Student Teacher and Self Reflection

I realized that I have not posted in quite awhile and it is because I have had the pleasure of hosting a student teacher these past few weeks.  It has been a great experience for me: I have enjoyed watching my student teacher grow as an educator and I have also enjoyed this time to reflect on my own teaching.

My student teacher has been with me and my students since the first week of school and he is wrapping up his time with us this week.  I took over the teaching duties today.  Like all preservice teachers my student teacher has his strengths and areas to work on.  I have been so excited to see him continue to hone his strengths and being willing to listen to suggestions on how to improve his teaching methods.  Personally, I think that is the key to continuing to be a great teacher: willing to reflect on your method and be willing to change areas that are not up to par.

So, what is the best way to determine one's strengths and weaknesses?  Student teacher has had, to his horror or help, me in the back of the room coaching him.  I cannot have someone in the back of my room all day, every day.  I could video tape myself teaching.  I could also have a colleague watch for one lesson and give me feedback.

Thinking about how to be a better teacher is the key to continually being a better teacher.

Happy Teaching!
C

Remind Text Service

A colleague, Virginia Earth Science Teacher, alerted me to a service he had been using.  It's called Remind (used to be called Remind101) that allows teachers to create texts to send to parents and/or students that remind them of certain things.  It is similar to the texts you may receive from your doctor or dentist.  Click here to go to their website to find out more.

I have used it a few times and have been on the receiving end of my son't teacher's texts.  There are a few reasons I like it:

1. It sends the texts from a number that is not your own.

2. Students/parents cannot reply to your Remind text.

3. You can choose which classes you want to receive your text.   

4. Texts can be scheduled to be sent out at a later time.  

There are a few ways students or parents can sign up: you can send them directly to Remind's website and they can use the code specific to their class, print out a QR code, send them an email invite or have them text a Reminder phone number with the class code in the message.  

Happy Teaching!

C

Paperless Meet the Teacher

I just finished day 3 of the 14-15 SY.  We had Meet the Teacher last Tuesday and I decided to go paperless.  As a parent myself I know how much paper a parent can come home with after meeting a myriad of teachers.  I saw on Pinterest how teachers had used QR Codes for back to school.  I thought that was such a great idea and decided to try it out myself.  

I have five sections of World History this year.  I put out five groups of QR Codes with their corresponding class rosters.  As you can see in the picture I have four different QR Codes: one for my email, one for my school webpage, one for this site that takes the parents to the intro video and then one for the Reminder text service (more about that in a later post).  I think the QR codes were well received.  Some parents and students needed to download the QR codes but that did not deter them from capturing the information on their device.   

Keeping with the theme of this post, I thought I'd post a picture of "VirginiaWorldHistoryTeacher" so you could meet me!

Happy Teaching!
C

Parent Informational Video

Hello parents!  I have put this video together for you to answer questions you may have about the flipped classroom.  

This video will be similar to the content videos that I have put together for your child. I use a program called Quick Time to record my computer screen and my voice. You will notice that I do very little editing. I will upload the content videos to a webpage called Schoology.com. This is a secure site that requires your student to log-in. We will create student log-ins in the first few days of the school year. Ask your student for their log-in if you would like to see how we use Schoology.  

Your child's videos will be about this video's length, too. This video is six minutes. Most videos are five to seven minutes.  

I also want to tell you a bit about this website. I blog about my experiences in the classroom.  Please feel free to explore. I love teaching. I feel that one of the best ways to grow as a teacher is to see what others do in their classroom. My hope is to inspire other teachers.  

Happy Learning!

Four Rules of Teaching according to Mrs. Wargo

Happy Summer!

I have been wanting to share this but have not had the time.  I'm helping a bit with summer school, taking our boys on day trips, and keeping our home straight and tidy (one of my favorite things to do over the summer- really, no joke!).

Mrs. Wargo is our boy's taekwondo instructor.  Not only does she have 20+ years of taekwondo teaching experience, she also taught public school for many more years.  She is one smart lady and I really respect her and information she has to offer.  Our boys are JTIs or Junior Training Instructors.  They help her and other instructors in different classes, they perform demos in public, and attend a special JTI class once a week.  In this class they usually have some kind of life skill lesson.  A few weeks ago she discussed the 4 Rules of Teaching.  She spent the entire class on this and it was great for me, a teacher, to hear these reminders.

Her four rules of teaching are 1. Explanation, 2. Demonstration, 3. Correction, and 4. Repetition

Explanation involves explaining what you are going to teach.  What is your mission or goal for today's class?  How can you convey this information to your class?  I personally have a daily agenda written on my whiteboard.  Under the agenda I number the action items that I intend to cover.  Additionally, as I teach in Virginia, I put the day's SOL information.  This, too, is part of the explanation.

Demonstration is her next step.  Now, she is teaching a very physical subject.  I, on the other hand, am teaching World History.  Her demonstration is a bit easier to see.  What can I use to demonstrate the knowledge that I want my students to acquire?  Of course I can lecture, show powerpoints, hand out skeleton/Princeton/column notes to students that have the pertinent information on it.  Mrs. Wargo has  "Demonstrate properly what you are going to teach." and "Have students physically demonstrate technique."  Can you think of other ways you, as the classroom teacher, can demonstrate the knowledge you want your students to have?

Correction is the third step.  Again, how do we, as classroom teachers correct?  Of course we have students complete worksheets, problems, take quizzes, create items or recite information back to us.  This is what we are correcting.  I really liked her correction explanation and it reminded me of the management classes I took in my former life.  You first want to correct the MOST important thing.  Do not try to correct everything: it is exhausting for you as the teacher and it is deflating for the student.  She uses the acronym PCP.  I don't remember exactly what it stands for but I think it is positive, correction, positive.  You want to keep things positive: point out something the student is doing well.  Then you want to correct the misstep and then end it with a positive.

Repetition is the last step.  This is best way to have students remember key information.  Mrs. Wargo mentions that you should "start with the last thing correct and add from there".  In certain classes it is easier to have repetition: math classes come to mind.  So how do we offer repetition without getting that glassy eyed effect from our students?  I personally use thinking maps, graphic organizers, creation of games, and other activities that show the information in different ways.  What are some ways you offer repetition in class?

Happy Teaching!
C

Teacher Reflection

“It is necessary ... for a man to go away by himself ... to sit on a rock ... and ask, 'Who am I, where have I been, and where am I going?” 
― Carl Sandburg

What do you think?  I think to be an effective teacher, one must keep an actively reflective mind.  This reflection can happen in a myriad of ways: daily, weekly, quarterly and at the end of the year.

Daily: a great way to reflect on what worked and what didn't is to simply write down your thoughts on your lesson plan.  If  you are like me, I keep my lesson plans for use later.

Weekly: I use the quiz or other student material to gauge student understand.  If there is a weakness, what can I do to fix that weakness?

Quarterly: This is a big one for my school.  We have quarterly assessments that each content creates and each teacher administers the assessment.  We then "crunch the numbers" and determine where we have weaknesses.  We then have to devise lessons to reteach and rework those lessons.  We have to even fill out a form and provide our lessons to our department chair.

End of the Year: I have completed a few different ways and have seen other great ways to self-reflect.  Last year I encouraged the members of my department to write themselves a letter to be opened during the first week of teacher workweek.

This year, my neighbor teacher, had students tell her specific things that they liked about her class and things she could work on.  WOW! That was really brave of her to do a reflection like that.  She had the parameters that it needed to be kind and include specifics- avoid "This class was lame!" or "This class was so great!".  Why was it lame?  Why was it awesome?  She received some great information to use next year.
Do you self reflect?  If so, what do you do?

Happy teaching!
C

Old School JEOPARDY!

The end of the year is in sight and I am still faced with that conundrum of what to do.  We had a outdoor plans today and yesterday but as a result of three inches of rain we had to postpone until next week.  YIKES! I had to scramble yesterday to find something to keep my students occupied but relative to class.  

I thought about Jeopardy! but I didn't want to come up with all of the clues.  Nor did I want to put it into the power point that may or may not work.  Nor did I want to control the class as they did not pay attention to clues they had no investment in.  So- why don't the kids create the clues?  

Yesterday's task was to pick a topic from a list of broad topics: Renaissance, Japan, Middle Ages, Africa, Trade, Golden Ages, Rome, Greece, Mesoamerica, Stone Age, etc.  Students had to come up with six Jeopardy! type clues.  In addition to the clues they had to provide an answer key.  This took most of the period.  

Today I had to do some prep work.  First, I picked the clues I was going to use. Then, I made the dollar indicators, taped the clue to the board and then used magnets to cover the clues.  Each class had a tally helper.  

These were my rules:

Teams called their name, once when they new the answer.

Teams could only call their name when I had finished the clue.

There were two daily doubles.

There was a Final Jeopardy! clue.  

Overall, it went well today.  I think the students enjoyed seeing their classmate's clues.  

Happy Teaching!

C