Week Seven

Yesterday was the first day I actually got mad at my students.  During math, I teach guided math groups at a table while the rest of the students work independently at their desks.  I introduced subtraction with regrouping yesterday, and to do this I used base ten blocks.  When I did the whole group lesson, the students seemed engaged and seemed to be following.  I had one student volunteer hold the hundred blocks, one held the tens, and one held the ones.  Then I talked the students through how the ones had to borrow a ten-rod from the tens place.  They answered my questions and seemed to be following.  When we got to guided math at the back table, everything changed.  I take the lowest group first to ensure that they have plenty of time with personal attention and direct instruction from me.  They did not follow directions and messed around with the base ten blocks.  My aggravation peaked when one of the students laughed at another student who suggested an incorrect answer.  Laughing at a peer was very uncharacteristic of this student, and it made me mad.  I did not fly off the handle or anything, but I let the students know that their collective behavior at the back table was unacceptable. 

I am sure it will come as no surprise to the seasoned educators who are reading my blog post, but when I looked at their independent work, these students did very poorly.  The child who laughed at a peer did not get any of the seven practice problems right.  So they were messing around, not following directions, and generally misbehaving because they did not understand.  I am learning a lot about student avoidance tactics this year, and this is clearly one of them.  Why would students want to work on something they don’t understand when I am tolerating an alternative (their bad behavior)?

 

With this in mind and after seeing the patterns of mistakes in the practice problems, I took a different approach in math today.  I started by apologizing to the students for getting grouchy with them the yesterday in math.  I explained to them that I was frustrated that they were not working hard and that I really want them to learn math because they need to know it for their whole life.  I want them to be successful in school and in life, so I really want them to learn how to subtract.  We talked about the purpose of guided math at the back table - so I can help them directly, they can ask questions, and we can do games and activities.  We talked about the purpose of independent practice - so they can practice and make sure they can do the math on their own.  We talked about the kinds of questions they can ask a classmate during independent practice – Not, “I don’t get it,” but rather, “Can you please help me figure out problem two?”  After our mini-talk, I proceeded with a whole group lesson with no base ten blocks.  I addressed the common errors in the homework.  By the time I got my low group to the back table, they were like perfect angels!  I think they understood the instruction better without base ten blocks.  Many of them corrected their own tendencies to make the common mistakes that I addressed in the whole group lesson.  The student who laughed yesterday was glowing because she told me, “Now I get it!”  I told her I was proud of her for working hard to learn how to regroup.  

This whole two-day math drama has given me a lot to think about.  When my students are misbehaving, that is my first clue that I have lost them and that they do not understand the topic.

The most engaging thing that happened this week was that we did a Kahoot! quiz so the students were able to review informational text features.  

This topic has proven extremely difficult for them, but they were very much into the Kahoot! and they actually talked with their partners about text features in trying to figure out the answers.  I will be so happy when text features are behind us, at least temporarily.  We will continue to revisit them in the weeks to come when we come back to informational text again.  After the Kahoot!, the students continued to work with their partners on a text feature scavenger hunt.  Each pair was given a leveled text that they had to search for informational text features.  They wrote their findings on a recording sheet, and had to include page number and why that text feature helps the reader.  Unsurprisingly, they struggled.  Because they were working in pairs and were working on a topic they do not enjoy, the students were very chatty and squirrelly.  This particular activity was direct practice for the common assessment for all second graders.  They will take this test on Friday, and each individual student will have to recognize text features in a book and explain how they help the reader.  My CT and I are not expecting them to do well on this.  There are about two students who we expect to do well.  Hopefully more students will do well and we will be pleasantly surprised.

Even though this Kahoot! and scavenger hunt lesson was not the best, I am actually very glad that my college supervisor observed it.  I appreciated all of his feedback, but particularly that which had to do with dealing with low-level students.  He said that sometimes you really have spoon feed them when they are this low.  With this in mind, I totally changed my science lesson for today.  These students are supposed to be researching erosion and other earth changes using BrainPop Jr. and trade books.  They have had two days to do this, and out of the five earth changes about which they should have been recording information, most students wrote about one or zero earth changes.  They struggle so much with reading and comprehension that the inquiry-based learning tasks that the curriculum recommends are too difficult.  I condensed the information that they were looking up into a power point presentation.  Each earth change (erosion, earthquakes, volcanoes, glaciers, mountain formation) had two slides, one which included a huge photograph of what that earth change looks like.  On the second slide I included information about that earth change using language that is more at their level, as well as a second smaller image.  They really enjoyed the large pictures, and were engaged throughout.  I helped them with their recording sheets and told them what they could write.  As is typical, most of the students did write, but some of them did not.  However, the outcome was so much better than if they were given even another week to complete this research.  Support, scaffolding, and modeling are the name of the game.  In adapting this lesson to better fit their needs, I feel that I was fulfilling Illinois Professional Teaching Standard 1J, which states, “The competent teacher differentiates strategies, materials, pace, levels of complexity, and language to introduce concepts and principles so that they are meaningful to students at varying levels of development and to students with diverse learning needs.”

My goals for this week are:

1. Continue to improve my classroom management.  My CT told me today that I did a much better job of waiting until I had their undivided attention to give directions.  I must keep making changes and improvements like this.
2. Improve student transition.  So much time is wasted in our classroom from slow and loud transitions.  
3. Recognize avoidance behaviors for what they are when students are struggling with content and/or activities.