Instructions: Feel free to either (1) post a reflection on your past week (2) respond to one or more of your colleague's posts or (3) post a comment on the recent demonstrations in Madison about taking away teacher's bargaining rights Don't forget to sign your name!
This week I felt much better about my classroom-- like I'd gotten back into the groove. I'm excited because my students are getting so excited about our read aloud book (Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes), and it is inspiring them to become much more active readers by asking questions about what they're reading, while also informing them about some really important historical and social issues (the book is about Katrina). I'm also happy with the increased level of productivity in independent work in science, because I think I have built up the skills that they needed to work on their own, so I get a lot less complaining and confusion when I ask them to do something by themselves, and I think the independent work is helping the information stick much better. One thing I'm very frustrated by right now is my low attendance-- between a few kids being suspended, the protests closing MPS on Friday and causing confusion about whether or not we have school today, and people thinking we were off for President's Day today even though we weren't/the snow, I have had more than 5 kids absent in my class at least 3 days in the past week. This has been really frustrating for me.
I did go to the protests on Saturday, and that was very inspiring-- I have mixed feelings about closing the schools, but I am inspired by the collective and peaceful action that is being taken to preserve our rights.
Stephanie
I'm never quite sure what to take out of a school year, during or after. I question my ability as a teacher, and I question whether I am being "transformational" for my students. Data can help supply quantitative answers to these questions, but the qualitative aspects can be fleeting and subjective in the eyes of the beholder. With that said, I had a moment this week that I felt I was making an objective difference in my students lives. I've spoken in the past about my students initial overall apathy for reading. When I first started teaching this group, they were exposed to only nonfiction books and texts that did not interest them. In an effort to build my own library, I solicited financial help from friends and family through adoptaclassroom.com After amassing a hefty amount of money, I purchased 50 novels during second quarter. Their apathy quickly turned into excitement and hunger for more. This past week, I received another order that I placed through Scholastic, and the excitement and curiosity sprang forth when the package arrived to my room. It was a completely opposite attitude from the one I witnessed in the beginning. Thus, I'm never quite sure how to feel about my students' progress or if they're developing at the rate I'd like them to; but for the first time in a while, I felt that they've made a positive transformation. It wasn't an immediate one, but an obvious effect worth waiting for.
- Mike
Do you ever step into your classroom and think, "what is the world?". I don't know that I can put this week into one general feeling. I had really amazing days with students. They were excited and energized about lessons. We were making a lot of progress. My 8th graders recieved an 80 % on their quiz this week, we were thinking critically as a class and building connection through our labs. This week was full of goosebump moments where I just so many leaps and bounds with my 8th graders. Then I had my sixth graders, I can admit that I've not been engaging the students and relating the material to my students. When we connect materials to their life and the lesson are really engaging, they are focused and on task. It seems really great and then I assess them and they show no signs of understanding what we went over. I feel like maybe I'm struggling to build the connections with them during the lessons. We had spirit week this week, so students were out of uniforms all week. When students are out of uniforms, the middle school has overall worse management. It was an interesting week overall.
- Emma Bradley
This week have been really fun in my classroom. It still requires a lot of energy and effort to keep my scholars on task and my room managed, but I have decided to enjoy who my scholars are and use their unique personalities as an asset instead of always trying to control them. I took four of my scholars to the Bucks game Monday night and met 6 of my other scholars at the game. It was refreshing to see them outside of school and have the opportunity to get to know them better as people and not just my students. Tomorrow is the last day of school for the week - we have 3 days off of school for winter break - and I am looking forward to some relaxation as I travel to Vegas, but I know that when I spend more than 2 days away I start to become lonesome for my kids and feel without a purpose.
-Chelsea
What a crazy week! With a capital C and a big exclamation point at the end... where to start? Unfortunately, for part of the week, it felt like a couple big steps backward. Students did not perform as well on their unit test as I expected, MAPS testing did not turn out even in the fringes of where I wanted it to be, and I faced a couple personal disappointments. Student behaviors turned very sour, and my 6th grade colleague decided to abolish recess. Monday started out strong with students really investing themselves in preparing for their math unit test Tuesday, but things took a quick turn downward, and it felt like each day that followed got worse. So today was a time to rebound. We talked at length today about expectations for ourselves for this year and beyond and how we want to perform as a class and as individual students. Students wrote open letters to the class that we shared, talking about the pitfalls of this week and where we want to go. And with that, today turned out pretty good. Students actually did pretty well on their weekly quiz, and to be honest, academic performance on exit slips this week was good despite disruptions. The push to prepare my students for next year and beyond continues!
--Tom Schalmo
My students had a good week until Friday. On Friday morning, two of my students had a fight. This was the first time this has happened in several months, and I suppose I can feel a little good about that, since in the fall, it was a weekly event. They have come an extremely long way in being able to support one another and work together, whether with their best friends or not. Friday's issue was a very simple example of tempers snapping. We had played around the world, and one child had lost his round and became very upset, a girl then made a comment he didn't like, he made a motion towards the girl, and another boy stepped in to stop the fight, but ended up fighting himself. I spoke to the boys and turned their attention back to our class culture and our goal of proving those who think Milwaukee students can't make it wrong. I elicited from them that when they fight, they prove those people right, and they willingly, tearfully promised it wouldn't happen again. I know they wouldn't have been able to do that in the fall, but I have to ask: is this long-term progress? How long will their promise last?
-Aran Nulty
I gave my students a mid-year survey to fill out on the Friday when I was out for the TFA Summit Convention. I tallied up the responses, and there was only one that survey that showed no effort/the student didn’t take it seriously. On an A-F scale, the mode is "A" for every response except "makes class interesting," which received a "B" (mode). I have noted my strengths, my warm action areas, and my HOT (high need) action areas: • STRENGTHS ◦ explaining things well ◦ rewarding students for doing great things ◦ helping students when they are confused • WARM ACTION AREAS ◦ creating a comfortable environment ◦ being fair (don't really agree that this isn't in place, but I will nevertheless solicit some student opinion on ways to improve) • HOT ACTION AREAS ◦ making class a place students like to come to ◦ making class interesting
There was also a back side to the survey that gathered details about specific enjoyable experiences so far in class, student perspective of own effort, student perspective about my effort, and student feeling about progress in weakest subject. After looking at the surveys, I’m glad that I decided to administer. Last year I only gave one at the end of the year, but I am now able to immediately start running with my students’ feedback. I’ve already started incorporating more academic games and more math fact practice/speed quizzes, both of which they requested. -Joe ***
I took my first ever sick day this week. I've always been terrified of getting sick for three reasons. One, I'm a huge wimp when I'm sick and wouldn't be able to "soldier through" and teach beyond more than a sore throat or a cough or something. Two, I was irrationally proud of my perfect attendance. Three, even when I've had to take professional development days, I hate the idea of leaving my class without me and having someone else in my classroom to see my inadequacies and topple the house of cards. I got up early enough to put together a pretty thorough sub plan and email it to another corps member at my school to print out and deliver to the sub. When I went in on Friday, the sub had left pretty positive remarks for every period and my para said my kids behaved great in my absence. I'm very proud of them for behaving so well in my absence. I think it had a lot to do with leaving behind an excessive amount of material (honestly "busywork.") While I strive to make sure my classroom instruction is rigorous, upon realization that I was going to take a rare day off my goal was to leave behind an orderly classroom. I didn't want to leave the sub a new math objective to teach because I'm sure I would end up reteaching it anyway, so I left behind review. This held true in most subjects - review or extension work given in a quantity great enough to keep them from getting rowdy.
- Eamonn Collins
Last week flew by rather quickly at Hope. Mid-winter break began on Thursday so my kids were only in class three days. During a session at the TFA Summit, I learned more about the social-emotional gap in ECE and lower elementary classrooms and how this gap is actually bigger than the achievement gap in these grades. I really took that back to my classroom this week and tried my best to listen to my students and express their needs whenever they felt upset. I'm not sure how much of a difference it made for many of my students in this initial, sort of haphazard way, but, on my end, there was a lot less frustration and annoyance. The simple act of pausing students and asking them to express their needs and wants slowed many situations down and allowed both my students and myself to recollect ourselves. While I can't and won't stop class for every emotional disturbance (and certainly not every misbehavior), taking the time out to discuss how students are feeling and giving them one quick tip on a way that they could more appropriately respond when possible is something I will continue to make a conscious effort to do. And, on Fridays, I'm going to try to teach one social-emotional skill explicitly to the entire class in the hopes that in later grades the social-emotional gap will become less the focus and closing the achievement gap can be the sole endeavor.- Sarah Vester
1.Are students following directions the first time and completing work? Why or why not? I did a much better job this week of getting my students to work quickly and urgently on their classwork. It is till not completely where I want it to be, but the expectation is a lot more clear to everybody. I start my 6th grade class with confidence building problems in the warm-up to get them invested right away. I use a timer on the board to keep everybody on the same page, and I am keeping the class moving and lively. This has helped a great deal.
2.Are students more invested in GP? Is your INM simplified? Students were much more invested in the GP this week. I broke the INM into much quicker, simpler points, then transitioned into the GP with a relevant anecdote, building upon the students background knowledge. I kept my expectations of what the students needed to be doing during the GP clear, which helped some of the behavior issues I had previously. Toward the end of the week however, I did slip back into a mode were I allowed my pace to slow as a result of low GP investment. This only made the situation worse. I need to keep my energy and pace up in order to keep my students more alert and active, especially right before lunch.
3.How is planning? Did you have time to plan this week? Why or why not? Planning was very difficult this week. Getting back from the summit, I had a lot of work to make up. I usually use my weekends to plan the entire week out, freeing up time during the week to adjust instruction, differentiate, grade and track. All of this became a bit of a mess as my weekend could not really be used to plan. I was however incredibly inspired by the weekends events, so I didn't mind the extra work this to get caught up. -- Robby
This week I felt much better about my classroom-- like I'd gotten back into the groove. I'm excited because my students are getting so excited about our read aloud book (Ninth Ward by Jewell Parker Rhodes), and it is inspiring them to become much more active readers by asking questions about what they're reading, while also informing them about some really important historical and social issues (the book is about Katrina). I'm also happy with the increased level of productivity in independent work in science, because I think I have built up the skills that they needed to work on their own, so I get a lot less complaining and confusion when I ask them to do something by themselves, and I think the independent work is helping the information stick much better. One thing I'm very frustrated by right now is my low attendance-- between a few kids being suspended, the protests closing MPS on Friday and causing confusion about whether or not we have school today, and people thinking we were off for President's Day today even though we weren't/the snow, I have had more than 5 kids absent in my class at least 3 days in the past week. This has been really frustrating for me.
I did go to the protests on Saturday, and that was very inspiring-- I have mixed feelings about closing the schools, but I am inspired by the collective and peaceful action that is being taken to preserve our rights.
Stephanie
I'm never quite sure what to take out of a school year, during or after. I question my ability as a teacher, and I question whether I am being "transformational" for my students. Data can help supply quantitative answers to these questions, but the qualitative aspects can be fleeting and subjective in the eyes of the beholder. With that said, I had a moment this week that I felt I was making an objective difference in my students lives. I've spoken in the past about my students initial overall apathy for reading. When I first started teaching this group, they were exposed to only nonfiction books and texts that did not interest them. In an effort to build my own library, I solicited financial help from friends and family through adoptaclassroom.com After amassing a hefty amount of money, I purchased 50 novels during second quarter. Their apathy quickly turned into excitement and hunger for more. This past week, I received another order that I placed through Scholastic, and the excitement and curiosity sprang forth when the package arrived to my room. It was a completely opposite attitude from the one I witnessed in the beginning. Thus, I'm never quite sure how to feel about my students' progress or if they're developing at the rate I'd like them to; but for the first time in a while, I felt that they've made a positive transformation. It wasn't an immediate one, but an obvious effect worth waiting for.
- Mike
Do you ever step into your classroom and think, "what is the world?". I don't know that I can put this week into one general feeling. I had really amazing days with students. They were excited and energized about lessons. We were making a lot of progress. My 8th graders recieved an 80 % on their quiz this week, we were thinking critically as a class and building connection through our labs. This week was full of goosebump moments where I just so many leaps and bounds with my 8th graders. Then I had my sixth graders, I can admit that I've not been engaging the students and relating the material to my students. When we connect materials to their life and the lesson are really engaging, they are focused and on task. It seems really great and then I assess them and they show no signs of understanding what we went over. I feel like maybe I'm struggling to build the connections with them during the lessons. We had spirit week this week, so students were out of uniforms all week. When students are out of uniforms, the middle school has overall worse management. It was an interesting week overall.
- Emma Bradley
This week have been really fun in my classroom. It still requires a lot of energy and effort to keep my scholars on task and my room managed, but I have decided to enjoy who my scholars are and use their unique personalities as an asset instead of always trying to control them. I took four of my scholars to the Bucks game Monday night and met 6 of my other scholars at the game. It was refreshing to see them outside of school and have the opportunity to get to know them better as people and not just my students. Tomorrow is the last day of school for the week - we have 3 days off of school for winter break - and I am looking forward to some relaxation as I travel to Vegas, but I know that when I spend more than 2 days away I start to become lonesome for my kids and feel without a purpose.
-Chelsea
What a crazy week! With a capital C and a big exclamation point at the end... where to start? Unfortunately, for part of the week, it felt like a couple big steps backward. Students did not perform as well on their unit test as I expected, MAPS testing did not turn out even in the fringes of where I wanted it to be, and I faced a couple personal disappointments. Student behaviors turned very sour, and my 6th grade colleague decided to abolish recess. Monday started out strong with students really investing themselves in preparing for their math unit test Tuesday, but things took a quick turn downward, and it felt like each day that followed got worse. So today was a time to rebound. We talked at length today about expectations for ourselves for this year and beyond and how we want to perform as a class and as individual students. Students wrote open letters to the class that we shared, talking about the pitfalls of this week and where we want to go. And with that, today turned out pretty good. Students actually did pretty well on their weekly quiz, and to be honest, academic performance on exit slips this week was good despite disruptions. The push to prepare my students for next year and beyond continues!
--Tom Schalmo
My students had a good week until Friday. On Friday morning, two of my students had a fight. This was the first time this has happened in several months, and I suppose I can feel a little good about that, since in the fall, it was a weekly event. They have come an extremely long way in being able to support one another and work together, whether with their best friends or not. Friday's issue was a very simple example of tempers snapping. We had played around the world, and one child had lost his round and became very upset, a girl then made a comment he didn't like, he made a motion towards the girl, and another boy stepped in to stop the fight, but ended up fighting himself. I spoke to the boys and turned their attention back to our class culture and our goal of proving those who think Milwaukee students can't make it wrong. I elicited from them that when they fight, they prove those people right, and they willingly, tearfully promised it wouldn't happen again. I know they wouldn't have been able to do that in the fall, but I have to ask: is this long-term progress? How long will their promise last?
-Aran Nulty
• STRENGTHS
◦ explaining things well
◦ rewarding students for doing great things
◦ helping students when they are confused
• WARM ACTION AREAS
◦ creating a comfortable environment
◦ being fair (don't really agree that this isn't in place, but I will nevertheless solicit some student opinion on ways to improve)
• HOT ACTION AREAS
◦ making class a place students like to come to
◦ making class interesting
There was also a back side to the survey that gathered details about specific enjoyable experiences so far in class, student perspective of own effort, student perspective about my effort, and student feeling about progress in weakest subject. After looking at the surveys, I’m glad that I decided to administer. Last year I only gave one at the end of the year, but I am now able to immediately start running with my students’ feedback. I’ve already started incorporating more academic games and more math fact practice/speed quizzes, both of which they requested.
-Joe
***
I took my first ever sick day this week. I've always been terrified of getting sick for three reasons. One, I'm a huge wimp when I'm sick and wouldn't be able to "soldier through" and teach beyond more than a sore throat or a cough or something. Two, I was irrationally proud of my perfect attendance. Three, even when I've had to take professional development days, I hate the idea of leaving my class without me and having someone else in my classroom to see my inadequacies and topple the house of cards. I got up early enough to put together a pretty thorough sub plan and email it to another corps member at my school to print out and deliver to the sub. When I went in on Friday, the sub had left pretty positive remarks for every period and my para said my kids behaved great in my absence. I'm very proud of them for behaving so well in my absence. I think it had a lot to do with leaving behind an excessive amount of material (honestly "busywork.") While I strive to make sure my classroom instruction is rigorous, upon realization that I was going to take a rare day off my goal was to leave behind an orderly classroom. I didn't want to leave the sub a new math objective to teach because I'm sure I would end up reteaching it anyway, so I left behind review. This held true in most subjects - review or extension work given in a quantity great enough to keep them from getting rowdy.
- Eamonn Collins
Last week flew by rather quickly at Hope. Mid-winter break began on Thursday so my kids were only in class three days. During a session at the TFA Summit, I learned more about the social-emotional gap in ECE and lower elementary classrooms and how this gap is actually bigger than the achievement gap in these grades. I really took that back to my classroom this week and tried my best to listen to my students and express their needs whenever they felt upset. I'm not sure how much of a difference it made for many of my students in this initial, sort of haphazard way, but, on my end, there was a lot less frustration and annoyance. The simple act of pausing students and asking them to express their needs and wants slowed many situations down and allowed both my students and myself to recollect ourselves. While I can't and won't stop class for every emotional disturbance (and certainly not every misbehavior), taking the time out to discuss how students are feeling and giving them one quick tip on a way that they could more appropriately respond when possible is something I will continue to make a conscious effort to do. And, on Fridays, I'm going to try to teach one social-emotional skill explicitly to the entire class in the hopes that in later grades the social-emotional gap will become less the focus and closing the achievement gap can be the sole endeavor.- Sarah Vester
1. Are students following directions the first time and completing work? Why or why not?
I did a much better job this week of getting my students to work quickly and urgently on their classwork. It is till not completely where I want it to be, but the expectation is a lot more clear to everybody. I start my 6th grade class with confidence building problems in the warm-up to get them invested right away. I use a timer on the board to keep everybody on the same page, and I am keeping the class moving and lively. This has helped a great deal.
2. Are students more invested in GP? Is your INM simplified?
Students were much more invested in the GP this week. I broke the INM into much quicker, simpler points, then transitioned into the GP with a relevant anecdote, building upon the students background knowledge. I kept my expectations of what the students needed to be doing during the GP clear, which helped some of the behavior issues I had previously. Toward the end of the week however, I did slip back into a mode were I allowed my pace to slow as a result of low GP investment. This only made the situation worse. I need to keep my energy and pace up in order to keep my students more alert and active, especially right before lunch.
3. How is planning? Did you have time to plan this week? Why or why not?
Planning was very difficult this week. Getting back from the summit, I had a lot of work to make up. I usually use my weekends to plan the entire week out, freeing up time during the week to adjust instruction, differentiate, grade and track. All of this became a bit of a mess as my weekend could not really be used to plan. I was however incredibly inspired by the weekends events, so I didn't mind the extra work this to get caught up. -- Robby