Post-Observation #1

With my coffee in hand, I can now reflect on how my student teaching experience has been thus far. Yes, I said thus...thus thus thus! Also, I am happy to be blogging again, I have really missed it!

So, recently Dr. Mortimore-Smith came to visit my 7th grade classroom on Wednesday (February 13th). To be honest, I felt pretty much completely prepared for her observation and tried to treat it like another day in the classroom. I wrote her a personal letter and left it in my enormous binder on my desk in the back of the room. Side note: I feel so important sitting at my desk in the classroom. I feel even more important sitting at my coop's desk. Haha. When planning the events for this week, knowing that I would be observed, I tried to pick any activity where the students would demonstrate what they have been learning. The trouble was that the date Dr. Shannon was suppose to come was a last minute change. I am not complaining about the date change, but celebrating it. Dr. Shannon was able to observe my class on word power Wednesday...wait I am getting ahead of myself!

Let's start from the beginning of the class. I started off period 2 with the journal topic of the day. We complete a journal entry each day. The journal topic for my observation was describing a "step by step" process of a skill you may have. I decided to do this topic because recently we have been studying the parts of speech. I have come to realize it is a 7th grade standard in almost any school district. Any who, we just start studying verbs and the different categories of verbs. I was shocked when designing the verb study guide because we had to teach 7th grade students about action, linking, helping, main, transitive, and intransitive verbs! Okay, back to the journal topic...the students were supposed to write a paragraph describing the step by step process they have done before or could explain to someone else. The purpose of this journal topic was to practice writing using present tense verbs. We talked about some examples of what they could write about and the brainstorming really help. I think it was a great journal topic to connect to the verb lesson of the week. I have to admit here that the classes I teach at Northern Middle school are very well-behaved. Dr. Shannon even took notice to this! So, when I asked them to start writing, the class was completely silent and every student was on task. If they struggled to write I individually discussed some possible ideas with the student at their desk. After the students finished writing, I had many of them share. The only difficulty I encounter when asking students to share their journals is that there seems to be the same students raising their hands to volunteer. The way I try to avoid calling on the same students each day to share their journal responses is by calling on them by rows and having each person in that row share. Then the next day, I chose a different row. I got this wonderful advice from my coop-who has been so helpful. There were a couple of students that called out during the discussion of student journal responses. One students in particular called out and I ignored him until he raised his hand. He has had warnings about it in the past as well and this was the approach my coop suggested I take when he does call out. After the some students shared their responses, I asked for a volunteer to read my sample. I find it interesting that students prefer to read my model than to read their own; when I asked for a volunteer to read mine almost every hand went up. I think modeling the response for the students in important and it gives them confidence that the topic is not too difficult to write about. I made my journal response a little mini lesson on the parts of speech. It in I highlighted one noun, one verb, one pronoun, and one adjective. The students that could correctly identify the part of speech were awarded a point of their team. (The "team" division of the class may be discussed in another blog because that is a whole other topic for discussion. I find it a very unique way to organized the class into groups). 

After the journal topic, I told the students to take out their homework. The homework from the night before was to complete their verb study guide. We have a really cool system to checking homework. A homework leader is selected to give the answers by calling on students they chose while I check students' homework for completion. The only flaw I find in this, is that I have trouble listening to the answers students give during the homework check. But, it is a unique system because a different student each day becomes the homework leader and stands in front of the class to give their fellow classmates the answers to the homework. 

I was excited to get to the last part of class. The activity that I designed was for the students to make a "Draw It" mini poster. Basically, the purpose of the activity was to illustrate their understanding of the six different verb types. I thought I did a very nice job explaining the directions to the students. I put them on the smart board and showed them my model. I have noticed that models are key to showing students what you expect them to replicate. I remember when I start student teaching I was scared to take over five classes. Now though, I feel like I belong there. I have established authority in my classroom and continue to work on improving this. Explaining the directions to the activity got easier as the day progressed and this provided the other classes with more time to begin working on the Draw It homework assignment. Before the period ended, I asked the class to put away their homework because we were going to do a team challenge. I showed the class the Schoolhouse Rock video on verbs. The students were required to write down the answers to the questions I displayed on the smart board. It was a nice way to summarize verbs in a fun way  and it held the student accountable. I was running out of time though, so I had to cut this activity a little bit shorter than I would have liked. I was able to get through most of the video, but we have to cut out the last two questions I wanted the students to answer because we didn't get that far in the video.


Overall, the students (and I) were moving the entire period. This brings me to finally explain what word power Wednesday is. Word power Wednesday is a special day where student raise their hand when they hear me say one of the word vocabulary words from the previous vocabulary unit. Whomever raises their hand first has to tell me the word I said and give me the definition, then I will reward their team a point. It is a fun little system and the students get really excited when I say a word. It is like they have won the lottery. Haha.

After Dr. Shannon left at the end of period 2, I reflected to myself whether I thought the lesson was successful. Compared to when I started teaching (like two weeks ago), I have made many improvements  I was proud of my accomplishments and felt that my evaluation from Dr. Shannon showed this. I felt the "grade" I received for my observation was well deserved and I hope to outdo myself again the next time Dr. Shannon visits. I hope to continue to keep the students, my coop, and Dr. Shannon on their feet as I come up with new lessons and teach grammar in my own unique way.

Lastly, I am going to try and get involved in the Thon at Northern Middle school. The reason is because I feel like I am apart of the school district now and I would love to participate in an extracurricular school activity. This connection I have made with Northern won't surely be forgotten and I feel that as a student teacher I am making myself known. :) Student teaching has been a lot of work, but the work has all been fun because I am designing it. I love my job (can't wait to get paid to do this!).

Also, one of my students is making a Prezi for their history presentation and asked me for guidance on how to use it!!!!! I am spreading the word about Prezi and the students love it! They call it the "Powerpoint on steroids!"

This is Miss Frady signing out until next time!

_Peace!