Week 12 and 13

Week 12 and 13—such a crazy weeks I have been too busy to write about it until now—writing about them together as they have splashed into a blur of events. The things that stick-out are new situations that make teaching increasingly challenging. Some behavior issues had made teaching in my 2^nd and 3^rd periods change over from a good pace to a lulling grind. I had to send students out in both classes—asking them to come back in when they had gotten themselves together and were ready to learn. In two of the instances I had to bring the student back in…

It seems that my social currency amongst my problem students was running out as I began to hold them to stricter standards—realizing that I was giving too many warnings for what I thought was excusable behavior. However, while that was happening—students were building a perception of me as a lenient teacher on the rules that I had recognized and wrote to support a productive classroom. So I became…not stricter…but more conscious and consistent.

I instituted a class wide disciplinary system (which I borrowed from Ms. Morimoto) to help students correlate certain behaviors—such as calling out, talking at the wrong time, etc.—with negative consequences—being held in as a class during wiki. I had to use this on my 2^nd period class first. After they silently sat in for 5 minutes after the bell they were much better at self-regulation of behavior.

Then came the problem of some kids getting the work fast and some getting the work slow—my solution would be in the implementation of self-directed guided notes. Students, within their groups, would work their way through the guided notes which I had tried to make as scaffolded as possible. With this I could take a smaller role in directing the class and address directly those individual needs to clarification. Also students come to rely more on each other for support and validation. The lacking factor that soon discovered would be the lack of exit tickets and other checks for understanding that would provide that extra measure of student understanding.

Good: It’s hard to pull something from these weeks that was really good. The discipline system of adding time helped…

Bad: I’ve got to work on better checks for understanding, consistent exit tickets, and keeping my students interested.