Field experience post 2

Field experience report

   I visited my teacher last week and unfortunately during the period I observed the students headed to a presentation on breast cancer awareness for most of the class time.  However, this did give me the chance to talk to my teacher about her experiences.  She explained she is making the gradual shift to common core standards for her classes.  She showed me all her lesson plans and instead of the benchmarks, she now has common core standards listed.  This allows for more comprehensive modes of instruction as it gives students the skills to think about multiple standards at once.  She told me that even though she is experiencing some resistance from her older students who are used to New Generation standards and are not used to thinking critically, ultimately she believes the students will like going to school with common core better because it will challenge them and engage them more.  She teaches a dual enrollment class, and said she has seen a huge growth in student interest in the years she's been at the school.  She thinks this is really positive as students are looking to challenge themselves in reading and writing.
    At the beginning of the class period, before the students left for the presentation she was presenting scholarship options to the students.  Afterwards I asked her how the school helps students with the college application process.  She explained that there is a college guidance counselor, but she is only there for a few hours a few days a week.  My clinical teacher tries to help the students with applying to colleges as much as she can, helping them with essay, navigating websites, filling out fafsas, etc, after school hours.  This was very different from my experience applying to college. In my high school every student was required to meet with their assigned college guidance counselor beginning freshman year.  This guidance counselor helped us select which schools would be a good fit for us, provided us with job, volunteer, and internship opportunities for us to bolster our resumes, and set up meetings with college representatives.  Also at my school 100% of my class graduated and went on to a four year university.  Seeing the differences between the system in place where I went to school and the school I'm observing at was shocking as both are public schools, but are extremely different.
  What my teacher said that I liked the most was when I asked for advice she had for classroom management she said the best thing you can do it be yourself.  She explained that so many people try to tell teachers they have to act a certain way with their students or discipline in certain ways, but students can tell when teachers aren't being genuine and this is the easiest way to lose control of your class.  She said even though she got advice to be a strict teacher that she has never been that kind of person, she takes a warmer, friendlier approach to her classroom management because that fits her personality better and that this strategy has always worked for her.  She also said that whatever type of teacher you decide you're going to be, you have to set standards and expectations from the beginning and remain consistent.

Writing to Write: My Thoughts on Yagelski

In middle school, I was the token shy, overweight nerd. I didn't have a huge amount of friends, and as stereotype would dictate, I split most of my time between homework, reading, and playing video games. My abuela preferred keeping me inside anyway; she was always scared I would suffer heatstroke in the middle of the street and be hit by a car. So on one Friday night, I stumbled across a certain website on the Internet. It was the Neu Marvel Universe Roleplaying Boards. Users would sign up for an account, create their own superhero or supervillain, and role play as that character, interacting with other users' characters. I became myself, as I quickly made friends with other roleplayers from around the world. I discovered self-confidence, a voice, my sense of (non)humor, and I wrote.

Oh, did I write.

Unfortunately, the website closed 2011, after ten long years of supporting an elaborate, breathing universe, for reasons I won't get into here. I myself was responsible for, and I remember distinctly, 12 characters by the end of Neu Marvel's run, if you count the super-powered characters' supporting casts. Hours of sticky Coke-stained fingers pounding away at my keyboard well into the early hours of the morning just to make sure my fellow writers in Scotland and Thailand were on the same page. If the site was still up I would link it here. I must have written hundreds of thousands of words, and though none of it is likely to meet any sort of educational standard, Common Core or otherwise, they are perhaps the most influential writings I have ever created. I was writing not to produce, but because I loved it. I was writing because in each of those 12 characters there was a little piece of me I could not express in any other way. I was not judged on quality of my writing, my sentence structure; there was no point I had to prove or nobody I had to convince (though my friends made damn certain I stuck to the canon, that's a serious nerd offense). I felt accepted through my writing.

This is the kind of writing I want my students to be able to produce. Yet how many people see writing like this in school settings? How many of us have the opportunity to do so? In fact, how many of us even feel their school would be the environment for them to be comfortable writing like this? I truly enjoyed the Yagelski piece because it reminded me of one of the reasons I still write today, and want to share that joy. I am studying education, but I am also a creative writing major. In my lesson plans I try to achieve the same sort of freedom and flexible workspace the teacher described in the reading who taught the lesson on "true war stories." The texts in class are not used as the traditional points of analysis, but as platforms and models for the students. They serve as an example for the kinds of themes and stories the teacher wants to draw out of the student. I always try in my assessments to encourage not just writing, but personal writing. I want all of my students to be able to tie the writing they do in class to themselves; to understand they are not creating just a product or trying to trade in a thousand words for an A, but learning something about themselves and the world they live in.I cannot imagine a more powerful lesson or tool for our students to possess; if they learn to love writing, to use it as a way to understand themselves and the world they live in, it would seem to me I have accomplished one of my major goals and duties as a teacher. Does this kind of writing not inevitably lead to strong writing that would satisfy the Common Core anyway? I am not sure, yet I would certainly think (and hope) so.

I have some concerns, many of the same concerns Yagelski voices in the reading. Now with the Common Core, informative texts are more essential than ever in class. I agree that these are important for students to be able to understand, but if they are expected to be proficient only in those kinds of writing (technical/persuasive writing) how can we as teachers find room for the liberating narrative writing I want so much for my students to enjoy? The Common Core standards seem so concerned with the products of the writing, they don't seem to give me much opportunity to teach my students to enjoy writing, as Yagelski puts it, as a praxis. I still want to make this a core part of the education my students receive, yet I am sure there are countless difficulties in doing so. I can see their shadows looming in the fog of the future, I know they are there. I just can't make out what they could be yet.

Third Field Experience, Experience

Hi All,

Like my previous post, for this visit I came prepared with questions and her answers are below. I think asking questions is a good way to gain insight to her style or beliefs about teaching.

Q: What are the pros and cons of being a teacher?

A: She said that a pro is having a calling for teaching, which she feels she has. Also, that teaching can be very rewarding. Some cons are the amount of work that it takes to be a good teacher because time is so limited and that  planning lessons cuts into free time.

Q: How do you engage your students?

A:  Variety of material, activities, and learning tools. She tries to make discussions relevant to their lives.

Q: Are there any learning tools that you use?

A:  She said that she uses projects, Power Points, in-class assignments and provides opportunities for the students to teach the class themselves in order to help them learn in the information several ways

Some techniques and strategies that I learned during this visit or didn't really learn: 

My clinical teacher has yet to let me teach a group of students or the whole class. Therefore, my role within the classroom, thus far, has been to observe. Honestly I didn’t learn anything during this visit by watching her teach because for the first hour, the students were called to an assembly. For the second hour, the students were taking a PSAT test. 

             Some insights and observations: 

I would really like to teach a group of students but somehow I don’t feel prepared. Does anyone else feel this way? This visit wasn’t extremely useful as the students were gone or taking a test. I have noticed that Ms. X is consistently assertive with her students. I think that being assertive is good because her students respect her and it keeps them on task. However, I feel that she needs to re-evaluate the line between being assertive and rude. 

Until next time,

Amanda

Field Experience

Hi everyone,

I've observed two classes so far for field experience.  I think the most positive aspect of my clinical teacher's teaching style is that she has an established, positive relationship with each student.  She spoke with me on both occasions and told me about various personal situations some of the students were dealing with which shows she has taken the time to get to know them and is a trusted adult they can confide in.  It is clear the students trust her from the ways they interact with her.  Many of them joke with her and express how much they love her.  On the first day I observed her class, several of the students entered and hugged her before taking their seats.  I think this is the most valuable skill in teaching and one I hope to emulate once I am a teacher as well.

Though I would incorporate more engaging activities than I have seen her employ so far, the methods of instruction she uses seem to interest the students.  The first class I observed she was introducing The Iliad.  Though she was giving the students background information on Greek mythology on a powerpoint and the instruction was teacher centered, she was making the information interesting to the students.  For example she was telling them that Greek mythology is like a soap opera, there's a lot of fighting and adultery, and this seemed to make the students more excited about learning Greek mythology.

-Olivia

Reaction to Yagelski Reading

"Recent NAEP data reveal, for instance, that although better than 80 percent of high school seniors achieve a basic level of writing competence on the NAEP writing assessment, less than a quarter
write at a proficient level and a measly 1 percent write at an advanced level".

This really shocked me, I had no idea that less than 25% of high school students wrote a proficient level and only ONE percent at an advanced level. This is completely unacceptable and a change must be made. There is no way that one person can change the education system but I can make a difference when I become a teacher within my classroom and on the students that I will eventually teach.

I wonder if this has anything to do with "tracking". Maybe too many teachers, like my clinical teacher, feel that students who aren't in gifted programs don't deserve to learn how to think critically or write at a more advanced level.

According to Yagelski, secondary English teachers are not writers and do not think of themselves as writers. If teachers don't write, how can they teach their students how to effectively write? This could also be a contributor to illiteracy within our communities and education system.

Maybe we can engage students by first teaching them that writing can be used as a tool of self expression. Then, teachers can educate their students about writing instruction. Yagelski argues that while writing is a form of communication that is important, writing is also a vehicle to ourselves; understanding who we are as an individual, as a way to reflect. I completely agree!

Field Experience Visit #2

I had my second field experience visit earlier this week at South Miami Senior High School. Below are three questions that I asked my clinical teachers, her answers are briefly summarized

Q: Do you plan new lessons each school year or do you re-use them?

A:  Ms. X said that she changes the novels she teachers some years so that she doesn’t get bored. Ms. X also attends workshops every year, and she takes the knowledge she learns that she likes, and changes minimal things within her lessons.

Q: Is there a limit as to how many students you can have per class?

A: She said that the limit is 25. However, if two teachers are in a classroom the limit changes to 50.

Q: What are the most common academic barriers you see within your classroom?

A:  She said that it depends on the classroom, even in the honors classes, but she said she notices barriers of access. For example, a lot of them don’t have internet access or they lack experiences. Ms. X also said that a lot of students are on free or reduced lunch, and so those demographics usually lend itself to students who haven’t been exposed many cultural experiences which can affect their academics. She also said that there isn’t a lot of reading material at home, and their reading skills suffer.

A few techniques that I observed my clinical teacher doing and would use in my classroom are using proximity to my advantage. She would walk over close to the student and they quickly got back to their work. I also noticed that when a student was not on task, she was able to re-focus her student by using appropriate levels of dominance and let them know that class-time was not for socializing but for learning. 

Upon arrival to the classroom, my clinical teacher was shouting at one of her students, I felt that this was inappropriate and could have been dealt with in a better manner. Another example of her inappropriateness, is that she was guiding her students through an assignment and she told her students that if they could not come up with an example of a paradox, they were “brain-dead”. I was shocked that she said that because I felt that it was beyond rude and I would never say that.

Field Experience 10/9/2013

Wednesday was my first field experience visit. After some negotiations with my school's vice principal, I was finally placed in with an English teacher. I arrived on an interesting day - half of the school's air conditioning was currently down, and in an effort to avoid heat stroke, my teacher had moved her class to the considerably cooler media center. I was introduced to her class on an unusual day - the typical routine and flow of the classroom was disrupted, and the students definitely felt it. Include an unknown variable into the mix - my arrival - and you get some very interesting classroom management issues. Thankfully, at this point in the semester, my teacher had already formed a sufficient enough bond with the students and had earned their respect, so it was not do difficult restoring order as they asked me questions and got to know me a little better.

One thing of note occurred to relate to our discussions in class; I sat in during some teacher-writer conferences being held on an individual basis with the students. The teacher was editing the second draft of an autobiographical narrative, the first having already been peer edited. This draft was to be typed and printed, not written in hand, and she had provided students with access to the media center to ensure they could so. The format was nothing specific, just the standard things most students will assume - 12 point font, Times New Roman, Double Spaced, etc. Yet for many of the students their formatting seemed random, in whatever font they had felt like, if it was not in the default Calibri. It occurred to me then that this is the kind of information we assume from a position of privilege, and should make sure students need to know. Going into the professional world, that "standard formatting" is essential to know - the teacher, after realizing this, made it a point to instruct students on the basics of Word and formatting. It's a small example, but an interesting one and something I will definitely keep in mind for the future.

Reaction to Field Experience #1

While my clinical teacher embodied qualities that I admire like great classroom management skills, I found that her perspective on groups students was skewed, if not flat out wrong. I was shocked to learn that she felt that students not in honors or AP courses, were not college bound. If she believes that, then how is she teaching those not in higher level courses? I didn't have a chance to observe a "regular" class today but hopefully will soon so that I can compare her teaching styles. She also mentioned to me that in her "regular" English courses, those students are learning more basic skills opposed to the honors and AP students who are learning to think critically.

Whether you're going to college or not, everyone needs to learn how to think critically...am I right or am I right?

Amanda

Hello all. I said I would post guiding questions for the bell hooks readings but I would prefer discussing these in class first and see if we can’t get past being so nice to one another and finally disagree!! Get into some contentious strife!! See you later!