Friday, September 3, 2010
Week of 8/30/10-9/3/10
This week, I completely took over Reading. We started a novel, The Summer of the Swans. At the beginning of the week, the students in my class were really trying to see how far they could push me. It took them the entire 45 minutes to write in their journal and define 7 words! After that, I thought that it was going to take me months to finish this book. Tuesday went a lot smoother than Monday did. We ended up getting caught up on everything that I had planned. I noticed that participation is a HUGE issue in my classroom. The students just aren't willing to do it. As much as I hate putting students on the spot, I decided that I had to make popsicle sticks with each students name on it. Whenever the students refused to participate, I would just go to the sticks and pull a name. It actually worked quite well, but the students still are not participating because they want to. In addition to the popsicle sticks, I decided to make a participation chart. I have been marking how often the students are participating each day. I think right now it is more for me so that I can see who is participating all of the time and who is not, but in the future I might make it count towards their grade. I am not sure if I want to do that though. My class on Wednesday was such an improvement! They worked so well and participated so much more. I am not sure what happened overnight, but it was a miracle. On Thursday, the students presented their interviews of their parents or a relative from the night before. The interviews were meant to be about life in the 60s or 70s. The students really seemed to enjoy this because they learned alot about their parents/relatives. It was very interesting to consider how much things have changed in the past 30 or 40 some years. We have also thought about creating posters for the 60s, 70s, and today so that students can compare prices and life styles and what not. I think the students would really enjoy doing something like this, but when do I fit it in? We are already a day or a day and a half behind! Then, we played a review game. Students broke up into teams and worked together to answer the questions. It went very well and the students really enjoyed it. It was something different than reading or me standing in front of them and talking. Finally, today we had our quiz. I made the mistake of not having the students move their desks back out of their groups! Lesson learned that is for sure. I had one group blatantly copy off of each other because they all had the same answer for the one question and it was no where near correct! Next time, I will definetly have them move away from each other. I am really enjoying being in 6th grade. Also, every day I feel more and more a part of the school community. Everyone is so welcoming and so willing to help all of the time. I am looking forward to continuing my novel next week! Also, I am looking forward to taking over more responsibility, such as team teaching in Science!
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Hi Jennifer,
ReplyDeleteI know this has been a stressful week for you with the illness of your mentor teacher. Please let me know if I can help in any way. Kathleen
It always helps when you find yourself in a great school community.
ReplyDeleteAfter reading your post and how students did begin to participate in your discussions, I'm wondering if it was because they became more aware of your expectations of them. I'm reminded that sometimes we need to teach our students how to use a strategy (such as oral participation/discussion) before we can actually expect them to use it on their own or for learning. I loved the parent interview and I'd be willing to bet that your parents loved it as well. It's not always easy having an adolescent in your household and providing parents and their children with a project such as this provides them with an opportunity to get to know each other in a different way. As you say, it's amazing how much has changed in the past 40 years. I often find it hard to believe that I grew up in "the olden days." :)
while I know that you're required to use certain assessment, I want to suggest that you think about how you might design some alternative assessments that you would be able to use to evaluate student learning. Are there some projects you could develop, based on the novel, that would allow students to apply and critique their learning?
You also mentioned time as an issue....is there a way of addressing multiple CSOs so that you can justify any additional time this novel will take?
It's great that you're enjoying the 6th grade...so maybe you'll be looking for middle school positions this summer?
Sharon