For our Practicum, we are expected to videotape a lesson that we teach. I decided to tape today since I came up with the lesson on my own. It was a pretty good lesson. Today was also the first day that I taught the entire first class and the entire second class. The first class was a little rough because I wasn't used to the kids, they weren't used to me, and I had not taught the lesson before. Luckily I got on track with my second class (which are the ones who I have taught now for six of the seven days of their summer school semester). Between my comfort with them and that I had seen the bumps in my first lesson, the second one went much better. It is also the one that I decided to tape.
We covered percentages, so we talked about how you change percentages into decimals and fractions, and then I brought in some roll call votes from the House and Senate from big votes over the course of the past few years. I think the earliest thing I brought in was the passage of No Child Left Behind in December of 2001. This let me do a little social studies review (branches of government). I had a lot of fun; we didn't finish today, so we'll probably pick this up tomorrow.
I am currently trying to upload the video to my computer so that I can post it online, but I'm not having too much luck at the moment. I also got my cooperative teacher's first assessment of how I'm doing, and she was very complimentary of my teaching for the first week and a half.
I'm heading to Wisconsin for Fourth of July weekend, so don't expect any posts until July 5th at the earliest!! Happy 4th to everyone!!!!
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
OOOOH! WE'RE HALF WAY THE-RE!! OH OH! LIVIN' ON A PRAYER!
So...that title is thanks to Bon Jovi in case my punctuation was more confusing than helpful.
I got the word that my school ended up making their math hire, which means that they will have one guy taking all the religion classes, and another person taking all the math classes. Which means that the only class preps I will have will be for my three social studies classes. They are also scrapping their double-period of social studies, which means that rather than seeing every student for two 45 minute periods per day, I will only have them once per day.
To fill my afternoons, though, I will be taking the newly-created Intervention Classes. Basically, each class has PE in the afternoons, and I will be given materials by the other content teachers for any students who need extra help with their schoolwork or getting caught up to grade level for them to come in for help on during their PE period. I'm a little sad to see the math classes taken away from me, but excited that I'll "only" have to prepare for three classes per day.
Practicum is going very well. I really like my kids (for the most part) and my teacher is still awesome. My classroom management is getting better. I wait for students to be quiet (and they do), and Friday I had a funny experience. The troublemaker was acting up (as always) and distracting his fellow students. I had made a blanket statement at the beginning of class to let them know that it would be very easy to reassign their seats. With about 20 minutes of class left, this boy pushed his friend out of his seat. I said, "John, that's it. Come sit up here." He mouthed off for a bit, but my cooperative teacher stepped in and set him straight. The reason it was so awesome was because literally for the next five minutes, not a single person in the class made a sound.
Today we headed up to the beach on Lake Michigan. It was great, but very "ACE-ey." We had well over 100 people up there hanging out together. When we got back, four of us went to the new Transformers movie. It was awful, but there were lots of explosions and fights. The storyline, plot, acting, etc. was terrible. Last night we all went out, but for two hours before going out, I just went and sat in Barnes and Noble, got a big mocha from Starbucks, grabbed a book and a couch, and alternated between reading and sleeping. It was very relaxing, and a good way to unwind.
A few of us just got back from a midnight trip to Taco Bell, and I'm heading to bed now. Hopefully I will be able to post as often as I was able to before I started teaching my Practicum. This week should be a little less busy. We're only in class for 3 days, and I don't have any huge assignments due (I had a lesson plan due for class Friday last week).
I got the word that my school ended up making their math hire, which means that they will have one guy taking all the religion classes, and another person taking all the math classes. Which means that the only class preps I will have will be for my three social studies classes. They are also scrapping their double-period of social studies, which means that rather than seeing every student for two 45 minute periods per day, I will only have them once per day.
To fill my afternoons, though, I will be taking the newly-created Intervention Classes. Basically, each class has PE in the afternoons, and I will be given materials by the other content teachers for any students who need extra help with their schoolwork or getting caught up to grade level for them to come in for help on during their PE period. I'm a little sad to see the math classes taken away from me, but excited that I'll "only" have to prepare for three classes per day.
Practicum is going very well. I really like my kids (for the most part) and my teacher is still awesome. My classroom management is getting better. I wait for students to be quiet (and they do), and Friday I had a funny experience. The troublemaker was acting up (as always) and distracting his fellow students. I had made a blanket statement at the beginning of class to let them know that it would be very easy to reassign their seats. With about 20 minutes of class left, this boy pushed his friend out of his seat. I said, "John, that's it. Come sit up here." He mouthed off for a bit, but my cooperative teacher stepped in and set him straight. The reason it was so awesome was because literally for the next five minutes, not a single person in the class made a sound.
Today we headed up to the beach on Lake Michigan. It was great, but very "ACE-ey." We had well over 100 people up there hanging out together. When we got back, four of us went to the new Transformers movie. It was awful, but there were lots of explosions and fights. The storyline, plot, acting, etc. was terrible. Last night we all went out, but for two hours before going out, I just went and sat in Barnes and Noble, got a big mocha from Starbucks, grabbed a book and a couch, and alternated between reading and sleeping. It was very relaxing, and a good way to unwind.
A few of us just got back from a midnight trip to Taco Bell, and I'm heading to bed now. Hopefully I will be able to post as often as I was able to before I started teaching my Practicum. This week should be a little less busy. We're only in class for 3 days, and I don't have any huge assignments due (I had a lesson plan due for class Friday last week).
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Good News!!
Well, a few exciting tidbits of news!! Firstly, my Practicum has gotten off to a roaring start. I successfully woke up on Monday morning, and had a fun morning of observing my cooperative teacher run the classroom. I was impressed by the lack of explicit classroom-management type things she had to do. The kids just kind of came in and knew what they were supposed to do. For the most part, they are all pretty well-behaved. After that late night and early morning on Monday, you would think I would have rested up last night, right? No. A couple of my friends were in town for the night, so we stopped by one of the shadiest bars in South Bend (Club 23). It was a fun night; I was completely under control, but I didn't get back to my room till 3.
After two short nights in a row, I was struggling pretty hard to stay awake during the first class this morning. I freaked out when, between classes today, my cooperative teacher asked me how much of the second class period I felt comfortable taking over. Not being one to shy away from much, I taught the entire second class. It was pretty good - I basically did the exact same thing she had done. In explaining one thing in the way that I thought she had, though, I apparently did a better job of it, because she commented later that it was a really good idea to present it that way. Tomorrow we are planning to do the same thing - she'll do the first class and I'll do the second. I think by the end of the week, I'll slowly start doing more of the first class.
My teacher is awesome - she is absolutely willing to let me do what I want ("It's your experience, so just tell me to get out of your way if you don't want me interrupting you.") I obviously told her that it's her classroom and that she can feel free to interrupt at will. The one thing that I had trouble with today was a little classroom management point. You aren't supposed to talk over kids. Having the loud voice that I do, I just kind of assume I can easily talk over quiet side conversations. She had to stop me twice today to quiet some kids. I basically just need to work on realizing that those conversations are going on and taking the time out to stop them.
The other bit of good news came tonight. Each ACEr has a mentor teacher in his/her school. Mine happens to be the Vice Principal of Heart of Mary, and she is up here this week for the mentor teacher workshop. I met her tonight at mass and talked with her for a while afterwards. Apparently there are some staffing changes going on and they haven't quite been able to fill everything quite like they want. Anyway, to spare the details, it looks like I'll be teaching all the social studies, no religion, and at least a math class or two. Depending on how many math classes they have me teach, I may also teach a "practical what you need to know to survive in the real world" class. The goal of that class would be to get guest speakers from different career fields, teach the students how to fill out a job application, how to write a check and balance a checkbook, etc. Also, she said the basketball coaching job will almost certainly be open, and she was excited that I expressed interest in taking that on. She also mentioned that Sister Nancy (the Principal) has some other things cooking for me. I don't really know what that can mean since it looks like I'll be pretty busy already.
In other news, I have a lot of work to do this week. My first lesson plan is due Friday. The goal of the ACE classes in the first summer is to send us off with one class roughly planned for the year (not completely lesson planned, but at least unit objectives, course objectives...all the broad things to be filled in on the fly with lesson plans). I have been struggling with which course to work on. Civics because that's what I'm most enthusiastic about (and will therefore probably write better plans and have better ideas) or world history, which I don't know as much about and am not as pumped for (since a head start in that class will probably be much appreciated). As I type this post, I have my world history book open to the Alabama Standards pages at the front. I think I'm going to go with this one, which means I need to get my brain in gear for this.
Sorry for the long post. I've had a whirlwind couple of days, and the rest of the week looks to be pretty exciting too.
After two short nights in a row, I was struggling pretty hard to stay awake during the first class this morning. I freaked out when, between classes today, my cooperative teacher asked me how much of the second class period I felt comfortable taking over. Not being one to shy away from much, I taught the entire second class. It was pretty good - I basically did the exact same thing she had done. In explaining one thing in the way that I thought she had, though, I apparently did a better job of it, because she commented later that it was a really good idea to present it that way. Tomorrow we are planning to do the same thing - she'll do the first class and I'll do the second. I think by the end of the week, I'll slowly start doing more of the first class.
My teacher is awesome - she is absolutely willing to let me do what I want ("It's your experience, so just tell me to get out of your way if you don't want me interrupting you.") I obviously told her that it's her classroom and that she can feel free to interrupt at will. The one thing that I had trouble with today was a little classroom management point. You aren't supposed to talk over kids. Having the loud voice that I do, I just kind of assume I can easily talk over quiet side conversations. She had to stop me twice today to quiet some kids. I basically just need to work on realizing that those conversations are going on and taking the time out to stop them.
The other bit of good news came tonight. Each ACEr has a mentor teacher in his/her school. Mine happens to be the Vice Principal of Heart of Mary, and she is up here this week for the mentor teacher workshop. I met her tonight at mass and talked with her for a while afterwards. Apparently there are some staffing changes going on and they haven't quite been able to fill everything quite like they want. Anyway, to spare the details, it looks like I'll be teaching all the social studies, no religion, and at least a math class or two. Depending on how many math classes they have me teach, I may also teach a "practical what you need to know to survive in the real world" class. The goal of that class would be to get guest speakers from different career fields, teach the students how to fill out a job application, how to write a check and balance a checkbook, etc. Also, she said the basketball coaching job will almost certainly be open, and she was excited that I expressed interest in taking that on. She also mentioned that Sister Nancy (the Principal) has some other things cooking for me. I don't really know what that can mean since it looks like I'll be pretty busy already.
In other news, I have a lot of work to do this week. My first lesson plan is due Friday. The goal of the ACE classes in the first summer is to send us off with one class roughly planned for the year (not completely lesson planned, but at least unit objectives, course objectives...all the broad things to be filled in on the fly with lesson plans). I have been struggling with which course to work on. Civics because that's what I'm most enthusiastic about (and will therefore probably write better plans and have better ideas) or world history, which I don't know as much about and am not as pumped for (since a head start in that class will probably be much appreciated). As I type this post, I have my world history book open to the Alabama Standards pages at the front. I think I'm going to go with this one, which means I need to get my brain in gear for this.
Sorry for the long post. I've had a whirlwind couple of days, and the rest of the week looks to be pretty exciting too.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Practicum starts in T-minus five hours...
...so I'm going to head to bed. I need to be up in a little over 4 hours thanks to a very unproductive (but very enjoyable) weekend spent at a friend's graduation party in Illinois. I left right after class Friday and got back this afternoon. I'm definitely glad I made the trip. It was great to see people and get away from campus for the weekend. I also had a very fruitful (and efficient, thanks to a 50% off sale) stop at a Van Heusen outlet store on the way back to really beef up my stock of "Teacher Clothes." The main reason I'm still up so late is that after mass, I was talked into playing 2.5 hours of basketball instead of starting my work then. Oh, well...I needed the exercise desperately.
More to come. Probably very soon.
More to come. Probably very soon.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
End of Week 3 (?!?!?!?)
Well, tomorrow I have just one class (middle school methods). This week was relatively easy - I think the faculty eased off on asking for assignments because most of us started Practicum next week. In order to get used to being on the go from 6:30am (or earlier for some folks) until the end of the class day (either 5 or 8:45, depending on the day), they eased off the workload. That means next week may be a little rough for me since we have a few relatively big projects due at the end of the week and I'll be starting Practicum too.
I played a round of golf here on the 9-hole course - it did not go too well at all. It was fun, but I'm not good. Earlier today, I drove up to Michigan (the state line is only about 10 minutes from here) to help one of my buddies move his couches out of a storage room. It was good to see him again - he's starting a Master's program at Ohio University tomorrow (Friday).
I don't really have much else to share. You can bet that next week I will have better stories, but I may also be too busy to post it all right away.
I played a round of golf here on the 9-hole course - it did not go too well at all. It was fun, but I'm not good. Earlier today, I drove up to Michigan (the state line is only about 10 minutes from here) to help one of my buddies move his couches out of a storage room. It was good to see him again - he's starting a Master's program at Ohio University tomorrow (Friday).
I don't really have much else to share. You can bet that next week I will have better stories, but I may also be too busy to post it all right away.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The Plot Thickens...
...a little bit. I just felt like I needed a dramatic title for once.
A few interesting things happened in the past two days. First of all, I was switched from a Language Arts class for my Practicum (yes, I'm teaching Social Studies next year) to a math class. And, that's not the only complication with my Practicum. We all showed up to our school on Monday morning only to discover that the orientation is actually TOMORROW (Wednesday). So, the principal at the school showed us around everywhere and gave us a brief run-down of how the program works. It sounds like it'll be a really good experience. I won't really get to have too much experience with content, but it should be good from a classroom management and "think on your feet" perspective.
In my Social Studies content class today, we were talking about realistic course outcomes for our classes. These are basically a list of the skills that you want your students to be able to accomplish by the end of the school year. For example, one for me might be (probably won't be after today) "Students will be able to (SWBAT) compare and contrast two opposing views in primary documents in a five-paragraph essay." You might spend one unit just having them glean information from documents, another unit working on topic sentences, a third unit on writing a full paragraph, and another unit on writing multiple paragraphs (each unit would be on a different area of history/civics/geography) so that by the end of the class, we would have built up to a full, five-paragraph essay. Unfortunately, I found out that this is wildly optimistic to expect from my students. I will apparently be teaching much more basic things like how to get information from a map, chart, and/or graph. I'm lost now in a new world of much less exciting projects than what I had hoped I'd be able to do. Luckily I have a great mentor teacher who is in his second summer of ACE and faced a similar situation (if not even a little worse than mine) last year.
Also in my Social Studies Content class today, I realized just how big of a nerd I am. Our professor was pointing out that history is simply the vehicle we use to convey skills such as map-reading or paragraph-writing. I am such a nerd that I just think that learning historical facts alone should suffice as a reason to teach/learn social studies. This revelation, taken together with my more realistic expectations, has kind of shocked me out of a lot of things that I wanted to do with my 7th graders. I realized that thinking back to my experiences is not going to be an effective way to measure what to cover. We were writing 5-paragraph essays in Mrs. Slaughter's 6th grade English class. We were pretty much told today that this would not be a very realistic expectation. I guess we'll have to see.
Finally, one more development...apparently the countdown I started on the top of this page does not work in Internet Explorer. It definitely works in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox (I'm not sure about Apple Safari). If you are just dying to see the countdown, I would recommend downloading and using Google Chrome as your Internet browser.
Luckily, my laundry went off without any unexpected complexities. That's about the only domestic chore I have down pat. Good night!!
A few interesting things happened in the past two days. First of all, I was switched from a Language Arts class for my Practicum (yes, I'm teaching Social Studies next year) to a math class. And, that's not the only complication with my Practicum. We all showed up to our school on Monday morning only to discover that the orientation is actually TOMORROW (Wednesday). So, the principal at the school showed us around everywhere and gave us a brief run-down of how the program works. It sounds like it'll be a really good experience. I won't really get to have too much experience with content, but it should be good from a classroom management and "think on your feet" perspective.
In my Social Studies content class today, we were talking about realistic course outcomes for our classes. These are basically a list of the skills that you want your students to be able to accomplish by the end of the school year. For example, one for me might be (probably won't be after today) "Students will be able to (SWBAT) compare and contrast two opposing views in primary documents in a five-paragraph essay." You might spend one unit just having them glean information from documents, another unit working on topic sentences, a third unit on writing a full paragraph, and another unit on writing multiple paragraphs (each unit would be on a different area of history/civics/geography) so that by the end of the class, we would have built up to a full, five-paragraph essay. Unfortunately, I found out that this is wildly optimistic to expect from my students. I will apparently be teaching much more basic things like how to get information from a map, chart, and/or graph. I'm lost now in a new world of much less exciting projects than what I had hoped I'd be able to do. Luckily I have a great mentor teacher who is in his second summer of ACE and faced a similar situation (if not even a little worse than mine) last year.
Also in my Social Studies Content class today, I realized just how big of a nerd I am. Our professor was pointing out that history is simply the vehicle we use to convey skills such as map-reading or paragraph-writing. I am such a nerd that I just think that learning historical facts alone should suffice as a reason to teach/learn social studies. This revelation, taken together with my more realistic expectations, has kind of shocked me out of a lot of things that I wanted to do with my 7th graders. I realized that thinking back to my experiences is not going to be an effective way to measure what to cover. We were writing 5-paragraph essays in Mrs. Slaughter's 6th grade English class. We were pretty much told today that this would not be a very realistic expectation. I guess we'll have to see.
Finally, one more development...apparently the countdown I started on the top of this page does not work in Internet Explorer. It definitely works in Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox (I'm not sure about Apple Safari). If you are just dying to see the countdown, I would recommend downloading and using Google Chrome as your Internet browser.
Luckily, my laundry went off without any unexpected complexities. That's about the only domestic chore I have down pat. Good night!!
Monday, June 15, 2009
End of Weekend #2
Well, we had community bowling night last night (Saturday). It was very fun; I was not very good. We called a bar in downtown South Bend earlier in the day and asked them to open that night (they're closed for the summer). They did, so we basically had an all-ACE bar. It was a lot of fun.
Today a group of us went to see The Hangover (a new movie). It was very funny, but definitely inappropriate for pretty much anyone. Then I had to go shopping for some laundry detergent. I tend to put things off for as long as possible, and I was down to my last pair of boxers. As a result, my first load of laundry for the summer is about to be finished drying.
Several of us (5, to be exact) have signed up for a summer intramural basketball team, so we'll be ballin' regularly for the rest of the summer. Many activities throughout the ACE summer mirror events during the regular school year at Notre Dame. Bookstore Basketball is no different. Bookstore is the country's largest outdoor 5-on-5 tournament, and it goes down every spring. ACE's rendition is ACEStore Basketball, so luckily I might be in decent basketball shape after a summer of intramurals.
I have to get up early in the morning to go to my orientation for my summer practice teaching (Practicum). I'll get the books I'm teaching (I'm in a Language Arts class for the summer), and meet the "real" teacher that I'll be helping. We have to leave campus at 8:30, but I have some errands to run before that. Also for class tomorrow, I have prepared my first lesson plan for a religion class. I just finished it. It's about revelation (the thing, not the book). We're starting out with Biblical references (mainly Moses and the Burning Bush), and then moving into how we are all members of the Body of Christ and as such, God reveals Himself through us now. The activity will be to draw ways in which my students can either reveal Jesus through their actions or see Him in their everyday lives. I personally think it's not very good, but I guess I'll see what my teacher thinks!
And, lastly, I got grades from my classes from the first week. I did very well with my classroom management plan and the essay I wrote about the issues Catholic schools have faced in their history in this country. My professor seemed very complimentary of my management plan, so hopefully that means I am thinking along the right lines for that.
I'm off to get my laundry for now!
Today a group of us went to see The Hangover (a new movie). It was very funny, but definitely inappropriate for pretty much anyone. Then I had to go shopping for some laundry detergent. I tend to put things off for as long as possible, and I was down to my last pair of boxers. As a result, my first load of laundry for the summer is about to be finished drying.
Several of us (5, to be exact) have signed up for a summer intramural basketball team, so we'll be ballin' regularly for the rest of the summer. Many activities throughout the ACE summer mirror events during the regular school year at Notre Dame. Bookstore Basketball is no different. Bookstore is the country's largest outdoor 5-on-5 tournament, and it goes down every spring. ACE's rendition is ACEStore Basketball, so luckily I might be in decent basketball shape after a summer of intramurals.
I have to get up early in the morning to go to my orientation for my summer practice teaching (Practicum). I'll get the books I'm teaching (I'm in a Language Arts class for the summer), and meet the "real" teacher that I'll be helping. We have to leave campus at 8:30, but I have some errands to run before that. Also for class tomorrow, I have prepared my first lesson plan for a religion class. I just finished it. It's about revelation (the thing, not the book). We're starting out with Biblical references (mainly Moses and the Burning Bush), and then moving into how we are all members of the Body of Christ and as such, God reveals Himself through us now. The activity will be to draw ways in which my students can either reveal Jesus through their actions or see Him in their everyday lives. I personally think it's not very good, but I guess I'll see what my teacher thinks!
And, lastly, I got grades from my classes from the first week. I did very well with my classroom management plan and the essay I wrote about the issues Catholic schools have faced in their history in this country. My professor seemed very complimentary of my management plan, so hopefully that means I am thinking along the right lines for that.
I'm off to get my laundry for now!
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