Eraser Slide

Eraser Slide is a review game which the students enjoy. Here's how it works:

Students form groups to answer questions. When they answer correctly, a person from the group gets to go up the the board and slide the eraser (see above). The mark which counts is the one in front of where the eraser stops. So, as pictured above, it would be the -100 points. Some require an activity, like the seat dance. All students in the group must do a little dance in their seats to get the points. Parts such as switch signs (from positive to negative or vice versa) or swap points keep it exciting.

The students have a lot of fun with it, and since it is drawn on the white board it can be adjusted every time.

Observation

Tomorrow will be my first observation of the semester. I am not as nervous as I was last semester (or perhaps even as nervous as I should be). Here is the plan:

Roaring 20s

The intro will be this musical number from Thoroughly Modern Millie:

Then, in predetermined groups, students will visit stations manned by each teacher (5) to learn about various aspects of the 1920s.

Stations include:

• Poetry
• Jazz
• Sports Heroes
• Prohibition/Bootleggers
• Slang/Writing

At each station the students will learn about the different topics. They will have the chance to move around the room and most stations will let the students be creative with their learning. For example, at my station students will listen to Jazz music including music from Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong, and Duke Ellington and then create either a free writing response or piece of art (with markers) interpreting the feelings of the music while I tell them about Jazz music's history. There will be a short (2 question) assessment at the end of the 13 minutes at the station.

Each station will have some sort of assessment at the end, and at the very end of the class each student will write a short essay (5-7 sentences) about their favorite and least favorite aspect of the 20s and defend their positions.

Hopefully everything goes well!

Creative

I was able to create a long (40 word) vocabulary quiz over the weekend as well as a reading quiz. I am getting a lot more practice creating assessments. This will be great experience.

I am still finding giving lectures less than satisfying. I have never possessed the skill for telling stories or jokes, so I am not very surprised that I am struggling with presenting lectures prepared by another person. I think that I would do a better job with a presentation which I created, however, I do doubt that I will ever depend heavily on lectures in my classroom.

During my class at GSU today we had a guest speaker who gave us a lot of really creative ideas, which I am excited to use. I am really looking forward to creating my own lessons which I can feel more comfortable teaching.

I wanted to end this post with a student quote:
"So, Teddy Roosevelt was like the Chuck Norris of his day?"

Lectures

A point that has been stressed by GSU many times is that lecturing is boring to most students and they only retain/memorize the information long enough to take a test, without much long term meaning or relevance. Today, I was lecturing about the causes of WWI using a PowerPoint that my teacher provided. The topic wasn't uninteresting and the PowerPoint was well done. However, a majority of the students were bored. Even I was bored with it.

An aspect of teaching that I miss from Sweetwater is all of the activity. I hope that I will be able to incorporate more activities as I plan more lessons. Different activities include photo analysis, reading primary documents, and creating posters or pamphlets. Every day can't be an activity - sometimes you just have to learn the facts. However, I hope that I will be able to make my classes interesting and active.

Break

I am enjoying my break and having time off. 

I will be working full time through the next few weeks, however, that will still give me more free time than I have been used to lately. The last few weeks I did not get scheduled full time and was actually a little bored just sitting around the house. But, I did get a lot done including the last of my assignments for GSU and got some much needed housework done.

Today I have been feeling 'crafty' (haha) and made a card for one of my co-workers, Lorna. She got me a great present of a hat, scarf, and gloves set. Since student teaching doesn't pay anything we are pretty broke this year, so we aren't doing any presents at all. So, I made her a card out of card making/scrapbooking supplies my mother gave me a little while back. Here are some pictures.

I wrote a note to Lorna on the front inside flap.

Reading

Reading levels are pretty varied in the classes. Most of the students can read pretty well (which they should be able to, as 7th graders). Some of them read really well and can read quickly. Many of them ready pretty well and may stumble a little. It's good experience for them to have to read aloud and also gives the teachers a chance to informally asses their reading ability.

Last week the class was reading an article on Rwanda. Each student was taking a turn reading a sentence or two. Everyone had to take a turn. One of the students was called on to read. She was whispering and there was no way the class could hear her. Mr. Dorray, standing across the room, couldn't hear her. I could hear her because I was standing near her. She was skipping many words and mumbling most of them. Mr. Dorray told her to speak up. She never got very loud and had a hard time with most of the words. One of the other students gave her about half of them. She either couldn't correctly pronounce words (i.e., recent) or couldn't read some of them at all (i.e., eastern) that she really should know at this grade level. 

Mr. Dorray had not realized that she was not reading at a 7th grade level. We knew she was in the special education program, however, being in special ed does not always (or usually for most of our sped students) mean reading problems.  Once the class was over Mr. Dorray went to find her special ed teachers to see what was going on. Apparently English is her second language and although she can speak it very well (I hadn't even realized she was ESL) she has a hard time reading. He spoke with her special ed teachers in depth to find out what he should be doing to help her, as well as how to treat her in the classroom when students are reading aloud. 

It is surprising how easily students can hid the fact that they are unable to read well. Although students are listed as sped, teachers can easily meet their accommodations without realizing the extent of their impairment. The other students had been helping her hide her reading problems. They would tell her what  the reading was about, or as they did in class that day, prompt her  with the correct words. She has apparently been getting along, however, once she starts taking standardized tests and writing tests for graduation she may not be able to pass. At least she has been identified by the special education department and they are working with her. She is getting help and should be able to improve. 

Lots of Fun

Yesterday and today were early release. So, we saw two classes each day for a longer amount of time than usual.

We took the students to the computer lab to use an internet site that the school uses, called Study Island. It asks the students questions about what they are studying. In this cases the geography of Africa. After they did a certain amount (decided by Mr. Dorray) they were able to play in game mode. This means that after they get a question right they get to play a short game. So, they are still studying, but get to have some fun.

Then we went back to the classroom and played a review game. We projected a map of Africa onto the white board and quizzed the students. I would give them the name of either a country or physical feature and the first person to raise their hand got to come up and draw it on the board. If they were right they got a piece of candy. I wanted everyone to get a turn, so once a student won they could only go again if no one knew the answer (this didn't keep them from raising their hand and trying to get picked).

They seemed to know the material, so hopefully they will do well on their test tomorrow.

The students enjoy Study Island, and they really seemed to enjoy the review game. (I will definitely use this in the future!) Some of the students even told me at the end of the day yesterday that they really liked the review game and wanted to do it again.

I had a great time because the kids were so enthusiastic. They had fun and made me laugh. Great two days!

Video

We are studying African geography. I got to start the unit with my lesson because I was being observed.
I started it out with this video to try to get them interested. The students liked it, especially my first class.

Better and Better

I had my 3rd observation today. I had a slide show of pictures set to African drum music, an African music video from National Geographic, and a partner activity where they are making a small poster about a country or physical feature.

It went really well. Mr. Cooper (my advisor) said I would not have to have a 4th observation! Yay, so I can just enjoy the rest of my time at Sweetwater, and not be too stressed. .

Define and Draw

Sweetwater wants the students to interact with each other and be active while they learn. So, an activity that Mr. Dorray has them do occasionally is to work in pairs and define a vocabulary word and draw it. They must define it in their own words on one side of a piece of construction paper and then illustrate it on the other side.

Some of the words they had to choose from were Democracy, Theocracy, Sharia, Parliamentary Democracy, Communism, Islamic Republic, and Entrepreneur to name a few.

It went pretty well. Some of the drawings were really creative.

I was a little concerned that the students would only remember the word that they worked on, but after each presentation he called on a few students to repeat what they had just heard. Some of the presenters had to repeat themselves until the majority of the class was able to repeat the definition.

One concern that I have is that the students take so long to complete a lesson. This lesson is going to end up taking two and a half days. And, for words that they have already learned. Middle school students just require more time, and I am still adjusting to it. I have to continuously remind myself that they are unable to learn and work as quickly as I am accustomed to. 

Last Week

I haven't been posting as much lately. It's been pretty busy. Last week went pretty well.

Monday was a furlough day, so I got a day off. Yay! And, since I do not get paid to be at Sweetwater anyways, I didn't mind like the faculty and staff do.

Wednesday the students had a test. Again, most of them did not study. They even got an extra day because the test was supposed to be Tuesday and we did a review instead.

Thursday was a sub, so I was mostly in charge and they did some book work. I had to yell at one of the classes and they had to be silent for the half of the class after lunch. Mrs. Harris (another teacher on the team) congratulated me the next day for officially being a "mean teacher". Maybe they will start to listen more to me - I'm crossing my fingers.

Friday they did an activity which worked pretty well and the students had some fun.

Friday and Saturday I worked and today I am trying to catch up with school work. So, pretty normal.

Observation 2 - My Brain Activity

Tomorrow I have another observation. Hopefully this one will go better than the last. I plan to ask Mr. Dorray to stay in the classroom so that, hopefully, the students will be on their best behavior.

I have planned another activity. It is one that the students have done before, so they should do well. It is sort of a two part activity.

Part 1
First: they make a 'brain'. Taking a piece of paper students will fold it to make a little folder (first about 1/3 of the way up 'hotdog' style, then in half 'hamburger style'), and write My Brain on the front

Second: Students will draw images on index cards representing facts that they have learned about the governments of Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

Part 2
First: Students form two circles, while facing each other - an inner and an outer circle.

Second: The students will show each other what they have drawn, explaining to each other what they have learned. About once a minute the inner circle will rotate moving to the next person, so that they share with everyone.

Jigsaw

This is a little delayed, but I wanted to talk about the jigsaw activity I tried on Wednesday.

With a jigsaw the students start with a group of students. This is their original group. Each person in that group is given a different piece of information about a subject. They immediately get up and form new groups with the other students who have the same piece of information that they do. Within the new group they discuss their information and learn together. They all have the same information and a question or two to help them think about and understand their part. After a period of time, they go back to their original groups to teach the other students about what they learned. Each student has a part of the "puzzle" and they must work together to get all of the information.

We did this in one of my classes at GSU, and it was pretty neat. I tried it in my 7th grade class and it was a spectacular failure. I am pretty sure that the students understood the assignment. They knew that they were supposed to learn about something with their group and then go back to their original group and share. Unfortunately, very few of them actually wanted to work. 

The group stuff doesn't really seem to work. Once they are in groups, they do not concentrate on what they are supposed to do. They want to talk about themselves or others. Part of my issue is that I don't have enough control of the classroom yet. If they do not listen to me, they are not going to do the work I assign. 

Once they got back to their original groups, they either 1) just sat there, 2) passed their information around for others to copy instead of "teaching" each other, or 3) gossiped some more. Many of them didn't even have paper out. I got quite frustrated. The entire day was wasted, and we did a PowerPoint on the same information the next day.

Skits

Today I split the class into groups of about 5-6 to prepare skits. They were to explain a part of the government of Saudi Arabia to the rest of the class.

It went OK. However, there were a lot of issues within the groups. I split them by having the students count off 1-5. So, first student says 1, that's their group. Student next to them says 2, that's their group. And so on. I thought it would help randomly assign then and keep the friends away from each other. I not sure how well that worked, because then people who didn't get along were together and didn't want to work.

I did two Minor Incident Reports (when the student has 3 of these they get a referral) while the students were in their groups. One was for a girl who called another student "gay". And, the other was for a student who told another to "F off". Of course he didn't just say the letter F. They will both get to enjoy silent lunch.

Some of the teams did really well. One student did a great rap with the support of his team. Most did not do so well, and I am pretty sure most of the students did not learn much. There was also a writing portion of the class where they wrote home while on vacation in Saudi Arabia, about how different Saudi Arabia was from the United States. By reading their letters, I know that most of them learned that women cannot vote in Saudi Arabia.

So, I learned a lot from the experience, and if I do skits again it will be done differently.
Tomorrow I am trying a jigsaw. More on that later...

Worn Out

Today was my observation. It didn't go as well as I would have liked.

The first two classes were great! They seemed to like my activity, and participated fairly well. Unfortunately, the third class did not go as well, and that was the one that was observed. The activity went well, it wasn't until after the activity that I had problems. The students didn't want to sit down at first. Then they just wouldn't stop talking. I had to ask them repeatedly to stop talking. I had to call students out by name. And, on top of talking too much, they were not participating in the discussion. So, it looked like they were bored or not understanding. Mr. Dorray wasn't in the room, and they don't have the same respect for me as they do for him.

I wasn't able to get feedback from my advisor because he was moving on to observe someone else, but he did say that the biggest thing that needed improvement was: "obviously discipline." The obviously part is discouraging.

I wanted to yell at the kids near the end of the class, to tell them that their behavior was affecting my grade. I am sure they didn't realize that the person in the back was going to grade me. But, it probably wouldn't have mattered to them anyways. Sigh. I was so frustrated when Mr. Dorray came back and asked me how it went.

These kids are pretty good when he is in the room, but it is entirely different when he leaves. So, I asked him to start stepping out of the room more often when I am teaching, so that I can get more practice with it.

Now I just want to take a nap.

****Update****

I received my observation form from my advisor. Everything was scored on a scale of 1-4, and I didn't manage to do better than a 3, even if he noted that something was "great". I got a 2 on my classroom management. Also, he didn't give any suggestions for anything other than classroom management. 

So, although I got 3/4 on all but one thing, there were no suggestions on how to improve. I got 38/52 points.

Observation

Tomorrow I am being observed by my GSU advisor. It will be during my 3rd class, which is the quickest class. They aren't always the most involved, and not always the best behaved, but the class always finishes.

I am teaching the students about the government of Israel.

First we will have a short discussion, asking them why it is important to understand the governments of other countries. I have a slide show, which will loop, with pictures of President Obama and Vice President Biden in Israel and meeting with Israeli officials.

Then they will have a Scavenger Hunt. Each student will be given a fact about the government of Israel, and the students will get to get up and move around, finding all of the facts.

I have prizes for the first students to finish in each class.

Then, we will sit back down to discuss what they found, and I have a handout which puts the information into concise paragraphs.

Finally, we they will make a graphic organizer, showing what they have learned.

I hope it all goes as planned.

Word Carousel

To help them review for the test, the students participated in a word carousel review game today. In this activity the teacher uses Super Sticky Notes and places them around the room:

We put up seven and titled them with the topics they have been learning about: 

History of the Middle East

Geography of the Middle East

Social Issues in the Middle East

Middle Eastern Economics

Christianity

Islam

Judaism

The students were split into seven groups and got 30 seconds at each Super Sticky Note to put down any words or ideas that they could think of about each topic. 

Once they got back to their original Sticky they circled the best 7 words. Then they made a sentence out of those words to summarize that topic. The best sentence (chosen by myself and Mr. Dorray) won that team a prize (candy).

This was a pretty fun activity and it was very interesting to see how well each group did, and what topics the students had problems with.