My last week of teaching went well. There were a few instances that gave me some grey hairs. One was when the students were grading extended constructed responses in small groups based on the districts four point scale. A particular group had a conflict when one boy changed the score he gave a peer from a four to a three due to the "influence" of the third person in the group. I asked why he changed the grade and the answer I got was that they had a discussion and decided that there was some information that was missing. The purpose of the lesson was to discussion reasons why threes were threes but the boy whose paper was in question couldn't take the criticism and out of spite, he said, "Well I'm giving him a three then." I read the answer and agreed that it was a three, but when I tried to explain why the boy wasn't having it.
I also got a chance to work with a sub. However, it was a sub that I had already seen in our school (see my previous post to get an idea of what I was thinking when I saw her), but it felt good to be flying semi-solo. The sub did interject when it was maybe a little unnecessary, but I didn't feel the issue needed to be addressed. I felt bad because I had nothing for her to do after school. All my papers were graded and the grade books were updated. I had everything ready for my next lesson, so she just read Dr. Seuss.
Overall, I think my unit went well. The kids enjoyed The Outsiders and the discussions we had were better than some that I've been involved in while in college.
This week, I am observing other teachers which can be boring after teaching. I still want to interact and supply information in class, but I have to realize that it's not my class. I feel like I've taken one step back, but having a small break is never something to complain about. One thing I have noticed is that when we did observations for class we had guidelines of what we were to observe. Now I have no guidelines but I pick up on little things that I don't think I would have noticed a year ago. Going into this off week all i can think about is what is my next placement going to be like...
I also had the chance to observe a few other classes during my last week. At first, I was afraid that I would be bored, too, but it was completely opposite. I definitely picked up on many things that I don't think I would have noticed, either. It was a great experience to see other older classes where the students could actually sit in their desks and follow directions or be productive without the teacher having to walk around and make sure everyone was doing their job. I feel that teaching takes a lot of energy (understatement of the year!), but the energy is different in each grade. In 1st grade, your energy is spent corralling the students and making sure everyone is on the same page and doing the same thing. In older classes, you can spend more energy on the lesson and engaging students without having to constantly worry that they are in their seats or on the right page as much as younger grades. It was very interesting to see the different energy levels from 1st to 3rd to 5th grade.
ReplyDeleteOh, man. Middle school kids. I'm not too surprised about that interaction those students had, and I don't blame you for being frustrated with it. How do you think you could prevent having the same issue in the future? Were you required to use the four-point scale, including the numbers? Sometimes classroom requirements restrict your options, but what if you just gave them a list of qualities that you were looking for in the papers. Then students could indicate 2-3 they thought their peers included in the paper, and maybe 2-3 things they could improve on. And maybe not sharing the comments with each other until they're finished looking at the papers? I don't know, just trying to brainstorm. :)
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