January 20th, 2017

Weekly Rating: 5 - I have learned through experience and observation this week!

• Observe: This week I began easing myself into the classrooms. On Tuesday I began with Kindergarten and on Tuesday I picked up 1st grade. On Thursday I taught K,1,2 and today (Friday) Mrs. Fogleman was out of town so we had a substitute, meaning I taught 1, 5, 2, and 4th grades!!! 

This experience was the most telling. With no real pressure about being "watched" by Mrs. Fogleman, I felt free to be myself and teach the way I wanted. I followed her guidelines and most of her style, but I made it my own! I had a lot of fun today, even though my 4th grade class was a bit rowdy. I made sure to take roll today in class, trying to put faces with names. I think most of my students appreciated that! 

• Reflect: I learned a great amount this week. Today, especially, I learned how to infuse just an ounce of my personality into the lessons. I'm a pretty goofy guy, and I had to realize through observing Mrs. F that I can't be goofy or lackadaisical all the time. I have kids who are sometimes right on the brim of excitement and being chatty, etc. I have to be the one in charge and keeping everything moving. 

Today, however, while I was teaching 2nd grade, we were playing simple rhythms on the xylophones. I had been letting every student (in groups of 6) go up and play. The students who were not up playing xylophones were told to take out their "invisible mallets" and play along with the ones up front, just for the sake of practice and getting better. Therefore, since they already had been practicing their rhythms with their invisible mallets, I made the rhythms slightly more challenging each time a new group came up. I asked the class if I should add a bit of a challenge to the rhythm. They, of course, all agreed! I asked what I should put in there to try and trip the players up. I heard "half note," "rest," "eighth notes." I told them it was going to be a secret and tried to cover the white board as much as possible with my body and told them not to look, knowing they were dying to know. They I revealed it and they burst out in laughter as I had chosen some of their suggestions (I added eighth notes to the sequence). I laughed at their laughter, and it just made me realize how much fun teaching can be. 

• Focus: I have been focused on trying to learn both teacher's and students's names. It is very important to me to know them and for them to know that I care enough to learn all 560-some of their names. They are great kids and deserve for me to address them in a respectful way. As far as my goal of figuring out my edTPA unit, I would say that is making progress. We had an edTPA seminar on Tuesday and I learned a lot about how to approach the project and align my assessments with my instruction! 

I learned that I am going to have to figure out exact, methodical ways to instruct and assess my students. I have to give reasons for why I am doing almost everything in the class. That changed the way I am viewing the entire process. I am going to have to figure out how to make sure my assessments actually assess their learning progression, and checks their learning throughout the process with scientific research to back it all up. 

• Be productive: I could have spent more time this week at home planning for edTPA. I usually get back to school and am so beat that the very last thing I want to think about is school work. That isn't to say that I am not enjoying it, it's just that I get back to my apartment and am tired.

Monday and Tuesday are work days. Also, today (Friday) was an early release day, so I am now getting caught up on some work. Monday and Tuesday I am coming in to get my edTPA hopefully figured out. I am meeting with the teacher of the class I am using for my focus class for edTPA. I'm exciting to hear what she has to say about their learning styles and abilities. This will definitely help me in the progression of planning my unit. 

• Have courage: Now that I have actually started to teach in class, I am more readily available to answer this question. At the beginning of the week, when I began with Kindergarten, I was apprehensive to even talk about discipline to my students. I was letting a lot of things slide and Mrs. F was the one who would speak up from her desk, "guys, make sure you're listening to Mr. Beasley." 

However, with more experience in front of the students, I have become more outspoken and willing to remind students of their expectations. Today in our 4th grade class, I definitely had to manage behaviors. They were chatty and just wanted to shout out every little answer or thought they had. I finally just stopped talking until they were done. I told them straight-up that I am going to be the one teaching their classes for a while, so the way I expect them to speak to me in class is for them to raise their hands so that I may listen to their answers in a manner that gives them respect. Them shouting out answers to me is NOT respectful. I told them I was glad they were engaged and excited about answering, but I would rather look them in the eye when they were giving answers and give them the attention they deserve. They seemed to follow this expectations much more readily once I actually expressed what I wanted from them. 

• Begin anew: This next week will be the closing in of the gaps of my full-time responsibility. Though I taught all of the classes that we saw today, I didn't get the "full load" since it was a half day. I still haven't taught 3rd grade. However, now that I have taught 5 and 4, I feel as though I might as well go ahead and let next week become my first "full-week," if it counts as a full week since we won't be here Monday and Tuesday (?).
  I am heading home right after school today. So that is exciting! I am going to my nephew's 2nd Birthday Party!!! So I know this will be a time for me to relax and have a great time with my family. I am also going to see one of my best-friends from college who has been fighting lymphoma for the past few weeks. I am just exciting to see all these special people in my life and let my hair down (haha).  
• Data analysis: A piece of data that I analyzed this week would be the lesson plans that were used last week (hopefully that counts as data). Since our weeks have been so WhaCkY these past few weeks, I have had to make sure the students aren't getting repeat lessons. For example, last Friday Mrs. F gave a speech about the Talent Show that is coming up. I recorder her giving her talk and we have shown it to every class this past week. Therefore, the classes that heard it last Friday didn't need to see the videos again, so I had 10 minutes of extra time that I haven't had with the rest of the classes this week. 
• Advice: Advice I would give to Student Teachers of the Future: be courageous and figure out how to be yourself while teaching. Of course there will be a bit of time when you are figuring out how to do all that comes with "teaching" but don't forget to be yourself. 

NCTCS: 

Standard 1: Teachers demonstrate leadership

1a. Teachers lead in their classrooms.
I would say I progressed in this element of the standard because I sought to use positive reinforcement in my classroom as much as possible. I shared my expectations with my students, helping them understand how they were supposed to act lending them the opportunity to "make the right choice" which is said many times throughout the day in this music class.

Standard 2: Teachers establish a respectful environment for a diverse population of

students

2a. Teachers provide an environment in which each child has a positive, nurturing

relationship with caring adults.
This week we were out on Monday for Martin Luther King Jr. day. With our Kindergarten classes we sang a song called "Sing About Martin." The song sings about "peace, caring, loving." After singing the song, I made sure to ask the students to list some of the words they heard from the music. Once they named off a word, I asked them what that word meant and then asked if anyone had an example they would like to share, or an idea of how we could treat one another with love and respect.

Standard 3: Teachers know the content they teach

3a. Teachers align their instruction with the North Carolina Standard Course of

Study.
Mrs. F has gotten me into the routine of verbalizing our standards to the kids before we begin lessons. This helps us to center our attention on what we are about to be teaching as well as getting the students in tune with our work that we are about to begin. I have also been asking students to show me the ASL sign for specific vocabulary words that we will be using or learning about in our lesson. For example, my 2nd graders were talking about the differences between "pitched" and "unpitched" instruments. One of our ASL signs is "pitch." So I asked if anyone knew what the sign was, showed it to them, and let them think about what that ASL sign meant. Many of them knew it and were able to tell me the word that went with the sign. From there I lead into the question: "What is a pitch?" This started our discussion about pitches and fostered greatly into the rest of the lesson as well as helped solidify music-specific vocabulary.

Standard 4: Teachers facilitate learning for their students
4e. Teachers help students develop critical-thinking and problem-solving skills.
I would by no means say that I am yet near where I expect to be in this standard. However, I feel that my instruction this week began positive behaviors in my lesson delivery that will lead right into helping students to think more critically. For example, reflecting on my week, I can hardly think of a time that I came right out and said many of the instructions to my students. I often lead with a question or observation. All of my classes used the xylophones this week. But before we could jump right on the xylophones we had to cover the instructions that we needed in order to safely and correctly play. I would ask, "what do you see that is the same/different about all of these xylophones"(for we had out sop., alto, and bass). I would ask, should we touch the bars of the xylophone? How should you walk up to the xylophone? Where would be the best spot on the bar to make the most vibration? etc.

Standard 5: Teachers reflect on their practice

5a. Teachers analyze student learning.
Doing this blog alone is a huge way of reflecting on my practice. I have found myself sitting in my car or even around my apartment and analyzing what I did or didn't do right during class. I am trying my best to listen to student's answers, see their performances on the xylophones, hear them sing and analyze what my next step in the lesson needs to be. I hope to reach out to their teachers in the next week or so and learn how to better assess and instruct them.

Management Question of the week:

• What do you do when you have a student who is messing up or doing things just for the sake of humor?
  
• Portfolio: I have begun working on EE7: Website, Technological Evidences, Professional Development Plan and Resume. + (I started looking at the SIP and trying to figure out how to incorporate implementing those goals into my lessons and demeanor throughout the school day. 
• Support: I am going to need time to process and plan in the next meeting with my University Supervisor.