Blog #4: Starting full time (due Monday, 2/6/12 by 8 AM)

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Richard Barrett on February 10, 2012 at 9:23pm

Sarah, I appreciate that you are aware of things that you need to work on, but I think you might be beating yourself up a little bit too much.  Yes, by giving a student the answer, that doesn't help the student that much, and it could be construed as you being lazy, but I think it could just be that you were tired.  I know whether we're on a block or 7 period schedule, we're at the schools for more or less the same amount of time, BUT, you have more actual classes and are seeing more students, so of course, by the end of the day you're struggling; it's natural.  There've been times when I've been tutoring at Furman where I've just given the student the answer because I'm tired or I know that the student's not going to get it any other way.

Permalink Reply by Jessica Richardson on February 5, 2012 at 10:58am

             I think the biggest challenge will be making the language interesting and accessible to all students. My school is on a block schedule so many students do not take language classes consecutively. With summers, there are a few kids who haven’t had Spanish for nearly 2 years! Some of them came from Bythe though or just had Spanish the semester before, or better yet, are heritage learners. There is such a wide variety! I want to use the TL and catch students up as much as possible, but I don’t know how to keep my class standards high without leaving some students behind. I also don’t want to go so slowly that some students are bored. Both frustration with difficulty and with ease will lead to classroom management issues and keep the students from learning as effectively as possible. Also, there is such variation within each class and across classes due to interests, learning styles, or exceptional needs of some sort. It is all quite daunting!

            To overcome this, I am first concentrating on getting to know the students well. I need to know all their names, how they relate to each other, how they learn, and what their level of Spanish is. From there, I will be differentiating my instruction per class, and per student whenever possible. I will try to use my heritage learners and high flyers to scaffold the students that are struggling. I will offer extra help outside of class whenever possible. As far as class assignments, I will try to incorporate open-ended and constructed response assignments that students can do at their own level, or I can provide an additional level of complexity on Bloom’s taxonomy for the students that have reached a higher level.

            To help me in this I will be communicating with my co-teacher, and any other teachers at the school, every day. I will be looking for good plans and resources online and discussing with my university supervisors. It will take the collaborative effort of all these different educators and their years of experience and their perspectives to do this well. And I know, that often I will make mistakes. Then I just have to reflect on it, adapt my future plans, and start over with a new day the next morning.

Permalink Reply by Ben Campbell on February 5, 2012 at 3:35pm

So it's pretty close to my last evening before I enter the classroom, and I'm slighting surprise at the moment that I'm not freaking out.  It's a good thing I'm not nervous but I'm a little surprised because usually I'm very nervous before new things.  However, tomorrow morning when I pull into the school parking lot I'm sure the nerves will pick up a little bit.  But as I have been thinking about what the next few months have in store for me, I have been thinking about what challenges I think I will have a hard time dealing with.  I think the biggest challenge and most important challenge I will face is the challenge of being prepared daily to teach my students.  This includes speaking the target language, having an engaging lesson, having activities and asking questions that are contextualized and related to what the students are familiar with.  This also includes me being on top of how my students learn and knowing how to apply that knowledge to the class so that everyone's needs are met.  So i guess the only way to really overcome this obstacle is to get in the classroom learn as much from the students as they are learning from me, take all the advice in that my co-teacher gives me, and by looking for guidance from my Furman professors and my 4 awesome friends (Yes that means you katie, jessica, sarah, and richard! :) ).  This is something that I will learn by seeing my mistakes and also by seeing what works.

One other challenge I can see already dealing with is the challenge of motivating the students who aren't motivated to learn.  There are a few students in one specific class who don't really care at all that they are failing and they would rather just interrupt and bother the rest of the class.  I don't quite know where to start with this but I guess I can definitely look to the advice of my co-teacher because she has been dealing with them for a while now.  I think maybe if I talk to them individually and let them know that I do care about them and that I want them to succeed in life and in school maybe that will help in some way or another, because I have a feeling there is something going on in their lives that has made them hate school and killed their motivation. 

Permalink Reply by Jessica Richardson on February 8, 2012 at 6:15pm

Yeah, I have to always keep in mind that all these kids have a home life that I can't really know. Even today, I had a girl absent that is very pregnant. Did she have her baby? How can she concentrate in Spanish class when she is worried about being a mother? Another student had a family tragedy this afternoon and is being raised by one of his siblings.
Every time a student acts out it is so easy for me to blame them (of course, I say this like I have very troubled students, which is not the case. They are extremely good kids.) but there is so much more to it. I have to ask myself, am I getting them what they need in my class? What ways can I teach them differently or relate to them differently that will be helpful? And then, what's going on at home? The most frustrating part is that even if I do know, there is pretty much nothing I can do about it.

Also, I have all the classes full time tomorrow while my teacher is out. I have a sub to keep things legal, but I am leading instruction and I'm freaking out a little bit. It will probably be fine but I get a little stage fright every time before the students walk in. But once I am in teacher mode, I'm generally fine. We'll just see how it goes! 

Permalink Reply by Richard Barrett on February 5, 2012 at 10:00pm

I have a couple of concerns related to me starting teaching tomorrow.  1.)  I am pretty nervious about time management.  I am so afraid of not having enough material planned for each class and being left with thirty minutes of nothing at the end of class.  I am also concerned about spending too much time on an activity (if that is possible) and then not getting to other activities that I want to get to.  However, in order to try to keep this from happening, I plan to map out my plans by the minute for each period; I will also keep an eye on the clock periodically.  If I feel like I'm having trouble, I plan to go to my cooperating teacher and/or other teachers at my school.

Related to time management in the classroom is time management outside of the classroom in my free time (if that'll exist).  What I'm getting at is that I spent about a quarter of yesterday and today planning for my lessons tomorrow, (my cooperating teacher wants me to send her a copy of my lesson plan at least two days ahead of when the lesson will be taught.)  What I'm getting at is, how long am I going to be able to keep this up?

I feel that to best prevent myself from getting burned out is to manage my time appropriately, planning days in advance and using all of my time to the fullest.  If I have problems, I will confide in my co-teacher and/or other FL teacher.