Mississippi Teacher Corps’ Neighborhood

I took a video of myself teaching, I watched it, and I've got 3 comments:

If there is one aspect of my teaching instruction or disposition that most detracts from the learning environment (and needs to be corrected immediately) it is student engagement.

Every single student should be actively engaged, yet all to often I miss opportunites for ‘teachable moments’ by sacrificing wait time (in the interest of “moving on”) which is entirely contradictory. This tendency to sacrifice 'wait time' is obscurely, but actually related to poor time management. Furthermore, I  have a tendancy to ‘lecture’ rather than prompt their own thinking.

• Bottom Line:  A student-centered lesson is not about me, I need guide rather than dictate!

Although I appreciate all of the criticism I’ve received thus far- being observed each day by the same experienced teacher has been the most, immediately, effective.  By observing my presentation every single day, Ms. Young has genuinely fulfilled her role as a ‘TEAM coach’ or mentor by not only addressing the flaws in my  planning and instructional practices, but working with me to brainstorm step-by-step how to correct that which was preventing my lesson from being as effective as it should (and needed) to be.  Above all else, I appreciate my TEAM teacher’s consistency.  Whether formally or informally evaluated, Ms. Young remained equally vigilant of which of the criticisms I addressed, moved toward, or entirely neglected.  Of these criticisms, the three that are most indicative of my teaching inadequacies and improvements are:

1) Objectives:  My entire lesson’s effectiveness depends on clear and concise word choice, first and foremost, in the objective.

2) Voice: Spoken word choice: Just as my objectives need to be absolutely clear, so do my verbal instructions. Moreover, I need to be extremely conscientious of local dialects, never assuming that we share the same vocabulary!

3) Time Management: This is directly predicated in an inadequately organized lesson plan (that attempts overly ambitious ideals and only “hopes to meet the objective”) and revealed in my execution.

Blog 2: What is the number one thing you need to improve on as a teacher?  Why?

It is no secret that the number one thing I need to improve on is classroom management.  More specifically, consistency, I am not consistent enough. Some days I am really on and other days I just let my classroom management crumble at my feet.  I know that classroom management is the most important thing to have before you can even begin your lesson.  I have been talking to many teachers asking them how the managed their classrooms and I have come to the following conclusion:  although, their management techniques have been useful to them and are great and efficient ways to run the classroom it cannot always be applied in your classroom.  I think I know where my management went wrong.  First, I gave my students too much freedom.  I treated them more like adults when they are just children and should be treated as such.  Secondly, because I am inconsistent the students do not know what and when they can get away with something; it is unfair to them to give a consequence to one student for talking and not another.  I know that I can do this.  I just need to, as Hunter says, put my game face on. I should treat everyday as a new day and never let up.  Classroom management is an on going thing not something you just do the first week of school. Until then...

Throughout this summer I have been getting lots of advice.  Some of the most valuable and inciting advice has come from my team leader Hunter.  He has been great he is full of so many ideas and ways to improve instruction and the students enjoyment. There are a lot of things that I have learned form Hunter.  The first thing that I have learned is that fair is fair and consistency is key.  Here's an example:  during Hunter's lesson he asked that the students raise their hand before replying.  One student, let's call her M, blurted out the correct answer.  Hunter acknowledge her answer but also gave her a consequence for talking.  I have learned that consistency is important and students understand that talking out of turn is just that talking.  Another thing that I have learned from Hunter is that you need to differentiate the way that you deliver you instruction.  Lecturing is not the only way to teach math. Changing your instruction keeps the students engaged.  The third thing that I've learned from Hunter is to have activities for the kids; not all students learn from lecturing.  You need to vary your assessments.  Trying to engage every student is a challenge but doing activities is a way to gain maximum retention.  There has been a lot of advice and suggestion, and I plan on trying to incorporate it whenever I can.  As a teacher you are forever trying to find new things and new strategies to make your class not only efficient but engaging.  Until then....

I have worked on talking less in my classes, and it has yielded results, although it will still be a focus throughout the year. The biggest problem I've encountered is time with my back to the students. This has occurred mostly through too much talking, not pre-writing my notes for the overhead projector, and bad positioning when I help students in independent practice. I was in shock at the amount of time one student was lip-sinking to others behind my back when I recorded one of my lessons. Although the second class showed marked improvement, it still wasn't at the level I need when I enter a classroom of 30 seniors that don't need my class to graduate. I need to become more vigilant in class and have less blind spots in general. When I do see things happen in my class I need to react without hesitation, and crack things down immediately. Summer school has made me mildly hesitant to do this because of its strict expulsion policy. Some students would have been out during the first week if we stuck to our enforcement. During the year I need to dole out the appropriate punishment and just stick to my guns. I argued with one student during the summer about her detention, and while I knew I was right, and I think somewhere she knew I was right, as Chris Rock says, " She's not in it to be right, she's in it for length and irritability". I enjoy arguing, I can do so and normally win when there is a logical answer because I use empirical evidence, and if I lose to a superior argument, I can concede without feeling dejected. That is my achilles heel in this situation, empirical evidence and whose right is irrelevant, only talking and frustration and the attempt to just make it not worth it to the teacher to argue anymore are the goal of the injured party. They wish to fight a war of attrition, and they have won many because many teachers leave, but what they don't realize, is I don't have anything else to do, and I don't really feel the need to go anywhere else. Plus I really like teaching. So I need to minimize my target area, steel my skin, and make sure I'm prepared to remove all roadblocks toward my target objective, teaching kids about bugs and graphing. 

Mr. Taylor has been a great help in honing my teaching abilities. I'll just get right into the lessons.

Lesson 1- Use the Projector/Back to the Students is chaos: Mr. Taylor had to hammer this lesson to me on many evaluations before I finally got the point. Notes and organization are not my forte, frankly I learn much better from listening and live much better in at least minor chaos, therefore I resisted. By the time I finally acquiesced to his suggestion, he was so adamant that on that lesson plan when he thought I was going to ignore it yet again he wrote the suggestion in all caps. But, since I've started implementing the projector my management has gotten easier and its been less stressful for me in general to teach. I feel a little more  confined by projector notes, but confined means structure and structure is good.

Lesson 2- I can be overbearing: sometimes when I speak to students, although I have no frustration or anger with them, my tonality and volume can frustrate students or cause them to recede from the lesson rather than engage, which is my goal. Therefore, I need to tailor my interactions with specific students to ensure I don't turn them off or alienate them. However, he backed up my decision to give a student a detention for doing a writing assignment during my lecture, which I felt bad about afterward, so he enforced its ok to be forceful when disciplining, but sometimes I must vary my approach when teaching different students.

Lesson 3- Do the things your boss tells you even if you find it pointless- I find writing all the objectives for a review topic pointless. It wastes time at the beginning of the lesson. It allows the students when I asked them what we learned today or what our objectives were to just read it off the board as opposed to thinking about what we that day. I DONT LIKE IT. During one of my formal evaluations when I felt I rocked my lesson, I got a lot of points taken off for this even though the rest of my lesson was solid. I care less about grades now, but I still do somewhat, its rooted in me I suppose. Mr. Taylor understood my frustration, sharing it to some extent, and told me ways I could do the things I find pointless in a more efficient way that will still be acceptable to those evaluating me. It was comforting to be both sympathized with and instructed on how to avoid my frustration. I think this lesson helped me empathize with my students, because sometimes the things I ask them to do will seem pointless, but I will expect them to do it anyway, because I see the benefit. I see the benefit in some of the strict rules to objectives and things of that nature, but I am not the biggest proponent of structure in some areas of learning. I have become more structured in how I form my notes, my lesson, and my approach to management under the tutelage of Mr. Taylor.

Lesson 4- Student Interactions- I tried to sit with my students during first semester, although not many of the other teachers did. I only did a few times because I felt it stripped my authority and mystique away and made classroom management harder. I wanted to get to know my students better and let them know I'm a person as well as their teacher, but one of the books I've read and loved recently is "leadership secrets of attilla the hun". The quote that kept resounding in my head was, "A captain who drinks with his Huns ceases to be a captain". I therefore avoided sitting with and interacting with my students outside the classroom to maintain the perception that I was their leader, not one of them. Mr. Taylor sat with our students right away when he came and started playing basketball with them. I started sitting with them again and played basketball with them and the important thing that happened was that I saw them as people again, even and especially the ones I was most frustrated with. I think its important to remind yourself that while kids may not care what you have to say about math, sometimes you can teach them and interact with them and effect them in different ways. I'm not sure the outcome of this lesson yet, but I now have two differing perspectives on the issue.

Mr. Cole was (and still is) the mysterious guy in the back of the room, one whom the kids know better than to mess with. He's not as much the silent-seductive type with me as he is with the kids, so I get some really good input. He lets me do my thing, then he gets to tell me where I screwed up and where I was alright.

I was slightly less nauseated watching myself teach on film for the second time in as many months. I certainly showed improvement from last time (thank God--I don't know what that would have meant had that not been the case), mainly in my method of instruction. Instead of the lecture style, I had everything written out on overheads; that way, all I had to do was ask questions and guide students through my questioning to the correct answer so they think they came up with it on their own. Once they get it right, I pull down the sheet covering the overhead to reveal what one of them has just said. This takes a LOT more time and preparation (even a little TLC), so I'm not sure how often I'll do it this way during the actual year, but I might go out on a limb to say it's the most effective style I've used thus far.