Week Six

This week I added language arts to my teaching load.  This is the subject I have been dreading.  Math is pretty cut and dry.  There is generally one concept or objective that we are working on for each period.  The plan is to do a whole group lesson followed by guided math groups and independent practice.  I can get creative in guided math lessons (i.e. games, activities, manipulatives, etc.)  However, the curriculum and standards are straightforward, and I see a path through them.  The lessons build upon each other in a flow.  In social studies, my district has six-week curriculum units including lesson plans that I am expected to follow.  There is some leeway here too, but because of the big project that all second graders have to do at my school at the end of each unit, much of what I need to do is mapped out and the common assessments are dictated by the curriculum.  So I can see the path in social studies too.

Language arts, on the other hand, feels huge and overwhelming.  It makes me feel like I'm pushing a boulder up a hill:

There are so many standards, so many things they need to learn, and so many areas in which the kids are struggling.  There is an hour of reading centers each day, plus 30 minutes of a school-required reading and phonics program per day.  That leaves roughly one hour per day to try to squeeze in everything else.  This week my CT planned 30-minute lessons and I attempted to execute them. I was not successful in my attempts to execute everything she had planned.  I cannot seem to move through them fast enough.  I am afraid of leaving kids behind who are not paying attention or who are otherwise not keeping up.  At the same time, I cannot stop the whole class because one or two children are not with me for whatever reason. 

This week the class started looking at informational text with the goal of having a test on text features on Friday.  The students having been working on a packet called “My Text Feature Notebook.”  The notebook contains one page on each text feature (i.e. glossary, table of contents, captions, etc.).  For each of these, a description of the text feature is listed as well as reasons why it is important.  The students have cut out examples of each text feature as well, and they glue these on the appropriate page of the packet as we talk through them.  I am having two big problems: 1. I cannot seem to move quickly through this material.  2. I cannot seem to keep the kids attention for this particular topic.  Keeping them engaged has not been an overall problem for me, but it is a huge problem when it comes to text features.  I do not know what I am missing.  I am not sure why I am not connecting with them on this, but I really am not connecting.  

Because I am having this problem, I asked my cooperating teacher if she would go through a few of the text features with the students so I could observe her method.  My takeaways from observing her during this particular lessons include:

1.  Be very specific and offer a TON of scaffolding.
2. Give them one step at a time and set a time limit, i.e. 30 seconds to glue the example on the page and put your glue stick away.
3. Help them manage their desks: a glue stick, baggie of items to be glued, and their packet are the only things on their desk.
4. Keep the lights on even when using the projector (for this particular topic anyway).  It seems that after lunch, no matter what the subject is, when the lights go off, the behavior gets worse.
5. Use popsicle sticks with student names on them to call on kids randomly.  If they are called on and cannot answer the question, ask a friend to help them.  Then have the original student repeat what the helper student said.  In other words, make the kids more aware that they are accountable.
6. A quick exit slip asking one question for them to answer on a post-it note and giving them about two minutes to complete it is another effective tool to make them understand that they are always accountable.

Typing out those six items, it occurs to me that these are things that I should know.  Putting them all together works like magic.  I am learning every day how to manage the classroom better and to keep the children engaged. 

One source of my difficulties is that my CT says I have a tendency to be too nice.  In what I thought was an effort to help the students, I have answered their questions during independent work and activities with frequency.  My CT says that from her perspective, the kids have now learned that they do not have to pay attention when I give directions because they know I will help them one-on-one if they raise their hands.  She is absolutely, positively, 100% correct on this.  Kindly, she also gave me a suggestion that I have implemented and that is quite effective.  After I give the students directions for independent or group work, I busy myself with something else, thus making myself unavailable for questions for a few minutes.  Of course I am still watching everything they are doing, but if they ask questions I respond with something like, “The directions were just given.  If you do not know what they are, you can ask the person you’re sitting next to.”  Directions are always on written on the board as well, if they are not written on the paper the students are working on in that moment. 

This has worked really well, and my CT has changed my perspective on “niceness.”  Of course I still want to be nice to my students, but I am not doing them any favors by contributing to any learned helplessness that they are developing.  My CT is very big on the students self-monitoring their work and behavior, and becoming more responsible.  Though she does tell me that these things are looked for on teacher evaluations, she is truly trying to help these kids develop tools of self-reliance.  I think very highly of my CT and think that this perspective is brilliant.  I want these kids to learn math and reading, but other skills related to problem-solving, responsibility, and self-reliance are also critical to their development and to managing life. 

My goals this week are to better manage the execution of language arts plans in the limited allotted time and to manage the classroom better.  In other words, I need to continue to develop the abilities specified in Illinois Professional Teaching Standard 4K, which states, “The competent teacher uses strategies to create a smoothly functioning learning community in which students assume responsibility for themselves and one another, participate in decision-making, work collaboratively and independently, use appropriate technology, and engage in purposeful learning activities.”