Close Community

I am now amazed at the fact how all sorts of people can connect with one another. Yes, this is a realization that I think I’ve made a while ago but this recent incident made this concrete.

An educator blogger named Shane from New York mentioned me in a post and linked my “About” page to it. See the article here. He talked about me and what I taught in my internship and mentioned my interest in technology in the classroom. It’s so neat to have my blog mentioned in another person’s — and for an amazing reason! Reading his post made me realize that through technology and blogging, we are closer than we think to others around the world. We can share ideas and thoughts.

I thought it would be nice to mention him in a post, too. And he expanded my professional community by mentioning two other unique edubloggers in his post! Thanks, Shane!

This has been another thought process from Helyn.

Blogging in the Classroom

In my Education English class today one teacher-to-be brought up the discussion of using blogs in a high school classroom. She was talking about how we need to teach students what to post on the internet. This would be a step to teach students that they need to be aware of what they are posting on the internet. And that whatever they choose to post could affect them if future employees are looking for them. They need to be aware of what they are posting on the internet — especially on social media sites like Facebook and Twitter.

Blogging is a great way to incorporate internet and get students thinking about their image in the online world. Instead of writing in a journal, they could blog.

One disadvantage to having students blog would be for some homes that don’t have the money for internet or computers/laptops. In my internship, I had a student in grade 10 who had a phone but it didn’t have data on it so he could only connect to WIFI. I’m not sure if he had internet at home but if I would have incorporated daily blogging into the class, he would have fallen behind if I didn’t give him class time.

However, I think if it’s possible, blogging should be incorporated into a high school classroom — especially English. I think it would be a great tool to utilize if you are able to as a teacher. You could give students topics to write about just like we’ve had in my ECMP 355 class this semester.

Googled Myself

So I Googled myself and was pleased at the first few results that came up.

The first three links that came up are definitely me but then the next two after that…not so much.

The first post that comes up is my Pinterest page which is fine and I have no problem in showing to people. It basically consists of ideas for my future wedding and teaching ideas.

The next one features a poem that I wrote for the University Poetry Slam last year and I like the poem so I’m fine with people being able to see that.

The third one is of another one of my Google+ profiles — one that I don’t really use. I might try and figure out a way to remove it.

Further down the page features a scholarship I won from grade 12. Overall, I’m pleased and content with what I found when I “Googled” myself.

My Always-Changing Teaching Philosophy

I did not really know my teaching philosophy before I went into the three-week block. However, when I was asked to bring my teaching philosophy I brought a copy of my entry essay into the Education program. When I read through it, I managed to find pieces that did reflect my teaching philosophy.

In the essay, I talked about two teachers that reaffirmed my decision to become a teacher. A line that I had written was, “As a teacher, I want to bring this excitement and appreciation for learning into the classroom.” I believe that this hasn’t changed for me because I do want to bring my excitement about English into the classroom. However, I realized that it is a challenge to be excited about something when the students look back at you with blank faces as you ramble on about Grimm’s fairy tales. This event that happened was when I was team teaching an English A10 class and we were talking about foundational stories. We had the students split up so that each group would take the Disney version, the Grimm’s version, and the kids’ version of the Grimm’s. We did this for three different stories for three days in a row and I became excited because I love Disney movies and I love to compare them to the actual Grimm’s version. I would try and let the students talk and tell me about the differences between each of the three. It was challenging because not every student will love English the way I do.

Another part in my essay was about a teacher who “assisted and inspired me to become a dedicated, organized and passionate student” and that I will “bring those great skills into my future classroom. This statement is very true because I am dedicated and passionate about English and I found that I did bring those skills into the classroom. Organization, though, I found was a bit difficult. I had one binder that I kept everything in and I found it hard to keep track of everything. I need to become more organized when I do my internship placement.

The final sentence that I wrote in my essay was “I look forward to being a part of my students’ lives and being a part in the classroom.” This was very true for my three-week block because I did get to know the students I was with. I had fun speaking with some of the boys in my A10 class about trucks and how Ford is better than Dodge. I do want to be a part of my students’ lives and show them that I do care about their education.

Finally, I had the eye-opening experience that not every student attends class and hands in every assignment. I come from a small Kindergarten to Grade twelve school where everyone attended every day and if they didn’t somebody knew why they weren’t at the school and everyone handed in assignments. So because of this experience, I expected to have students in full attendance and hand in every assignment. When I went out to my school for the three-week block, I was shocked to have only half of the students hand something in to me. Also, I found that I didn’t even get to meet some of the students because they didn’t even show up in the three-weeks that I was teaching at. On that note, I am glad that my school doesn’t give late marks because I feel a lot of students would not pass their classes.

Overall, I believe that my teaching philosophy is developing slowly. I believe that students should be given a choice in almost everything they do and that teachers are just there to guide them. Even something as simple as “Can I go to the bathroom?” could be answered with “My concern is that you are going to miss an important part of my lesson. You choose.” Giving students authority over their own decisions gives them full responsibility on everything they do whether it’s on assignments or simple requests.

Final Thoughts

I wanted to write another post to finish up anything major that happened during my last week of pre-internship. 

On Thursday, I had one lady who thought I was a student. I was with the drama 10 class and they had to  go to the computer and do a survey on technology. The lady who was running the survey online looked at me and asked, “So are you not doing this? Do you need a computer?” I was a little bit shocked because I was wearing a high-waisted skirt and heels and I thought I looked fairly professional. I did find it a bit funny, though, because I guess it means I still I look young!

On the same day, I gave students a choice in period four! They were finishing up an assignment and by the end I went around to a couple of students who I knew were not finished the assignment and said, “You can either hand something in now, not hand anything in, or email your main teacher by tonight with the assignment and then she can pass it on to me.” Some of the students knew what they were going to do right away and so most of them handed in what they had finished. 

In that same English A10 class, this one student kept getting distracted by his two friends. This final class, I went up to him and said that maybe he should think about moving to a different location to work alone — like the front of the room. He agreed. When I spoke to my co-op about this, she said that he knows that he needs to work by himself and sometimes he will take initiative and move himself. I said that we should have moved him from the beginning but she said that we shouldn’t always baby them because they need to learn themselves. I did agree with her. 

Overall, a great experience! I really enjoyed it and my co-op was fantastic. My adviser was also fabulous!! I really enjoyed the school and getting to know my students. They were a lot of fun and I would definitely go back to that school. 

 

Almost Finished!

I cannot believe how time has flown! Here is an event that happened in today’s class. 

Last Friday, my co-op told me that I needed to work on being stern. So today I had to bring out the stern.

In period four, I was the only one teaching because my partner had to teach Art. My co-op was in the room but I basically took over and ran the show. It was a work period for the A10s and most of them were actually being productive. I allowed three boys to go and use two computers since they were doing the same Disney show, Hercules. I asked two of the boys who were sharing the same computer again and again to focus on Hercules but they kept going onto YouTube and Facebook. Finally, I asked a third time and they ignored me so I leaned over and said, “Alright, if you aren’t going to focus on Hercules then you don’t need to be on the computer,” and I shut it off on them.

            After they sat there in stunned silence for a moment, they began to talk about Hercules. The third boy who had a computer to himself closed all his YouTube tabs and began researching Hercules.

            I believe I needed to give them that extra firmness because I was being too soft with them in the previous lessons. They wanted to see how far they could push and they finally reached my limit.

            I talked to my co-op teacher afterwards and she agreed that I did the right thing with them. Then she showed me a book that talked about giving students choice and motivating the unmotivated students. I agree that giving students choice is a good idea to do especially when it comes to assignments. This book, however, talked about giving students choice in what you ask them to do. It could be simple things like: “Can I sharpen my pencil?” “If you can do so without disturbing the class. It’s your choice.” By saying something like that it allows them to have more freedom and to actually think about what they are asking. It gives the students more responsibility in their actions. For my situation, I could have told the students who were being disruptive and on YouTube, “You have two choices: You can either close YouTube or focus on your work or you can leave the computer. Your choice.” By saying this, they might have done the right move or it would have resulted in the action that I ended up taking.   

Pre-Internship Week 2

Wow! Two weeks done. I cannot believe how fast the time has gone. 

Monday: I had trouble starting a class discussion with the students. It was very weird. I had to really push and get them to finally start speaking somewhat. I taught my first drama lesson this day and I found it difficult because I have never taken a drama class nor have I learned much on how to teach Drama. Luckily for me, the Drama teacher at my school also teaches English so it’s nice having that connection between the two. Today my partner and I co-taught an English A10 class! I enjoyed it a lot and since it was a rowdier class, it was nice to have someone to help out. All this week we will be teaching together. 

Tuesday: This day was three-way conferences at the school. I was able to sit and listen to a few of them which was nice and interesting to hear. The conferences were more so teacher-led than student-led. 

Wednesday: My adviser was here today and I enjoyed speaking with him. He told me that when I have my own three-way conferences, I should have the parents sitting beside me instead of across the table. It’s nice to not have a barrier in the way of the conferences. When I taught today, I had students write down answers for some questions before we had a class discussion and that went a lot better. I was pleased because more students had something to say! 

Thursday: Thanks to my co-op teacher’s notes, I remembered to tell them what they should be finished by the end of the class and when the project is due. I continued my drama lesson and my English lesson. I also managed to snag some resources from my co-op! I went nuts with the photocopier. 

Friday: This day was interesting. I co-taught again with my partner and I found it somewhat difficult. We were handing out the assignment and I got the class to listen to her explain it. When she got to a certain point in it, I found the need to interrupt for a second to add in the examples that I had typed in. However, I should have waited until she was finished before adding in what I wanted to say. I suppose that I just became so comfortable with the students that I wanted to run everything, which isn’t what happens in co-teaching. It was my first week to teach together with someone so it was quite the experience. 

Overall, great second week! I’m learning more and more each day and my co-op’s notes are awesome because they help me improve. Onto week three for more learning opportunities! 

Pre-Internship Week 1

Wow! What a week! I had so much fun my first week of pre-internship. When I first when to my school for the first two days, I was so nervous and shy. It was so bizarre. I felt very timid in the school but I think that’s because it was my first time back in a high school as a teacher and not a student. My co-op teacher is great and I’m enjoying working with her so far. 

For the first week, however, I fell into the teacher role once I began teaching. On Monday, there was a staff meeting so that was really neat to sit through and then I taught my first English lesson to a grade 10 class. I had a lot of fun doing an introductory game with them and soon we jumped into the lesson. 

The next day I continued my lesson and then I was able to go sit in on a Drama lesson. I also sat in on an Art class with grade 9s and that was quite the experience. One student in this class was being disruptive and ended up leaving the classroom. My partner and I sat in shock because we had never seen that happen before. The teacher handled it well, however, as he followed the student out of the classroom to talk to him privately. 

On Wednesday, I met with my adviser and I had so much bouncing teaching ideas off him and getting feedback from him. I will really enjoy working with him. My co-op teacher was not in class this day so we had a substitute. The students were really great with him, though, and they were great for both my partner and I. One problem that happened this day was that I was walking down the hallway with my partner and the substitute teacher and a student passed us and said “Hey girls!” and I responded with a “Hey!”. I know I shouldn’t have said that but I’m normally a polite person and I will say “Hi” back to people. It was an event to learn from, though. 

Overall, I am enjoying my time at my school and I am getting into the position of being called a teacher and acting as such. So far, I am having a great experience! 

 

Process on Creating a Treaty Lesson Plan

Freya and I worked together in our major subject area, English, and as soon as we got our folder, we read through each of the different students that we had to teach this lesson to. From there, we looked at the Treaty Essential Learnings and picked out number 3 and 4 to do. Then we had to think of a fun activity to do with our students that would meet some of their needs. 

I liked the idea of having Drama in an English lesson and I’m always itching to bring it in. We settled on choosing an interview process where the students may choose a historical character that would have been there at the signing of Treaty Four. We would give them a checklist and graphic organizers to keep those students on task. I also created a choice board where they could choose any one of the five items to do their interview. Those options included a radio interview, script for a play, dance routine, graphic novel, and a video interview. I like the idea of giving students choice instead of just telling them that they have to do an essay or a play. Each student is interested in something different. 

When we met with other teachers in class to discuss our treaty lessons, the two groups that we talked to both liked our topic. One person said that our video for the set would bring out mixed feelings among the students — which would be good. The people we talked with also liked the checklist and the idea of having graphic organizers. However, since this students in this lesson would not present their finished work until the next day or the day after that, we did not have a rubric made up. However, we say in our lesson plan that the projects would be a form of summative assessment and the exit slip at the end would be a formative assessment to see whether or not the students had any issues arise. Based on the feedback received, I might try using checklists more often in my lesson plans. And we should have made a rubric to hand out to the students along with the checklist and choice board. Overall, I did enjoy discussing with other groups and hearing what they did for their treaty lesson plan and it would be nice to gather up some of those lesson plans and have them in my book for future reference. 

Case Study Reflection

In class we were put into groups and had to come up with ideas on how to try and merge two schools. 

I found this activity to be difficult at first because our group wanted to help every single student that we read about but we knew that that wouldn’t be possible. We stuck to a few of the main ideas that would help some of the students that we read about but we couldn’t cover every students’ needs. 

Once we were talking with one another about our different ideas, I began to understand the activity. I enjoyed coming up with different ideas with my group and it was easier when I had other teachers to go over ideas with. Somebody would come up with an idea and then the others would give their feedback on why or why not it wouldn’t work for them. 

We settled on a few different ideas to write down on our paper and we had solutions if some would not work (i.e. the internet — hopefully there would be internet at a local library or somewhere in the town). 

When we shared with the rest of the class, it was really neat to see the different ideas that each group came up with. I believe their solutions would add to our own solutions and we’d help each other. 

This was a very realistic activity to do because one day I might have to plan something like this with other teachers. I might need to try and meet the needs of some of the new students I would be teaching. I enjoyed this activity and hope we can do it again with another study.