My semester started off with my
first ever in-service. We began with an article called “Teaching Isn’t Rocket
Science. It’s Harder” by Ryan Fuller. The article was insightful and well
written. I recommend it to all pre-service teachers or anyone thinking of
becoming a teacher because it highlights the difficulties some can face while
teaching and points out some things teachers run into. Many of these things no
one realizes. At the time I didn’t realize it but this article set the stage
for the way I started this semester. My expectations were that I was fully
prepared and, to be honest, had thought through every possible outcome of
teaching. I was wrong.
Being at the high school everyday
and teaching three to four classes every week has been eye opening. When I used
to only attend one class a week, I never realized how involved everything is. I
am super appreciative for this semester with the practice and advice I’ve been
given. I’ve also started to recall past teachers that I’ve had both in high
school and in college and realized how hard I was on them at the time and how
good they were at their jobs.
I have also found myself digging
out old teaching textbooks from past semesters to try and find new and
interesting activities and methods to use in the classroom. I’ve particularly
appreciated Pam Cole’s “Young Adult Literature in the 21st Century”.
She offers great activities to help engage and apply students and even has the
chapters arranged by genre to help you maximize the most out of her book. I
also received a great book at in-service called “The Core Six-Essential
Strategies for Achieving Excellence with the Common Core”. It provided some
amazing activities you can use to help support and enforce Common Core State
Standards. They’re activities to help students actively engage in reading and
vocabulary exercises that go beyond simple rote memorization, among other
things.
I planned my KPTP unit last
semester and started teaching it on the 6th of January. I’ve found
this to be an invaluable experience because I created this unit from scratch
and it has gone through many changes. I’ve have been making changes to it
recently even, as working with the classes (and being observed) has shown that
I need to engage the students more in active participation with their
classmates rather than just having them work by themselves. It has been frustrating
to not see students turn in work on time and have them miss so many classes. I
have one student who did not show up for the first two weeks of class and has
since decided to attend (which is awesome) but doesn’t want to do any work and
just wants to socialize with other students. It’s hard in motivating him to
turn anything in or participate in any activity.
I’m currently editing an unit over The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time
Indian by Sherman Alexie as I will begin teaching this mid-February to the
freshman. I’ve been co-teaching them on Romeo and Juliet since the beginning of
the semester and I look forward to having them read this book. It’ll be a nice
change from Shakespeare! I hope all of your semesters are going well and that
you are feeling as blessed as I am for this experience!
I definitely have been feeling that I was too hard on my high school teachers when I was critiquing their abilities as a teacher as well. I have been looking though so many teaching resources in order to create a meaningful and fun unit over The Crucible. I have been trying really hard to make it as interesting as possible since this play is a classic and they are not favored by students over YA novels by any means. Creating this unit makes me appreciate every teacher that has ever made a unit that I have deemed interesting because I have found that it takes a whole lot of effort to accomplish.
ReplyDeleteI find it sweet that you can look back and appreciate your teacher. Sometimes I get upset with a few of mine the more I learn. I need to look more at the teachers who were hard working and gave me their best. I can relate to students not show up when you worked so hard. It is not easy. I keep getting the advice that it is there life and you can't take it personality. I still find it frustrating however, that there are few solutions offered to getting kids to come to school. I also love how you did you unit already. You have plenty of time to work on your KPTP.
ReplyDeleteI loved that article from our inservice! We used it again in our Literacy PD the other day. BTW welcome to the wonderful world of inservices! I personally still love them! I always learn new things and I get to see the teachers in other departments or other schools I rarely see. I met my CT from a 2010 placement at the district inservice, and she remembered me! Many teachers grouse about these dictated days, but they are pretty wonderful if you keep an open mind.
ReplyDeleteThat Core Six book is one of my new favorite things too. Glad someone else actually looked at theirs. Have you read Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice by Beers, Probst and Rief. It was required in one of my classes but not sure if it is still used. There is good stuff from Jim Burke, Chris Crutcher, and Donald Murray, and a multitude of others. Good luck with the Alexie unit, it seems like that one can be really engaging for the students.