Week 12

        For this past week, our mentor teacher has had us teach a lot.  It has been great practice because she has had us teach every subject.  Although this week we have had some pretty bad behavioral problems with a couple of our students.  One of the students is supposed to be on medicine but has not been on it for the past few weeks which tends to cause a lot of issues in the classroom.  The other student we had a problem with this week just seemed to be extremely reluctant to following directions.
        On Thursday we had a substitute teacher come in and our mentor teacher just told us to teach all day and handle any issues that arose.  Not surprisingly, we had some pretty serious issues with both of those students previously stated.  I had to deal with one of the students while my co-teaching partner taught the rest of the class and then at the end of the day we both dealt with the other student during math while the substitute dealt with the first student.  It was a very stressful day and it got me wondering how you are supposed to deal with behavior like this when you are by yourself in the classroom.

Week 11

        This past week I have been trying to gather more data for my inquiry by observing and giving my teacher a survey to fill out.  I was able to observe one math lesson this week which involved a hands-on portion in the lesson.  The students had to figure out how to make certain shapes with smaller shapes.  So essentially they were working on parts of a whole.  They were able to figure out the problems a lot easier with the manipulatives because they could compare the shapes with the images in their books.
        Similar to my other observations, even though they were a little chatty they were focused on what they were doing and what they needed to complete.  I think it is important to get them interested in what they are about to do in a lesson so they will be more focused and understand better about what they are supposed to do when the time comes.
        I still have a little more research to do in journals and articles but I think it is very helpful to students when they are able to use manipulatives and interact with hands-on activities in a math lesson.  From my observations, it helps them focus on the topic and keeps them interested in it which makes learning and understanding a lot easier for them. 

Blog Revisit

        After rereading all of my blogs for this semester, the main topics that came up had to deal with traditional classrooms, individual work, behavior issues, and different grouping.  One of the reasons I think I mentioned these things the most was because they are something I am worried about in the future for when I teach my own classroom.  I also think these are things that could be worked on in this classroom as well.
        I am the type of person to stress about the future way in advance so I tend to worry about a lot of things.  Because I have been having trouble in this classroom now with behavior and different student groupings, I can't help but think I will have these same problems in the near future.  I think I am having these issues because I came halfway through the school year so the students do not really see me as a head authority figure in the classroom.  They are used to their teacher's voice already and quiets down when she speaks but they do not do the same for me and my co-teaching partner.  I have learned that it better to be strict in the beginning and then go easy on them than vize versa.  If you let them walk all over you in the beginning, then there is no turning back.
        I also mentioned traditional classrooms and individual work a lot and this is because that is what describes my mentor teacher's classroom.  It is one of the things that bother me the most, I think.  The majority of the day is the students sitting in their desks doing individual work.  Because they are always doing individual work, they never have the opportunity to learn how to work in a group.  This makes it difficult when my partner and I have to differentiate and group them because they always misbehave and act out when they are in groups.
        I think this just means that these issues will be addressed very early in my classroom so the students know where I stand on certain things including individual and group behavior.

Week 10

        My co-teaching partner and I finished our Social Studies Unit this week.  There were a couple of issues within the three lessons but overall, I think it was pretty successful.  We had to separate them into groups for the first lesson so they could go to different centers throughout the room.  The centers were about Native American shelters, clothing, and food.  Some of the problems that occurred was a lack of attention and getting distracted by their friends.  We also had to group them for the second lesson.  They did an archeological dig and had to mark off which things were used by Native Americans and which things are used by us.  There were also some behavior issues with this lesson but overall they did well.  For the third lesson, they did not have to be put in groups.  They all made their own Native American names and then they all made their own pottery bowls out of play-doh.  Surprisingly, there were not any serious behavior problems during the third lesson.
        Looking back on these lessons, I think the main reason for this class' misbehavior is the style of grouping.  The personalities of the students do not seem to work that well together and it definitely shows when they are working in cooperative groups.  I also think misbehavior occurs because these students have not yet learned how to work in groups so they do not know how to act with their peers in this setting.
        This kind of upsets me because I think children should learn at a young age how to interact with their peers in an academic setting.  It is very clear that the classroom I am in right now, rarely uses cooperative groups during the day.  It is mostly individual work while sitting at their desks.  I hope this can change over time and I know I will be using a good amount of cooperative groups in my future classroom.

Week 9

        This week has been fairly busy with different assignments and observations in the classroom.  I observed our fourth lesson study this week as well as completed 1 of 3 Social Studies Unit lessons.  The lesson study is always improving and I am getting great experience debriefing about it and learning how to make lessons more effective for the students.  The Social Studies Unit has been successful so far and our students have enjoyed learning about Native Americans.
        This week's reading was about Data Analysis.  One of the main ways I am getting my information is by observing and taking field notes during math class.  I have taken notes on about 3 or 4 math classes that have lined up with my inquiry project and have also taken notes on a non-example math class for my inquiry.  It has been very helpful to see how the students behave depending on how the lesson is presented.  There is a difference between their behaviors when they get to use manipulatives but it also depends if they are doing it in groups or individually.  From my observations so far, they seem to do a lot better in math when they are working individually with manipulatives.  It creates a competitive environment which they all seem to enjoy and keeps them more engaged in the lesson.  I want to interview or survey the students on how well they think they stay focused in math.  I think I might get more honest answers if I give them an anonymous survey to fill out though so I think I might do that.  Hopefully I can get even more information from obeserving and teaching them during math class.

Week 8

        Even though my class does not  show that much differentiation throughout the day, I can compare it to the reading we had to do - Ch.6 routines in a differentiated classroom: once the work starts.  A couple of things that caught my eye in this reading was when it mentioned working in groups, helping students with transitions, and managing time.  Two of these things, working in groups and managing time, seem to be a problem in my classroom.  After experiencing my pathwise lesson plan where we broke the students up into groups, it was easy to see that the students did not know how to work in groups.  It is important for the teacher to teach the students how to work in groups or they will never know what to do or what is appropriate.  It is also imperative that you give them expectations so they know what is expected of them throughout the lesson.  Managing time is also something that seems to be having some trouble in our classroom.  Some subjects run over the allotted time and some run short.  In some cases, if the whole group understands it or does not understand it, it might be okay to cut it short or run it long.  But in the case of our class, there is always at least one or two students that do not understand so it would not be good to cut the lesson short because you could use that time to help those specific children.  One thing that I think is going pretty well in my classroom is transitions within the classroom.  My mentor teacher has an assigned student to pass out books so it runs very smoothly and it does not get too crowded around the book shelf.  She also has a student who is assigned to pass out cubbies for everyone for when they are taking a test so they all do not race to go get them.  It seems like such a small thing but it helps a lot with many of the transitions in the classroom.
Wondering: what are some ways to help students work in groups?

Week 7

        One thing that stuck out to me in the reading this week in "Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom" were the descriptions of the different classroom types.  The reading mentioned dysfunctional, adequate, orderly/restrictive, and orderly/enabling.  Dysfunctional is described as chaotic, adequate was said to be at the basic level of order, restrictive is considered a tight-ship, and enabling is looser structure.  After looking at all of the types, I would have to say that the classroom I am in is a combination of a few of them.  The majority is an adequate classroom but there are also times when it is dysfunctional and sometimes restrictive.  There are moments when my mentor teacher mind of lets the students do what they want without really monitoring them but there other times where she is very strict and lays down the law for certain things.  In my opinion, I think this could be quite confusing for some of the students because they do not know how exactly the teacher wants them to act.  It would obviously be ideal if the classroom was orderly and enabling but this classroom is very traditional and strays away from that idea.  They do a lot of individual work, rarely work in groups, and they are fed the answers in a lot of assignments they do in class.  One thing that my mentor teacher does very though is getting to know her students, which was also mentioned in the reading.  She has told me many times that she likes to get to know her students and let them know that she cares about them.  This helps with building relationships with them in the classroom and it also helps with building up the community of the class.
        I have made my wondering a little more specific in the fact that it will be during math.  This will make it easier when I have to come up with manipulatives for them to use during class.
Wondering:  How will hands-on activities help misbehaving students to be more focused and have appropriate behavior during math lessons?