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!