This week has been a complete wave of emotions. It is hard to believe that in about three weeks that I will be graduating. It is hard to believe that in about two weeks I will be saying goodbye to my fifth graders. These fifth graders have definitely been an emotional roller coaster, but I feel like I have learned so much about myself and my teaching practice throughout this practicum experience. At first, I was so excited to work with this age group because I love how mature they are and how much personality they have. As time went on, I felt overwhelmed and unprepared to face the day in and day out issues that were always occurring the minute Megan and I walked in the door. On a positive note, I feel like I have made some really great connections with the students. But, this was also one of the downfalls I had this semester because it has been a struggle to distinguish with our students the difference between teacher and friend. Of course, it was important to me in the beginning to develop close relationships with my students.  I do still feel that way, but I have come to realize that the most important thing that I wanted from my students was earning their respect. This is still a work in progress as we are nearing the end of our practicum, but I think it is because they truly love having Megan and I in the classroom and feel comfortable around us. That is definitely a rewarding feeling and I hope to use these last two weeks to perfect that balance and leave a lasting impression with my students. This topic has been one of my main focuses throughout the semester and that is why I chose to write my inquiry about beneficial ways to manage my classroom. I think it is safe to say that all of us will be very young starting our profession, so it is extremely important to establish the ground rules with our students straight from the start. As I enter into my internship, this will continue to be my main focus. I want the students to know that I am an authoritative figure, but that I am there to have fun with them as well. Also, I want my students to know that they will never be inferior to me. I want to play on the same playing field as them, but there will be rules and expectations for them to follow. Like I stated last week, Mrs. Roe is an excellent role model for my beliefs. She was wonderful with her students and knew how to control their behavior and have fun at the same time. She explained that she took the first month of school to establish and practice classroom community because that is her priority and she feels like it is how the students will be overall successful. I love that idea and she is a living example of a teacher who makes it work. After meeting my future internship cooperating teacher, I feel like she has the same perspective as Mrs. Roe. I can't wait to work with her and learn so much more about my passion for managing behaviors and create a classroom environment that is welcoming, engaging, and safe!

This week, there was not a lot for me to write about because of the limited time in our classroom. Lately, the main focus in our classroom is about the FCAT. The students have been working on worksheets related to the test and going to the computer lab to practice doing math on the computer. The level of stress for my teacher has risen, so there has been little to no time for Megan and I to teach. Since Social Studies has been put on the back burner, there hasn't been many opportunities for Megan and I to teach our lessons so we have to squeeze them in when we can. That has been somewhat frustrating, but we understand why the teacher is more worried about the other subjects. Thankfully, our teacher has given us the time to work on our inquiry projects. On Tuesday, we handed out our student survey to the students and received them back on Thursday in a timely manner. It was very interesting to read the students' responses about classroom management and what they knew were "expected" of them. I also asked them what an incentive would be for them to behave in a good manner, which again had some entertaining answers.  Then, on Thursday, we were given the chance to observe the other fifth grade classrooms (with the exception of Mrs. Burley...shes a grouch). All of the teachers have totally different teaching styles which was very helpful to see. Mrs. Roe is an absolute saint. Her personality and the way she interacts and manages her classroom is exactly the way I hope to do with mine in the future. After observing her classroom, I felt like I learned so much more about the way a classroom environment should and could be. In addition, the way she handles her students and can have fun with them while still being firm is the perfect balance.  While we were observing the classrooms, we were not able to actually interview the teachers like we originally planned. Instead, we gave them a questionaire that they could fill out on their own time. We hope to receive those back on Monday, just in time to organize all of our data.

Journal Revisit

This week, I decided to take a second look at a journal that I posted after two weeks of my pre-internship. I noticed that I was extremely negative about the environment of the classroom and the lack of collaborative learning.  I tend to use this blog as a way to vent when things are going wrong in the classroom, instead of trying to find the positives out of every situation. So, I am going to try to revisit this journal entry and try to see what I can do…

“ After being in a fifth grade class for two weeks, I have noticed a huge change in the style of teaching and the classroom environment compared to my previous practicum experiences in younger grades. Although I am not comfortable with the traditional method of teaching, I should respect that it is the only way that my teacher feels like she can get everything done. I am a strong believer that every grade can find time to do collaborative work, but sometimes the teacher values different aspects more. Since I was in younger grades, I was used to the students doing centers and always working in groups. Now, that I am interning in an older class, I need to realize that the focus has changed and the teacher is trying to prepare her students for FCAT. For this week, I read chapter 3 of the Dana book. It discusses all the reasons why collaboration is so important. The three reasons that struck home for me were “teacher talk is important,” “there is safety in numbers” and “there is strength in numbers.” I absolutely love this idea. These reasons were targeted more for teachers who were collaborating for inquiry projects. But, I also feel like it applies nicely to a classroom setting. At first, I felt like my teacher tends to “baby” the students too much and spoon-feed them information. But, it is so incredibly important to acknowledge that all grade levels need guidance and structure in the classroom in order for them to be successful.  Although they do almost everything out of workbooks, it is still crucial to go over the directions and explain what we expect from the students. Therefore, my teacher does a very good job doing this and has started to train us to do this as well. Another reason why students like to collaborate is because they feel “safe.” They feel more comfortable speaking up and bouncing their ideas off of one another, rather than doing individual work and stressing out that they are not doing it correctly. So far, I have noticed that the students have so many more questions and are much more anxious when we expect them to do work individually. It is incredibly important for students to learn how to work on their own, but we shouldn’t restrict them from working with their peers. The desks are now in groups instead of rows and I feel like this has truly helped the students work with one another, but problems still arise. I understand now why my teacher was so hesitant to make the change, but I think she has finally noticed that having the students at least sit in a group together has shaped the dynamics of the classroom.  The students get to use their peers as a tool for whenever they need help.  Lastly, I have always liked the idea of collaboration because I strongly believe that knowledge is power.  So, more brains at work produce a greater generation of knowledge (strength in numbers). I feel as though my students are not reaping the benefits of collaboration to the fullest. Like I just stated, the transformation of the desks has been a huge step in the right direction. But, I still feel like the students are not entirely given the chance to do fun “group work” if you will.  Yes, the desk in groups allow for collaboration. But, the students have not had the chance to truly collaborate and have fun with each other. Again, I used to blame this on my teacher. But, now I know that she is stressed out about the FCAT (which they do individually) and does not think collaborative learning is a priority. So, my new goal for the next two weeks before the FCAT is to try to find ways to work in a group setting on skills that will help the students on the test.  Therefore, my new wondering focuses on ways that I can do just that. What are some ways that my partner and I can experiment and find ways for our students to collaborate and fit the needs of my teacher?”

This past week in practicum, we have had many issues with behavior problems. How ironic that my inquiry wondering revolves around these issues and how to make them better. Originally, I was going to focus on the disruptive behavior of my students. The biggest problem that most of the disruptive students have is shouting out without raising their hand or continuously talking with the teacher is talking. This still is a very major aspect of the behavior problems in the classroom, but I am now starting to wonder about the disrepectful behavior between the students as well as for me and Megan. There is consistently this one kid that talks back and is so incredibly rude. The worst part is when we go to flip his card on the behavior chart, it doesnt even phase him. I believe that this is an even bigger issue that needs to be addressed over the disruptive talking. But how? I know that I can not change the entire behavior system that my cooperative behavior has in place. But, I do know that I am tired of dealing with his behavior and I want to put an end to it. For some reason, I am totally against in and out of school suspension because I feel like its a "free day" pass for the students and since they are being pulled out of class, they are getting farther and farther behind. I know that I refuse to tolerate it any longer, but I also feel uncomfortable in the situation because Megan and I do not know how to put a "healthy" end to the situation. In addition to the disrepectful behavior that we are receiving, it is also being dished out between our students. Bullying has been an ongoing issue throughout the whole year. Since several of our students can not and will not get along, then it has been extremely hard to find seating charts at lunch in the classroom that will work for the environment of the classroom. This has been one of our biggest struggles that I also believe leads to other problems.  How much am I able to fix through my inquiry?

After reading chapter five from The Reflective Educator's Guide to Classroom Research, I learned a lot about data analysis and what I should learn from collecting it. I learned that many teacher-inquirers move through four steps: description, sense making, interpretation, and implication drawing as they analyze their data. The goal of the descriptive step is to describe my inquiry data using the following questions: What did you see as you inquired? What was happening? What are your initial insights into the data? The next step is sense-making by reading my entire data set and asking questions such as: What sort of things are happening in my data? What do I notice? Then, I will begin the interpretive step of my inquiry analysis and ask questions like: What was my initial wondering and how do these patterns inform it? How are these patterns connected to my teaching and to my students? Finally, the last step is the most important step. I will start to reflect on implication questions such as: What have I learned about myself as a teacher? What have I learned about children? What are the implications of what I have learned for my teaching and what changes might I make in my practice? Last week in seminar, I started outlining my data collection. I have decided to collect the following:
a)  field notes to record observations of student behavior
b) teacher interviews to discuss classroom management
c) teacher reflective blog to assess my thinking of current classroom management and changes I might want to make
d) literature on classroom management to find the benefits of the use of classroom management plans
e) student surveys (before and after) to get the students opinions of their classroom behavior and what they will respond to

As I am collecting my data over the next couple weeks, I hope to keep the questions stated above as a reflection piece to see how I am doing with my data analysis. I guess what I am wondering now is whether we have to go through each of the "step" to successfully analyze our data?

This past week, we did our second round of the lesson study. It went so much better than our first time around. Although the debrief sessions are a little awkward and frustrating, I feel as though we finally have realized where the want to focus the most on our lesson plan. I think we have created a really great lesson, but we were struggling with finding the focus point and direction. Next week, Megan and I have the pleasure of teaching the lesson in our own classroom. I must say that I am very nervous, because the first two classes were so well-behaved.....and our class is not. Again, I know the purpose of the lesson study is to master a lesson, not our teaching. But, the teaching part and how we execute the lesson is truly an important part (especially since it is in our mentor classroom). Like I have said in previous posts, my inquiry project is directed towards better classroom management in 5th grade classrooms. Megan's inquiry project is focusing on collaborative learning groups. So, together, we will be have the first hand chance to see how well our students behave in a serious situation and how cooperative they are in groups. We are excited of course, but quite nervous because we know there is a lot of pressure. How can we tune out the problems and be the best teachers we can be without worrying about all the small stuff? How can we get the kids to focus during our lesson and want to participate? I think I have the answer: engagement and organization. But, is that all it takes?

After reading chapter 7 from the Tomlinson book and teaching in my classroom, I have realized that the famous "Yes, but.." statements are so very true. Especially in the fifth grade classroom,  the teachers are very focused on teaching for the FCAT testing. Therefore, it is easy to make excuses about differentiation and how there is not nearly enough time. The two statements that stuck out the most during my reading were, "I can't differentiate instruction because the standardized test is not differentiated" and "I can't differentiate instruction because I'm already too busy and have absolutely no extra time for planning." These are two statements that seem to be very evident in my classroom. It took Megan and I awhile before we knew which kids were on the 504 plan and needed accommodations. Every single day, all the students do the same exact assignment with the same exact amount of time given in the same exact teaching style. Instead, the students need to have the opportunity to learn in preferred modes because it will allow them to learn the content better and have greater confidence when testing. Also, our teacher does not need to take the time to do extra planning for the students that need differentiation instruction. Instead, it is important to plan lessons in a differentiated fashion from the outset. It is hard for Megan and I to know how to plan for differentiation because we have not had the true experience of doing so other than our own lessons. We have not had the opportunity yet to plan a weeks long set of lessons, so we are unsure of what our teacher does for their "accommodations." We are responsible for pulling one of our students out of class for at least 30 minutes to work on math and teaching him the concepts in a one-on-one manner. This is not always possible because times does not allow for Megan or I to leave the class for that amount of time. So, I hope we can come up with another system to long these hours.