Week 4 Post

This teaching thing never seems to get old. Just as I thought I should be getting used to my surroundings, my students, etc it all goes haywire and I get chewed up and spit out by teaching as a collective whole. This past week was the first time that I was visibly "defeated". It was an awful, awful feeling! I had a good first two days of the week and then Wednesday just fell apart before it started somehow. It felt as though everything was off. Students weren't listening to instructions, it seemed as though I was a half second to slow on lessons, discussions, instructions...everything! I was disrupted throughout the day and was finally crushed in the afternoon by a student.
I guess we're expected to have these kind of days from time to time. I work with twenty 8-year olds so I guess that is to be expected but it sure wasn't any fun. I was lucky that after the day was over I was able to discuss and reflect my day with my mentor teacher. We discussed a lot of different issues ranging from how I let my classroom management go, to how my instruction in lessons could've been different and better, and how I shouldn't ever show the defeat in my face because my students will jump on that. A couple of them did and I guess I would've done the same back in the day.
The fact of the matter that I was able to have that discussion with her after school really really helped me. Not only the rest of the day I was a little more stable because of the thoughts and ideas that were moving around in my brain but also the simple truth that these days happen and to get over it.
With how bad that day was the next day was almost that good. How amazing the change in everything. Now I'm not sure if it's because of me doing something differently in my teaching or the students just sensing that they needed to show up for a day and prove to me that they can do it. Whatever it was it was a big win for me after such a bad loss the day before.

Week 5 Post

Well this week definitely had its ups and downs. Loved the day-off in the middle of the week and had some great moments with students this week. Unfortunately I also had some moments I'd like to forget from this past week with students as well as myself.
For this week I've been working on prompting my students through verbal prompts only. It's been very different for me because I've grown accustomed to prompting students more through written prompts than verbal prompts so it took me awhile to get used to. As the week went on I tried different techniques in my classroom management, such as maintaining a quiet voice so that my students would have to be quiet to listen as well as encourage my students any time that I prompted them.
The encouraging happened today (Friday) and how quickly I failed at it. Before the day started I had asked Mrs. McLaughlin to interject any time I addressed a student and didn't encourage them sometime in the discussion. It just so happened that the second time that I talked with a student about staying on task and getting through his work do I hear Mrs. McLaughlin go "now was that encouraging?" Man I failed quickly today. It was a let down because I feel that I am great at encouraging students and really look for opportunities to do it. However, I found out that only after thirty minutes of instruction time I'm unable to do what I set out to do and encourage my students.
Even though it was only one day I think this was a great idea because I spent the rest of my day really checking myself to make sure that I did encourage my students when they needed some direction. I failed to encourage a couple more times today and looking back on it I understand why I didn't. A couple time I had lost my patience and was truly annoyed and it showed. In the future I need to practice being the encourager at all times, not just when I see something positive. I think encouragement is more valuable when something needs to be fixed and you get that vote of confidence from someone. Hopefully in the future I can be that person who really encourages and motivates others to get going.

Week 6 Post

Well another week is in the books. Another tough week due to sickness, substitute, and crazy children but again I'm looking back at the week and thinking "ok, I can still do this..." This week has been kind of eye opening to me. For the past couple weeks I've been observing my students as well as starting my Action Research without my students really knowing it. I've been taking notes and watching them to see how they react in an everyday classroom surrounding. However, lately I've been looking at those observations in a completely different light. This week my notes, observations, and AR journal have seen quite a new tone in my writing. Instead of "this student doesn't do this well" or "they seem to struggle with these qualities and charactersitics in the classroom", it's turned to "this is where I need to do this with a student" and "what can I do to possibly prevent this outbreak/situation in the future?" Instead of looking at the students and placing the responsibility solely on them I've now realized that this is partly, if not mostly, lying on me now. I know that what I do or don't do will not prevent or cause everything that these students do over the next couple of weeks but I do know that a lof of what they do will be influenced by me. My goal is to find a suitable classroom management style that really creates a great environment for learning for all students. I now know that relying on the students to make those changes alone will cause no success. It's my time to use those observations, notes, and ideas in my teaching to hopefully come up with a plausible answer.
I just hope I have a good enough idea of how my students will handle situations to work with their behavior to create that new environment.
Now's the time, the gloves are off. Time to get down and dirty!

Hi Joel,
I appreciate your being able to help Mrs. McLaughlin out during her absences. And...you did learn a lot about the students realizing that the "easy guy" from WVU might have some rules and procedures himself. I believe that next semester when you release the mentor teachers for their own professional development you will gain a lot more experience and confidence in your classroom management.
I am looking forward to observing your math lesson tomorrow (Fri.). And..if I can help you with classroom management techniques, let me know. I still have a few "up my sleeve."
Kaye :-)

Week 7 Post

Well this past week was a tough one for lots of reasons. First off, Mrs. McLaughlin was sick four of the five days making me the leader of the class outright (even if I wasn't completely ready). Secondly, I had not been feeling all that great as well the whole week. The third and probably worst of the reasons was the fact that it was the week building up to Halloween. After experiencing my first Halloween week at school, I now have a new appreciation for teachers working to maintain their classroom weekly, especially weeks that have a holiday somewhere stuck in it.
Now I had planned to begin teaching full-time this past week. I felt that I was up for the challenge and thought it would be tough but I'd be just fine. These feelings were before I found out that I would be without my teacher for the greater part of the week. It was unbelievable to me to see how crazy they were without her being there. The week before when I said "I thought they were too quiet" had definitely passed. The students were completely different. Talking all the time, not getting focused when they needed to, disrupting others, etc. Funny for me my AR is all about classroom management and trying to find what type of prompting elicits the best response. I didn't think I'd be thrown into the fire so early on in my study.
The first three days, Monday through Wednesday, were just flat out tough. I had a lot of trouble with maintaining the classroom rules. Throughout the day, they'd show me periods of time of constraint and responsibility, but for the most part they just liked to talk talk talk. It wasn't just a couple of the students, either, but instead was most of the class. I was really struggling to keep my composure while trying to discover ways that would pull out better classroom behavior from them.
On Tuesday I started taking minutes away from recess for the entire class. That didn't go over well and I understand why. On Wednesday when we were in for our time before they went out we had a class discussion as to what we could change or how we can become more responsible and respectful in our class and around the school. It was a good time because it allowed the students what they wanted to say; upset about missing recess, talking about ways to prevent all the talking, ways to being more respectful, and so on. We also came up with disciplining only the students who were causing the inconvienences. So on Thursday instead of having a class recess time, we had a student recess time. If the student had their name on the board it was warning, their name and a check took away 5 minutes of their recess, and their name with 2 checks took their full recess away.
I'm not sure if this is educationally sound but I saw much better results from the students on Thursday than I had the previous three days. I think I will continue it but get the opinion Mrs. McLaughlin before making any big decisions.