Music to my ears...

One thing that I really enjoy that our CT does is play music while the students are rising tests.

No, it's not your everyday Q98.5 or KFRX. She read some research that says when kids are listening to music they test better. However, there are some requirements to this. It needs to be 60 beats per a minute. Also, there cannot be a recognizable tune in it. The 60 beats per a minute keeps the pace moderate, not too slow and not too fast. Obviously, the fact if there is a recognizable tune then the students would begin to focus much more on that than the task at hand.

Our CT relayed this information to us. The music stimulates the brain so that they are using more of their brain and opening up better recognition abilities if there is music playing. The great side to it as well is that it covers up most of the noise that comes through the walls from the neighboring teachers. This helps maintain focus as well.

It's a really cool concept and something that I hope to do in my classroom.

P.S. Every Mozart song is written in 60 beats per a minute.

Raisin' the bar

This week I had the pleasure and unique experience to sit in on the principal of our school giving the eighth graders a talk about excellence.

Mr. Gary Czapla called all the eighth graders into the lunch room right at the beginning of fourth period. Questions began to curculate from the students beginning at a low murmur and climaxing at nervous shouting. Why do we have to go? What is he going to talk to us about? How long is this going to take? It took all of the students off guard. However, we had already been informed of what this surprise meeting was going to be about: raising the level of excellence in the eighth grade students.

As the lines filed into the cafeteria to take a seat, you could feel that the students were still sitting and waiting in anticipation of what their principal was going to talk to them about. As the last class took their seats, the room began to quiet. For the next fifteen minutes I witnessed one of the most genuine speeches I have ever heard.

Our principal did not yell or use "disappointment" to motivate these 250 students, but rather he just challenged them. He said that he is raising the bar. It is no longer acceptable to be acting like middle schoolers. In a few short months these kids are going to be entering high school and he told them that it's going to be higher standards and greater demands. So he said now is the time to start acting like it.

He spoke with concern, but showed how much he cared for them and how much he wanted to see them succeed.

It mostly focused on showing better respect for teachers. Teachers should not have to tell them to go to class. Teachers should not need to constantly tell them to turn in homework. Students need to learn how to behave in class and during passing period.

It was a great talk to witness. It was great to see a great example of what an administrator should be and the support he gives to the faculty. What was also great about this was the extreme change that I saw in the work ethic and classroom behavior of the students. Now it is my job to raise my level of teaching to meet the kids striving to be better.

Physical Classroom Environment

OBSERVATION

The physical layout of the classroom is very well thought out by my CT. The students’ desks are placed in groups of four: two facing the front of the room while the other two are placed facing each other. Each student is able to easily see the board and overhead projector screen, but they are also able to easily work together in partners or as groups of four. Along with the main whiteboard and projector screen are faced on the opposite corner as the door to the classroom, which cuts down on distractions from people walking in or out, or by the classroom. The groups of students’ desks are placed in such a way that there is an “inner loop” so that the teacher can easily get from one group to the next.

The teacher desk is put at the back of the classroom. This is mainly because our CT is rarely if ever seated at her desk when students are in the room. It is more of something in the way since she is usually walking around checking students’ work, grabbing new markers or handing back homework/worksheets. There is barely anything on our CT’s desk ever since she likes to keep the room and environment clean and ready for the students to learn.

The walls of the classroom have posters, whiteboards, windows and shelves/cupboards. The posters are motivational in nature or deal with classroom management and rules. Also, there are posters showing and explaining the main cooperative learning activities we repeated do (Rally Coach; Quiz, Quiz, Trade; Round table, etc.). There is also a bulletin board that has a pocket holder pinned to the board to hold the calculators which the students are allowed to use. One of the main thing which is used almost every class is our Ct’s grading rubric. This rubric is posted near the front of the room and contains what level of understanding the students are at and the appropriate grade that goes along with that. It is quite good and our CT designed it herself.

The main technology that is used in the classroom are the calculators that the students use, but also the document camera which is used every day to take notes, go over homework, explain activities and do in class activities. One other piece of technology that we used at the beginning of this week were motion detectors to try to introduce the concept of distance and graphing.

INTERVIEW

Since our CT does cooperative learning this is the reasoning for the groups of four desks. She ideally has four people per a group, but sometimes it turns into five or three. There is an inner loop so that she can sweep around the classroom and get to every group without crawling over kids or running into them. She tucks her desk in the corner because it is not part of her philosophy of teaching. She does this because she is constantly up and moving around with the students. She has her classroom at an angle since she wanted to use both the whiteboard and the document camera at the same time. This also provides more space for student work spaces as well. The safe seat is intentionally at the back of the classroom, same with the “Buddy Room” seat so that they do not cause more of a distraction for the kids trying to learn in the class.

She hangs the NeSA conversation sheet on the walls, not because she is required to, but so the kids have a good understanding of what they are working toward. Also, she has her classroom expectations on her wall so that the kids always know what is expected of them. This is also the behavior plan that is in place for LPS. She decided to put things on her wall that kids constantly have questions about. Class schedule. Grading Rubric. Perseverance posters. Also posters that follow her own personal philosophy on learning and on practicing the work that is done in class.

She has the hand-in boxes where the kids know to turn in work and to pick up work. This is to cause less confusion and congestion when the kids come in and they know exactly where to put their work and to pick up their graded work.

Our CT loves her document camera. She says that if she were given the option to have a smart board she said that she probably wouldn’t use it very much. She uses her document camera for almost everything. She started with an overhead projector, but she loves the document camera since you can put students work up and show them what’s going on, rather than trying to explain it to everyone.

REFLECTION

Based on my own observation of the classroom that our CT setup and uses, I think that I would set up my personal classroom very similarly with little variation. Her classroom is well thought out and uses the topics or things that are important to her to determine how things are set up. It is not just the fact that she likes how it looks. There is a reason for everything in her classroom. The only thing I would change is the choice in posters that she has up. While they all have a great reason to be up, some are difficult to read and some aren’t very clear on what they are referring to, so I would pick some very pointed and direct posters that encourage, yet make the students think. However, since these aren’t the main focus of my classroom, I would still stick to the groups of four students and availability to the whiteboard and the document camera.

Not Ready, Not Set...GO!

This week I got my first and second attempts at taking over big parts of the lesson of the day. Even thou I did not feel ready to do so, it was "Go Time."

On Tuesday I was in charge of introducing, leading and mainly facilitating the classroom activity "Showdown." I took my time trying to remember everything that our CT usually says. Remember to be a good teammate. Remember that we should treat this as the test since it is coming up on Thursday. You should ask your group members before you should ever ask an adult. And lastly, don't copy your neighbor because that doesn't help you nor them. It was a great day for "Showdown." The kids were really grasping the fundamentals of inequalities. However, they still had trouble with some minor details, but easily workable. 

The rest of the class period was spent mingling around groups and answering questions. t felt so great to get in front of the class and takes charge. It was by no means perfect, but it did what I did what I needed to do.

The next day was much more rough. Instead of being in charge of the activity I was in charge of going over homework. This homework (since it was the last one assigned before the test) was a broad review of the chapter. It seems as though the students were not grasping the material from the review as much as they were from the activity from the previous day. Well, only time would tell. We decided to try "Showdown" again with different questions for the day. They did great again. So what was the difference? Simple. Word problems. These kids were not connecting the word problems to what they had learned so far. So their take home review was a sheet of inequality word problems.

After the second day of review all of us adults (including our CT) were much more confident in the students and their readiness for the chapter test. Either way, just like my teaching, ready or not it was "Go Time" on Thursday. We will see how they did once we correct the tests!

Until next time!