Action Research: Finishing Up Phase 1

This Wednesday (May 1st) will mark the official end of my phase one of AR. My Research (with a capital r) involves introducing a written dialogue between my students and I. What I am looking for is if the introduction of these conversations will have any impact on their productivity during class and test scores. I have obtained a journal type notebook for each student where we can converse from topics ranging from what they did over the weekend to what they think is difficult about school. I have implemented 2-3 questions per week for the past 3 weeks. The results have been promising so far but up to this point there has been no change in test scores. Student participation and productivity has raised which I am happy about.

There are a total of 24 students and I tend to take around 5 minutes min. responding to each students' response to each of the questions. Needless to say that is a big chunk out of the day after student-teaching, night class and other program requirement. However it is well worth it. The class dynamic is much smoother and I am finding it easier to hold them accountable for their actions, or lack of action, the more I get to know them.

One thing that I have noticed is that I started to exhibit some of the feelings I read about in my education classes where teachers tend to focus more energy on the kids who are producing and participating. I caught myself more than a few times putting more thought and effort into my responses where students wrote more than the students who only wrote a few sentences.

This goes against my view of what a teacher should be. But having this experience made me empathize with those teachers who get frustrated with lower achieving who show little effort and motivated me to not only go back and re-write my responses, but to write MUCH more to those students so they see that no matter what they write, I am going to give it my all to respond to them. My hope is that this will produce a tipping point to where they actually produce more writing in their responses. Here is an example: My writing is in pen and student writing is in pencil.

Another challenge is changing the way I write. Since these are middle school students I am really trying to put more emotion in my writing like exclamation points and smiley faces...I don't know if I will ever get used to the smiley faces though

An Update on Billy Ray

This update refers to a previous "Reflections" post I made on my Weebly page on 10/11/12 under the title "Dealing With A Struggling Student." A few things have happened since this last post. He was suspended for threatening another student (the week after the tragic Connecticut school shooting). Not saying there is any good time to threaten another student, but his choice to do this when all schools were on a more heightened alert was not good. I spoke at his expulsion hearing as an advocate and the decision was made to reduce the action to a suspension. Since his return, he has genuinely made overtures to make the student she threatened feel comfortable and they have had a more amicable relationship since.

Another change is that I am no longer at that school. My last days there I tried my best to push her in the right direction. When she came back from her suspension her attitude toward school changed for the better, but after a couple weeks she reverted to her unproductive ways. I did all I could. I was firm, understanding and more real with her than any other student in my teaching experience so far.

After a few days of playing phone tag with her mom I finally received an update last week. According to her, Billy Ray is doing much better in class. Since the new semester started he has been on top of it and both my former master teacher and vice-principal have been giving Bill Ray positive feedback to his mom. It is funny how the little updates by keeping in touch with parents can make your week better.

Students Using Past Work As A Reference

Over the past months students have been familiarizing themselves with Edmodo. I have been sharing presentations, videos and websites that I think will help them. I am happy to say that last week it became a 2-way street when a student caught on with the idea of sharing and added something he did last year to help us this year with our Greek mythology section of our ancient Greece unit.  http://mrdfourth90.com/all_class_sites/2011/Greek_Gods/data/home2.htm

Noticing Differentiation Everywhere

It should come as no surprise that differentiation is everywhere, not just at school. For me, learning about differentiation in our Education classes has opened my eyes to noticing it all around me. The more I study about nutrition and conditioning to make myself more of an asset to the schools I will be applying to, the more I notice differentiation in its many forms, not just in the classroom.

In my experience coaching and conditioning differentiation is known as modification, but has exactly the same goals. A word bank for a graphic organizer is the equivalent of dropping to your knees for added support in doing push-ups. Sounds weird right? Think about it. A word bank is used to assist students filling out a graphic organizer who might not have the same auditory cues when listening to a lecture or taking notes during a movie. Here is an example of a organizer I used when teaching a lesson about Bayard Rustin close to the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday:

The word bank can be used to assist students mentally just as modification can be used to assist athletes (or anyone for that matter) physically. A simple exercise that comes to mind is a push up:

Differentiated push-ups (Easier to most challenging)

Both these methods have the same goal. To build the person's confidence and ability for the overall purpose of pushing them to the next level and removing scaffolds. In the case of the student the scaffold would be the word bank, with the athlete, the removal of knees when doing a push-up

Introducing Edmodo to My 6th Grade Class

For the past few months I have been utilizing Edmodo as a resource to:

Communicate with students and teach them how to communicate with each other

 Keep in touch with students who have moved away

Posting my presentations for review

 And any other links that will facilitate their learning

Teacher Called in Sick

The past few weeks I have been feeling a kind of "stuck in muck" feeling at my placement. The age group and class dynamic is practically elementary and it feels like I am always holding back because "that is not the way you speak to this age group." I almost wanted to ask for a transfer when we did a few days on how Winnie the Pooh compares to Taoism.

However, something happened this morning that changed my attitude towards my placement. My teacher called in sick and since I have my sub permit I was in charge. I have taken days more often than not at this point, but there is a different feel to it when it is all me and not someone watching, jumping in if they feel things are getting too gruff, when in teaching History, unpleasant things have to be discussed.

Needless to say, today has reignited my want for my own classroom. My management is getting stronger and I am finding my teacher voice, which for a time I was wondering if I was ever going to get. I have had this feeling before when subs are called in, but today I was totally in charge of steering the ship and it did not sink.

I can still learn ALOT from the regular class dynamic. It is just a matter of not letting the what I think as "kid stuff" get in the way of the noticing what is happening outside the lesson. Making subject matter comprehensible to students is huge and it will be my job to find that everyday connection that they can identify with, even if it is Winnie the Pooh. I am more of a Bernstein Bears guy.