Frankenstein Wordle

This is a wordle I created after my students and I worked through the first few chapters of Frankenstein in order to characterize Victor Frankenstein. They made some very smart and perceptive contributions!

Questions, anyone?

      My students have grown to hate this annoying habit that I seem to have: whenever I ask a question and a student volunteers an answer, I immediately ask, "Why?" Students do not like this habit because they actually have to explain their rationalization. However, I think it is important to always ask "why?" because it makes students reflect on their own thinking processes. Also, I feel like this is good practice for real-world situations. As adults, people ask us to explain our ideas and thoughts all the time. If I can get the students to practice this skill in a safe, controlled environment, then they should develop the ability to explain themselves with clarity and ease.
 
      It is important to ensure that questions asked in the classroom are not just "right and wrong" questions. I try to avoid these types of questions by always trying to engage the students in a full classroom discussion. If every student is allowed to be heard, then differing perspectives and ideas pop up in the conversation. If I can use student responses to yield more questions, I will certainly take that opportunity.

      One way that I like to incorporate higher-order thinking is to ask the students why they feel a certain character in a text is behaving in a certain way. We look at the actions and motivations of the character to determine what that reflects about the character's personality. I will prompt the students by first asking what the action was - a right or wrong question. Then I ask the students to think about why that character might have performed that action - what were their motivations? Lastly, I always ask the students to infer what that action reflects about the character as a person. By following this three-tiered questioning strategy, I think the students can gain a deeper and richer understanding of a text while gaining the skills to interpret, infer, and make judgments for themselves.

New teacher, same old worries

     As a new teacher, I am nervous about a lot of things that I am going to have to deal with in my career. Will the students like me? Will I get good reviews from the principal? Will I be able to field any curve ball thrown at me? I know that the answers will only come with experience, but that doesn't make me any less nervous for my teaching career.

     Even though I have only been in front of the classroom for a few days, one aspect of teaching that I have been successful in is my classroom management skills. Currently, I am teaching three periods of second-semester seniors. By this point, they have almost mentally checked out, and they can be a handful to work with. However, I am been successful in my classroom management largely because of my sense of humor. Instead of getting angry and threatening the students with more work, I try to make them laugh. I rationalize this because I would rather have them laughing at a joke I made and pay attention than hitting each other with pencils in the back of the room. I have found that the students respond well to my sense of humor, which is allowing me to build a great rapport with them. However, I am also not afraid to be stern when I need to be. And because we spend so much time laughing, the students know that it is a serious issue when I am not smiling. I am proud of the way I am handling my students. What was once an anxiety has now become an enjoyable experience. I think that in my future career, I will continue to implement this style of classroom management.

What makes a "star" teacher?

       A lot of my friends have majored in subjects like English or History. Now that we are approaching the end of our college careers, we are starting to panic a bit about the next step. Will we get jobs? Are we going to have to live with our parents for the rest of our lives? What are we going to do with ourselves? Despite the anxiety, we all manage to meet up several times throughout the year to talk about the future. However, my friends have been saying things that make me a little upset. When I ask my friends who majored only in English about their future career plans, they often say, "I don't know. Maybe I'll be a teacher. That seems easy enough, right?" Not only does that statement completely invalidate everything that I have been working toward for the past four years, but they could not be further from the truth.

       Teaching is not an easy job. Not only does a teacher need to know his or her subject area, but how to manage the students and design lessons to be both enriching and engaging. I have observed a lot of teachers over the past few years, and I have seen things that I want to emulate and things that I want to run away from. However, I know that to be a star teacher, a person must have a passion for working with children. Teachers seem to speak another language; they know how to be professional and get their point across while simultaneously communicating with the students on their level. One thing that I know a good teacher must be able to do is understand the students and where they are coming from. Not every student will sit quietly and read The Canterbury Tales. However, a good teacher is able to break through the students' confusions, frustrations, and, frankly, laziness in order to help them understand the material.

       However, a teacher cannot be effective if he or she is not passionate about his or her subject area. Star teachers are a model for their students. Good teachers need to be excited about their subject areas, even if they have been teaching for fifty years. I believe that moods are contagious. A good teacher is able to translate the love of reading, writing, and learning into a way that is accessible to the students. Even if I have to teach a book that I absolutely despise, I will make it seem like it is the best thing I've ever read. A good teacher not only enjoys working with children, but loves his or her subject area enough taht it inspires the students to want to love it, too.

Interview with my cooperating teacher

February 7, 2012

     This week, I sat down with my cooperating teacher and asked her the following questions:

How do you pick your battles in terms of classroom management?

• Before you pick your battles, you must know what kind of support you have from the administration. If there is little to no administrative support, it is important for teachers to give students the idea that there is strong support in order to deter disruptive behavior. 
• It is important to have a good report with your students. At the beginning of the year, make sure it is clear to your students that you are going to be fair in judgement. 
• If you are at the end of your rope and you must yell in order to stop disruptive behavior, follow up with the question, "Is that how you want to be spoken to?" This question is designed to make the students reflect on their own behavior, hopefully showing them that if they want respect, they must also be respectful to the teacher. 
• It is important that the teacher be respectful to the students. If the teacher is ever wrong, or makes a mistake, the teacher cannot be afraid to apologize. Apologizing sets a good example for the students in terms of taking responsibility for their own actions. 
• It is important that the teacher be firm in discipline. The teacher must not be afraid to enforce the rules. At the same time, the teacher must never hold grudges against a student. Each incident should be considered isolated, and each day is a brand new day in terms of student behavior. 

How do you incorporate technology into the classroom?

• The teacher should not incorporate technology for the sake of technology. It is important that the lesson and learning objectives be the "star of the show". My teacher gave the example, "you don't go to a basketball game to watch the basketball".  However, technology can be a useful tool if it is used to enhance the lesson. 
• If students are struggling on a writing assignment, my teacher will allow the students to use a computer. This allows the students to get down their thoughts in an easier way. Computers also make it easier for the students to peer edit and revise their writing. 
•   Videos and film clips are effective ways of incorporating differentiated instruction. My teacher will show clips from film adaptations of the text that the students are reading, as long as the clips are accurate to the text. My teacher will also utilize music to set the mood for a text, or use audio or video clips from lecture notes on a related topic. 

Is your classroom more student centered or teacher centered? 

• This is determined in terms of the lesson the teacher has planned. The teacher should utilize both approaches to teaching, depending on the type of lesson and goals of the lesson. 
• It is important that the teacher knows how to utilize both approaches. A teacher should have an array of skills and tools in order to make his or her lessons effective.
• It is also important that the teacher understand how to take command of the classroom when it is more appropriate for teacher centered lessons. 
• The appropriate approach is usually determined by the efficiency of each approach in terms of the daily lesson as well as the time constraints that the teacher faces.  

How do you involve parents?

• If a student is having trouble completing the assigned work, the teacher should encourage his or her parents to email the teacher for daily assignments. 
• It is important to only call parents when necessary. This includes when a student is failing, when a student constantly exhibits disruptive behavior, or when a student often has an attitude, making the student difficult to teach. 
• When speaking to parents, it is important to only use positive words. Ask the parent for help, ask them to encourage the student to complete his or her work, and ask the parent to encourage good behavior. By asking for help and using words like "encourage," the parents feel less defensive of their children and are empowered to make the necessary changes. 
• In my teacher's experience, parents are generally receptive to teacher phone calls and conferences.