swim programs come together for one cause.  This day has been my dream and this last Saturday we accomplished it. 
          Here is a quick clip that was on the news this weekend about it.  Special Olympic News Coverage

Good Readers? Or just Readers?

          One of the things we talked about a couple of weeks ago in class was that we aren't necessarily trying to make good readers, we are trying to make readers.  Oftentimes as a teacher we use the phrase, "you are such a good reader" and we don't think about what the long reaching consequences of that phrase are.  We need to focus on "you are a reader" instead.  What a boost of confidence that can have to a student.  Maybe a student who has had difficulty adjusting to a typical way of learning.  To be told, one time, that they are a reader may be just enough to have them open a book and try on their own.

          The same can be said for writers.  I discussed in my last blog about how we can use social media to help struggling writers.  Anderson discusses in his book "Assessing Writers" the need to link our assessment with our instruction.  As educators it is important to figure out what the student was already do and then go from there.  If we have struggling readers, struggling writers, let's find a way to help them on their level.  It is much easier to teach a student when we get on their level and push them up versus pulling them up right away to ours. 

          I would like to leave with one of my favorite quotes from the Anderson book.  "If we see students' errors as something bad, we overlook what some of these errors are telling us about the ways that students are growing as writers."  What an awesome view to teaching.