weekly blog

8th grader quote of the day "Every serial killer ever has worn glasses. how do I know I can trust you?"

highlight
My highlight was getting to take over the class for a full day when my teacher was out of town. the sub was more than willing to let me teach while he played on his Ipad. We played a game and it went well overall, thouhg I had some serious management issues at times. I had some good discussion, the students we engaged. Luckily enough, when the principal came in everything was going perfectly so that was nice.

Another highlight was getting to talk to one of my "gifted" students who is a writer, and she is working on a short novel during her downtime in class. I talked to her about her writing approaches and we talked about Tolkien, and it was just a good interaction.

think

Something that made me think differently was working with a student of mine who has gotten ignored a lot in class. He has an Iep that manages his behavior, but not his learning. This student is on a lot of medication and from what I can tell probably functioning at more of a fifth grade level intellectually, I'm not really sure what's going on.

My cooperating teachers approach is just to let him hang out, because since he should probably be in a spec Ed class there is not much she can do. I was bothered by that. So yesterday the daily assignment was to write a short paragraph reflecting on the reading. I asked him what he need four times, re explained the direction in detail three times, and he finished the assignment. It took fifteen minutes to get him to where the other students were in three, but he got there. His writing is not as eloquent as other students, but he completed the assignment and showed me he CAN WRITE! So that was my thought, that some students, even students who seem to not get it, can get there.


Approach

My approach is about classroom management,  and it's about consistency. I have trouble with my management, I'll quiet, I'm young, I'm blonde. sometimes,students just don't take me seriously. I am not the type of person who can just raise my voice and command a room, they just laugh because it is unnatural.

So I have found that consistent reminders work for me. clearly outlining expectations, repeating myself, stopping and pointing at specific students and saying "I'm waiting on you and you," and letti other studentspeer pressure them into appropriate behavior works for me. Stopping and asking chatty students to repeat what I just said, and then reminding them they need to respect someone when theyspeakign works. And most of all, I use "kindergarten approaches" a lot, such as saying"eyes and ears up here please." a student said "that's so annoying mrs wells,we're not Kids." andi said,I know. You're 8th graders. When you act like 8th graders, I don't have to say that.

So I don't knowif these Things will work every time. But I am learning tricks with management that actually work for me.

perplexing

My perplexing situation of the week is writing lessons that my teacher wants me to teach. She bought this workbook with "common core" worksheets, and it is great.so I picked out a worksheet, and started to craft a lesson plan around it. Then I went to look up the standard,and it didn't line up with what the workbook said it lined up with. I just... I'll makeitworkbut it's weirdtryign to balance your style of teaching with another teachers sometimes.