Week Two

This week I took full control over the students’ daily math folder.  Each student has their own folder containing several plastic worksheet pages that they can write on each day using a dry erase marker.  Each day there is a new number of the day that is used as a basis of a number of math problems.  There is not much instruction for this.  I monitor the students while they are working on it with others at their table, helping and answering questions.  When most of them are done, I go through each page with the whole class using the projector so they can check their answers.  I also taught a social emotional lesson, which is done once a week, through a school mandated program called Second Steps.  These lessons are scripted and my CT advised me to stick to the script, as this is what the district demands.  The math folder lessons and the Second Steps lesson both went rather well.

Today was interesting.  My CT was absent, which I had known in advance.  The sub was a retired and well-liked second grade teacher who had worked many years at my school.  The CT had left very detailed plans, but she was very flexible.  She did not expect everything to get done, but she left plenty of things to do just in case.  I had planned my first math lesson on place value of numbers up to 1000 using base ten blocks and dry erase boards to do today.  This lesson did not go well.  I tried to fit too much into the lesson.  I lost the students’ attention.  I got rattled.  I tried to stick to the lesson plan I had prepared, but it would have been better to stop and regroup. 

The sub, being a veteran second grade teacher, stepped in.  [She apologized for this later, but I was truly grateful that she did this!] She gave the kids a break from what we were doing by getting them up out of their seats to walk and jog in place while skip counting to the rhythm.  They are not adept at skip counting, so it was good practice for them, plus they loved the movement break.  She also had the students model a three-digit number using base ten blocks by having ten students each hold one of the base ten blocks and stand up all together; then we all counted the units aloud together while the students held the blocks high for all to see.  After a long math lesson that was not the best, these were excellent and much appreciated forms of instruction that also incorporated movement.  This sub exemplified Illinois Professional Teaching Standard 3Q, which states that, “The competent teacher develops or selects relevant instructional content, materials, resources, and strategies (e.g., project-based learning) for differentiating instruction.”  She recognized that the students needed to stop writing on white boards and fiddling base-ten blocks, and she implemented a new strategy in the moment for delivering the same content focusing on movement.  As she put it, second graders can be very wiggly and you cannot expect them to sit for a long time.  Simple and succinct, yet accurate.

In addition to their being wiggly, I have to remember that my students are extremely low achieving and that they require a tremendous amount of modeling and scaffolding.  I should have split my lesson in half.  I was not happy with how the lesson went, and I need to recognize in the future if a lesson is going poorly that it is okay to stop and regroup for a few minutes.  My CT told me this on one of the first days.  It would have made sense to do this and consult with the sub.  This bad lesson weighed on me all day and I was very upset by it.  However, by recognizing my missteps in this lesson and talking with my CT and the sub about them, I am confident that I can and will improve.  I am thankful to be working with an excellent CT, as well as a group of very nice and supportive teachers in the school.  I was reminded by many people today that it is my second week of school and the students’ second week of school.  Things will get better.

Today’s substitute teacher gave me a lot to think about with regard to classroom presence and teaching style.  She was so different from my CT.  My CT is very structured and stern.   The sub is somehow lighter and softer, while still maintaining an air of authority.   I talked to my CT about her structured and stern style earlier this week, and we had a good conversation.   Her goal is to help set these children up for success in life.  She is trying to make school great for them and to get them used to a structure so they can learn and lay the groundwork for improved education.  Questions that we talked about include: Who is home when our students are home?  Is anyone reading with them?  Is anyone helping them with their homework?  How late are they staying up at night?  How is their nutrition?  For many of our students, the answers to these questions are probably not ideal.  It amazes me that the sub, while having the identical long-term goals of helping set the children up for success in life and eventual upward mobility, has a completely different presence and demeanor in the classroom.  Clearly I am going to have to figure out my own teaching style.

I experienced a lot this week, including the school’s Open House.  This was a nice event at which I was able to meet some of my students’ families.  It was enlightening to see the students with parents and siblings.  Between teaching the structured and modeling lessons, my poor first attempt at a math lesson, and the open house, I feel like I have learned a lot and have a lot of opportunities to grow and improve.  Some areas for improvement that I would like to work on include:

1. While adhering to my CT’s wishes for the classroom, I would like to add some more movement.  The students were grinning while doing math with movement today.
2. Include very clear, obvious, simple modeling when introducing a new concept.  This helps every student, including the ELL students, low-achieving students, and students with IEPs and 504s.  My new mantra must be, “Modeling and scaffolding!”
3. Gain a better understanding on how much I can reasonably teach in a given period of time.  I know this comes with experience, and I have to stop trying to cram so many ideas into one lesson plan.  I think my planning misconceptions are holdovers from writing so many lesson plans for my Trinity classes with imaginary students in mind.  Now that I am getting to know the children in my classroom, I need to slow down and simplify.