1. Highlight of the past week:
The
major highlight of the week would definitely be the Growing Alligator Lab that
we’re conducting over the next 10 days. Groups of three grow a small rubber
alligator in water and record the length, mass, and calculate the percent
change. We do this the last 5 minutes of the period and the students love it.
It gives them an opportunity to be in control of their learning and to be
responsible for how they conduct their experiment.
2. Something that happened that made you think a little
differently about school, or kids, or teachers, or yourself:
This
week I had a behavior issue in which I was coming up from behind to help a pair
on their worksheet when one student was using some four letter expletives to
explain his story. The other student tried to get his friend to stop but it was
too late. I didn’t come down hard on the student and simply told him that he
was better than that and that he got one warning. He knew what he had done and
said that it wouldn’t happen again.
The rest of the afternoon my mind kept
going back to the situation because from my observations he’s a really great
kid and wasn’t expecting that. I brought it up with my cooperating teacher
after class and she mentioned that it had been a tough year for him. His dad
and uncle had both been deployed overseas and he was left to live with his
aunt. It made me re-think about the home-life baggage that students bring to
school every day and how they have no control over that. It made me glad that I
didn’t overreact and gave the student a second chance.
3. One practice or approach or interaction that you will or
not adopt for your own teaching repertoire:
I will
definitely use the practice of a daily entry task. From the previous day’s
material there is a question that is presented on the document cam. Students
are given about 2-5 minutes to write down their answer in their journal and
then students are called on for their response. This is a great opportunity to
make sure students understood the objective from the previous day and to clear
up any misconceptions. If it seems like students aren’t competent in the
material then we will put the current lesson on hold. The entry task also gives
students a routine that gets them focused and really decreases transition
behavior issues.
4. Any perplexing or conflicting situations you experienced
during the week related to student learning and/or management:
During
the Alligator Lab the groups of 3-4 were all doing well except for one. This
group had a student who refused to follow directions and was not allowing the
others to make measurements. He was also going over to other groups and
interrupting them. This student has never had an issue before and his outbursts
that day really made me scratch my head as well as my cooperating teacher. I
was in charge that period and I felt that he should be removed from the
situation but I didn’t because I never really got the green light from my
cooperating teacher to take that kind of action. Instead I hovered over that
group and acted as mediator as the other group members were becoming upset. I
felt lost at that moment as the student had zero focus and it made me wonder if
he had not taken his medicine (I have no idea if he is on medication). It was a
reminder that at the middle school age that major changes are occurring and the
consistency of a student’s behavior can change sometimes daily.
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