One on One conferencing

When going over this video, I really was happy that I asked her WHY she added what she did to her sentence. That was specific and made her think about it and have to explain her choice, rather than just add it, me comment, and move on. I wonder if that was innate in me to do that? I don't remember making a conscious effort to think about my questions. It just came out. That's good!!! I still remember how to have conferences with kids!! Yeah Me!!!! (OK, I watch too much Disney Channel)

I liked how I made eye contact with her while she was talking and kept my focus on her and her words. This is important to show students that you really WANT to hear about their work and the choices they made into it. It holds them accountable for their work and makes them think about it rather than just doing it and moving on and never thinking about it again. This was good. I'm proud of this!

Then again, in the other conferences I did that afternoon, the girls hadn't really added a lot to their sentences. I tried to get more out of one girl, but she said she really liked it the way it was and didn't want to change it. I had to respect that and couldn't think fast enough how to turn that around a little and make it a teachable moment. A couple of the girls just added adjectives, like I stated earlier. This wasn't the point of the lesson; it was to expand the work they had to make it more clear. I think in the future, I would address this problem. How is it different to add just adjectives and adverbs, versus adding whole phrases to the sentences? That's a good mini-lesson in itself. I'll put that in my notes for future reference.

Small Group

When I went over this exercise with the girls, I was expecting to have them really dig into it and make some nice comments and additions to the sentences. One girl did a nice job, but, the others just added a couple words. I think I could have handled this better. I tried to excourage them and pull a little more out. I struggle with this age on what is constructive criticism and what will discourage them. I am not trained in Elementary Education. I know high schoolers, or middle schoolers. They've had a little more experience. I don't know at what point it would be too much as I don't want to 'squash' their creativity.

They were supposed to work together to do the sentences, but it seems that when I was with the other group, this group that I taped, did the sentences separately and didn't work together on them. I should have addressed this. I just had them pick sentences they thought they did a nice job on, and we talked about it. I should have found sentences they did together and highlighted how they were different from each other and what they each brought to the sentences. I don't think this lesson worked the way I wanted it to. 2 of the girls only added a couple words to the sentences. And they were mostly adjectives. Those are easy additions and not really the point of the lesson. I was disappointed by this and tried really hard not to let that show. In retrospect, perhaps I should have voiced my concern and tried to redo them with the girls.

I did think I encouraged them and gave them feedback on the sentences that they did do. I'm not sure it was specific enough and clearly it didn't get them to the point that I was hoping for. In this I'm disappointed and will definitely rethink this plan in the future. I didn't ask them the right questions to get the answers I was looking for. I accepted the answer, gave feedback and let it go and moved on to the next person. THis is something I'm definitely going to have to look at in the future and be mindful of for future lessons.

Whole group teaching video - Chapter 3

Watching this video of myself, I had to first laugh that I was still wearing my substitute tag on my shirt. :)

I was able to utilize a classroom and have a couple of the girls stay after school with me in order to videotape our lesson together. I wish I had been able to use the smart board system to teach the lesson. I think it would have been a lot more effective and helpful to the girls if they had been able to see better, and have things appear a little bigger and more clearly. This is a definite disadvantage I have had trying to do this assignment, and think had I been a regular classroom teacher, things definitely would have worked differently. But, I worked with the resources I had and the girls were amazing and the "chaos" as I saw it, didn't seem to faze them.

This has been a fun experience for me to get back into my 'teacher shoes' so to speak. I have been out of a classroom for 11 years and the thought of having to teach again after so many years, was, quite frankly, daunting to me. Would I remember what to do? Would I still have a connection to the students? Would I still have the ability to have effective classroom management? I am happy to say that it was like the old adage, 'it's like riding a bicycle.' Things just fell into line for me. I had spent a little time last year substituting, but for the most part, this fall has been my step back into teaching. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed it. Being in this class has energized me for the future, and for that I'm really grateful and excited!

Looking back on the tape, there are things I think I did well. I introduced our lesson with a tie in from the previous lesson we had. I told them what we were going to be doing, what would follow and what I expected. I think this is important as it helps the students have a 'purpose' for what we are doing and not just because we 'have' to do it. I provided sentences and gave examples and provided them an opportunity to give their answers. I also thought it was nice I thought to have a couple different ones to the same question and pointed out that they were different and that's what made it so great. Same sentence..... totally different context or meaning when you add different words or phrases. I remember the girls smiling at this. They all seemed eager to give their answers, but that might have been because they knew it was on video, but for the most part, in the past, they had been eager too. I think perhaps it might have been helpful to have had some boys in the group. I did find myself making an effort throughout my sub day that day, to think back over class discussions to notice if I called on more girls than boys. I think I did a good job of getting to both. I didn't favor one over the other. And I don't think I've ever had a problem with this in the past.

Things I didn't do well: I thought I was too fast. I think I moved to quickly through the examples and perhaps didn't explain them well enough. I thought they knew the point and the extended examples I was giving were what I was looking for. Perhaps I needed more examples to start and more sentences for us to work on as a whole group. As we get into the small group lesson, I noticed that were adding only 1 or 2 words, and not phrases like we had discussed in this lesson. That is definitely something I would add in future lessons. But, that might be more able to happen had I used a different method of presentation rather than the overhead machine which was available to me. Perhaps with my follow-ups I could have garnered more information from them or pulled more out of them to get the responses to be a little longer. But again, that goes back to I should have had more examples for us to work on together. I was thinking in my mind that I would be doing that in the small groups, and this was just an introduction. Perhaps THIS critique better belongs in my small group discussion.