Learning From Others

There was a new girl that came in for tutoring today and one of the most interesting things I heard was the supervisor of the center ask her if there was anything she should know about her. Such as: can you roll your tongue, can you wiggle your ears

Sometimes I Wonder

Is it really worth keeping this thing?

But on days like today it's worth it. It gives me something to do. But I'm not pro-blogger like some people out there.

Randall is at work and my car is in the shop so I can't get anywhere. There's a problem when all the anti freeze you pour into the car ends up on the floorboard of the passenger side. Not so good. But I've been up since 6:30 and need a break from planning for school. Although a billion more hours of getting things perfect would be wonderful. It would also be nice to know exactly when we start and end. They've moved it around a couple times now and when I think I have my schedule smoothly planned I notice something in it that just won't work. Like having recess on my table on excel in the wrong fifteen minute block. That causes a problem.

I've also decided I really need to get my husband to teach me Portuguese. There's Portuguese music on my computer and I don't know what it says. And he talks in Portuguese and I can't even say I don't understand in Portuguese, I respond in Spanish, haha. Not that I know much of that either. And I need to spend more time with Melissa so I can relearn ASL. Then I'll be cool - I'll be on my way to being trilingual. Aren't you jealous? Haha, maybe not.

Well, I'm sure there's something else around this house that needs done or more school stuff to plan... Off to entertain myself.

Wow, I still have this thing

Justin just started a blog and I remembered I had one myself. I wonder if I'll ever really keep it up...

Cell Phone Issues and Playing Piano

My phone is dying. As in I can hear other people, but they can't hear me. Thus, tomorrow I am buying a new phone. On my own plan. I'm a big girl now! I tie my own shoes and everything. (I have yet to find the source of that statement. I know it was referred to in Hercules but I heard it somewhere else and the web has failed me so far to reveal the source.)

And in reference to the piano: I played piano in Sacrament Meeting on Sunday. It wasn't perfect, but it went well. I need to get better at more hymns. One day I want to own a grand piano. When I move out on my own to go teach I think I'll bring my keyboard. I really don't like playing on keyboards - especially because mine doesn't have weighted keys - but it will have to do. I'm going to have to find out what I did with the power cord and the stand that go with it though... that might be a difficulty.

I'm Hired!

I have been hired to teach first grade in a school that houses K-3. I will be the only new teacher which allows me to access all the other teachers as a resource! I'm pretty excited. It will be quite the switch from fifth and sixth graders to first graders, but I think I'm ready for it.

First grade, here I come!

To Interview or Not to Interview... That is the Question

Well no news yet on the last interview. I called on Monday to see what the status was and they hadn't made a decision yet.

I just got a call from another elementary school way down south and to the east, near Four Corners. They scheduled me for an interview at 1:00 and want me to bring a ten minute lesson plan to the interview. I looked it up and it's a seven hour drive to get there. That means leaving at like 6 in the morning or leaving Sunday and finding a place to stay halfway. I know that opportunities to interview are scarce these days, but I don't know that I want to interview with this one. It's a small community and doesn't have what I want in my personal interactions with people. I'm sure the community is great, but I don't think it's for me. However, I don't know if I should go down and interview for the experience and then end up declining the job, because I don't think it would be best if I took it, or if I should decline the interview so I don't spend the time and money getting there and have them spend time and money on me when I really don't think there's a possibility of me taking the job.

Yes, I want a job. And yes I appreciate that they want me to interview, but it doesn't feel right. I want a job that puts in a good area with people I know that can support me and with experiences that I can grow from. Granted I don't know whether this job could give me that, but it seems highly unlikely that I would be happy there. And me being unhappy will not work well with the kids. And yet maybe that's where I need to go.

The question is: Am I being resistant because I don't know what's ahead? Or is this really not the job for me and I should let it pass by because something better is coming? It's these times that I just want to scream because I want to make right choice and I don't know how to do it.

Interview

I had an interview with East Midvale Elementary yesterday. It went really well. And I'll hear from them by Friday! I could know if I have a job this week! AHH!

Another Interview Down, Another Scheduled

My interview with Canyons went great. Although it was a bit hard to find and it snowed. It snowed for my last interview too. So plan for snow on April 16 when I interview with Davis.

My six year old student told me I was one of her favorite teachers today. That makes me happy. She works really hard, too. And I got to teach place value today! She picked up so quickly. I'm proud of her. She said it was too hard at first, then we talked about 100's, 10's and 1's and she got it really quickly. And she wants to help me find and put away materials. She's progressing really well.

Huntington Day 4

I really like my job. I worked with a 6 year old today. She's struggling with her phonics and gets distracted easily, but she wants to learn. And she does pretty well. It's always a challenge balancing learning and fun with kids, but it's great. I enjoy working with all the different ages with their different interests and abilities and personalities. There's a middle school boy who is pretty fun to work with. He'll push your limits, but he's pretty good at doing his work. And a fifth grade boy who can get laughing so hard I have to walk away to get him to do his work or else he'll just keep laughing. I love it. Kids are amazing.

Day Three - Getting the Hang of It

Some of the tricks I'm picking up from Huntington:
Separate books and put them in binders with sleeves. Then use dry erase markers. It saves on paper big time!
When first meeting students ask what you should know about them: can they wiggle their ears, do they collect things, aside from just what a sports do they like and what movies are their favorites

I saw a student borrowing in subtraction in the longest way ever. I don't know who came up with it, but it takes way too much time and confuses him in the process. Instead of beginning at the right side of the number he automatically started borrowing from the left and then would carry. So he was having to add and subtract. It made things so much more difficult. Teachers out there, please don't confuse your students like that. We had to undo his strategy and reteach for quite a chunk of time today.

The same student and I came up with a strategy in reading because he isn't getting the correct vowel sound: try it out in the word then read the whole sentence. Novel concept to a fifth grader who is struggling. He's proud of his growth already, though. He said his mom was right about Huntington. His scores have already gone up. I was so happy to hear that.

Interview

I had my interview with Jordan today. It went really well. I'm pleased with it. Now they pass my name on to the principals. I can look up the schools with openings, too, and contact them on my own. So it's looking good, especially because I'm not picky about the grade I teach which gives me many more opportunities. I will keep you posted!

First Day at Huntington

Pretty smooth first day at Huntington. I worked with a fifth grader, an eighth grader, and a third grader. I had seen the fifth grade boy before when I went in for my interview. The third grade girl and I share our name so she thought that was cool, although she likes to play hide and seek. Every time I went to get a new workbook she was under the desk and around the corner.

Th supervisor said I did really well for my first day juggling things. She said it didn't go so smoothly for some of the others. I think that's my teaching training behind me. I can juggle monitoring a student, their engagement, their work, and grade pretty well at once.

I go back in on Friday. Maybe I'll work with some new kids, maybe the same ones. The kids are consistent in time, but the teachers aren't, yet. We're still figuring it all out since the center very recently opened. For a first day it went very smoothly.

Happenings

I was hired on Wednesday as a Tutor for the Huntington Learning Center. It's a part time job, but something that will keep me working with kids and in practice with academics. I should hear from them in the next couple days to start setting up my schedule. What I like about the center is that they offer one on one tutoring for the children who come in and teach the skills they need to succeed, not just to get their homework done. The philosophy sounds a lot like my work at the Writing Center at WWU.

This week I also have an interview with a school district and another interview scheduled for the first week of April. As of yet I do not have three letters of recommendation from teachers at Lincoln, but I do have two student letters, two parent letters, and a letter from my mentor. I also have a notebook full of lesson plans I have used. I just need to order my placement file with my student teaching evals to give to the district as well.

The Job Hunt

I have moved to Utah and obtained my teaching license with my reading endorsement in this state as well. In the past few weeks I have killed a forest filling out applications and have two interviews scheduled in the next couple weeks and hoping to schedule a few more. At this point I have no preference for grade level, but I am really hoping that wherever I am hired I have a mentor teacher to get me through the first year. Leading a full class completely on my own is going to be quite the step and I don't think I'll be able to do it smoothly and could really use an experienced teacher's support to help me through.

If any of my Woodring cohort is still reading this, how is the hunt going? Any success yet? I hope so. I hope I'll stay in contact with you for quite awhile and share our stories.

As soon as I am hired I will let you know. In the meantime I'll probably be exploring all those links I have posted on here. I have some experience with some of them and want to get some more experience with others.

Good luck with the job hunt!

Ms. Jessica McKell

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?

Math Reflection

I began teaching the Problem of the Week to my math class today. I started with the Dart Board problem (if anyone remembers it).

To begin I had my students solve the problem of forming an arrangement of tables to sit around. They usually sit three to four at a table and I asked to have all 14 around an arrangement of tables. Using that example I taught the basis of solving problems.

I had them read the scoring guide intermittently with solving the problem. First I had them reda the requirement for part 1 of POW - restating the problem. They then told their partner how they would explain the problem. I then had them read over the problem and discuss with their partner how they would approach the problem. Then I had them work with their partner to solve the problems.

I made a mistake in handing out the materials of individual whiteboards and pens before I finished giving directions. They were signing their names and drawing pictures, etc. Later, though, I made the decision to have them turn over their boards when another classmate was explaining his solution. That worked well. It prevented temptation from arising.

Overall I think the lesson went well. Next week we will work on the problem together in partners and then I will have the students do the write up on their own.

For extra credit I have offered the students the MathNexus from WWU's website and told them any work they turn in will count as extra points for their summative grade. So far no one has taken me up on it.

Subbing

The past two days I have been fully in charge of my class without my teacher as she is in Italy. It hasn't been completely smooth, but no disasters. My schedule hasn't allowed for complete smooth days. Yesterday my reading class was interrupted to call some students to MAP testing, my math class was interrupted to call some students to pictures and both periods of Social Studies were interrupted for pictures.
Today my afternoon was interrupted for MAP testing. All the fifth graders in both my class and my team teacher's class were called to test so I couldn't continue with Social Studies or the plan for Language Arts. Instead I had the students use the time to workshop on their Mountain School Reports. However, as some students began to finish and others came back from testing things got a little unorganized. However, students have personal projects in this class and they were able to work on those.

I'm learning a bit about subbing this way. Students are familiar with me but they know that I am not their full teacher so they are pushing me. I having to balance out enforcing what my teacher has done in the classroom and my own techniques.
Other teachers in the building have been very supportive and willing to help out whenever possible. I appreciate my fellow 5 and 6 grade teachers who are involved in similar lessons to help guide me through this process. It's nice to have the entire class to myself to make decisions with the other teachers to guide me, which is a different support than what I have with my direct teacher with me. I can consult with others and not feel like I am overstepping boundaries because I am fully running the show.