This week was my first week full time teaching. I had a lot of issues with the students respecting me. We had several talks over the course of the week about respect and disrespect. I am not sure what the issue is, but I could not get them to stop talking. On Friday, I just about had enough and they could tell how upset I really was. This is when I asked the students to put themselves in my shoes. I asked students to tell me how they would feel if they were trying to teach and I wouldn't stop talking...many of the students admitted that they would not be very happy and would be upset. This is when I asked: why do it to me then? They were dumbfounded. I think that this conversation had an impact on them. Today (Monday the 22nd), my teacher came in with a list of strategies that she has used in the past to keep students under control. I wrote the word "Walking" on the board today to indicate a reward of 15 or so minutes outside walking. I told students if I had to erase a letter, we would subtract 2 minutes. I also told them that they could earn a letter back. At one point, I had to erase the W and A, but students did eventually earn it back. This was the quietest I have ever seen them! After lunch, it started to go back downhill. I am not sure what the reason for that is, but it is really frustrating. I am hoping that I can utilize some of these strategies and that they are effective!
Action Research Week 5/6
This unit is a lot harder than Unit 3. No matter if I use a book or not, students are not performing well on the exit slips. Students are learning about measurement. This is a hard concept for students to grasp. Also, I think students are becoming sick of the exit slips because students seem to be flying through them just to get them done. I hope that I am able to get decent results from this research. I am still unsure about how to go about writing this whole thing up because I really don't think that my results can answer my question.
Monday, November 22, 2010
Monday, November 15, 2010
November 8-12, 2010
This week was my first week of teaching my Mexico unit. I think that it has been going really well. The students are seeming to really enjoy it. My only issue is that I have so much I want to do with it, but have so little time to do it. I am allotted 30 minutes a day for my class and 30 minutes a day for Mrs. Tuck's class. By the time, the students get in and settled down, there is really only 20 minutes left of instructional time. I have had to modify my lessons to a great extent. This really upsets me because I feel like the students are missing out on so much information that they could really benefit from in the future. On the bright side, we have been having a lot of fun with the unit and the students are really retaining the information. Each day, I try to do a little review with them of everything that we have learned thus far and students have been remembering a lot more information than I ever imagined. I never imagined that students would remember that Mexico's full name is the United Mexican States and that it has 31 states. This unit has also caught the attention of one of my ESL students. I have noticed that it is very hard to keep him engaged, but this unit has changed that. He is now participating and very interested in what is going on.
Week 4 Action Research
This week, students took their Unit 3 posttest. I looked at all of the exit slips and compared them to the post test. I have noticed that many of the students who have been performing poorly on the exit slips did very well on the posttest. I am wondering if this is because they studied or if that they just needed more practice. The way that Everyday Math is set up is so that once a topic is introduced, students continue to review it in their Math Boxes. At the end of each unit, students are only expected to know concepts that are continuously reviewed, rather than concepts that are introduced within the unit.
Week 4 Action Research
This week, students took their Unit 3 posttest. I looked at all of the exit slips and compared them to the post test. I have noticed that many of the students who have been performing poorly on the exit slips did very well on the posttest. I am wondering if this is because they studied or if that they just needed more practice. The way that Everyday Math is set up is so that once a topic is introduced, students continue to review it in their Math Boxes. At the end of each unit, students are only expected to know concepts that are continuously reviewed, rather than concepts that are introduced within the unit.
Sunday, November 7, 2010
November 1-5, 2010
This week, I took over Reading on top of Math. It was really beneficial to work in small groups with the students at reading stations. This allowed me to focus on their individual needs and see what each of their ability levels are. It allowed me to gain more insight into their academic abilities. This will help me in the future when I am planning lessons. Because I was teaching so much more, this week seemed to go by so much faster. Also, because I was teaching so much more and having more close interactions with the students, I was also able to pick up all of their germs. We have a stomach flu going around and it seems like it is just making its way around the grades. I am a clean freak and hate that the desks aren't cleaned every night so I try to disinfect them as much as possible. I think it is so strange that it isn't required that the desks are cleaned, especially with how younger students are. They are always picking their noses and coughing all over everything. It's just a big germ fest waiting to be spread around.
In math on Friday, we had students do a review sheet on time and counting money. It was evident that many of the students are not getting it. From the exit slips from those days, this was not clear. Many of the students did well on the exit slips. These review sheets came as a big shock. We started a "mini" intervention group based on my findings on my exit slips. We created a group of students who have performing poorly overall. Whether this be because they are not applying themselves or they just simply don't get the material, we are working to find this out. I have also decided that I am going to create 5 case studies on my lowest achieving students. I hope to incorporate their Math DIBELS scores in this case study as well. I would like to see if my action research is at all affecting their mathematical understanding. I will excited to see how this turns out.
Action Research Week 3:
This week went pretty well. This week was actually the opposite of all of the other weeks. The two days that I used the books, the students actually did worse on their exit slips. I am not exactly sure why. The two days I used the books, both dealt with money. We also did many physical activities while reading the books that got the students involved in the learning and the books. For example, on the dime day (Wednesday), I had 1 student come up at a time, pretending to be a dime, until students told me that there were enough people up there to make a dollar. I was working with the concept that 10 dimes make a dollar. We also worked with the concept that 2 nickels make a dime and 4 nickels make 2 dimes. The students were very engaged in these activities and seemed to really understand it, but their exit slips said otherwise. On Thursday, we practiced counting coins. Students were actively engaged during the story and were discussing how much money the girl had and so on. When the story was done and the students were back at their seats, it was like chaos. I could not get them to pay attention for the life of me. There are many factors that could relate to why they did poorly on this exit slip, but again I am not sure.
In math on Friday, we had students do a review sheet on time and counting money. It was evident that many of the students are not getting it. From the exit slips from those days, this was not clear. Many of the students did well on the exit slips. These review sheets came as a big shock. We started a "mini" intervention group based on my findings on my exit slips. We created a group of students who have performing poorly overall. Whether this be because they are not applying themselves or they just simply don't get the material, we are working to find this out. I have also decided that I am going to create 5 case studies on my lowest achieving students. I hope to incorporate their Math DIBELS scores in this case study as well. I would like to see if my action research is at all affecting their mathematical understanding. I will excited to see how this turns out.
Action Research Week 3:
This week went pretty well. This week was actually the opposite of all of the other weeks. The two days that I used the books, the students actually did worse on their exit slips. I am not exactly sure why. The two days I used the books, both dealt with money. We also did many physical activities while reading the books that got the students involved in the learning and the books. For example, on the dime day (Wednesday), I had 1 student come up at a time, pretending to be a dime, until students told me that there were enough people up there to make a dollar. I was working with the concept that 10 dimes make a dollar. We also worked with the concept that 2 nickels make a dime and 4 nickels make 2 dimes. The students were very engaged in these activities and seemed to really understand it, but their exit slips said otherwise. On Thursday, we practiced counting coins. Students were actively engaged during the story and were discussing how much money the girl had and so on. When the story was done and the students were back at their seats, it was like chaos. I could not get them to pay attention for the life of me. There are many factors that could relate to why they did poorly on this exit slip, but again I am not sure.
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