Teaching

WOW!! AWESOME EXPERIENCE

2006-03-08T19:44:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday we had an abnormal schedule, I finished teaching 4th period and was talking to a seasoned teacher that uses that classroom 5th period about how to deal with a student that severe learning disabilities. Right after 4th usually is lunch, I noticed that the classroom was full of students, and I asked the teacher why he had students in during lunch and he told me it was fith period.

I looked at the clock and I was two minutes late for class. I ran to my classroom, and as I entered I noticed all the students were on task doing the daily drill and the assignment for the day was written on the board. I didn't write it so I was a bit confused how it appeared and why the students were all on task (I teach at an alternative high school)

As it turned out one of my students went to my website read the daily assignment and the daily drill and wrote it on the board, and got the entire class to start the assignment. I was so amazed. This was the second time the student has done this--the first time was I had a substitute not show up for the class.

So I have learned that my students work well with patterns and repetition. It just really made my day to walk into class two minutes late and see everyone already working on the days assignment and on task.

Warm Fuzzies-- and competition

2006-03-08T19:28:00.000-08:00

Each week our staff gets together and we write postcards home to the parents of our students. We pick a few students to write about each week. This month we had a competition to see who could write the most home. First and Second place would receive a prize, I think it was a gift certificate somewhere. My coworker that shares my classroom was hand writing like crazy he was planning on doing one for every student.

I told him that there was an easier way, he could do it all on the computer in a fraction of the time. I decided to go head to head with him in the competition. I created a mail merge document and incorporated all of my students I wrote a "personalized" letter to every students parents based on their grade. Every A student received "<> is doing great..." B students received "<> is doing good but can bring the grade to an A..." C Students " <> is passing but with a little effort can raise..." F Students "<> is not currently passing, but can raise..." Each letter was filled with encouragement and motivation to help the students try harder to improve. I mailed out 78 in one day. My coworker hit 80.

Today I showed my coworker how to mail merge and he sent out another 40. Then another teacher asked me how to mail merge as the term is ending soon and she wants to send home a letter to parents about their student's academic progress. I've decided that I am going to use camtasia and create a simple how to and email it to all the staff so they can improve their communication (well make it easier anyway) with parents of students. My coworker that is trying to win the competition is out of town tomorrow so I think I will email all of the teachers explain how to mail merge and motivate them to send more post cards than my coworker.

After the first round of mass postcards one of my students asked me the strangest question, "Do you like steak?" "Yes" I replied, "How about a nice T-Bone" "of course", "well I owe you one then." I was confused by this and inquired as to why he owed me one, he said "My parents received the postcard you sent and they were so proud they took me out for steak, and my Dad told me I owe you a steak because you earned me mine." I helped him realize that he earned it himself for his hard work. Then everyone else piped in about the postcard they received. All but maybe two students were appreciative of the postcards. I thought this was a great. I was able to see the effects of the postcards that we send out.

I love being a teacher--Free Books

2006-02-24T20:37:00.000-08:00

I received in the mail two text books for free. That is so cool. I like being a teacher because it entitles me to free stuff. Free books that is way cool. It made my day to receive these. This is one of my favorite perks about being a teacher.

Love and Logic

2006-02-24T20:23:00.000-08:00

This week I went with a couple of other teachers from my school to a Love and Logic Training Meeting. It was a really good training opportunity. I thought the speaker was a little slow for my liking but the information was important. I have already begun implementing the techniques taught in my class. Today I was able to get a student to work on an assignment. He has 8 out of 220 points right now, but I gave him an assignment just for him and made it worth 30 points. He didn't work the entire period but I was elated to see him work part of the period. Hopefully I will be able to work him up to working the whole period. I realized it is important to go to conferences and trainings so that I will be a better teacher. Also at the training I saw a teacher friend of mine from another school. I thought that was great.

CTE Conference-Networking

2006-02-12T19:26:00.000-08:00

I went to the Utah CTE state conference. Wow I was expecting it to be unproductive and boring. This turned out to be a great resource for teaching. I saw many of my peers from college and was able to see what they were up to and get tips from their teaching experiences. I was also able to learn from seasoned teachers about resources available for me and my students. I thought this was a very worth while experience.

Camtasia

2006-02-12T19:19:00.000-08:00

Right after I started researching various screen capture programs I went to a state conference for CTE teachers. I went to a break out session where the topic was camtasia. The instructor demonstrated how he used Camtasia in the classroom. I really liked the demonstration. I went back and asked if we could buy that program. My department head approved the purchase. I have been using it for various activities. I found that camtasia should not replace the teacher(even when I am the voice in the video). Instead it needs to supplement the teacher. Many of my students told me that it was too slow, and it I talked boring. The great part is that the students that are slower really liked this as they didn't feel pressured by everyone else they could work at their own pace and not hold back the entire class. I really like this program. I will use it to enhance my teaching.

Individual Learning

2006-01-28T18:51:00.000-08:00

This Week I created a pretest to access students knowledge before I taught. I wanted to see what parts of the standards the students were already understanding. I created a 15 question sheet that had 15 tasks to be completed in word, The instructions were to perform the function to the sentence and if the students didn't know how to do the task they simple put I don't know how to do this. Some of the students knew how to do about half of the tasks but most were only able to accomplish 3 tasks. I was trying to figure out how to teach to the students that are VERY slow in my class and teach to the students that are fast in my class, as both complain that the rate I teach is not the right speed, and both get frustrated. Before school I was trying to think of how to teach the topics. I didn't have the class until 5th period so I had some time to think. While I was teaching first period the thought came to me, if everyone could go at their own rate they would learn better. I wanted to show the students individually. Before I forget another problem is that it is difficult for some of my students to see the projector. I wanted everyone to see the instructions on their own screen. I thought I could make PDF's of everything I did a step by step approach and I realized I don't have forever to dedicate to every lesson.

The idea came of screen capture, I thought I could plug in my video camera to my laptop and record my work, then I figured that online would have some great ways to capture the screen. Sure enough I found half a dozen screen capture programs, I opened a couple and was able to record 15 individual videos of the answers(me demonstrating on the computer) how to do the functions on the assignment. I went to work frantically, I used a demo version of the software and worked through lunch, and my prep period, I was able to have a link in Word to a video file for each question. It was linked to a swf on the class website. Well I almost finished in time for 5th period, I had it working just as the students finished the day's sponge. It worked well, I was so amazed at the program I used. I forget what it is called, something like demo-build or something like that. The program is great it even builds simple balloons that tell the user where to click.

Does anyone have any suggestions on great screen capture programs? That are under $300 for single user educational license? I am really excited about doing this for my classes.

Teachers Helping Teachers

2006-01-24T17:26:00.000-08:00

After my disheartening Review, I was talking with a coworker and I told him about my review. He is a first year teacher as well only he has worked 20 years in industry. He is really worried about impressing the principal. I told him everything that I was chastised for, I told him about the spinner, he asked what he could do to improve on that. I told him everything the principal told me I needed to improve. He noted everything, then he went to a preconference with the principal.

After his meeting with the principal he told me that he told her he was going to do everything that he and I talked about and it really impressed the principal, and she said, "I am excited to see how you randomly choose students, because I have seen 3 teachers doing it completely wrong." When he said that it actually helped me, instead of me getting chewed out for not doing a good job I was chewed out for not doing what the principals idea was, and I wasn't alone, three teachers that week received the same lecture. I figured that it wasn't my fault that I didn't implement her idea correctly, but that I and my coworkers weren't trained on the proper implementation of the spinner or randomizer. Proper meaning the way the principal wanted to see it.

I told my coworker I would help him, we have a projector with a smartboard. I found a number randomizer on www.flashkit.com and modified it to work for my coworker, and put his name on it and made it look like he made it. He projected it to the smartboard and used it for a number randomizer. This worked well! I'm going to start using this. I know figured out how to have a randomizer that is against the wall not on a cart.

After my coworker's post interview, he told me that the principal loved everything he did, that he did it right. He told me that he worked on everything that I did wrong, and except for one little thing he received a great review. He was very appreciative for my help.

This taught me a great lesson. Teachers need to help each other out. We need to work together to do better, we can't hoard our ideas, but we need to share them and help others do better.

Principal Review

2006-01-24T17:13:00.000-08:00

My principal is very concerned with how well teachers are teaching. She periodically comes in and reviews our teaching styles. I don't know why but I was really nervous when she came in for this review. We held a preconference the day before I taught, she gave me a list of things that she was looking for while she would be evaluating me. One of the things was to have some sort of spinner to choose who I called on randomly, I usually would call on students by picking a random number 1-20 and then calling on the student sitting at that computer. I wanted to impress my principal so I spent a lot of time creating a multi-colored spinner about 2.5 feet wide. I wanted it to be great. For class I prepared a review of our material. I found a couple of "who wants to be a millionaire" powerpoint templates online and plugged in the review questions. I called on the students randomly using the spinner. I thought the class went great. I had the spinner sitting on a cart at the front of the room. I thought the class went very well. It turned out to be my best class of the day.

Then our post conference came and I wow I felt as though I was raked across the coals. I used the spinner wrong, I was told it needed to be hanging from the wall, nothing was said about how colorful it was or how much effort was put into making it. Unfortunately I can't make a spinner that won't be affected by gravity, so I was frustrated all that work down the drain. I have ideas on how to make one but it would really be a lot of work. I left that day feeling that all my effort to do well was worthless. My best class of the day and I felt like it was all for nothing. I was pretty depressed.

One good thing atleast the principal was impressed with the game that I played with the students, and asked how I got it, I told her "I stole it from the internet" and that impressed her. The sites I found the templates on allowed the files to be changed so I don't feel like I stole it. My principal now wants me to teach other teachers how to acquire information from the internet.

Review for state exam went well

2006-01-11T15:57:00.000-08:00

While giving the state exam, I was given a great complement by one of the students, "This test is much easier than the reviews you gave us" I don't know if the student said that to suck up to me, but it sounded sincere, I thought that was a good complement it meant that I had prepared them sufficiently for the test. I hope they all do well on it.

"How do I look"

2006-01-09T22:40:00.000-08:00

When I returned from winter break I grew a goatee, the students were all commenting about it. Today I shaved it as part of my schools honor code is to be clean shaven. The students took a double take they told me I should have kept the goatee. In my first class a student asked if she could take a poll to see if people liked my goatee or not. I let her take the poll she wrote on the board three questions, they were if I looked better with or without a goatee, with or without hair gel(I ran out today so I didn't have any in) and with or without glasses. I left the questions on the board and asked every class, the results were the same for every class, I need to grow the goatee back, get a hair cut, use gel, ditch the glasses, and my last class of the day told me I needed to dress better or more stylish. So I guess If I do a total make over I will look better in their eyes. I got a hair cut tonight, I'm wearing contacts tomorrow, and will dress more trendy, and see how the students react. This may seem all silly, but I realized it is ok to have fun with the students this poll took about 2 minutes out of the class and they all seemed to enjoy this. I learned that I can have fun with students as long as I don't neglect teaching them, this made for a great sponge for the day, or at least a great break the rhythm of constant learning and I think they worked better in the classes afterward. Does anyone have fun stories they have had with their students?

Today was a fun yet great learning day.

2006-01-09T22:29:00.000-08:00

I had some classroom money that I could spend on improving the classroom. I like to show little video clips or do things that require music, so I bought some $75 speakers for my computer they are really nice for what I paid for them. Today we had a review for the state final exam. I wanted something that would hold the students attention, something fun, yet something that would help them prepare for the state exam. I found an awesome trivia game online http://www.almorale.com/. I used this for the review. I am not sure if I want to buy this yet or not so I used the demo mode I am also testing out a couple of similar products from other vendors. I set it up so there was competition, each class ran slightly different but the idea was everyone split up into teams, they would then hold up a # when they knew the answer the winning teams won. The software kept track of scores, and right or wrong answers, it is a nice program. My coworker that shares the classroom watched the "review" during his test period, he said even the kids that never do any work were excited to work on this. I had three teachers come in and tell me they could hear the music all the way across the school. I asked if they wanted me to turn it down, they said they can hear it in the hallways but not in their classrooms. My department head asked if I brought in my own speakers, He said he now wants to use department money to buy speakers for our classrooms. I told him I used my teacher money, I wish I would have gone through him I could still have more teacher money. I think the review went great, and only four students refused to participate the entire day and they were the students that will do the best on the test anyway, as they know the material the best. I thought it went very well. One thing could have gone better, my supervising professor from the university came to the school today to talk to my mentor teacher (in another classroom) This would have been an awesome day for him to poke his head in my classroom and see what I was doing. Unfortunately he didn't. I gave the winning teams candy, it really turned out to be a great way to review. It also allowed me to test out the speakers--which I think everyone in the school is going to be jealous of. What are other successful ways for doing reviews?

Teaching is tough

2006-01-05T08:17:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I wrote about how much I love teaching, and how excited I was to be back teaching. Well today was the exact opposite. It was a tough day for me. We are reviewing right now so as a class we went through some review material, and this didn't work very well. I followed the same format as yesterday, but things didn't work, The review ended early I tried to do more reviewing but I was too frustrated. Things really didn't work. I changed things up for my second class, instead me leading the class in the review, I had them work on it in small groups and at the end of class we corrected it together this worked much better. today really made me reconsider teaching though, it was a tough teaching day. The last class of the day helped bring me back to liking teaching, it was the funnest class. This is a "special" class I don't know the reason's why but these students aren't allowed to interact with other students at the school, but this is by far my funnest class. I was reading what the state standards are to the students so they would know exactly what they are being tested on, and while I was reading one student started reading along, and then another student and soon the entire class was voluntarily taking turns reading the standards, I had them on a projector and was highlighting the words as the students read them. Then we started to have fun, I would highlight the words faster or slower, and the students would read the standards accordingly, then I started repeating and the students would repeat what was highlighted, it was fun. With this class I let let the entire class work together on the review, they huddled around 2 computers and began to work, it was great watching them. After everyone had finished we corrected the reviews. This class really helped me like teaching again, my first couple classes were tough.

Suicide Prevention

2006-01-03T19:31:00.000-08:00

Today at school we had one of our most valuable(in my opinion) teacher training meetings. We learned about suicide and how to prevent it. I thought the presentation was very insightful and I learned a lot. We were trained in something called GPR. I can't find the website now, I left it at school. Basically it taught us we need to confront people that we think may be considering suicide and talk about it with them. We shouldn't ask questions that don't allow them to have an affirmative answer to wanting to commit suicide. For example: "You wouldn't commit suicide would you?" I thought the training was great. I recommend everyone to learn more about GPR. I can't find it on Google, I will try to add on a link later to this post.

I love Teaching!!!

2006-01-03T19:18:00.000-08:00

Today was my first day back from Winter break. I had an epiphany today, I am going into the right career, I love teaching. I didn't have to be at work until 10:00 AM today, I showed up before 8:00. I was excited I have extra time to work on lesson planning and preparation. I don't have any more university classes to worry about--I'm still taking classes but only for fun. My epiphany came when I was told for the third time that the break was too short. I think it was like 12 days. I was excited to come back to school today I was ready to teach.

This morning since I arrived so early I planned my lessons for the whole week, we are reviewing this week for a final next week. I plan on reteaching everything that we have covered this semester in the next 7 days. Today the computers were having trouble logging on so I switched to tomorrow's lesson which is reviewing proofreaders marks and proofing a business letter. The lesson went very well the students remembered a lot more than I was anticipating. The first class finished with about 7 minutes of time left. I gave them Free time--most slept as they are still tired from Christmas break. My other classes were told if they stayed on task they would also get the free time. Every class stayed on task. It was great. I was glad that I printed out the weeks lesson's so I was able to switch at a moments notice for a lesson that did not involve the computers.

I really enjoyed today, the students all listened and seemed to understand. My favorite was when Henry a student that can't seem to say much more than "I don't get it" shouted out an answer that no one else knew, that really made my day.

I really do enjoy teaching.

What is your Carrot? (Motivation)

2005-12-22T09:27:00.000-08:00

On Monday before Winter Break, (the last full day of classes) I learned something about motivation. Everyone came in to class asking if they could play that game (armegetron) again. Some students told me they would do anything if they could play that game again. So I switched up my lesson plan. I opened a keyboarding book with sample projects and turned to a Business Letter. We practiced Keyboarding for ten minutes then I told the students that if they wanted to play the game today they needed to key the business letter first. I have never had such a good response. Everyone worked hard. They Keyboarded the assignment quicker than they have done before, and with the exception of two people the letters were done correctly.(which is the highest return I've had yet.)I had one student that has refused to turn in or do any assignments for the entire semester keyboard and turn in the assignment. He came up to me very proudly and declared look I did the work, he was so happy that he did it. I was amazed this was a student that normally sits and stares at the computer until the bell rings, or tries to get kicked out every day. He was excited to Keyboard so he could get to the game. I have never seen the students so motivated, they were so excited everyone wanted to play. It was crazy. The teacher that shares my room was in during his prep period and he told me I may have discovered a secret to the students motivation. He told me if I could harness that desire and get them to work like that often it would be great. He told me of a production company he worked for that the employees wanted 3 days off for hunting, the company allowed only one. Then a foreman came up with a motivating idea. During that week when the workers hit the weekly goal they were finished for the week. My coworker informed me that they hit the goal on Tuesday every year during the hunting week. The products did not suffer, they were still made with quality but the workers had some extrinsic motivation that really made them work hard. This was the same with my class I was able to get them to keyboard more quickly and accurately for many of them because they were motivated. I am now trying to find external motivators that help me out so that I can work much harder. This Winter Break I am working on finding a lot of external motivators for the students. Does anyone know of non-violent free or cheap network games? Any other suggestions on how to motivate students? Please post comments on any ideas you may have to motivate students.

Fun Day

2005-12-22T09:15:00.000-08:00

I promised my students if everyone stayed on task they would receive a fun day. The fun day turned out to be better than I thought. I planned on having everyone play Armagetron an open-source simple non-violent racing game based on the 25 year old Disney Movie Tron. I didn't want to go through and and install it on every computer individually, so I loaded the exe on my website, and tried installing it from there, it worked great, and when the computer was restarted the software disappeared(as the computers are reimaged on restart). This worked out well. On my website in very small letters below the large font sizes linking to homework assignment was a simple link: game. Everyone clicked on this site and installed the game on their computers. I have seen this game played hundreds of times but have never actually played it, I played it when I tried installing it to see if it would work. I let the students figure things out, I hosted a game so that everyone would play against each other, they figured out how to change their player name and they figured out some tricks, it was really fun to watch them. With the exception of three people the entire day everyone absolutely loved this game, they loved playing on teams against each other. This "fun" day really was great, it really excited the students. I told everyone I would leave the link on my website until Christmas (as a present to them), and my website traffic has skyrocketed. Everyone that has a computer at home has downloaded it. I thought this fun day worked out well.

Difficulties of Final's week

2005-12-22T09:03:00.000-08:00

This past week has been tough. I am taking classes while I am teaching, and this was finals week. I was staying up late at nights and getting up early. This made it difficult for me to try to do both. I gave my students long assignments that don't require much thinking so they would keep busy, and not have a lot of questions. Everyone did the assignments and the assignments were related to the curriculum, but I felt bad for the students, on my last day of finals I gave the students a 3 page report to be typed, so they could gain more practice with writing reports. I was very tired this day and didn't have very much energy the week had worn on me. I told the class that if they all worked hard on this assignment I would give them a "fun" day the next day on Friday. They were all skeptical if my definition of "fun" matched their definition. I promised they would like it. Everyone worked hard and stayed on task. At the end of class I told everyone to save the assignment and not print it, I gave everyone that was in class that day full credit for the assignment no matter how far they were because they all stayed on task and worked the entire period. (This went for all of my classes)I was amazed at how motivated the students were even when they didn't know what the "fun" was going to be. This was a tough week for me but my students were kind and stayed on task.

A Christmas Eye Opener

2005-12-21T13:58:00.000-08:00

Today was the last day of classes before Christmas/winter break. We had a fun day for the students. The first hour of the day the students wrote letters to alumni that are service men/women. We planned a lot of fun for the students, we had a dance, and carnival games for the students. We went to local donors and collected presents for each student. We had sweatshirts, candy, toiletries, and small games. I was in a class that belongs to a group home, which means they really don't get a Christmas, I watched them open their bags of gifts and it was sad to see how excited they got over receiving soap, shampoo, socks, and things that I don't think about. One girl asked another "What are we going to do with the bubble bath?" The reponse was "Well if you ever get an away visit you can take it with you," the reply, "oh I don't think I'll get one of those. I was really saddened by that." It really felt like Christmas Morning seeing these girls open their presents, it made me wish that I had donated more to the cause, I did donate time and a little money but seeing their reaction I wished that I had donated more. The students from group homes were not allowed to stay for the festivities. That was sad too, but understandable as there are problems when they interact with the other students. With the main body of the students, we had a dance and games, it was fun, the dance started out mostly just the faculty dancing in the center of the room, we kept trying to pull others out onto the floor, we have a professional caller as one of the teachers he did a line dance that was amazing, it really brought everyone off the walls and they danced. We also taught latin dancing, I later played a fun pick up Basketball game with some students and it was a blast. I was wearing a new white button up shirt that all the staff were given and during the game the pocket was ripped off, it was really a fun day, I really enjoy interacting with HS students. I was saddened by seeing that this was probably the only Christmas some of the students would recieve, but was glad to see that they were having so much fun. I had a blast and realized that as a teacher I do more than teach people about computers. I help them live better lives.

When students hide things

2005-12-07T07:27:00.000-08:00

After the power outage day was over, I hurriedly left school because the power failure made the day a long and stressful one, and because I am still finishing up classes at the university and had a final on the next day to prepare for. I went into my class and realized that I did not have my flash drive with me. I figured I had just left the drive at school. Then I thought about it and realized that I didn't "leave" it at school, but it was taken by one of the students, and I knew exactly which one had done it as well. It was taken during the power outage during the chaos when the announcement came that students would be leaving school early. I had some information on my drive about for a group project I was working on that was due the next day. I had to cancel the meeting with my group for that night and we rescheduled it for early in the morning the next day before I went to teach. I didn't explain to my group why, I just asked if we could change our time. They agreed, so I worked that night on redoing my portion of the project. When I arrived at the meeting I had my information ready, we finished our report and things went well. Our report was right after school which I was late for because I had to stay for a meeting after school, but I got to the final presentation in time for my group so I was ok.

Now about recovering my flash drive I knew that I couldn't point fingers at the student that had taken it because I would never get it back. I have other finals on the drive as well and needed it. Half way through the class I nonchalantly asked the class if anyone had seen it(it is attached to a huge laniard with my name on it)everyone denied seeing it or even knowing what it was.

So I asked the student specifically if he knew where it might be, he responded "I don't think it left the classroom, I'm pretty sure it is somewhere in class" I did not want to go on a wild goose chase for it. He told me that he would "help" me find it if I would allow him to listen to music for the rest of the class period(10 minutes) a privilege that is reserved for when students are finished with their work--which he wasn't. I agreed and amazingly he found the flash drive in about 30 seconds. I feel bad because I rewarded his mis-behavior, but I needed the flash drive. I was in a tough situation, I could not punish him because there was no concrete evidence that he took the drive, but I knew without a doubt it was him. This made for a tough situation.

Power Outages

2005-12-07T07:00:00.000-08:00

There is construction on the road that leads to our school. I was having the students finish up a report that they have been working on for about a week. Ten minutes before class finished the power went out. All the computers shut off, I could hear screaming coming from the hallways. I stood up closed the door. Then calmly told everyone to sit in there seats, this took about 3 minutes for them to actually listen. It was like a crazy mad house, the power went out and all of the students wanted to run through the halls wildly. (Most did but I was able to contain my class) The backup generator never came on. We have windows in our classroom so we could see just fine. When I had everyone stopped yelling, I told everyone we were going to play hangman for extra credit. If they got the answer correct they would get extra credit. This went well for a few rounds--I used words from the course. I grew tired of playing hangman, so we turned the class into a trivia class, I would ask random trivia, like what is the largest river in the US? If they knew the answer they received extra credit. This seemed to work out well. I ran out of trivia so I decided to play some thinking games that we played during the summer at computer camp. I had everyone line up in a line (I had two lines) the task was to line up in order of birthday with out talking. I had everything under control and we were about to start the students were obey instructions which was great. Then another teacher came in and announced that busses had been called and the students were to stay in my class until the buses arrived. It turned into total chaos. Everyone began running around yelling and screaming. I could not regain control of the class. Two minutes later the lights came back on and the announcement came that everyone was to go on to their 8th period class. I had to take attendance to make sure everyone was there. (I didn't let anyone leave so they were all accounted for). This power outage taught me a few lessons, first, when there is a "emergency" the person in charge needs to remain calm and needs to remain in control. Second I learned that I need to have a stack of papers ready for such an "emergency". I've decided things would have gone a great deal better than hangman if I had an activity everyone could have done that was enjoyable. I think I will create a crossword puzzle with class terms and when the power goes out or if the computers all crash, I will simply pass out that assignment and keep the students busy so they have something to focus on. While writing this blog I had an epiphany. I am going to make today's assignment to create a crossword puzzle using tab stops(I teach word processing) the words that need to be used will come from our vocabulary. Overall I felt that the power outage was a good learning experience, I held the control of the students--for the most part, and I learned that I need to have something more productive for them to do.

Parent Teacher Conference

2005-12-07T06:51:00.000-08:00

We had parent teacher conference this week. I had 8 parents show up. I stayed after school for 4 hours and 8 parents showed up. I was very appreciative for the parents that did show up. It showed me that the students have someone that cares for them. I offered extra credit for anyone that brought a parent or guardian. Half the students that came already had a 100% in the class so they now have over a 100% the other half of the students desperately needed the extra credit. It is difficult to talk to parents of students that have huge behavioral problems. One student came in that is VERY disruptive in class, and VERY vulgar, I tried to explain that to his mother and ask her for some help or suggestions on controlling her son. The whole time I was talking to her, her son was interrupting and saying how I was a liar and dumb, and many other names. The mother said her son was not like what I was describing, even though he was doing it while I was talking to her. I felt sorry for the mother, it seemed this student had more control than his mother. It was a tough conversation but it needed to be done. I had a couple conversations like that. They were difficult. I share my classroom with another teacher, and after I finished the toughest conversation with a parent, he told me that I handled the conversation very well and was able to maintain a polite professional atmosphere. That made me feel a little better. Anyway that was a fun experience.

Thinking on my feet

2005-11-30T17:53:00.000-08:00

This week my class is learing about how to write reports and how to site sources. I like to always have an example for my students to see what I am expecting of them. Since this is my first year everything I create is new. Today I wrote a report on the Wright Brothers(my favorite inventors) and posted my report on our class website so everyone could see an example of a finished report. Well I wrote the report quickly today and didn't have time to double check the spelling before I posted it. As I read the report to my first class I realized that the spelling and grammar was horrendous there was about 7 errors in 2 page report. Luckily this class didn't catch the errors. My next classes I changed the way I taught a little bit. I showed the document and asked if they saw any red or green squiggly lines (the spelling and grammar error marks) they said no. Then I told them there were 7 errors in the document and if they found a spelling or grammar error while I was reading they were to stop me and they would receive 2 extra credit points. Everyone paid close attention, it was great, they followed along and read the document closely. Each class only found about 3 errors. I was amazed though at how a simple thing of offering extra credit for finding errors in the document would attract there attention. I'm going to try this more often. At first I felt horrible that I let errors slip, then I learned how the errors helped the later classes pay more attention. Has anyone had a similar experience of having to think on their feet? Please leave a post about it I would like to hear about it.

Using Moodle

2005-11-30T17:50:00.000-08:00

I recently discovered a great online community for educators. I am still trying to figure it out. It is called moodle. It is used for creating content. I am trying to figure out how to use moodle and create add my blog on moodle so that I can have a larger audience to answer my questions about my experience as a first year teacher. Does anyone know how to add a blog to moodle?

Online content management???

2005-11-25T10:21:00.000-08:00

I am trying to put all of my assignments online. I would like to reduce the amount of paper that my classroom uses and I would like to make it easier for students to find out what assignments they missed when they missed school. I currently have a very simple calendar on my website that each day links to that day's assignments. It is very simple and I need to hand code changes every day. This gets a little burdensome and I would like to improve on what I use. I have heard about some content management programs, like moodle that allows easy online organization of content. I am finding moodle and the others not quite what I want. I am looking for a simple interface that allows me to post information by date and it will allow my students to download the files. Does anyone have any suggestions on a good opensource or free content management program that will works well for teachers?

Changing Seats

2005-11-21T08:25:00.000-08:00

After talking with the principal about classroom management, I began to try some of the techniques that she suggested. I separated various students through out the day to see if that would improve the students behavior. This seemed to work. I also tried something different. In one of my classes I have two students that don't do their work at all. They are good friends and try to get kicked out of class every day they both want to get kicked out so they can go join each other in in-school-suspension. I changed their seats to let them sit next to each other. I wanted to see if maybe that would help them work. It actually worked, they both sat down and started their work. It only lasted about 15 minutes but I was amazed that they stayed on task for that amount of time. I found it amazing how just changing seats could help students do better on their assignments.

Principal's Observation

2005-11-15T21:25:00.000-08:00

Today I had a stressful day. I had to people coming in during different periods to observe. One was our principal--which she is nice and a great lady, but I was still nervous that she was coming. I told the students I was being reviewed that day and asked if they could try to stay on task. I think it worked. Everyone but 2 in the class stayed on task. Everyone was working on their assignments.

I taught headers and footers in word. I had a great attention getter. I offered 5 points extra credit to anyone that would go to the front of the room and sing the song "Head Shoulders Knees and Toes" Half the class did this. I then explained how our heads are at the top and our toes or feet are at the bottom. Then I asked where the header and footer should be on a word document. I think this went over well.

My principal was impressed by having the students sing Head Shoulders... I almost didn't do it because it didn't go over to well with my first class. I was relieved the principal liked it. I also was relieved to see the students wanted to participate.

Our post conference was great, the principal gave me a list of things to improve upon, but also said I was one of the top first year teachers she has hired. She looked at me and said you have experience teaching before don't you. (which I do at computer summer camps)Then she told me she would like to have me stay for next year as well. I don't know what my plans will be but I thought that was a good vote of confidence.

The second observation went well also. It was right after the principal's observation-this time it was done by a peer coach (another teacher with more experience) I implented the suggestions the principal gave me (we had lunch between the two classes so we had a post conference) and the suggestions really helped. I'm excited to implement all of the suggestions my principal gave me.

Is Money a Motivator?

2005-11-15T18:29:00.000-08:00

I tried to inspire the students with money not grades. I didn't bribe the students instead I researched how much money a word processor, typist, Administrative Assistant and other keyboarding jobs could make. I found many local companies willing to pay $10-12 an hour for someone who only graduated high school. We analyzed how much someone makes working at a fast food restaurant and compared to word processing jobs. We also talked about working environments. The students agreed that an office environment was better than a Fast Food restaurant. I posed the question which job would they like, making $5.15 an hour at fast food or $10.30 an hour keyboarding. To my surprise the majority of the students would rather work fast food. When asked why they responded, "If we make less money we pay fewer taxes" The students I teach are mostly from lower income households with many only having one parent. (I teach at an alternative high school) This was difficult for me to see how the students would rather make less money just so they could pay fewer taxes. So I found out that money is not a motivator for the students to do well in my class.

Any ideas on how to inspire intrinsic motivation for students to learn word processing?

When grades don't motivate.

2005-11-14T22:18:00.000-08:00

I work at an alternative High School. We are the last resort for many of the students our school teaches. Today I had a difficult time with the students. They lack motivation I was teaching widows and orphans inside of word, and it was difficult to excite the students. I started by showing parts of Oliver Twist and talking about how he was an orphan that was separated from his parents and that in the end of the movie he was united with his parents. I tried comparing this idea to orphans being the text separated from the paragraph by a page break and we were going to reunite it. Some of the kids understood but most didn't care. Today many students just sat there, they would not do anything. They don't care if they fail. They don't care if they learn.

What do you do when grades don't motivate? Any Suggestions?

Reviews

2005-11-10T19:54:00.000-08:00

Today I had a great experience, At the begining of each class I asked "what did we learn yesterday?" To my suprise every class was able to answer all of my questions about yesterdays assignment--which was on indent markers. Then we reviewed the steps to changing the tab markers in word. I had very minimal questions about the assignment, everyone seemed to understand it. I wonder if I taught it differently, if it just made more sense to everyone, or if it was a fluke, but I was amazed at how well everyone learned. It made it a great day.

Students listening to Music

2005-11-07T16:45:00.000-08:00

I teach basic word processing and as a part of the class I need to have the students improve their keyboarding. Every day the students practice keyboarding for ten minutes. A few weeks ago a few students came to me and asked if they could listen to music while they were keyboarding. I feel that is fine because I listen to music while I keyboard and feel that it helps me do much better. The students are also allowed to listen to music when they are working on their assignments. I have seen half the students improve their keyboarding and half slack off in their keyboarding.

Today the other teacher in the room and I decided that we are taking the right to listen to music away from everyone, then we will allow those that are caught up with their work to listen to music, and those that are not caught up not to use music. Our hopes are that the students will be motivated to stay caught up with their work so they will be able to listen to music.

Any advice about how to maintain music would be greatly appreciated.

Does anyone have a good music policy?

Student Vs. Teacher Basketball

2005-11-01T20:05:00.000-08:00

Well, I never thought I would say this, but now I officially feel old. Our term ended and we had a celebration(don't do drugs) week. To culminate the week we finished with a student vs. staff basketball game. This lasted about an hour and ten minutes straight through, luckily I didn't have to play the whole time, but the time I was playing which was definitely over half of the time, I could feel that I was out of shape and old. I was so tired and so out of breath it was amazing. I don't ever recall feeling that way. I guess it is time to start recreational running now. The game was a lot of fun and I really enjoyed playing against the students I teach. Some of them are really good, I was guarding one player and he drove he went up for the lay up and I swatted, but got all air, instead of going for a lay up he passed the ball to a student following close behind and he hit the lay up. It was like an ali-upe(sorry about the spelling)only with out the dunk. Well it was enjoyable.

Vacation

2005-10-26T21:46:00.000-07:00

It is amazing, how a vacation can really change the students. We had a Utah Education Association break today this past weekend. It is absolutely amazing how the students can change so drastically. We had Thursday and Friday off. On Wednesday all of the students were asking to do nothing because they had the next two days off--I tried explaining to them it was all the more reason to do more work.

I noticed that on the day before their vacation they were all wound up and hard to keep under control, and when they returned on Monday the samething, they were still wound up from their vacation. Then I noticed that on the Tuesday and Wednesday after the vacation, they were all well behaved and stayed on task. I thought it was absolutely amazing. The break brought stressful days and also brought great relaxing days.

Its a small world after all

2005-10-19T21:32:00.000-07:00

I feel that the more we are connected in communities the more we realize how interconnected we are with every one we know. Let me explain this a little clearer. I have been working for about 6 weeks now as a teacher. I share a classroom with another first year teacher--only he has been working in industry for 20+ years and I am still in college finishing up some classes. So this community of "teachers" that I now belong to has multiple ties. After school today I was cleaning up the classroom and a friend from my major walked in the classroom. (he had graduated two years previously) I knew that used to work in the position that I had taken over. I thought maybe he was coming to grab some curriculum he left, but it turned out he was coming in to talk to his Father. The teacher that I share a room with is the Father of one of my friends in my major. I thought that was ironic. It truly is a small world.

The Chronicles of Dr. Crazy: Teaching as Performing

2005-10-15T10:32:00.000-07:00

I just read a great blog.
The Chronicles of Dr. Crazy: Teaching as Performing I completely agreed with the thought that we are performers as teachers. Our audience cannot just get up and leave, they are stuck, we might as well make it more enjoyable for them. I tried this out this week, if you see my earlier blog about Peanut Butter and Jelly, you will see my attempt at entertaining. What I remember most is that all of my students were interested in what I was doing, everyone wanted to give their input, It was great. I feel that this form of entertaining truly woke up the passive audience and got the students excited. Now my lesson was not just that of entertaining but teaching, and this is my favorite part, after the "fun" part of the lesson the students focused on their work, and accomplished a lot more. While I was making a PB&J in front of the class I was thinking about how I could have really hammed it up, I could have dressed up like a chef, or I could have been more dramatic. The audience enjoyed it, but I wonder how could it have been better.

Intrinsic motivation

2005-10-14T18:19:00.000-07:00

I wrote on the board today that after the assignment was complete students could check their grades to make sure they had all of their work complete. Then they were allowed to have free time. I have never had a day where every class worked so well. Everyone worked hard on the assignment because they read on the board that they would receive free time when they completed the assignment. Only a handful of students completed the assignment. I gave everyone five minutes of free time at the end of class because of how well they worked and stayed on task. I was amazed at how on task everyone stayed.

I also learned today that I have to watch what I say. In one of my classes when I said, it was free time, I said, "Everyone you are free to do what you want for the next five minutes." As soon as I had said this a paper wad was thrown across the room and hit another student I had to retract my statement and refrase it. I thought it was rather funny.

Peanut Butter and Jelly

2005-10-13T20:36:00.000-07:00

Today was a great class. I have been planning on using an object lesson to help the students understand the importance of clear instructions. I had them write out how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich to someone from another planet. (some of them have seen this done before) After everyone had written out the instructions they had to read me their instructions as I stood in the front of the room, they found it easier to explain what to do than to read what they had written for a description. I would over react to each comment they said. When I was told to open the bread I didn't open it the correct way I just ripped the bag open. I had the best class participation yet. Everyone was excited they wanted to put in their comments and tell me how to make the sandwich. This was a great transition into a review lesson.

I gave the students a list of 20 actions that we have covered so far in word processing and they had to write out written instructions for "My Grandmother" who has never used a computer to understand. I used my Grandmother because I knew if I said their Grandmother someone would tell me their Grandmother was computer savvy. My Grandmother died before computers became a home luxury. (I didn't tell them that). On the worksheet I had a clipart image of a Grandmother, I was creating the document and realized that it needed pictures it was to "texty" and needed more pictures. The picture made it much better. It was great seeing how excited everyone was about the PB&J some of the smarter students began giving directions like "now smear peanut butter all over your face" I pretended to but wasn't going to go that far. It made for a fun class.

Rewards and Discipline

2005-10-11T20:17:00.000-07:00

Last week I attended a teacher training where one of the presenters talked about rewarding and disciplining behavior.

The instructor asked how we feel when we put money into a vending machine and nothing comes out. He asked how likely we would be to use that vending machine again, and if it did it to us a second time how likely we would be to repeat putting money into the machine. The group of teachers were unanimous in saying we wouldn't put money in the machine again.

Then the instructor dropped a toy slot machine onto the table and asked how many people would continue to put money into this machine with out receiving anything from it? After many people laughed the instructor pointed out, that the thrill the idea of surprise would keep a person engaged in inserting money into the machine. This example was a metaphor of discipline and rewarding students.

We need to discipline like the pop machine, or every time the students misbehave they need to be disciplined. They will learn to "stop putting their money into the machine” or stop misbehaving as they will associate their misbehavior with the discipline and not desire the discipline. On the other hand we need to reward students like a slot machine. We can't reward them every time they do well because they would come to expect a reward and would not perform well unless they receive a reward.

Today I applied the "slot machine" reward system. My fourth period class stayed on task, and every student was doing their work. I was so amazed at how well the students all worked, I wanted to reward them. I gave out candy to everyone and told them that they all did well today. The reward was given and the students were told not to expect it regularly, that the reward would come again but they would not know when.

I felt that this method worked well and is a great way to reward and discipline students.

Substitue Teaching

2005-10-03T20:08:00.000-07:00

Growing up I always thought that teachers recieved a break when they had substitutes. Now that I have had my first opportunity to use a substitute I realize how much work goes into having a substitute teacher.

I had to miss class for one day and spent two days preparing for the substitute and one day recovering from the substitute. Substitutes need a lot to work from. I had to print out class seating charts for the substitute, in one of my class I have more students than computers so there is one student that roams between the empty seats. I needed to write that information on the seating chart so the substitute would not mark that student absent.

Preparing a lesson for while I was gone was difficult as well, as the lesson had to be simple enough that the students could complete it with out too much difficulty.

I prepared my students for the substitute and warned they would loose points if the substitute gave their name for misbehaving.

Overall it was a good experience to have a substitute so I could learn the process and think twice about missing school.

Students are awesome!

2005-09-14T16:53:00.000-07:00

I am really begining to enjoy teaching. I enjoy working with students. I have been trying various teaching techniques to get through to the students and help them understand the importance of learning word processesing and how to keyboard quicker.

Lack of Communication

2005-09-08T16:35:00.000-07:00

I only teach half day--Afternoons. Every Tuesday the school has an early dismissal so I start teaching earlier than normal. Thursday I was preparing to show up for work, when I recieved a phone call informing me that I had already missed 2 periods. My third day of teaching and I wasn't made aware that there was an early dismisal that day. I learned today that I have to be proactive on all communication. I can not wait for others to inform me of events going on I need to always be on the ball. I learned to make sure that I am asking others what's going on, so that I won't miss out on important information.

Running a marathon with my shoes tied.

2005-09-06T19:28:00.000-07:00

I have just begun my first year as a teacher. I teach 1/2 day at an alternative High School. I applied for the job a week after school was had started. I was hired but it took a week for me to actually start working. I had to run around and accquire mulitple signatures and permissions to teach; as I have not yet graduated. I lack a few classes and some student teaching. I have taught the material that I was hired to teach to adults before and thus have enough experience to get a 1 year temporary lisence. The week of the process of getting hired was extremely draining. I had to run all over town between the high school, my university, and the school district to recieve all the approval necessary. I litterally felt like I was running a marathon with my shoes tied, no matter how hard I tried I was restricted by too much red tape.

I have started teaching now and I thought life would get easier. Boy was I wrong. This blog is to express my feelings about the rollercoaster of first year teaching.