3rd Semester Blog # 5

I fully expect the classroom to experience a sudden burst of anticipatory energy before school leaves for winter break. The key is to always have the classroom expectations enforced and have lessons that engage students. The end of the class will mostly consist of reteaching, relearning, retesting, and enrichment. My high school suffers from a very high absence problem with students so any chance available to teach must be used. My plan is to have students organized in groups by unit that needs to be relearned. The school allows students to retest any exam at least once so I make students below a 70% retake exams for better scores. Communicating with parents is rare and I often only speak to them if a student is having a problem. As for positive incentive, I usually distribute snacks or candy if students behave and average more than an 80% on the final.  

3rd Semester Blog # 3

I teach economics so, while I do use math in the classroom, am not considered to have much STEM in the classroom. However, I do try to incorporate STEM in the enrichment part of a lesson because there are students who understand the material fairly easily. One example is using algebra or pre-calculus problems just to set up a graph that they then will have to calculate opportunity cost for. Also, I have them write a research paper on future technology that will be adapted for goods/services production. They must look up the technology and how that technology can make the good or service more productive or desirable to consumers.  

3rd Semester Blog # 4

How do you plan to implement active engagement?

I try to get students by asking them questions about their daily life or current events and then link them to the material. I hand have them do a "turn and talk" to discuss what concept they learned as well. By having the students engaged they will focus on the instruction and be able to recall the information. Students that usually do no participate in discussion feel it is a bit more open to talk and begin to participate. More often than not, students engaged in the material are in a better mood and the class experience feels like the students have been impacted.

3rd Semester Blog # 2

Have you had to go to your counselor to assist in a situation?

The main reason to talk to our counselor is to help students get their next classes. The school has set apart a class where students are given time to complete online classes at their own pace. The classes are checked for completion by the teachers and the counselor loads the next necessary class once the student finishes. From just being around her office, she also tries and persuade students that come to her to drop out.She does a great job of giving students a time frame for when they can meet graduation requirements if they stay on task and complete the classes. The counselor is extremely busy as well and usually has hourly schedules for tasks to do. That includes meeting with the principal,teachers, students, and parents.  

3rd Semester Blog # 1

Common Core and You!

There was a bit of a change to my curriculum. The standards were similar to my previous ones but they did need to be modified a little. My concert was if this was going to be a drastic change in the way I had to teach, but after comparing my past standards - from the past Arizona one - I just had to modify much of the language in the lesson plan paperwork we turn for my high school's evaluation., unit goals, daily objectives, and lesson standards.

Prompt 4 (2nd Webinar Session): Am I a professional? What are my personal actions that demonstrate this? What sets me apart from the peers at my school? Do I hold myself to a higher standard? We can always improve, what can I do to improve my professionalism?

I believe being a professional isn't just dressing up for work and having a lesson plan. When I instruct I attempt to inject humor into the lesson with my personal stories because any individual that wants to laugh has to pay attention. My humor and great personality set me apart. As the year slowly comes to an end, I've had time to interact with other instructors and it is easy to see which see education as a steady paycheck and nothing else. I'm new so having the energy to teach and good humor could be traits that eventually decrease; I just hope it's after I retire.

I do hold myself to a higher standard because Economics is a topic that few students enter a classroom having prior knowledge of. However, I expect all students in my class to walk out with a college freshman level understanding of economics. My biggest concern is having supplemental information that is appropriate for high school. Some of the resources I use are from Economics journals that are full of terminology common to Economics majors and foreign to high school students. Due to this I am always on the hunt to find reading material that presents information in simplified tone but keeps key concepts. Unfortunately, it is not a simple task.  

Prompt 3 (2nd Webinar Session): Have you witnessed staff acting in an  unprofessional manner? If so, what can you do to avoid pitfalls associated with unprofessional behavior?

I have witnessed instructors acting unprofessionally. One of the Characteristics of Professional Conduct is demonstrating respect for self, colleagues, students and property and in more than one occasion I've overheard an instructor demean a population of students. The worst part is that the instructor expects the class to behave exactly like she wants and when it doesn't, she goes to the first person to complain about how "bad" her students are in class. The funny thing is that I worked at the "detention" school were some of the students she has mentioned have gone and I've never had problems with them.

I mostly avoid contact with instructors that have a negative attitude because they are either terrible people and\or terrible at what they do. That's what I'm doing with this instructor. We may to share a general area, but I don't have to share any social experiences with that individual.

Prompt 2 (2nd Webinar Session): Did you experience Bullying as a child either as a victim, witness or as a bully? How did you survive that experience and what did you learn from it that is helping you now as a teacher?

Bullying is not something I am too familiar with personally. The grade schools I went to were low socioeconomic but, while there was teasing and fights, I never noticed repeated negative behavior towards one child. Now that I am an instructor it is more obvious when students are picking on a student for acting\being different.

Unfortunately, because I have little experience with it, I had a bit more difficulty picking up cues to help me identify it. So I, from the start of the class, mention to students to be respectful of everyone and that negative comments are not welcome in the class. I do this in the hopes that even if it is happening, and i do not know, at least I am preventing it in the classroom.  

Prompt 1 (2nd Webinar Sessions)

Prompt 1 (2nd Webinar Sessions) : What are your goals for the Spring 2014? What are 3 things that you want to improve or initiate within your classroom this semester? How can your Cadre Leader support you with these goals?

For the Spring terms I would like to implement self assessing of students. When I was evaluated by the district (my principal) she mentioned that my strengths and my weaknesses, the biggest weakness being that I ask the class if they believe they got the material and most just nodded their head. I was given advice to have a scale that students will be able to measure themselves and display to me so that I do not move forward on a lesson until the students feel comfortable with the material. Also get in touch with other school's instructors to collaborate on district\state standards.

Three things to improve: 1) Oratory\Lecture skills. I tend to have the material on a power point and while that helps I may not be using the specific words (vocab words to explain the concepts\lessons).

2) Collaborate with other instructors to have a more uniform structure of material.

3) Setup a feedback\self assessment scale for students so that they inform me of comfort level before I do an assessment.

I've been getting much info from other instructors and from online sources, if the the Cadre Leader has material on self assessments that would be much appreciated. As of now I use Fist to Five scale. This is a very simple method where students raise their hand and pick between a fist, meaning no understanding, and a 5 fingers up, indicating students feels they have it mastered.