JDAY

I have now experienced nearly every part of JDay. I have gone as a high school student. I have volunteered to help set up, etc. I have taught sessions. And now I have gone as an "adviser."
So cool!!!

I had a great time talking to the other advisers and getting lots of advice, etc. The yearbook adviser at Carmel told me that she loved her job more than anything and said she "had the best job in the world!" And that was so refreshing to hear. I've been full of ups and downs lately, probably because I'm so nervous, but yesterday filled me with ups.
We also talked about JOBS! They knew quite a few openings happening in the state and I'm on a definite mission. I acted like I didn't care about finding a job because I didn't think I could get one but I feel like things are more likely!

And it was nice catching up with old friends, especially Caroline.
I wish I could have met up with A LOT more people! My dear friends Jincy and Tori weren't present. :(
And a JEA table was nowhere to be found as well. I'm definitely not happy about that.

And I think my students had a great time as well. We had a discussion after we came back and they were just so energetic and pumped up! It made me remember the good ole times of high school when I felt the same way they did. Yeah, not every session was the most rivoting session of my life but you do get a few gems thrown in there.
For example, one of my students went to a session about advertising and now we're going to switch up my lesson plans (we were going to work on GIMP next) so we can focus on selling our last 50 books! I'm glad that I can be so flexible and we all can work toward a common goal!

Goals for My Last Two Weeks!!!

1. Finish putting my LAMP on my portfolio
2. Find time to get my LAMP printed
3. Finish portfolio
4. Get ready for my presentation this Friday (EEK!)
5. Get my graduation stuff ready (I stillhaven't bought my cap and gown and figured out where I'm walking!!)

Looks like I'm going to be very busy "growing up" and I'm just not sure how I feel about that yet!

A Real Paradigm Shift

I mentioned before that Friday was pretty awful, that I felt disrespected, etc. And when I told Terry about it in my weekly goal and reflection, she suggested that I have a talk with them.

And that is exactly what we did today. I sat both my newspaper classes down and told them that I realize I've been too nice, too friendly, too fun and that I feel like it's gotten out of hand. I told them that I don't feel valued or respected and that they underestimated me. I reiterated that I have a college education, that I've worked for student publications, that I was the editor of my yearbook staff. I told them that I started too easy and I need to change. I asked them, what can I do to change? What can I do to get better? What can I do to improve? I told them that I need that constructive criticism for the classroom I'm hoping to obtain next year.

The advice I got back was actually pretty great. I was ready to feel tore down and maybe cry a little but they really surprised me.
They asked for more rules, stricter deadlines and policies, punishment for misbehavior, give them my exact expectations, etc. (My students apparently like structure.)
They also told me how much they liked me and cared about me.
Some even apologized for making me feel bad and being off-task. And quite a few took the blame because they said they underestimated me and didn't respect me as a teacher and then took advantage of those facts and my being too nice. I'm glad they owned up to their behavior.

My faith in teenagers is restored. :)

I said I'd post about the meeting...

I should have posted earlier but I was pretty overwhelmed, to be quite honest. There's a lot left to do in Student Teaching that I'm not quite prepared for.

I have to finish my LAMP!
I have to finish my portfolio!
I have to submit these things to rGrade!
I have to prepare for my portfolio showcase! (3:15 on April 30th)

In other news of graduating...
I have to buy my cap and gown. (and tassel)
I have to send out invites to graduation.
I have to pack up my house.
I have to schedule an exit interview.
I have to schedule financial aid exit counseling.
I have to figure out when I'm marching and with whom. (hopefully Teachers College)

And what am I going to do today you ask...
Get as much as this done as possible. Because today's word has got to be productivity.
I'm off to work on my LAMP.

Goals for Next Week

My email to Terry:

Hi Terry,

Goals
1. To get/earn/demand some respect. I have started ENTIRELY too nice, too easy, too laid back and I'm really paying for it now. I don't feel like the students do what I tell them to unless I force them or stand over their shoulders. Big double ugh, as far as that's concerned.
2. Finish working on my LAMP materials and get that submitted by the end of next weekend.
3. Keep working on my portfolio. I think it's coming along nicely. :)
4. To look over all our books, etc. and make sure that I have my ducks in a row.
5. To schedule the last benchmark conferences. Tim and I have been so busy and it keeps getting pushed aside.
6. The newspaper needs to be finished by Monday or I'm going to do something drastic like cut the size in half or something and everyone that isn't done is getting the boot. I can't believe it came to this. Deadlines seem to mean nothing to my students right now.

As always, you can read my reflections on brittanyisateacher.blogspot.com.

-Brittany

Meeting Tonight

There's a meeting today on campus and I'm SO excited. I love to meet with my fellow student teachers and hear what is going on in their classrooms!!!
I just like to know how my experience is comparing to my peers'. And I can't wait to hear about LAMP stuff. I have no idea where to even start so I'm pretty stoked to get things figured out!
I'll definitely post what happens at the meeting after I go tonight.

Part of my video analysis

What INTASC principles did you plan to demonstrate with this video?

INTASC 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9

Describe the degree to which you accomplished your goal:

• 1- I gave them a lot of examples and used their textbooks. I also answered every question they asked to the best of my ability and seemed to satisfy their answers.
• 3- Giving different kind of examples helped with this too. I also wrote on the board to give them guidance on how to take notes.
• 5- I tried to watch students to keep them on task. I motivated them by trying to use movies and music that they could relate to or have heard of before.
• 6- I told them very specifically what I expected of them, how and when they will be graded, told them how they could reach me with questions and reminded them of the time of my prep period.
• 7- I had my entire unit planned and discussed with Mr. Cleland before I executed them. I also had all copies made and prepared early.
• 9- I knew I was recording this to reflect on my experiences so I tried to use this tool to the best of my ability. I also recorded myself doing the same lesson in two different classes to see how I adapted. I noticed that 6^th period went much better. I also consider myself a reflective practitioner because Mr. Cleland and I went over all my plans and corrected and bettered them for their next use.

What are some of your personal idiosyncrasies? What can you do about them?

I tend to use a lot of hand motions when I speak. I crack my knuckles, stretch my hands, wave them around for emphasis and use them to explain details. I’m completely cognizant of when I do it but I don’t know how to stop. I’m not even sure if it is that big of a problem. Most of the time I think it isn’t distracting and can even help my students understand some of my explanations.

I also touch my hair a lot. The only thing I can think of doing to stop it is just trying harder to be aware.

Sometimes when I teach, I repeat myself. I do this most often when I’m giving instructions. I try to repeat myself using different words than before but I still find that it can bore some students. However, I feel the need to repeat myself because I can tell some students aren’t listening and are just going to ask me to repeat myself again anyway. I don’t think it is a huge problem with high schoolers, especially because some people take a few minutes to understand anyway.

I also waste quite a bit of time on instructional tasks, which should be a no-no. However, I just don’t know how to start class and get their attention as quick as I do with taking attendance. In sixth period, it took my 3:45 to get everything settled. This is too long.

What happens to your voice in different situations?

My voice tends to get quicker (and sometimes more sarcastic) when I think the answers are obvious and part of the lecture is just for background knowledge.

Most of the time I speak very loudly and clearly. I did need to annunciate “Jimmy Eat World” better though. And I sounded incredulous when they told me they didn’t know who Jimmy Eat World was.

When I read out loud, I try to be very clear and put the right emphasis on words. I try to model what “good” reading out loud sounds like.

What did you do to set the mood or climate for learning? Would you do anything differently?

I started with instructional tasks—attendance, gathering papers, etc. I would definitely use less time because I still struggle with that.

I would have told them right at the beginning how much they were going to enjoy the lesson and tried to make it sound more appealing. Because I think overall they really did like it and would have paid more attention if they had known up front.

Analyze your questions. What do you notice in terms of quality, levels, wait time, your response to students?

I had a lot of open-ended questions. I asked things like “What kind of opinions do we see? Where at?” I didn’t notice very many close-ended questions in the video.

I also gave a lot of examples about where to look at in the print outs and asked about specific statements. I pointed out the parts of reviews that were well written and asked the students to look at those specific spots.

I tried to get their opinions into the conversation by using questions such as, “What else do you like to see in reviews?” and “Does anyone read reviews?”

My wait time was decent but I struggled slightly. Most of my students tend to answer pretty quickly but my wait time could have been longer if they wouldn’t volunteer immediately.

I could have been more careful with my word choice. At one point I used the words “positive review” and I could have meant it as in optimistic or well liked.

I also asked if they knew what different words meant, such as sporadic.

How well did you involve all students in responding and participating? Equity issues?

I obviously don’t feel like there are equity issues. Like most teachers, I have students that I tend to favorite inside my head but it is mostly because they are the ones I know I can trust to help me, answer questions, behave well, etc.

Many of my students tend to answer as much as they possibly can. In every class I have at least 3 or 4 students who feel like they always need to put their two cents in. I tried to call out some people in the video but I definitely could have done a better job. I did however try to involve some specific students like the musicians and the girls who like Mean Girls.

With what progress are you the most pleased?

I’m glad that I am familiar with ALL of my students. I know all of their names and I was really starting to get a feel for their personal learning styles by the time the video was recorded.

I feel like I’m getting better all the time with questioning techniques and keeping the students’ attention. I also encouraged them to take better notes and helped model it for them when I wrote on the board.

I also believe I am always good at finding fun, interesting examples.

What areas do you believe you still need improvement?

I needed to work on time management because I ran out of time for about 5 minutes during 2^nd period. Also, I need to not rush through lectures by assuming that my students automatically know what I know. Some of my students mentioned that I didn’t give them enough time to read to themselves although I repeatedly told them to skim the article.

Those same students also sassed me in front of the whole class, which really annoyed me. They also didn’t realize that I could hear them whisper on the camera when they said snarky comments. For example, after I said, “Pay attention!” “Jason” started whispering all over again. So I definitely needed to start commanding more respect.

Finally, I need to keep working on staying as professional and distant as possible. These students are not my friends and it is so easy to forget when I spend so much time with them.

Newspaper Progress

I realized I haven't spoke much about my other classes.
Newspaper is coming along very well. We need to get those ads finalized but I think we'll still make it. :) One of the girls in there just makes my day every day I see her. She is always willing to sell and get things going. She's a real go-getter and she's still only a freshman. I really enjoy having her in my class. I should write a letter to her parents.

Our work night was moved to Wednesday because I don't think they are ready for Monday. I didn't talk too much to Mr. C about it but I'm trying to become more independent. I feel like I still have too much help from him and I need to ween myself from it. This is a whole seperate issue in and of itself though.

I'm also really proud of my design team. I think they are trying really hard to get something different going and make a lot more of alternative structure decisions-- which I obviously love!

In other news...

• EZN is going well. I think everyone knows how to work everything now. That was my main goal and it feels good to accomplish that, but now I've got to find something more.
• Advanced Comp is going well too. We're doing our unit on social issues. I'm trying to take a lead role in that but Mr. C is still doing most of the grading of their presentations. Which I guess is fine because they all essentially get As anyway and there aren't exactly hard decisions to be made.

Ups and Downs

This past week was full of ups and downs... but mostly ups.

I'm still working on my LAMP and I've learned quite a few valuable lessons. I learned that sometimes you have to modify your plans if you want your kids to really learn.
For example: I presented a powerpoint from Jostens about yearbook alternative copy. My 3rd period was pretty attentive but my 7th period was NOT. They were the absolute worse I've ever seen them. They were talking the ENTIRE time I was talking. I had to reprimand them literally about every 3 minutes. They weren't paying attention. Out of the entire class I felt like maybe 4 or 5 were actually listening. It blew my mind, to be quite honest. I always count on my students paying attention to me because they like me and respect me. But Thursday, that wasn't enough. In fact, I was probably too nice about it because I have a hard time bringing myself to yell at these kids that I've grown so close to.

So, after that experience I had to re-evaluate and ask myself, "Did they really learn what I put out there?"
Like Mr. C and Terry have said before, "You're teaching but they may not be learning."
Which makes me ask... what exactly is teaching if you are trying to do it so hard and they still don't pick it up?

So I decided to be a reflective practitioner and put in an extra day in my LAMP explaining alt. copy AGAIN. I think it was pretty effective though. But we'll see when we start the projects on Monday.

So next week, we're going to wrap up my unit and start another short unit. I'm thinking the unit about staying unbiased would be fun and quick to wrap up and then try to plan my next unit about photoshop and Gimp. I've never used Gimp before so it will probably be quite a challenge but it'll be okay... it always is.

Goals
*Plan another unit
*Find fun journalistic things for them to do on Fridays
*Start charting my LAMP information

Oh, and I'm judging a talent show on the 30th! Cool, huh?

Goals for Next Week

Here are my goals:
*Finish my LAMP strongly! I want to start charting my pre-test results.
*Get the kids to keep establishing the Miss Mazzola name (they've reverted a little since Spring Break)
*Get my bounce back in my step (I've been having a hard time getting back into routine this week.)
*Keep working on my portfolio. I only have a few things in there so far and I'd really like to see more from myself by the end of the week!

You look like a sweet-tart today.

So it has unfortunately been a while AGAIN since I have posted.
I have just been really busy and really exhausted. I'm finally over being sick (probably thanks to that ER visit and all the meds.) And I'm totally going to be in the swing of things next week.

This week I started my LAMP on Tuesday in yearbook. Here's a breakdown.

• Tuesday - introduction to color via powerpoint
• Wednesday - color wheel
• Thursday - color matrix
• Friday - color quiz and True Colors

Now... let's break it down even more!

Tuesday was my technology day from Hell. The copier and printer were both working against me. 3rd hour: I forgot to tell Mr. W (whom I'm borrowing his room and projector from) that I had a Mac and I didn't have an adapter for the projector. So, I had to borrow a flash drive. (Note to self: always bring flash drive.) 4th hour: my video wouldn't show on any of the computers I tried until the I used the Mac in the back. 7th hour: I couldn't figure out Mrs. E's projector (which isn't actually a projector at all!)
Moral of the story: ALWAYS test technology!
So I had quite the time. I was this close to snapping, but I kept my cool.
But I also completed the Pre-Test (step one for LAMP).

Wednesday was pretty great. We started working on coloring a color wheel and the students had a lot of time to relax and visit. I think they really liked that and it was fun to see them cut and color. I think being an art teacher would be very rewarding.

Thursday was also good. I was pretty tired by the end of the day though. We worked on a color matrix and reviewed for the quiz we had scheduled today. I'm surprised how long it takes some students to complete something as easy as cutting and pasting paper onto construction paper. Lord knows though that some of them took the entire time (plus some Monday) to get it done. I tihnk they were probably talking a bit too much, but they should be having fun this time of year.

Friday was the icing on the cake. I thought I had time to have my students take a color quiz, do the True Colors activity and finish their color matrices. But I was wrong, as usual. It is so funny how I can feel so adept and well planned and somehow, someway things go haywire. But if they didn't, it wouldn't be a challenge. So my students got the color quiz done and I think most of them did pretty well. One of my goals is to get everything graded and caught up by Saturday at the end of work.
True Colors went over REALLY well. The kids loved it! I get so excited when I have students who really appreciate what I'm doing. I try so hard to impress them and work hard for them that it is so rewarding to have them like what I've put out there. I can also see relationships really forming with my students, which is a joy.

So overall, I'm really excited about how this is going so far.

Next week we have:

• Monday- Intro to Typography
• Tuesday- Becky Rother guest speaker (3rd) and Virtual Field Trip day (7th)
• Wednesday- Virtual Field Trip day (3rd) and Eric Tegeler guest speaker (7th)
• Thursday- Talk about Alt. structure
• Friday- Designing Around a Picture
• Monday- finishing Designing Around a Picture and Post Test

It's Been A While

Dear Blog, I'm sorry I've been gone a while. We've had a crazy week. Let's recap.

Last week was a pretty fun week.

The week lasted Monday through Thursday because we all got to leave on Friday for SPRING BREAK!!

In the EZN class we worked on announcements and started a Current Events section that went over OK. We didn't have announcements on Thursday because we upgraded our technology. I'm excited to see how that goes. My kids tend to resist change but I think they'll like it eventually.

In our newspaper classes we had work days and I got to put in all of their grades. Most of my kids did really well. I had a few disappointing grades but I realize that it is THEIR choice to make, not mine to push. I also had a few students who really turned it around. That made me VERY proud that they were willing to push forward and make it happen.

In our composition classes we worked on historical fiction and social issues. I'm really excited about the next unit. I've already planned out the whole unit (of course, with Mr. C's help) and he said that I could take the reigns. I'm stoked because Mr. C is going to model the project on Monday and I'm going to model on Tuesday. I'm already pretty much done with my part. :)

In our yearbook classes we had FUN TIME!!! They got their book done and I am SOOO proud of them. It looks amazing. We had a party on Wednesday with food and dessert. It was really nice and I think the kids appreciated it.

So that just about wraps up last week.

This week is Spring Break and I can only hope that all my kids are being safe. I'm in Florida now, really enjoying everything. However, I am really ill. I went to the E.R. yesterday and found out I have severe bacterial sinusitis and conjunctivitis. But the doctor said it should clear up in 5 to 10 days.

Now I'm off to work on my LAMP.

Also, my best regards go to Terry for the loss of her mother. God bless.

Recognition

I just made a template for nice little recognition cards for my students. I think they'll really like them because it will show them that I care enough to come to their events. :) Also, I'll write a personal note on the back.

Here's what one looks like:

Goals and Reflection

Terry,
Hope everything is going well for you on this "beautiful" Muncie weekend.

Goals
*Keep planning my LAMP (I've decided a unit on design with a focus on color and typography)
*Get some other lesson plans ready for Mr. C to review when we have free time during yearbook
*Make the yearbook celebration special for the kids on Wednesday (I don't know how just yet, maybe paper plate awards or something like that? I still need to talk to Kristen and Ashlyn about it.)
*Do some more observations during our free time in yearbook

And, as always, you can find my reflections at brittanyisateacher.blogspot.com

--Brittany

Email I sent to my Journalism Friends

Hey gang!

For any of you that don't already know me pretty well, my name is Brittany Mazzola. As most of you know, I'm doing my student teaching at Delta right now. I'm contacting each of you because I know you do amazing work in our field and I'd love for you to help me teach the kiddos something about it. I'd really like to bring in a lot of interesting people to talk to my classes about their experiences at Ball State University. (And for you education majors, here's some practical experience!)

I'd like to do lessons on:

Color theory

Photography

Photoshop (or Gimp, which is probably more preferable to them since they have it for free)

Design (newspaper and yearbook)

Alternative copy/structure

Leadership

Ethics

Where you can "go" in journalism

Practical uses of journalism

(Or anything that you guys can come up with)

All of these lessons will be after our spring break. We get back on the 29th of March and I'm at Delta til very early May. I have sessions of journalism in both the morning and afternoon. I'm particularly shooting for my 3rd and 7th period. This means from about 9:40 to 10:30 and 2:15 to 3:05. If you can come before either of those times, we could work with the newspaper staff.

Please look through the list of who I have sent this to and let me know if anyone knows someone who would be interested in helping me.

If you could respond with any available times and dates and what you might be interested in, I would appreciate it GREATLY. You could can't imagine how much the kids would love to have college students in the classroom teaching them about so many different aspects of journalism.

So please, friends... help a fellow journalist out.

Thanks,

Brittany

Observation Number One

Miss Brittany Mazzola

Observation One (with Mr. “Grove”)

3-9-10

I observed a world history class with mostly freshmen and sophomores. I will give the teacher and students I mention pseudonyms. I will also mention the INTASC standards that he modeled so I can look back on this for my benefit as a new teacher.

Mr. Grove structured his class pretty typically. He asked if anyone brought in their homework/ extra credit from previous days. He then followed with a quiz for review. (INTASC 8.1) He gave the students less than 10 minutes to get it done, but most were finished. Next he started a movie. This is something that interests me greatly. I would love to utilize videos in my class. (INTASC 3 and 4) While lecturing he continually asked questions and gave small reviews so all the students were on the same page. I also liked that when he did notes on the projector he pointed out things that were going to be on the test “for sure.” (INTASC 8.3)

I could tell that he was extremely prepared and good at what he did. (INTASC 1) Everything seemed effortless. At the end of the class he came up and told me that he had been teaching for 22 years. That is amazing to me!

Grove also told me that he is surprised every year about how lazy his students are and how little work they actually do.

So far in my experience I have also seen that. There were several examples of deviant student behavior. One student was tilting his desk backward, which Grove later stopped. Another girl, whom I will call Suzy, was messing with her phone, which is not allowed and even passed it to another girl. Suzy was also quite mouthy to the other students. When students started to talk when he was talking he said things like “Hey, I’m talking here—shut up!” and “okay” to settle them down but it doesn’t exactly work. He also shushed them while pointing at the talking students. I can tell that he still respects their dignity though and doesn’t try to embarrass them greatly. For example, one girl was doing puzzles the whole time and he just teased her in front of me but still praised her grades. Another girl was reading during the movie and he took the book away and turned it upside down but didn’t lose the page.

I could tell that he has a strong repertoire with his students. (INTASC 5) He calls students out and proceeds to joke back and forth with them. He also gave some of them nicknames, which they really seem to like at Delta. I think he also probably builds that repertoire by displaying their work. I think that shows that he is proud of them and what they turn in. He had the work displayed on every wall on almost every available space. He also had two American flags and multiple clocks and lamps.

Overall, Grove’s atmosphere is very, very comfortable. He typically has the lights turned off with several lamps instead. He also has Christmas lights near the ceiling of his room. The room temperature was decent, if not a little cold. His desks where set up in a semi-circle fashion. This promoted everyone to pay attention to Grove.

I can tell that he really knows how to keep students interested, has a solid grading system and strong classroom management skills. He is definitely someone I can learn a lot from.

Benchmark Conferences

Mr. C and myself are finishing the second benchmark conference today, probably in a few minutes actually. We are on prep period so hopefully we'll get quite a bit done.

Today I already went through all of my story proposals for newspaper. So far they are looking really good. We're talking about budget and teacher cuts, reviews/editorials and opinion columns and some fun things. I'm actually really surprised but nobody picked Prom. I think I may have intimidated them about it though. I told them that we WERE NOT doing anything about Prom that has been done before. We were NOT doing a feature about how to do your hair. We are NOT doing a feature about "how to" get ready. We need something fresh. If anyone of my 7 lovely followers has an idea, please post it as a comment. :)

Today, our yearbook rep and a rep from herff jones edesign came into 3rd period. I was really pumped about that because my kids got to give the hjedesign rep a lot of feedback. So it worked out for both of us. AND we learned one of the most important little tools that I've known thus far. Too bad we are only 3 days til the FINAL deadline.

Yes, that's right... the final deadline is March 15. I am soooooo excited.

On that note, I'm going to look through the book and find some corrections. :)

Grading Queen

I just finished doing my grading for Newspaper. :)
Next stop, reading htrough 5 advanced comp. stories, which I am really looking forward to. I have such great writers in my class and I picked a few of my favorite to read.
And later today, I plan to start working on my LAMP by going through some old resources.

Today's word: Productivity.

Goals and Reflection

Hi Terry,
Hope everything is going well! I hope you're enjoying this BEAUTIFUL weather today. I know I cannot wait to get out of work at 1.

Overall my unit went really, really well. The kids responded well and as I've been grading things I see that they really "got" what I taught them. It's a pretty great feeling. :)
I have more reflections on my blog (brittanyisateacher.blogspot.com). You might find the post about the meeting extra interesting-- I felt like I learned so much in such a little amount of time.

Goals:
Finish grading things today.
Keep establishing myself as an authority figure. (I started being Miss Mazzola the day after the meeting. It's going pretty smoothly actually.)
Maintain my lesson plan book better.
Start planning my LAMP for the day after Spring Break :) (I'm thinking something about photography, digital editing and ethics)

Thanks,
Brittany

Today's Meeting

Today's meeting with my university supervisor and peers was SO informative it was unbelievable! Here's a rundown (Journalists have a knack for notes. I was the only one to take notes today and I think it is a very good attribute.)...
The meeting was theoretically from 1-3 but ended up being 2-4, which was okay because it gave us STs an hour to talk and compare what is going on. Some of the other STs have already taken over their classrooms (mostly el. ed) and that really shocked me. But only one girl has finished her LAMP so far, so that makes me feel much better. Terry, the best supervisor ever, also bought us Jimmy Johns and snacks-- Thanks Terry!

New Goals

• They must start calling me Miss Mazzola
• Start to stay later. I have a feeling that Mr. C would prefer it and I'm going to ask him what I can do to help more. Problem: I work. So I must talk to the bosses too and try to get a more reasonaable schedule. This sounds good in theory but I sure do love money. Maybe I can get a job on Saturday evenings?
• I'm going to start contacting parents for good things their students do. This could be a phone call or an email. I already have a few in mind.
• I'm going to check with Mr. C if there are any other IEPs that I have not seen, especially for my journ. kids.
• Look up this Ruby Payne book about poverty that Mr. Gaylor (New Palestine principal) mentioned. It's called A Framework for Understanding Poverty.
• Keep up to date about my artifacts and whatnot like one of the other STs, Ryan. (ie Start gathering them!)

Notable Quotables

• The professionals in the room pointed out that in the teaching job hunt it's about QUALITY not quantity. Times are changing economically and we need to be as prepared as possible.
• Love the unloveable -- Mrs. Terry Nelson

• Mrs. Jackie Applegate (3rd grade teacher at Yorktown) on how to be a good teacher:
• Be yourself/ be genuine
• Be kind (ie Say something kind to everyone every day)
• Smile
• Have fun
• Discipline with the same standards/ Be fair
• Work hard/ Don't be lazy!

• Mr. Bruce Gaylor
• Learning doesn't stop after graduation and now is a good time to get our Masters degrees
• Bad kids need to learn too, possibly more. Once heard the quote "Bright kids will learn in spite of you and bad kids will learn because of you."
• His advice:
• He's not a friend, but he is an adult they can trust. (I want that too)
• Get kids involved in extracurriculars
• Try something different for the resume... different paper maybe.
• His legacy includes about 10 students who still contact him because he showed them he cared about them.

Miscellaneous

• I just really love education and I'm hoping that it shows. I hope my students can see it and I hope my supervisors can see it.
• We learned a little about our LAMP and I'm eager to get started!

Goals and Reflections

This is the email I sent to Terry about last week and my goals for next week. :)

"Hey Terry. Hope everything's going well.

Goals for this week...

1. Establish myself as more of an authority figure. I'm going to start having them call me Miss Mazzola full time. This was Tim's idea too and I think it's a good thought.

2. Do the video tape analysis.

3. Establish who I'm going to observe at the high school. I'm thinking Mr. Scott Brand, a science teacher (who has won a bunch of awards and recognition) and maybe another female teacher that the kids really like. I'd like to observe how she establishes authority. Maybe the french teacher, Madame Ferguson.

Reflections for last week...

1. I taught my unit all week and I thought it went really well. The unit is over editorial/ opinion and review writing. I think they are learning a lot but there seems to be SO many questions all the time. I can't wait to see their stories and how they come out.

2. I also videotaped myself. (Can you please email me the due date and what not? I tried emailing you earlier this week.)

3. I also went to a senior tennis leadership meeting on Monday that helped me observe Mr. Cleland in his tennis coaching position. I'd love to coach or sponsor an event so it's helpful to see others in that role.

Thanks, Brittany"

Brittany... You look like Minnie Mouse today.

Minnie and Me!

Gosh, I love those kids.

INTASC 10

Oh and I'm working on #10 by attending a leadership seminar for the tennis team tonight. I'm also being oh-so helpful by picking up the pizza at 7.

"STANDARD 10: SCHOOL AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

The teacher fosters relationships with school colleagues, parents, and agencies in the larger community to support students’ learning and well-being."

I also hope to observe the student council, NHS and French club while I'm at Delta. These are clubs that I'd definitely be interested in helping with if the opportunity arose.

Unit Planning

These past few school days have taught me A LOT about unit planning.

I have planned many units in college. Every class with Brian Hayes has included a unit. Several of my education classes have included a unit. And onward... My point? I thought I was practiced.

This was until I realized that every day, things change and "mess up" your unit. Every day people are behind, things get in the way, students don't turn in assignments.
But what I've learned thus far is to be ultra flexible and try to go with the flow. I have also learned how to keep learning. Chapter 12 was obviously a review for me but it's an area that I haven't planned for before.

Mr. C has helped me so much with my unit and adapting it to our students. He has critiqued it several times and made it better each time. Every day thus far I feel like my students are getting a good feel for what I'm trying to teach them. This is a confidence booster for sure.

Goal:
To make a better quiz/test.
To finalize my unit as much as possible tonight and tomorrow so that the rest will go as smoothly as possible.

And speaking of my unit, we talked about blogging today and I was surprised to find out that out of both my newspaper courses only about 3 or 4 students had blogs and only 6 or 7 ever read them. Someone tell my BSU professors that because they have been telling us for years now that blogging is the future. But who knows? Maybe the stats just don't apply to my kids.

Finally, I rented the movie "The Ron Clark Story" from netflix. I'm hoping it will get me in a supportive, vigilante, hardworking teaching mood all over again. :)

Goals and Reflection

What I sent to Terry:


"Hi Terry,
I'm sorry but I forgot to send you my goals and reflection AGAIN!!
I don't know where my brain is getting to. I went home to be with and take care of my mom and completely forgot.

Reflections:
As always, you can find my thoughts on my blog at brittanyisateacher.blogspot.com.

Goals:
1. Hope my unit goes as well as possible. I've been teaching it since last Friday.
2. To sell more copies of the Eagle's Eye newsmagazine than the last issue. We're selling tomorrow during SRT. So we'll find out if that's accomplished soon. :)
3. Get another benchmark conference in soon and get back to schedule.

Hope everything is going well for you. You're still in my thoughts and prayers.

--Brittany"

Snow "Break"

It has been a while since I've had something to blog about. We've had an inordinate amount of cancellations and weather delays.

Mon. 2-8: 2 hr delay
Tues. 2-9 through 2-12: Cancelled
Mon. 2-15: President's Day = No School
Tues. 2-16: Cancelled
Wed. 2-17: 2 hr delay
Thurs. 2-18: 2 hr delay

So, we're hoping that is the end of that for a while. Although, I heard there's supposed to be a whole other blizzard coming our way. So I guess we'll see. I can't say that I mind the days off to be honest. :) I'm getting spoiled.

Today we started working on my editorial/opinion unit. I think the kids are REALLY going to like it and find it very useful.

The yearbook deadline has also been met with all 55 pages submitted. Although we were technically 9 days late. Yearbook business stops for nothing. But they were 11 days early, earlier in the semester. So I suppose things like that can work out.

Also, I had my first benchmark conference today. It's kind of late but with the tennis convention and all the delays, that is just how it had to be done. We've scheduled the next conference for sometime late next week so we can get back on track. Overall, I thought the conference went really well. It's nice to know other opinions about you. I plan on also recording one of my lessons pretty soon; possibly tomorrow or early next week. I also need to start observing other classrooms, which is something I completely spaced about. Mr. C gave me some good candidates to watch and I'm pretty excited.

Yesterday, I had my first big issue about content in my announcements class. They let a song containing the lyrics, "brush my teeth with a bottle of Jack..." play under the lunch menu, birthdays, etc. That was the only day that I hadn't reviewed the announcements and that is what happened.
"Are you kidding me?!" was all I could think in my head.
The ONE day.
But, lesson learned I guess.

On My "Own"

So, I wanted to write a post about how I handled myself in Tim's absence before it got too far from my memory.
Overall, I think I did really well. I think the kids took me pretty seriously, for the most part.

Ups

• I had a sense of freedom
• Friday's announcements were one of the best all year. They showed me that I didn't have to consistently be down their throats.
• I had a GREAT visit with Terry, see other post.
• The kids got to know my personal style better.
• Some students still came to eat lunch and socialize with me during my prep, which made me feel good.

Downs

• I probably should be working more with the Web Design kids. I still don't recognize all of them, like I do in my other classes.
• My 2nd period started acting like a gang of wild animals on Friday for about the last 20 minutes of class. They were play fighting nonstop and instead of actually yelling at them, I tried to play it off like they were immature and I told them they weren't in elementary school. Which worked for about... oh, 15 seconds. I should have been far more stern but at some points it's too easy to give up. I mean, who is it hurting if they're playing around for the last 10 minutes of class? Which actually brings me to a whole seperate point that should be mentioned elsewhere, see Work Night.
• I still have a hard time with pacing during 4th period. I'm easily distracted by a good story, which is what about 90% of class on Thursday was. I had the students share their ideas for the Historical Fiction pieces and I probably spent way too much time on it. But I truly do love to get into their heads and see their processes of writing. They are so interesting. There were so many AMAZING ideas. (Which is also a "Ups")

Yesterday was Work Night. I had to stay until after 8 to finish up the newsmagazine. It blew my mind how much had to be done and how many little things can add up to a time consuming mass. There were a lot of kids who stayed after but there were definitely some that were absent that should have really been there.

Also, there was an issue with some stories not getting placed. Which brings up the issue of responsibility. I feel like the staff doesn't feel responsible for each other and don't hold each other credible for mistakes or being lazy. I don't know if we have to work on team building or what but something has got to be done. For example, a student was working on his spread for a few days and just pointed out last night, mere minutes before he left that the page before his had NOTHING on it.

What?!? Are you kidding? I wanted to yell, but I kept my cool, laughed it off and finished the page.

So when I say "Oh, who is it hurting if So-and-So doesn't do his work?" It actually turns out that it is hurting me. And should be hurting the others, IF they had a sense of credibility.

Goals: Build credibility. Remind them that this is a team publication and should be treated accordingly.

Work on INTASC standard 5:

"MOTIVATION AND MANAGEMENT

The teacher uses an understanding of individual and group motivation and behavior to create a learning environment that encourages positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self-motivation."

Goals and Inspiration

Yesterday Terry came to visit me during the end of 3rd period. It was so nice seeing her. She really encouraged me. (Especially as I read what she wrote on my eval.) I am trying SO hard and to know that other people can tell is really great.

Goals:
*Finish strong in newspaper and yearbook. Both of our deadlines are coming up next week!
I would hope this applies to Standard 2:
"The teacher understands how children learn and develop, and can provide learning opportunities that support a child’s intellectual, social, and personal development."
*Do really well on my unit. (And finishing it this weekend.)
*Get to know the other teachers better.
*Tim and I also need to schedule a benchmark conference for early in the week.

My achy breaky heart

New goal:
Don't let personal life interfere with school work.
This is going to be hard but I can do it.

In other news:
Mr. C is going to be out on Thursday and Friday so we did a lot of prep work today. Always a good thing to feel prepared. Tonight I'm going to be getting some lesson plans together. I start a new unit on Wednesday of next week.

"Like, who is Mick Jagger?"

My week seemed to go by pretty quickly. Wednesday was fine and Thursday was REALLY productive... for everyone except my half of the class during 6th period.
I never realized that it only takes one loud-mouthed girl to bring down the class. I had faith that it wouldn't happen to me, but, boy, was I wrong!
We'll call our class-ruining friend Sasha.
Now, I knew coming into all of this that Sasha was going to be a pain. Mr. C called me the night before I came to Delta to warn me that she was being extra bad that week and was being punished for a myriad of reasons and a myriad of people.
And while I've been with the class, I see her disrupt everyone and occasionally lie. Not particularly good traits. But Thursday was a new level.
She was listening to music and what not... fine.
A few other girls started listening to music... fine.
Nearly everyone started listening to music... um, fine.
But when the volume goes up to start competing with each other, that's where I have to draw my line. I had to yell to have everyone "take it down a notch." And they did. Looking back on it, I'm surprised they all listened so willfully. Like I've said before, these kids are good.
So, even though it was my "worst" class, I was still fine and laughed about it later.

In other news, lets get to this title of mine.
Yesterday, as the girls were picking out music for the end of announcements they asked if they could play "Tik Tok" by Kesha, which I said was fine as long as it was edited properly. So, we were listening to it and one of my girls said, "Like, who is Mick Jagger?" And of course I laughed a bit and told her he was in the Rolling Stones. Then she went to google his name and thought it was spelled McJagger ("You know, like McDonalds," she said.) I laughed again. I love the age gap. It's just enough to still be funny.

Goals for Week 4

Here are my goals for this week (and more):
1. Allign goals to standards. (Earlier in the week I decided I wanted to start aligning some of my goals to the INTASC standards.)
2. Set up a benchmark conference time with Mr. Cleland.
3. In regards to standard 4, I want to keep learning different strategies to motive and encourage their learning, especially "performance skills," which I believe are really important to the journalism classroom. I also want to learn different strategies for classroom mangament. (My 6th period class went nuts on Thursday.)


(INTASC 4: The teacher understands and uses a variety of instructional strategies to encourage students' development of critical thinking, problem solving, and performance skills.)

"So, they put you in MY classroom?"

I have been extremely blessed throughout this experience in that I get along with all of my students very well. I have not had any confrontations yet. And they truly are an overall respectful, decent group of kids.

So, today's lesson is about what kind of students are in my classroom.
I teach ALL electives, thus all students in my classes CHOOSE to be in my classes. This makes a world of difference. I heard so much in my education classes about students that are disruptive, mean, hateful, etc. that I forgot that there were going to be students who are not any of those things. I have psyched myself up for them hating me, teasing me, not listening... And none of this has happened.
On the contrary, I typically get a slew of compliments weekly. Today, a student told me that he was surprised I had never been to New York because I looked so cultured and dressed so well.
It's things like these that boost my confidence daily. These students are great.

The other lesson today is that because journalism is an elective, some students get dropped into the classroom for NO rhyme or reason.
For example, today a student (we'll call him John) came into my class, sat in the back and announced that he was now in 7th period yearbook. Of course, Mr. C needed some clarification. He asked what class the student was in before.
"I was at the career center," John said. "But the kicked me out."
Mr. C asked why and the student responded with, "I never went to class."
"So, they put you in my class?" Mr. C said.
Yep. They sure did, I thought.
And what makes them (guidance counselors, possibly?) think that he'll come to our class either? The sad truth is that he probably won't and will somehow fail his senior year because of a severe case of truancy and the all-too-famous Senoritis.
Very sad.

Unrealistic??

Today I have realized that the fast pace of college has made me forget what it is like to be in high school. How did I become THAT teacher? Do I expect way too much?
I used to always wonder why teachers were hard on us in high school. I used to say, "they're acting like we're in college or something." I've now heard the same statement from my announcement crew when they were told to act less goofy and be "professional."

What I could do in a few hours, take my students days and WEEKS to accomplish. I have FOUR students working on one single "By the Numbers" spread. It has been several weeks since they should have started and still somehow they only have about 6 or 7 numbers listed and placed.

And when I mentioned this to Mr. C, he sort of chuckled and said something along the lines of: high school has a lot different pace... the kids were pretty good... And that I had to get used to not being in college.

The yearbook deadline is Feb. 8th. And although it is the norm, it seems insane to give students a little over a month to complete one, maybe two (nobody has more than 4) spreads. And most have partners.
However, that is the world I have placed myself in. I always said that I didn't like the fast pace and late nights of the newsroom. But now I realize it is only the late nights I don't like. (I go to bed around 10 pm, nowadays.)
I truly miss the pace of college and the classrooms.

Today's just been one of those days when I woke up at 6:20 am, after pushing snooze 3 times, and thought to myself... "Why did I choose this profession that has me up at the crack of dawn?"
And when I got to school, I thought to myself... "Why can't these kids just get their butts in gear, hustle and get some real work done?"
And when I left, I thought to myself... "Boy, could I use a nap."

I wish Ball State teachers college would have taught me how to deal with these things, but maybe it is something I have to learn on my own.



Goals:
Align more of my goals to standards
Get my accordion file going and organized (Step One: purchase...)
Set up a time for a benchmark conference

7th Period...

Actually, they were pretty unperturbed by the grades. Maybe they didn't check them? I'm not sure actually. Maybe we'll delve into that deeper tomorrow.

In other news, I promoted teamwork to re-design a spread. It was really nice to see several students work together and share their creative ideas.

I'm not really used to not having a template for EVERYTHING. That is just how we did it at East Noble. Of course, we had a much smaller staff than Delta and templates made everything a lot easier, so they were essentially a neccesity. I'm learning a lot of creativity from my yearbook classes and learning to open my horizons. Things that would have made me cringe before only slightly bother me now.

A little late...

I forgot to send Terry my goals and reflection over the weekend. (My weekend was nuts!!!)

So... here are some of my goals for this week:
1. Help editor with leadership style (more about that on blog)
2. Stick behind the grades that I gave for yearbook mini deadline one. Some of them kind of panicked when their grade was low but I think it also gave them a boost to get their butts in gear. We'll see if it had that effect for mini deadline two.
3. Keep working on motivational skills and classroom management. My first period is getting a little rowdy.

Today's going really well so far.
I don't think the newspaper class was thrilled with my grading style but I specifically layed out what I wanted each of them to do. It was in their hands to actually accomplish the task. I told each of them to tell me if the deadline had something that absolutely could not be done, and we could work with it. Nobody came up to me and yet there were still people that looked like they hadn't worked on their spreads.
Let's see what happens with seventh period.

Miss Student Teacher, Why are you so fashion savvy?

Yesterday was pretty great, as usual. Here's the rundown...

Mr. C had a super sore throat so we had a substitute teacher (Ms. B). And I realized I can learn so much from the people I am surrounded with.

What I learned from the sub...

• Students will push the limit if you let them, but my kids weren't that bad. We only really had a problem with the 2nd period. They were really off task. (Our editor was getting so frustrated. Especially b/c they had a rough draft due.)
• Nicole already warned me of this though. She's had quite a few subs already this semester.
• That you can let your students get to know you, without crossing boundaries
• At the end of the day, she complimented me on how I handled the class. She said I made her day A LOT easier, and that made me feel great.
• She was REALLY nice which reminds me of the saying, "You get more bees with honey than vinegar."

I had a bit of a problem with my 4th period comp. class. They didn't really respond well to my questions and what not. I also wanted them to share their stories that they were supposed to have turned in by the end of class. Which almost happened, but nobody wanted to read the "Tell the Tale 3 Times" story.

It kind of got me down during the class but I realized shortly afterward that it wasn't that big of a deal. By the time I told the story after school to my roommates and boy, I could laugh it off.

Thursday

School got cancelled today because of the ice, and I can't say that I was particularly bummed. We all love a "snow day." I slept in a little bit, cleaned the house, ran errands and now I'm going to start looking over some papers for Comp. It's a good day.

I also want to mention that work is going well and isn't getting in the way of any part of student teaching yet. :)

Goals

1. Help Editor work on her leadership style. She's still a little rough around the edges and tends to yell to get things done. I think she could benefit from the Teaching with Love and Logic theory, which is definitely something I can ascribe to.

Reflections

Just in case I haven't put this up here before...

Here's my daily schedule:
1st period -- Web Design/ Announcements
2nd period -- Newspaper
3rd period -- Yearbook
4th period -- Advanced Composition
5th period -- Lunch and Prep :)
6th period -- Newspaper
7th period -- Yearbook

(We also have SRT on Tuesdays and Thursdays.)

Friday:
Overall, I hope I'm not being overconfident but I am so happy with my placement. I like the school and I really like Mr. C and the kids.

I started working on my demographic report and I learned a lot about the students. I thought it was very similar to East Noble but I realized it is actually quite a bit smaller. About 300 students or so.

I really feel like I have a good start in the classroom by the end of my first week.

My goals that I sent to Terry:
1. Finish all of my critiques for the students and have them be very effective and attainable. I want to flex my teaching muscles and hopefully see the students actually do what I ask them to.
2. Assign features to my announcement crew and have the students follow through and get a nice finished product. I've talked to them before about starting on these but they haven't been motivated. So I'm going to work on my motivation skills.
3. Keep learning names!!!!

Monday:
NO SCHOOL!!!

I think we all needed a bit of a break and everyone likes a long weekend!

Tuesday:
Still confident, still feeling good. I feel like that is a good sign.

I finished my demographic report today. I realized we had several students with special needs, which I didn't realize at all.

Here's what I have so far...

"1. Demographics of the school and its community: There were 900 students enrolled in 2008-2009.They were 96% White, 1% Black, 0% Native American, 1% Asian, 1% Hispanic and 1% Multiracial. Delta is set in a rural community. There were 74% of students in 2008-2009 that paid for lunch. There were 16% on free and 10% on reduced lunch.

2. Description of classes taught and general classroom environment: There are about 107 (67 girls and 40 boys) different students but there may be a small difference in number because of students that take a multiple journalism courses throughout the day. There are only about 2 students who are not White in the journalism classes. There are 8 students with special needs and we do not have volunteers or classroom assistants.
All Courses Taught (Traditional Schedule): 1st period – Web Design and Eagle Zone News with 6 web design students and 8 news students. 2nd period – Newspaper with 21 students (including 2 independent studies students.) 3rd period – Yearbook with 21 students. 4th period – Advanced Composition with 18 students. 6th period – Newspaper with 19 students. 7th period – Yearbook with 16 students. SRT (Tuesday/Thursday only) with 12 students."

Mr. C might not be in tomorrow and we prepared for it today after school. I'm excited and scared to be with just a sub. Hopefully he gets better by then, but if he doesn't I know I can handle it. He's not going to be at school on Feb. 4th and 5th for a tennis convention, and I'll definitely be prepared for that.

Also, Jincy (jincyatcarmel.blogspot.com) had a great idea about loading educational podcasts. She is sooooo smart and I am for sure going to learn how to do this. How resourceful!!

Met my Goal!

Also, I met my goal of getting all my YB critiques done by 10. Early bedtime!!!

Knowing My Boundaries

"It's hard to keep your teacher pants on all the time."

Today I realized that I have a very hard time keeping my mouth shut and remaining professional throughout the day. I just feel like there are so many life lessons I can share that may, or may not, always be appropriate.

Example A:
Girls in my first period were talking about getting friendship tattoos (been there, done that.) And another student suggested they get "real messed up" before they do it. Now they had been talking about this for a few minutes and I had been keeping out of their business but at this point I had to step in and tell them what an awful idea that was. I told them how your blood thins and will mess with the ink and how alcohol messes with your pain tolerance, etc. That part was fine. Until they asked me if I had tattoos. I said yes, because I'm not ashamed. But then somehow they got me to show them 2 of the 3. This is where I should have drew the line. But it's so hard for me because I don't feel like there is anything wrong with tattoos. I've obtained all of mine legally and of sound mind. I think it is ridiculous that teachers are not "allowed" to express themselves with this artform. Thus, I feel like I took myself down from teacher status, just to give them a little life lesson. But does that make me more of a "helpful aunt" type? As you can see, I'm pretty confused.

This example also brings up the issue of students talking about getting "messed up" in front of me. They don't seem swayed from talking about parties, etc. when they are around me and I bet they don't do that in front of "regular" teachers. One of my students even said he was "good at drinking beer" when I was less than 5 feet away.
How in the world do I address this?
Sometimes I pretend not to hear it... Probably not a good thing.
Sometimes I shoot them a "mother" look... Probably not effective.

Example B:
Some of the students that frequent most of Mr. C's classes were in during lunch and gabbing away. I was checking my email (it's my prep time) and I laughed out loud at a comment my friend sent me via facebook, which was then sent to my email. So of course they asked me what I was laughing about and I shared a small anecdote about when LeRoy and I broke up. Again, I'm not ashamed of breaking up with a boy. I'm actually pretty proud of myself. But I just don't know where to draw the line. How much is too much?

My other qualm with students so far is that they seem to be pushing their limits of what they can and cannot say in front of me. Getting messed up is one example but I've also had a student tell me she wanted to smash another student in the face/ hated _____ soooooo much, etc. and I've had students swear in front of me. I can see that they want to know where their limits are, but I also want them to respect me.
It's just hard because I feel like students should be able to express anger toward each other, although I'd prefer it be MUCH more constructive. And I don't have a problem with students swearing, if it is not done frequently or with disrespect to others.
But I know having this leeway (sp?) will get me in trouble in the future because I could possibly not treat my students equally.

So much to think about...

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to my blog all about student teaching!!!!
I am very excited to share my information with anyone who is willing to read it. (Even if it's just Terry, my fantastic University Supervisor!)

I wanted to give a quick recap of the past few days, considering I'm starting this a little bit into the week.

Monday:
Went to orientation and learned SO much! I was so excited to see all the other student teachers and know that I'm not in this alone. Also went to lunch at Scotty's with the lovely Miss Jincy Gibson, her fabulous roommate and, of course, my sister.

Tuesday:
First day back to Delta. We had club picture day for the yearbook so it was very useful to see how a professional runs it. Mr. C has been working with this kind of thing for about 10 years and it is always nice to have his influence. Overall, the day went very smoothly and on time. I, however, missed both of the pictures that I was supposed to be in. I thought it was very nice that the students invited me to be in their picture, but I accidentally missed it while working with the announcements crew.
Overall, it was a very, very nice day.

Wednesday:
Today was also really great. I'm surprised at how the day can fly by and drag on at the very same time. I think it is because I'm not used to my schedule yet and I am definitely not used to waking up at 5:45 in the morning (or at least that's what I attempt.)
I got out of school in time to make it to a good chunk of work. I'm sure that won't always happen but it's nice when I can still juggle some things.

Preview:
Tonight I'm working in my first lesson plan book ever! Very excited!! (Clearly, I'm type A when it comes to teaching, haha.)
We have some deadlines coming up soon so I want to make sure I'm ultra prepared.