Week 6 My Takeaway

There was a lot more things I took from this class that I can use in my classroom than I thought would be.  I was thinking, I’m teaching high school why would I need to learn middle school methods?  Well after going through 5 weeks of class there are a lot of topics that can be tweaked and used in high school.  The essential attributes that the AMLE discusses can be used in the high school level.  For example, high school students should be challenging and held to high expectations.  It also important to empower even high school students also.  I feel this is important in the high school level because a lot of the students will need to take responsibility their lives and how to fit into society.  I also need to make my curriculum challenging and relevant.  As a business teacher, I feel it is necessary that my curriculum is relevant.  Whether students go to college or not they will have business basics to be successful in the real world.  I like the reaffirmation of using differentiated instruction and assessment.  I am still learning how to strengthen my skills on using DI.  I would say that is my weakness with my preparation and teaching.  The last thing that stuck in my head was about the cultural and community characteristics that we read about last week.  It is not because we just read about it, but the importance it has to do with the students.  It falls under the old saying that it takes a village to raise a child.  I agree with that because society has changed from the past that teachers and schools play a more important role in a student’s education.  As a teacher, I think it is the most important to make sure my classroom is inviting and safe.  For me, I think I can do this to start by meeting the students at the door as they come into the room.  It was interesting how part of the essential characteristics correlates with community characteristics.  The thought of including community and business partners ties in well with making your curriculum relevant.  There is a lot I will take from this class and bring into my classroom.

Wk 5 Culture and Community

I really enjoyed reading this weeks reading. I discussed about the non academic side to the students learning. It discusses the students culture and community characteristics. I enjoyed this reading because I feel these are the aspects of the students learning that are as important if not more important than the academic side. The first thing the reading talks about how the school environment has to be inviting, safe, inclusive, and supportive of all. Not only is this true with the school it also extends to your classroom. The first thing to do make sure your room is clean and decorated with welcoming and bright displays. Make sure you leave some areas open so you can have classes decorate the room. I will also have to do whatever I can do to make sure there is no harassment and bullying. I will make each student as an equal. It also discusses to ensure that each student is an individual. I plan to pull each student to the side through out the school year and get to know them as a student and as a person. I agree with the part of the reading that calls us as educators the advocate and support system for students. This is true because during the school year a student may spend more time around you and the school than they do anywhere else in their life. The section that kind of hits home is the section of the school actively involves families in the education of their children. I have been in schools where parents involvement is not there at home. For example, I was subbing at a school where a student need to take ADHD meds and he had to wait until he got to school to take his meds because there was no parents at home before he left for school. So he was hyper for the whole first hour because his meds hadn’t kicked in. It is a shame that there was now parent involvement to make sure their child took his meds. There are still some middle schools that need to work on involving the families. It seems that parents are only involved if the student is in trouble or they are a IEP or 405 student and the school team and the parents will have meetings. The idea of involving of local business was a surprise to read about, but it makes sense especially with me teaching business classes. I can get the students out to the community and business to learn the basics. The middle school grades are very important because this is where students are making the most changes and are in the most vulnerable part of their lives. We as educators we need to be there for students so they can be successful in school and life.

Wk 4 Differentiated Instruction

This week’s articles about differentiated learning was very interesting and useful.  They are very helpful to read and retain the information.  I have been subbing for several years and had seen the words differentiated instruction, but never knew what it was.  Even starting this program, I did not know how to implement them in the classroom because I did not know what a lot of the types of differentiated instruction.  Though I may be getting better I still can use articles like the two from the reading.  In the article Food for Thought on Differentiated instruction, the author gives us list of five statement that differentiated is not.  For example, “Differentiated instruction is NOT individualized instruction.”  The second article 3 Ways to Plan for Diverse Learners:  What Teachers Do.  John McCarthy gives us three things we should to use differentiated instructions for diverse learners.  So, in short, the two articles gave us a short list of dos and don’ts on using differentiated instruction in the classroom

This week’s articles about differentiated learning was very interesting and useful.  They are very helpful to read and retain the information.  I have been subbing for several years and had seen the words differentiated instruction, but never knew what it was.  Even starting this program, I did not know how to implement them in the classroom because I did not know what a lot of the types of differentiated instruction.  Though I may be getting better I still can use articles like the two from the reading.  In the article Food for Thought on Differentiated instruction, the author gives us list of five statement that differentiated is not.  For example, “Differentiated instruction is NOT individualized instruction.”  The second article 3 Ways to Plan for Diverse Learners:  What Teachers Do.  John McCarthy gives us three things we should to use differentiated instructions for diverse learners.  So, in short, the two articles gave us a short list of dos and don’ts on using differentiated instruction in the classroom.

In the Food for Thought article we are given what Differentiated Instruction is not.  Of the five a couple stuck out for me.  The first is differentiated instruction is NOT individualized instruction. To me that means just because some students may need help learning the lesson, that does not mean that you have to come up with something that is completely separate from the rest of the class.  You as a teacher you will need to make a variation of the lesson for students.  Making things individualized it would just be extra work for the teacher.  I also like differentiated instruction is NOT just for outliers.  That means the DI is not only for students who have identified learning challenges, but for all students.  There may be students that have met the criteria of being a learning diverse student, but still has some struggles with the lesson.  That DI you developed for the student with the learning challenge will also benefit all students that may be struggling.

I enjoyed the article titled 3 Ways to Plan for Diverse Learners:  What Teachers Do.  When it came to DI, I always thought it had to do with the process, but there is more.  There is differentiating the content.  The best way of doing this is by using various formats for delivery such as video and audio.  With differentiating product teachers allow students develop their own design on learning the lesson.

These articles were very interesting and very helpful.  I will definitely keep them and also continue collecting more resources.  DI is still probably my weakest aspect of my teaching so I will need all the help I can get to be successful in my classroom and helpful to my students.

Week 3 Leadership

I will admit this week’s readings were not as interesting to me as the first two.  It may have been simply they just did not seem to soak in as well as the others.  The online article did perk up some thoughts.  It was different reading about principals.  I do not plan on being a principal and will be content being a teacher for the rest of my career.  It did give me some insights on how to know if you are working for a principal that has good leadership skills for the school.  I will be honest in the nearly 18 years of substitute teaching I have yet to find a principal at any grade level that has possessed all 5 key responsibilities of the principal.  There has been on middle school principal that I have worked with quite often that meets almost all the responsibilities.  He definitely established a vision in the school.  After his first couple of years he established the use of John Wooden’s Pyramid to success.  There isn’t an actual written down vision, but they follow the John Wooden quote that is usually attached the to pyramid.  That quote is, “Success is piece of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you made the effort to become the best of which you are capable"  (Wooden 1948).  He then ties each level to the of the pyramid to each student’s academic and social success.  The levels of the pyramid are split into the four quarters of the school year.  He uses the pyramid   He does make the school hospitable for learning.  His door is always open for the students and is very approachable by the students.  He is always willing to help students, but is still willing to be a disciplinarian if the students act up.  He also is very receptive of his teachers to go to workshops to learn skills to help teach students.  He does cultivate leadership in others by having department heads that help with decisions of each department.  I do not have first hand experience when it comes to managing data and people.  He does do this because I have overheard conversations talking about data.  The only of the 5 responsibilities that he does not do much about is improving instruction.  He allows each department to make choices on how instruction is performed and improved. 

Though I do not plan on being a principal, I feel believe that I can use some these responsibilities into my classroom.  I can develop my own vision for my classroom and direct my instruction towards that vision.  It is only common sense that I will have a classroom that is hospitable for education.  I will always be available for my students to ask question about the work or if they have personal issues that they want to talk about.  If I want to have a successful classroom, I need to make my classroom to where students want to be there.  I will cultivate leadership with my students.  First, they will help decide one classroom rules and expectations.  I will also do many group projects where there will be a leader needed to complete and present these projects.

Wooden, J. (1948).  Takacs Learning Center.  Retrieved from http://www.takacslearningcenter.com/tag/coach-john-wooden/

Week 2 Transitioning

This week’s blog I chose to write about the online article.  I found the article very interesting because it made me think back when I was at that age in school.  I did not feel fully prepared to enter Junior High.  I did have to move between four classrooms in 6^th grade but they all were within ten yards from each other.  I remember being scared because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to get my locker open and be late to class or even if I would remember to bring my PE uniform to class.  Granted those may be things that you may not be able to transition students in, but if I was more comfortable with the other things the small things like my locker and my uniform would not bother me.  I enjoyed reading about the tips for teachers to help with the transitioning because some of them made remember as a kid where these tips were never used.  When the article talks about being positive.  I remember one of my 6^th grade teachers telling me that I would be in a rude awakening when I get out to the junior high.  If you can’t handle the work here you won’t handle it next year.  The teachers won’t be as nice when it comes to homework assignments.  That had me kind of nervous, I thought the teachers would be these mean drill sergeants.  Most were very helpful when I had trouble with my work, but that was after I realized that it was ok to ask for help.  I feel if my 6^th grade teachers were more positive, I would have been going in with a positive attitude and would have asked for help sooner.  Luckily, not asking for help sooner did not cause me to fall behind academically.  Another tip that I do not remember have much experience as a student was the providing group structure.  I really can only remember one time in junior high that I was put into a group setting for any type of project.  I feel being in a group setting would have not only helped with the social aspect, but also help students help each other with transitioning.  Some students can handle change better than others. 

As a future myself I did like the tip of comparing and collaborating.  I mean I may have a student that does like what I am teaching and acts out in class.  At the same time, he may love science class and is one of the top students in the class.  If I do not talk to other teachers, I may think it is just him and not me or my material.  With the right information I can adjust my teachings to better engaged that one student as well keeping the rest of the class engaged.  I also feel along with talking to other teachers, I will have to talk to the student.  Collaborate with him or her on how to make the class more engaging for them and devise a plan and find ways to execute that plan.  The tip of being current should be a “no brainer”.  Just like in any industry if you do not stay up to date or even ahead of the outside world you will fall behind and you will start to fail yourself and your students.

This article gave a lot of great information and tips to help us as teachers transitioning students into the middle school grades.  I also think it can also be useful when it comes to transitioning into high school as a freshman.  There is still a learning curve from middle school to high school that I feel many of these tips can be helpful for teachers to help freshman accumulate to his or her new life adventure.

Week 1

This week I will focus more on the online article.  I feel I have more of a connection with this.  I have seen my own middle school go through the movement.  When my parents went through the Junior High it was 7^th-9^th grade.  By time I was in Junior High it was 7^th and 8^th.  In the last 15 years it has changed into a Middle School, but nothing had changed except the name.  Everything was still running like when it was a Junior High.  They then added 6^th and 5^th grade out to the Middle School.  The Middle School has made improvements curriculum and professional developments.  Some of the things that I have noticed that they have not changed and is against what Donald Eichorn proposed was the elimination interscholastic sports.  They have recently added a competitive Scholastic team.  And all classes are organized based on grade including physical education class.  I wish my school would have more of an active learning aspect.  I have always been a hands on learning.  So when there was not much active learning in the Junior years I always felt behind slightly through high school and college.