Internship Teaching #7

For today’s blog post, I would like to describe how my research topic is going. I have many students who are embracing this project and are really going above and beyond what the assignment is asking them to do. For instance, I have students painting their cars pink and putting a white ribbon symbol for breast cancer awareness month. I also have other cars where students are taking a previous idea learned in the class (air pressure) and are using it to power their cars down the hallway. I also have a student who is using a piston and crank to help keep his car moving further down the hall. All these students are working hard on this project, which is making me think to myself: Are the students learning the key principles in this section? Are the students taking the research they are finding on the internet and in textbooks to help them understand what can be used to power their cars? As the teacher, am i letting things get too far from them to where they are not learning anything? I also think it is important to note that I see many "new" students putting forth effort that I have not seen yet this semester. Could it be because they are doing a project that they have to build instead of only doing research? I suppose only time will tell. I am anxious to meet with each of the students in the next few weeks to interview them to see how they felt about doing this project.

Intern Teaching #6

Now that I have been teaching full time in the Science and Math classrooms, I have started noticing different things about teaching that I have now seen before. For instance, in Math class students have been using their "Foldable" to learn the distance formula and also how to manipulate it so that they can solve for distance speed and time. I am noticing that the students are becoming lazy about their work in that they do not want to refer back to the table to help them in doing the next assignment. The students feel as though once they have learned it, they will no longer need to use that information for upcoming lessons. This also applies in the Science room as well. The students begin to think it is ok to "do their own thing" without rederring to the rules sheet that was given to them on the day the project was introduced. The students are within their groups and are not writing down their research and findings in their notebooks. This troubles me because I want them to see the importance of learning how to take good notes so that they may be able to use them later in the future. As the teacher, I am going to try to stress to my students the importance of taking good notes and understanding that the things they are learning today will still be used tomorrow also.

Internship Teaching #5

For this blog post, I believe it is important to talk about how my full time student teaching is going. As of last week, I have started teaching completely on my own in both Math and Science. In the mornings, I teach Math to one section of 7th and 8th grade. Once lunch is over, I then teach 2 sections of 6th grade Science and a section of 8th grade Science. The thing that is important to keep in mind though is that the same 8th graders I see in the morning, I also see in the afternoon for Science. So these students have the luxury (or pain) of having me twice in one day for the same subject. This has (so far) been a great experience for me. The reason being is because my students have seemed to make a connection with me. It may have to do that I am now their teacher in both class and in doing my research study; the classes are coinciding with one another. What I mean by this is that the students are doing distance time and speed in Math class. The students are relating the concept to both classes and it seems to be keeping them engaged for both subjects. The thing I like most about this research is that there are some students who showed little interest in Science but now, they seem to really like doing the projects. This has been a good experience for me. I love that all the students are interested; my only hope is that when this project is complete, they will still look forward to the next project, even if it does not have Math and Science mixed together.

Intern Teaching #4

Throughout my time here at Bruceton School, I have learned many things about myself so far. I feel as though, now students respect me as their teacher and also like having me as their teacher. The evidence I have to prove this comes from last week. It was a short week due to "Buckwheat Festival" in Preston County. Students were actually only in school Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of last week. Due to these festivities, my mentor teacher in Math cause taking a personal day for Wednesday. He asked me if I felt comfortable teaching the entire day. After talking with him, I realized that I wanted to try it. I felt confident in myself to teach for the entire day and I also thought the students would like it as well. He instructed me that I would have a mentor teacher in the room but she would only help if needed. Knowing this, I felt a little added pressure. Another thing that made me nervous was working with the 7th grade students in the afternoon class that I hadn't previously worked with. This was nerve wrecking to me because I didn't know any of their names and I didn't want them to think they could take advantage of me during the class period since I was not their normal teacher. Not only did my day go really well, I think all the students in the afternoon classes had a good time listening to me and I made it fun for them. I was worried for nothing. After teaching for the entire day, I also felt like the day went by very quickly because I moved from one subject to the next and had little down time. After the day I had, I felt much more confident in my abilities as a teacher and I can't wait to start teaching on my own in the upcoming weeks!

Intership Teaching #3

As I begin to settle myself into the daily routines of school and each of my place settings, I am starting to see how teaching really works. What I mean by this is how the students perceive me as their teacher, and friend. Since the third week of school is over, I have had been able to start teaching all on my own. This has been an exciting and scary thing at the same time. The reason why is because I am getting my feet wet, but the students are also pushing their limits with me because they think I will allow them to get away with things that my mentor teacher does not. This is where I am learning the most because I realize now that it is all about being consistent. What I yell at one student for, I must do to every other student. Believe me, if you don’t do this, the students will pick up on it and shout you out (Especially in the middle school). I have also figured out what I will be doing for my action research with my 2 placements. I will be doing a study on meaningful learning with my 8th grade students as I try to incorporate distance, speed, and acceleration into both Math and Science class. The students will practice using the formulas for distance speed etc. in Math class. Then during Science, they will create a race car of some sort (Leaving this open ended) and will then race them down the hallways. The students will then measure their distance and time to calculate their speed and acceleration. The team that builds to best car will win! I think overall, my semester is going very well so far. The students all seem to be treating me like each of their other teachers and are showing equal respect towards me. My hope is that they will enjoy the project I will be working with them on and they will soon understand how each of their course are related to one another.

Intern Teaching #2

For my second blog post, I would like to discuss my 8th graders in my afternoon Science course. This year, my Science mentor teacher has decided to switch things up a bit and do "stations" with each of his classes. The students (so far) seem to like this new transition from last year. Among these students though are a few who try to slide by with doing as little work as possible. They are simply trying to rely on their group members to do the work them. A way to fix this was to make each student do a notebook. Each student is now in charge of bringing their notebook to class every day and putting all the information needed to complete the expeirment and so on. The students are also responsible for doing ~8 vocab terms (definition, sentence, synonyms, and a drawing). The notebooks are collected at the end of each concept/unit and is counted as a test grade (100/100 points). The students are also responsible for posting to their blog online while rotating through stations. Since this has been implemented in the classroom, we have seen a wide range of results. Some students have rose to the occasion and have began to take action in their learning and organization skills so that their notebooks are done correctly. Some students have went backwards and are doing little to no work in their notebooks and their grades are showing it. After this week, I am going to try to accomidate to some students to help them improve their notebook grades. We'll see how it goes!

Internship Teaching #1

Although this is my first blog post, I have a lot to talk about my time here at Bruceton school. The year started off with 6 teachers leaving the school and new staff members reporting to the building. To add to this, the school also had a change in the daily schedule and students now spend one hour extra in the school than last year. Instead of being dismissed at 2:30, the students now are dismissed at 3:30. With that being said, each period was extended by 7 minutes. This has made it nice to work with the students in Science class because it gives extra time to do experiments. In relation to this, I have now figured out my schedule since I am doing a multi-study placement at the same time. During the morning hours until lunch time, I am working with the one section of 7th grade and two sections of 8th grade in the morning for Math class. Then after lunch, I am working with 2 sections of 6th grade, and a section of 8th grade for Science. In doing so, I do get to see the same 8th graders in the afternoon as I did in the morning. I've noticed that the students do not really mind this, rather they seem to like it. I like it as well because I begin to see student tendencies. WhatI mean by this is that some students work harder in Math and participate more in Math than they do in Science. (Or vice-versa) This has opened my eyes to a lot of things and ultimately I think this is where I will begin to do some of my research for the semester.