ConferJournal

10/6/2011 - Today, I met my field experience teacher and her third period, seventh-grade language arts students for the first time. I was excited to get to know a seventh grade classroom, but nervous at the same time to meet my teacher and seventh graders. This woman will be an educator whom I will observe until I student teach. I was also apprehensive in a way about my lack of knowledge about seventh grade language arts. I wanted to love it and soak up as much as I could before I'd be standing in front of a real classroom alone for the first time. I walked into her classroom and was drawn to the reading pillows and beautiful pictures which I learned she had personally made and taken. The environment made her classroom a place where I wanted to learn so I imagined that her students felt the same way. After talking about the school, her classes, and getting to know each other, I met third period. I learned something from my teacher that day. Something happens in the summer between seventh and eighth grade that changes them and I saw it first hand. They're still so young, intrigued, and energetic. I'm excited to go back and continue my journey to student teaching.

Marlo, I know what you mean about how the environment is part of the work of teaching--something I also noticed the moment I walked into that classroom. What specific moves would you imitate here, as a teacher? How did she make use of the classroom environment during lessons? I hope you continue to notice and appreciate the energy and intrigue of middle-schoolers--most teachers either love or hate teaching that age, and I am certainly in the former camp: They're still young enough to not be jaded or self-conscious--if you say, "Sing" they sing, if you say "act," they act; they get excited that "Lenny...is as 'brave as a bull,' and bulls like the color red...and Lennie likes the girl's red dress!" I miss students for whom literary analysis is an exciting new discovery! user:sherrymi

10/19/2011 - I learned and observed two great things today. When I came to class today my teacher and I talked about grading vocab quizzes that the students had taken. I wanted to help and also look for ideas in her assessments. I was able to grade parts of the quizzes where students had to circle the correctly spelled word or fill in vocab with definitions. As I was going through them I came across one that was different. It had less choices for circling and it was more in depth and I later learned that it was a modified quiz. I was so excited to see modification first hand because I struggle with this section of my lesson plans. While I was grading, I observed a lesson on pronouns. You might imagine that this could be somewhat boring but my teacher used the root words in the pronoun type to sort of define the pronouns. I was so excited to have something to possibly use in my bag of tricks. I loved that the students wanted to be involved in the lesson and embraced it. I left today in awe of my teacher and 3rd period. Real, useful learning happened in that classroom and I took a lot away from it.

Love the way you're noticing things that you can use and focusing on something like modified instruction/assessment in your posts :). How did your teacher explain her use of modified assessments to students? This is sometimes difficult to navigate because we want to honor students' differences without making them feel singled out. Any strategies? It's also a challenge to integrate vocab/grammar with other types of lesson activities--how did she manage this? user:sherrymi

10/27/2011 - Today was quiz day and I learned a lot about how to use time well in the classroom. The pronoun quiz was expected to have students finishing at different times, so silent reading books were taken out after students finished. With some time left, my teacher decided to have students fill out comment cards, even though they are usual done on Day 6. I loved these pieces of communication between students and teachers and so did 3rd period. I realized today that having backup plans and a bag of tricks is so important. My teacher knew that these were meaningful tasks that students enjoyed while also making use of class time. Considering the students were very excited about crazy hat day, something like this was welcomed today. Everyday so far I've seen new things and had meaningful experiences. I'm really starting to feel comfortable and moving through the semester is exciting.

So glad you shared this in class--I like that she not only had this backup, but that it's a routine she and students can draw on whenever a similar occasion arises. And that routine is flexible. Creating such flexible routines is part of that "workshop style" classroom environment where students feel like they can engage in meaningful work that is both consistent and individualized. user:sherrymi