Parent Conferences etc

Yesterday and today are student led parent conferences. However, Ms. Vaughn and I are learning a lot about how to make them run smoother. For one, we learned that in order to review each child's student learning plan in depth we can not schedule more than one conference with a student learning plan. They take in depth explanation and between the two of us it was a tight squeeze explaining to parents in a half hour with four conferences at once. I also watched a very tense conference happen. The student does not seem to be aware of the tension, but Ms. Vaughn and I noticed the tension between the parents and realized the roots of her academic problems may be from this tense family situation.

I will be having a conference today with the student whom I mentioned before about his reading grade. Ms. Vaughn and I decided that instead of calling his parents we would see what he would do on his own. He asked for the rubric to make up the assignment and never completed it. We will be telling the parents that we wanted to see how he would do on his own and ask if they would like the grade to stand or if they want him to make up his work. It could be a shaking experience for him, but hopefully one that kicks him into gear.

We have also moved a few of our students around. We have noticed a couple girls who are learning English don't always pay attention because they think someone else will translate for them. So we have decided to move them to tables where no one else speaks Spanish and require them to use as much English as possible. This is also set up to assist in our goal to get our students to ask more questions. I keep telling my students that smart people ask questions because they want to learn more. One of our girls is very quiet and she asked what she could do to improve her participation grade and I told her to ask questions. I told her I was a lot like her in school: smart, but quiet, and that it's taken me awhile to learn to ask questions. Then Ms. Vaughn said that I'm still working on it and I told her I was and I hoped she would learn quicker than I have.

Another one of my students came in yesterday and told me she was a part of the Southcenter Mall shooting this weekend. She is shaken up about it. She told me she woke up to a nightmare this morning and wasn't able to go back to sleep for two hours. This student has already had health concerns the past couple weeks and now is facing this trauma event. I hope she recovers well. I told her that it was perfectly healthy for her to feel the stress from the situation she was involved in and she is willing to talk to both me and Ms. Vaughn about the situation so she can overcome the trauma.

I have two more observations left to schedule and it's getting a bit hectic. We haven't been able to find the science kit I want to teach (FOSS Variables) so I might be revising that idea, but one of my observations needs to be in science so hopefully something comes up. And then I have to figure out what I'm doing once I graduate. I have heard rumors of a full time leave replacement around here which I will be looking into though!

Moving Forward

I finished my three weeks of subbing full time pretty well. Not perfect, but not horrible. I did end up getting sick and had to take off Monday and the yesterday was a holiday and today we were supposed to head out to Mountain School but got a call saying the road was flooded over. It was quite the ordeal. So my teacher and I had to sit down this afternoon and figure out what we were going to do for tomorrow and Friday. Today we were flying on the seat of our pants. It was a lot to decide and figure out between three teachers and about 60 kids and 14 chaperones. Talk about a crazy day.

Tomorrow we're going to begin algebra with my math class, the unit I thought I was going to begin teaching and the one I taught my TWS on. This time instead of 4 Spanish speaking, lower achieving students I'll be teaching 14 English speaking (one bilingual) advanced students so it will be quite the change in the pace I take and the problems I offer, but I'm ready for it. So many times I wanted to explain what I was teaching with an "unknown" or with "x" and couldn't since these kids didn't have the background knowledge for that to work.

I also get to make a phone call to a parent tomorrow about a student's grades in reading before they go home in report cards and in conferences. He's a student that should have a B at the lowest and is currently at a D because he didn't turn in his work in Reading and in Language Arts he just didn't write enough in his report so he didn't do too well on that assignment either. I'll be asking his parents whether I should leave the grades how they are and shake him up a bit to get his work in and done more completely or to let him have a chance to redo and turn in missing work. Those practice calls from SPED helped me to think about how I'm going to approach this. He's doing well overall, but these two issues are dragging down his grades. I need to remember to introduce myself and ask how the parent will want to be referred to and then give the good news, then bad news and then I'll ask for parent input. It's time to put those practice phone calls to work in the real world.

Feeling Overwhelmed

So my full subbing is ending this week and I am feeling completely overwhelmed. I am so glad my teacher will be back next week. The difficulty is arising because I have had many changes to my schedule. My math class consists of students from five different classes. I have 14 students, 6 of whom are gone this week to Mountain School. So I have had to change gears with my lessons. I don't want to teach half of the class something new while the other half misses out and then need to reteach it all when half of the class already has heard it.

Next week we have Monday for instruction, no school on Tuesday and we leave for Mountain School on Wednesday and get back on Friday. So next week will be pretty easy, instruction wise. Monday's are easy to plan for because the students are gone to specialists in the afternoons so I just need to plan for Reading and Math.

One of my struggles is that our document camera is on my workdesk, but is not connected, so I am unable to incorporate it into my instruction methods. Modeling with the document camera would be best, but currently I must either project through images on the computer alone (when the network is up and running) or draw on the whiteboard (which is often a sloppy representation of what I expect from my students).

I have also had to start thinking about moving my students to new seats. They are very chatty and are unable to focus on the work at hand. However, sometimes I wonder if I am directing their attention in the best ways. My biggest challenge in my class is reaching the wide span of students. I have a student who speaks little English and is reading at a primer level up to her classmate who is reading at a high school level. I am struggling to not let her fall through the cracks and get left behind because I'm moving too fast and not leave out my other student because he is so far ahead.

I have begun a creative writing process with my students and want to incorporate the 6+1 Traits that I know are best practice, but I am struggling because the school does not have a writing curriculum aside from Step Up to Writing which I feel is holding my stronger writers back. All of the kids have loved writing their stories and I am struggling to attend to their writing needs at such varying levels and to encourage them to write what they want in their creative writing pieces.

So much to say and not enough time. Recess is over. Back to work.

First time with report cards

I filled out report cards for the first time this week. I still have more to fill out before parent conferences, but the reading reports are in and I have my new class. I'm keeping 12 of the 14, losing two to lower leveled classes, and gaining two who are moving up. As they are changing the other teachers in the building are going to be reading new novels because they have so much change. I'm thinking about whether I stop reading 1776 to my class and find something else what that "something else" will be. The read aloud needs to be two levels above them, at least. I'm teaching at a ninth grade level and so most texts I can choose are going to be quite difficult, and long. But if I keep going with this text that I'm about halfway through I'm not going to be able to get the two new students up to speed and the others aren't really too invested. Any suggestions on a text for 5th and 6th graders reading at a high school level?