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