Power loss and parent teacher conferences

Surprising, that is my word that describes this week. My students, the weekly schedule, the shift in how my week was going, my students’ responses to material, and my government class. All of these things surprised me this week. My students were full of tests again this week in psychology; I am blaming this on the new quarter. I did not let their tests change the dynamics of my classroom and held strong to my discipline policy. The weekly schedule was surprising because it was not only changed up for parent teacher conferences but it was also changed up when the school lost power. I was teaching my sixth period psychology class when the school lost power and they lost focus in everything we were doing in class. It took me quite a bit of time to get them back to focusing on the assignment. All of my students really seemed to have needed hour in a half because everyone in the building came back the next day refreshed and ready for a new day. My government class even threw me for a spin when they actually paid attention and buckled down to learn this week. I felt that this week was a much better week then last week but full of surprises. The last bit of surprise I got was the parents of my students. A lot more of them showed up then what was originally anticipated by the school and teachers. I had a lot of parents who were so encouraging and others who have me so much invaluable experience. I was surprised at how easy it was to talk with my parents about their children. 

During this past week I’ve really been thinking about how to improve my lesson plans to include more things like problem solving, performance skills, scaffolding, questioning and even improving on how I set my lesson goals. I was reflecting on how I do those things now. I have the students to problem solving by giving them a situation and from what they know already solving that problem. I do this with readings and questions on the board. I have my students work on performance skills a lot. As soon as my students learn something new they are practicing it. Then I have them show me how well they learned in questions of the day, in the next class period and on projects. In psychology there is very little background knowledge so asking what my students already know is my way of assessing what they know and finding out what I can build on. I ask my students a lot of questions throughout my lessons because I want them to stay involved, I want them to form their own opinions and I want them to start thinking like a psychologist would about the issues we are talking about in class. I use questioning every day but I am still working on higher order thinking questions.

The hook in my lesson plan can be anything from review to introducing the lesson. It’s extremely important to my lessons because it gets my students prepared to start working. It gets their brains working to remember what they know and write what they know. It also improves their writing skills. For instance the hook I just used on Friday in my psychology class promoted class discussion on whether dreams have any real meaning. Without that time to think, reflect, and share with fellow classmates I don’t think my students would be as into the topic as they were on Friday. 

For students with learning disabilities in my classroom I do a lot of repeating what I wrote on the board. I also use skeleton outlines for lecture and I do frequent checks for understanding. It depends on the individual student but I know the students with learning disabilities and who need extra help. I also do a lot of talking to the student on a one on one basis to make sure things made sense and to make sure I am giving them all the accommodations they need.

The lesson I taught this week that brings to mind all these different areas in the lesson plans I’ve been working on is a lesson I taught on Tuesday. It was a lesson over nature versus nurture. This is a concept most of my students are not familiar with but it is a concept they still have an opinion on. So what I did was introduce it with have my students fill out in their own opinion if things like intelligence, body build, being a talented athlete, etc. were more inherited or more environmental. They had to fill out a chart giving a percentage to in each category telling me how much they thought the human trait was affected by environment and hereditary. Then I had my students get with partners and discuss their answers. Their groups then had to fill out another chart with their compromise on each topic. I went over what is included in nature and nurture but by then my students had a very strong grasp on the ideas. They also had very strong opinions. While my students were discussing these issues I went around the room and put groups back on topic by playing devil’s advocate. I also had to be the mediator for some groups who were getting a little more heated about their debates over nature and nurture. Each class was different and each class had different responses and questions for me over the debate. I answered my students questions to the best of my ability but also just allowed each of my classes to form their own opinion over the issue.

In another lessons on Friday I adapted the general curriculum to meet the special and diverse learning needs of my students. Instead of talking about how dreams can be interpreted I gave my students the assignment of writing down their dreams for a week. Next Friday we are going to interpret their own dreams. This is not only going to make it more real for my students but it’s going to make it more personal to them.  I do this a lot in my lesson plans but I am not the only one that does. I can see that the other teachers in my school also not only adapt the general curriculum to their students but they also every year adapt their own lesson plans to their new students.

As for my list of goals for myself; here they are, updates and new ones all thrown into one.

1. My government class has calmed down a little. I’m going to work on be happy and treating that class like each day is a new day.
2. My social life is balancing out quite well. I think I’m getting the hang of everything finally.
3. I’m still stressed out and that ice cream I bought yesterday does not help my healthy eating habits.
4. My relationship with God continues to strengthen especially when I see that I need him every day.
5. Keeping sane still includes staying and focusing on the positives.
6. Still study away for tests in November but also seriously thinking about where I’m going to be in the next few months.
7. Being the best teacher I can be means coming through with quality lessons for my students.
8. Staying positive went well this week. It helped with the shortened days and great parent teacher conferences.
9. Catching my psychology class up to where they are supposed to be went pretty good this past week. It wasn’t as fun as I would have liked but we are almost back on track. This will continue to be a goal for this week.
10. Collaborating with other teachers went pretty well this past week. They really helped me get ready for parent teacher conferences and they had a lot of good advice for me this past week. I want to continue to work on getting great ideas from them. I will see how they promote critical thinking, and problem solving.

If you could be continuing to pray for me this week that would be wonderful, I have decided to get observed in government this week and that is my hardest class. Please pray it goes well and not only will I be able to prove that I’m improving as a teacher but also have my professor give me some great tips on how to improve that class as a whole.

~Abby