Miss Toliver: A Math Teacher's Idol

So I finally got up the courage to watch my first, math teaching experience in the middle school. I really should have watched it right away instead of waiting 4 weeks because then I would not have yet had the exposure to Miss. Toliver. She seems to make math so much fun for the students. While I taught a hands on learning lesson to the students it was far from "Miss. Toliver" exciting. This is proof that you can make learning and teaching fun. I know there are ways I could have delivered my lesson differently to better engage and excite the class.

Kids on Race: Accepting all Colors in my Classroom

The other day in class we watched a bit of "Anderson Coopers 360: Kids on Race". Below is just a clip from what we watched in class.



I thought this was a really interesting study. However, not knowing that much about studies and research I found myself wondering somethings. The questions were posed in such a way that implied that the participants had to answer. They asked "which girl is the prettiest?" or "Point to the girl that is the good student?" which makes it sound like there is an answer. I started to think about this when some of the older students responded by saying that there was not enough information for them to answer the questions, and that all people are equal regardless of what their skin color was. So how do you decided if younger children in the study just answer because it seems like they have to or because they are showing biases? What if the questions were "Do you think any of these children are smarter than the others?" that to me would show more than just asking them which one.  While I do not know too much about research I do know that they look at the validity of the study to see if things were conducted appropriately. I would be curious to see what others would say about this study.

Another thing that I think is important to look at in the data is the other side. They said that "66% of students pointed to the darkest skinned child when asked to point to the mean child". The other side to that is 34% of children did not and what are they hearing and learning that is influencing their decisions.

Regardless of my knowledge of this study and research in general I think there is a message I can take away from this that will impact my teaching and when I am a parent some day. I want to make sure that the things I say and that my actions don't make any students think that one color over another is better or worse. That is not something I believe and therefor do not want it to be a message that students pick up. One of the expectations in my classroom will be that students work together and accept and cherish diversity and everyone differences. I will not only tell this to students but I will have activities in place that help the students to see this in action. That will just be one of the way we will begin to be a class that is not colorblind but one that accepts color regardless of the shade.

Are middle school students like kindergarten students?

Back in September I had a great experience with one of the students. The students were working on drawing pictures of themselves so we could graph how many boys and how many girls there were in the class. As I am walking around looking the the portraits I am trying to keep in mind what I learned in my Art Education class over the summer. We learned that telling a student their art is "good" or "nice" or even saying it is "bad" is not constructive feedback and that makes kids think their work is only acceptable if it is "good" or "nice". Students should not just be looking for those words of praise but should know what it is that they are doing nicely or why it looks good. So as I walk around I am pointing out to the students what I see. I say things like "I see you have a big smile on your face" or I might throw in a "looking good, I see your curly hair and your brown eyes" since it is hard for me to leave out those words completely, and I think not too necessary but that is a different blog. I happen to walk over to one student and say "Gavin that looks like you, I see your brown hair, and your blue eyes. I think the only at thing that is different is today you are wearing a green shirt and in your picture you drew you are wearing a red shirt." I followed that up by saying are you trying to tell us something, tomorrow are you going to wear a red shirt and this is a picture of exactly what you will look like tomorrow" Then I went on my way to see some more pictures.

The next morning Gavin walks into the classroom. He says to me "Good morning Ms. Parks look" as he pointed to his shirt. All I said was good morning back. Then a couple minutes later to my surprise I realized what he was trying to tell me, Gavin had remembered what we talked about and wore a red shirt. I not only thought it was incredibly cute that he did that but I was amazed that he  remembered. I went back over to him and did not say I forgot because how embarrassing if a five year old can remember shouldn't I be able to? Instead I started talking about him looking like his picture and that I thought it was really cool that he surprised me and did that.

That experience made me think about how kids really do listen and they want to impress you.
I couldn't help but think of Gavin when I happened to have a nice chat with A yesterday, the middle schooler who I happened to mention in another blog that always has an attitude problem. As I mentioned before we have not had any conflicts and I never did anything wrong to her but that she just doesn't like teachers. As I walk past A's desk I happen to notice that her binder cover has been cleared out of all of her artwork and pictures. I wanted to ask but hesitated because I did not want to get the same angry look or mumbled comment. However, I decided to ask anyway and she quickly looked up and responded saying "I took them all out because I want to reorganize my binder and I am giving my artwork away." Not only was that the most pleasant response she has given me but she next said "would you like one?" I was shocked! "What me? You want to give me something" I thought. Of course I told her I would love something. By the way she is a pretty good artist. So she starts pulling all of her art out of her binder to show it off and let me pick what I wanted. I felt really bad I was getting her off subject but really good that she was giving me the time. It was a complete turn around. After I picked my piece of her art she put them away and got back to work. When class was over I went up to her and asked if she was going to decorate her binder after school. She replied back with saying that she might if she had time. This was the moment I thought about that kindergarten boy. I wondered if A would come in with a newly decorated binder and if she would be interested in showing me.
The next day I was excited for 5th period to come around to see if A would acknowledge me or want to talk more about her art. sure enough she walks in and I am sitting in a chair in the back of the room and she pushes her binder towards me to show what she had been working on. I perked up and started to talk to her about what she had created. "Yay" I thought it my head. We talked about what was new and that she had never really taken an art class. A little while later I had showed her a picture that I had on my phone of a self portrait I had done years ago. She laughed at it but it was a very genuine laugh together and not like she was laughing at me. It was great. I felt so pleased that it seemed like I made a connection with her. I hope that next week things are still on the right path.
While I am very happy with the way things are going, I am having trouble with the way A's and my relationship shifted. It seems like the only way I could connect with her was to get her completely off the topic of her school and work. How can you make sure to connect and get to know your students when you have so little time to do so? It was not like this was the only time I have tried to talk to her about her likes and interests. It seems like she needed multiple attempts. However, I am also not the teacher and I only see her and the rest of the class two times a week for two months which makes it challenging. Maybe this would not be as big of a challenge if I was there more often.

Is it more challenging to be a middle school student or a middle school teacher?

11.18.10


Today I got to teach for the second time in my middle school dyad. The lesson I taught was basically a fun, engaging unit wrap up. The students had to work in their table groups to match up graphs, tables, equations, and story problems that had the same linear relationship. One of the first challenges in planning for this lesson was trying to figure out how much time it was going to take the groups to do the work. The students in the math classes are all over the board with their understanding of the material. The other thing that needed to be considered was making sure that everyone was going to participate in the work. Group work can sometimes be challenging for students or anyone to work on. These math classes don't get the opportunity to work together too often so having little exposure was something that could create a problem. However, it just so happened that the day before the groups did a group test together which helped me to observe which groups were going to need some assistance in encouraging everyone to participate. The thing I liked about this lesson and really tried to emphasize it to the class was that each person in the group had a role. Each student had to be in charge of looking at the graphs, equations, tables, and story problems. From what I was seeing as the students worked, they did a pretty good job at including everyone.


At the end of 2nd period I was feeling good. Things went smoothly and as planned. I felt proud of the class and all of their hard work but also proud of myself for delivering a good lesson. When the class was let out I was walking around picking up their posters. I was about to say good work and good-bye to one of the students when she said "Ms.Parks, you are a really good teacher." I slightly stuttered as I tried to get a thank you out. I responded saying "thank you A. That means so much to me. That is the first complement I have received and I really appreciate it." This compliment came from a student who I once thought did not like me. I have worked with her one several occasions because she does not understand the math and always copies off of her table group. I have felt really bad for her because she was the kind of student that when does not ask for help when she doesn't understand. I think it has something to do with being embarrassed and not wanting to admit she doesn't get it because of the not so encouraging comments I witnessed her table partners say to her. At first I worried that I was helping her too much and that she was not going to appreciate all of the extra attention it could bring her. However, I tired to be discrete when I helped her out by not just working with her by also with some of the others at her table. During the group work today I asked her questions to deepen her thinking along with the others at her group. I really want her to succeed and I think she would really be proud if she did.


After the success of 2nd period I knew I did not want to get too confident because there was still 5th period. The last time I taught, 2nd period went well and 5th period went well in a different way. I had students fighting and swearing, being rude and not listening, and sitting at their desks without knowing what do do and not asking for any help. The teacher has told me that 5th period is a much more social class and with it being the end of the day the students are starting to check out. Keeping that first teaching experience with 5th period in mind I did not want to just assume everything would go as planned. While I did not have any students swearing and fighting with each other I had some students throwing markers some talking about things completely off subject. Then there was another student that was just as rude to me this time as she was before. Ironically her name also starts with an A just like the student who said  I was a good teacher. Even the teacher in this class as trouble with this student. I consider myself to have a pretty good awareness when I have done something that might upset or offend someone so I can pretty much guarantee that I have don't nothing wrong to this student. I have even made several attempts to talk to her before and after class about school and other non related things to help her show I care and am interested. However, it seems to be unappreciated. In a meeting she had with the teacher she said how much she hates school and doesn't want to be here. I am pretty sure she is just your stereo typical middle schooler.

Every time I went over to check on A's group in 5th period, she was either playing with wax on her binder or writing a note. The first time I went over I tired to give her a moment to realize what she was doing wrong and correct it on her own. When she didn't I asked her to stop and put her binder on the floor. The next time I came over she had a note out so I asked to her to put it away. The third time I came over she had the note out again and was writing in it. I was really surprised that she was doing that so I calmly looked at her and said "Because you are writing that note right in front of me after already talking to you and asking you to put it away and you did not even attempt to hide it  from me tells me that you are not listening or respecting what I am saying." She put the note away and started to work with her group. I think I might have been even too nice about the way I handled it however, I was not prepared to handle any real discipline.


At the end of the day I went through all of the posters that the groups were working on. From what I saw going on in the groups and from their product I know a lot of learning was going on. However, I am still struggling with how to reach out to some of the middle school students. I know that adolescents are going through so many changes and it is a tough time for them, but I think it possible for them to all enjoy school or something about school and show respect to those around them.

Goodbye Kindergarten, Hello Second Grade!

The last two weeks of working with Buddy S have been great! As Buddy S and I went to find a quite spot where we could chat and do some work, she suggested that we read for a little bit today and then we do the written conversation like we did last week. I replied by telling that was a great idea and I would love to do just that.


We started Junie B. Jones right from the start we stopped at last week. I did not ask at the time, but I am wondering if she did any other reading in the last week. We were trying to figure out the exact place where we left off last time so I asked her if she could remember what was happening when we had to stop. She said "Junie B. Jones had just bumped into her grandpa's belly" as she laughed and smiled which caused me to to the same.  Once we found the place where we should begin reading, I told her I was going to take a couple of notes as she read because I was doing a running reading record. I let her know that this just helped me know what she was reading and how second graders read and that I would just be making little marks on my paper as she read. I wanted to say something because she probably would have asked. However, I don't think it bothered her at all and I even felt like she read more fluently this week than last week.

Junie B. Jones are interesting books. Really the only spots where Buddy S had trouble was where the words were either made up or not grammatically correct. This week we stumbled upon "'structions" and "'fridgerator" for "instructions" and "refrigerator". Buddy S did not recognize what those words were and when she came to "'fridgerator" she recommended that we just skip it because she has read it before. Since I was doing the reading record I did not stop here when she said "struggled" instead of "'structions". However, now that the word "refrigerator" was presented in the same was as "instructions" I thought we could talk about it. Last week she told me that some things don't sound correct in these books because the writer is trying to sound like a kindergartener. When talking about the two words we were trying to figure out Buddy S was able to problem solve for "refrigerator" by fitting it into the context of what was being talked about. She told me that this was just another way that they writer shows how a kindergartener talks.

I also really liked doing the written conversation with Buddy S. This is similar to something that we doing in one of my college classes. My instructor has name cards for us and she encourages us to write on the back any comments or questions we might have. When we get them back at the next class she has responded to what we wrote. I think I would like to do something like this in my future class. It is a good way to check in with the students about their lives and to see how they are doing with writing. Some things I noticed looking at Buddy S's writing was that she often wrote in complete sentences, capitalized the beginning of the sentence, added punctuation at the end, used contractions, and was aware of many words that she spelled incorrectly. Buddy S did not often ask me how to spell something but realized some of her spelling mistakes on her own. During our time with the second graders I have noticed a significant amount of literacy development that happens in two years. It has been really interesting to get to look at that and make those comparisons.

Another Learning Experience with Buddy E

Today was a great last meeting, well for now, with Buddy E. When we came in he has his usual smile on his face, I bet he was anticipating the fun things we had planned for him. First we looked at his journal that he had out. I really liked that that teacher had journals for the students and that they wrote in them every Monday after the weekend.  When they do a “weekend” journal entry the teacher gives them a piece of paper to glue in that says “over the weekend I…”. Most of Buddy E’s journal entries were just illustrations but he had great stories to add to his pictures. On another page he had talked about their trip to the farm. He had drawn a barn, cow, pig, and cat and wrote in the appropriate label for each of those things. His most recent journal entry was the Monday after Halloween so he of course wanted to talk about trick-or-treating. This was his first entry that he had a nice illustration but also finished the sentence saying he went trick-or-treating using inventive spelling. He was really good at figuring out the begging sounds and some of the ending sounds however it was a little difficult to read what he had wrote. However, it was great to see his progression through the journal from the first journal entry to his last. I am sure when we see him again later in the year I will be even more impressed by his progress.

After we chatted about his journal we moved on to reading Sheep in a Jeep. My partner and I decided to read a rhyming book so that he could see the rhyming being used in context. While we read he jumped in a couple of time to rhyme or to add some commentary to the pictures.

Next we did a game where Buddy E had to create words. He had to take one letter and an ending sound to form the word. It was interesting because he made several different words using the ending “old” and even after his third word created with this ending he was not able to pronounce it. However, he was trying to say the nonsense word “nold” so maybe that was part of the trouble, it was not a word he was familiar with because when he spelled the word “sold” next he got that really quick.

Reading, Rhyming, and Sounds Part 1

Today we went to meet with our kindergarten buddies. Buddy E seemed excited to see my partner and me. As we walked towards the other room we took advantage of the walk as a time to chat. We checked in to see how he was and what was new. Buddy E said nothing was new and I had to add that nothing was really new with me either.

Once we found a place to do our work we jumped right in. There was so much to try and accomplish in the next thirty minutes with our buddy. My partner took turns doing the assessment which worked really well. While she was being the facilitator it gave me a chance write down some of the things I saw and focus more on observation. For the first couple of questions Buddy E was right on. He knew where the title was, he was able to point to a letter on the page, and he knew what a word was. When he pointed to the word "free" I decided to ask what it said (while that was not one of the questions in the script I just for some reason asked). To my surprise he looked at each letter of the word and sounded it out. I knew he was pretty good at letter sounds and stretching, but I had not seen him read a word yet. After talking about the word I asked him if he knew what it is called when you have a group of words together and showed him a sentence that I hugged with two pieces of paper. He said he did not know, but quickly took it back when I said it was called a sentence. He was not able to tell me what it was but once he heard the term he knew what it was.

I really enjoyed observing the different elements of reading the story. When Buddy E had to first go through and make predictions of what was happening I was surprised to hear what he had to say. As he made his predictions he looked at many different aspects of the picture. For example on the page that there was a boy and puppies he acknowledged both of them an did not leave out much from the illustration.

After reading the story a couple of times I think we were starting to lose Buddy E's interest. There was a lot we were going over. The last two activities were rhyming words and naming a word that had the same beginning sound as another word. I had a assumed that this would not be too challenging for him but to my surprise the rhyming words we slightly tricky. To introduce the rhyming words we asked him if he knew what rhyming words were and he gave us as close to a dictionary definition as the average kindergartner would. Actually it might have been an even more advanced definition than that. Since he knew what it meant to rhyme we did not even go over too many examples. However, just because he knew what it meant did not mean he was able to perform. We helped him out quite a bit. Luckily he knew his letter sounds and words that started with those sounds. The only one he has some trouble with was the word "children" but with a little help he realized that "chair" had the same beginning sound.

Today was a great learning experience. I learned a lot about my buddy and myself as making assumptions. I am looking forward to next week when we will get to find activities that our buddy will benefit from.

Ssssttttrrrreeeeeetttccchhh iiiitttt and put it back together!!!!

Last week we got to meet our kindergarten buddies. I was really excited since it had been a few weeks since I had been around the kindergarteners at my main placement. I have missed how loving and sweet 5 and 6 year olds are! When my partner and I walked into our class holding a card with the letter "C" on it I began looking for the student that was holding the corresponding "C" bean bag because the holder of that letter would be our buddy. I did not want to waste any time and wanted to make observations of my buddy right away. My buddy, who I will call  Buddy E, was sitting 5 feet in front of me. He was sitting at his desk very content while the 37 adults from my cohort filled the room. As a matter of fact, I was surprised none of the students were overwhelmed by our presence. After spotting my buddy, my eyes were diverted to his table partner who was happily smiling at me and waving. I looked around to see if he was actually trying to get my attention or some else's. No one else seemed to be looking at him but me so I waved back. This boy continued to wave and smile which made me question whether or not he thought he knew me. However, I think he was just excited and happy to have us all there and I just happened to be the one he connected with to express his joy. If only it would have been appropriate for me to express how excited I was to be there like that boy.

After meeting Buddy E, we walked over to a room down the hall to get to know one another. This was not only our chance to connect with our buddy but also to see what his reading and writing ability was. Right before we met our buddies the teacher had them demonstrate to my cohort how they stretch words. The showed us how "mom" becomes "mmmmmoooooommmmm" (while pulling your hands apart to stretch the word) and when they put it back together its "mom" (moving your hands back together). Since I had been in a kindergarten classroom for my September Experience I was surprised I had never learned this before. I am pretty sure this is something they used in their class a lot because Buddy E kept using it while we worked on our "getting to know you" worksheet.

I was impressed as I observed Buddy E's different techniques and skills when he worked on the worksheet. We showed him what the different categories of favorites there were on the worksheet and how there were also pictures that helped us to figure out what the words said. So for example, on the line where is said favorite animal there was a picture of a frog. One interesting observation I made was when Buddy E began to write his favorite color, blue. On the line he spelled "ba" after stretching the word. After he worked on it for a minute my partner asked him if there might be some place on his place mat that had the word blue. Sure enough he spotted where it was. He was able to read it and spell it properly "b-l-u-e". However, when we pointed to how he spelled it on his paper he did not just jump right in and fix it. I pointed out that there is an "l" and said we should add it so he picked up his pencil to make the new word "bal". This was a reminder to me of what might seem so simple and obvious to me, or even another student the same age, might not be for others. I look forward to working with Buddy E more to his his literacy ability develop.

To end the blog, I want to add one of my writings from when I was beginning to learn to read and write.

This was a message I left for my parents on our chalkboard when I was 6 yrs old. It reads "Stephanie is going to Amy's after school tomorrow"(Luckily my mom wrote what it said on the back of the picture because I was having trouble reading it). At that age I had a decent understanding of isolating sounds and phonemes.

READ....All of the cool kids are doing it.

As I sit and think about literacy in my future classroom my big question I am pondering is if it is appropriate to experiment with different ways to bring literacy in to the class. The article Emergent Literacy: New Perspectives, not only mentioned things that I would like to use in my classroom but also started to get my creative gears working and thinking about how I can "bring it" to my classroom. However, I am stuck wondering how much of what I do in my classroom should be things I have seen used before or am I allowed to sit at my drawing board and sketch up new ideas about making my students excited about reading and writing. Another question to add, is there such a thing as too much? To further explain my thinking I will try to develop a mental walk though of my future class.

One thing that my master teacher has been working on with the kindergarteners is creating their own Brown Bear books. Each day they work on one page at a time coloring the illustrations and then read through the book using their "reading glasses pointer" they made. While reading they are encouraged to find the words "I", "see", and "at". (Below is the pointer that the students made)

While the students realize they are supposed to find these words within this book, I wonder if they have made the connection that they can look for those words in other books too. The students are always reading books while they wait to move on to the next task, but I wonder if they mostly explore the pictures or if they look at the words also. I think one way I could help direct the students attention to words that we are focusing on outside of the initial activity would be to give them a "weekly word hunt". On the board I will post a word and introduce what the word is and how it is spelled. I will ask the students to look for that word as they read books during that week and have them put a post it note on the page when they find that word. At some point during the day I will have the student share the sentence that contained the word of the week with the rest of the class. I have gathered that the student love the opportunity to share things with the class and this way they are able to do so while also connecting what they are sharing to the curriculum.

Another thought I had came when talking with the other kindergarten teachers about how they can challenge their students. While five and six year olds are not capable of writing a book report as eloquently as an older student, I think they are still able to compose book report using illustrations and some writing. When thinking about this I realized that it would be better if there was a template made for the students to use to help make this an independent, self directed assignment. It could be challenging for students to write a book report if they were just handed a blank piece of paper, especially when you have 25-30 students. The template could have a line where students put the title of the book, a box where they could draw something that happened in the story, and lines at the bottom of the page where they could first start by writing three words from the story to later on copying a sentence for the story. This is something that I think this age group could be very capable of working on, however, I could be wrong. This is when I get back to the question: is it okay to experiment with different activities when it might be beyond the grasp of what is developmentally appropriate?

Other things I would like to have to promote literacy in my classroom:

• Snap words: A list of words that you can say in a snap! Students will be encouraged to find snap words and then they will be displayed in the classroom. If the alphabet is something that is always posted on the walls for reference and exposure why shouldn't other words be on display?
• Writing center: The article mentioned that the students need opportunities to experiment daily with reading and writing and I think a center where students can go and just write in whatever way they would like to express their self would be beneficial. There would be a variety of things to use in the writing center from paper and envelopes, to blank books where students could create their own stories.
• Morning message: The morning message is a great way to let students know what they will work on during that day while also exposing them to the words as they read it as a class. When I worked at the preschool they had their morning message be interactive. The teacher had jumbled the message that was written on strips of paper and the students had to put it in the right order using the things they knew (like words with capital letters go at the beginning and periods go at the end) and by reading the words.
• Flannel board: I want a large flannel board in my classroom where students will be able to create their own stories or can reproduce stories they have already read. There would be an assortment of different characters and settings to be used on this flannel board.
• Guest story reader: I really liked the story in the article about the class who invited people in to read stories to the class. The who process had a heavy emphasis on literacy. The students were required to write letters inviting their guests to their classrooms. The guest then would come and read a book to the class. Having someone come to the class helps the students to recognize the importance of reading and that reading is for everyone and not just students and those in schools.

I am inspired to bring reading and writing to life in my classroom. I will continue to explore new ideas of how I can bring literacy successfully into my classroom and making sure that all my students are excited to engage in such activities.

Tip # 237 Pictures for Thought

For my first blog I decided to create a slide show of some of the pictures I have taken during my September Experience. One of the great pieces of advice my master teacher gave me was to take pictures of the classroom. That was something I had not really thought of doing. I was hoping that taking notes on the classroom layout and some of the activities in my journal would be all I would need if I wanted to recall or use something later. However, the reality is that I would most likely not remember everything that I was seeing in my class. Not only is taking pictures a much quicker way to document the things I see but also a good aid for jogging my memory. Enjoy!

Digital slideshow personalized with Smilebox