Reflection #4

            I think that although many teachers try to avoid stereotyping in the classroom it does happen even at the secondary level.  When students reach the high school level they start to show their personalities more and more which sometimes can give teachers the impression that they might not be the best students.  There are some students that dress in a manner that is not traditional and that may give the impression that they will be less than model students.  For example I have one student in my class that came in wearing all black with dark eyeliner and was very quiet.  Sadly I did stereotype her as one of the students that was probably going to be difficult to motivate in class.  However she definitely proved me wrong, she is a great student and a great person which showed me that you can not always just a book by its cover.  But I do believe that whether teachers realize it or not their first impression of students can be stereotypical especially when they have years of experience.  Sometimes when you see students that might fit into a certain “category” it is very hard not to judge the next group of students based on some of the same characteristics.

            We can try not to judge students based on how the present themselves because that obviously has no merit over what they are capable of accomplishing.  What have tried to do this semester is watch each of the students so that I could figure out how much they would be able to perform in the classroom.  When I am teaching a lesson I try to call on different students to answer discussion questions so that I can test the students that I think do not believe that they know the information. I have also let the student’s grades speak for them because there have been many students who have preformed well on a test when I honestly did not think that they would but I have also seen students who I thought would perform well fail.  So I have figured out that the best thing to do is let the students show me what they are capable of on their own. 

Reflection #3

           Inclusion is definitely overwhelming at times, as a student teacher I find myself trying to teach students material at one level and then going back with a lot of the inclusion students so that I break the information down more.  There is a big gap between my general education students and the special education students.  I feel that inclusion is great in theory however in everyday practice it is not practical.  I feel that some of these students need to be in a more restrictive environment than that of a general education classroom.  The students that I see that are lower level often times have trouble dealing with learning all of the material and vocabulary that are necessary to succeed in Biology.  These students have been passed along every year so that when they reach their freshman year of high school they expect that they will again be passed along.  This is not the case so when they get to high school trying to address all of their needs often becomes trying to get the students to work and participate in the lessons. 

            This semester I have tried multiple approaches to try to address the needs of all of the students.  I have tried to draw pictures and charts of the information to give students a visual; I have also had the students redraw some structures within the cell so that they can become more familiar with the image of the organelles and their structures.  I try to walk around the room throughout the period and offer extra help to the students that seem to be having difficulty understanding and I also try to ask the students if the information makes sense to them so that they can succeed on their assignments. 

Success Reflection

     This past week definitely had its ups and downs. Getting students engaged and trying to keep them engaged in every lesson is always a struggle. Over the past week I have realized more and more that one of the hardest parts about teaching is mastering classroom management. While I see myself improving in this area I know that there a still a lot of adjustments that I need to make. Luckily the teacher that I am with now is helpful and provides with ways to help improve my classroom management skills.  Routines and procedures are definitely the key to keeping classrooms flowing and helps keep the students in line. 

      I have also realized how much of a struggle it is to motivate some students. There are some students in my classroom that seem determined not to do any work rather than to succeed in this class. These students each need their own type of motivation and figuring out what their motivation is takes time and patience. The more time that I have spent with each class and each student the more I have started to realize the importance of establishing a relationship with them. Since I have established a relationship with my students they are more comfortable with asking questions and attempting to answer any questions that I ask the entire class. 

     After reflecting on the week that I had as well as thinking about every other day in the classroom it's obvious that I have made improvements. Knowing that I have improved since the beginning is reassuring but I still can see that I need to make improvements and adjustments. 

Success Journal Oct. 25

Today's success was a very good lesson. The lesson and worksheet combined together was great for the students to practice their skills with osmosis. The students did a lab over osmosis and were able to use the skills that they learned during the lab to complete the worksheet. The students weren't afraid to ask questions on the parts that they were not understanding.  I am glad that the students feel comfortable enough to ask questions when they do not completely understand the material. But overall the lesson went well and the students responded well to the information. 

Success Journal Oct. 24

Today in class we continued going over osmosis and diffusion. The lesson itself went well and the students were able practice using the new vocabulary for the  chapter. Today's biggest success was using the classroom management skills that I have learned. In order for a lesson to go well the entire class must be running smoothly and any small distraction can take away from the lesson. Today I was able to isolate the students having issues by walking around the room while the students worked. By doing this I was able to keep the more problematic students under control by talking to them quietly while they were in their seats. Being able to keep all the students in every class under control is always a success. 

Success Journal Oct. 23

Today all of my classes performed an osmosis lab using Elodea. The purpose of this lab was to demonstrate osmosis across a semi-permeable membrane within a plant cell. Before the lab I went over the lab and gave them a quick review over yesterday's information to help prepare them for the lab. The students were not very enthusiastic about looking at plant cells until they realized that the chloroplast within the cells actually moves. Once they were able to see that plant cells are living and moving organisms the students were curious and more interested in the actual experiment. Overall the experiment went great and the students became more familiar and aware of how osmosis works. Being able to use labs to demonstrate the information that we are teaching students is great and really helps facilitate the lessons. 

Success Journal Oct. 22

Today reminded me that small victories are sometimes exactly what you need to get over a hurdle. In one of my classes we have had many issues with behavior and lack of work ethic by many students. Granted there are multiple students with BIPs (Behavior Intervention Plans) which adds to the frustration within the class. However today all of the student showed initiative and were well behaved. The students raised their hands and did not speak out of term. They also completed their work in a timely fashion and were cooperative when given directives. For this class their participation and interest today along with their good behavior was a huge success!!

Success Journal Oct 21

Today's success was something I strive to do with the students everyday, teach them something that actually sticks. Being in a Biology class with freshman is definitely a challenge everyday. But like every other day you have to be more persistent than they are resistant and finally after a week of teaching the students about viruses the material seemed to click. The students were given a short quiz over the information and the majority of them did well in every class. Knowing how hard some of the students have struggled with comprehending the virus information made seeing them preform well on their quizzes the greatest success of the day!

Reflection #2

Offering only multiple choice questions prevents the students from thinking outside of the box. The questions are straight forward and they only have to decide between four choices.  These choices are usually also straight forward and many of the students only remember the information for these tests long enough to pass.  Once they have taken their test and passed they often forget the information altogether.

                When I was in High School I had some teachers that offered only multiple choice tests and other teachers that gave us open-ended and fill in the blank exams.  The tests that I took that involved having to learn the information and understand what it meant were the open ended tests and not the multiple choice tests. The information in the open-ended tests was the information that I still remembered the answers to at the end of the year.  When I entered college I was forced to learn and understand the material that I was going to be tested over. That was in a large part because I was tested using essay questions and not only multiple choice questions. 

                Overall I believe that when students are given only multiple choice questions and are not required to use their critical thinking skills they are less likely to learn the information.  Students need to be pushed and forced to use their critical thinking skill so that they can also improve their problem solving skills.  My biggest fear about not helping students develop critical thinking skills is that it will lead the students further into their learned helplessness and prevent them from succeeding when they are older.

i)                     Two examples of formative assessments that I am using now are group activities, including labs, as well as participation grades, the latest being a card sort requiring the students to match cell organelles to their picture and function.

ii)                   Currently I am using chapter tests to assess students summative as well as worksheets that involve the students using any knowledge of the information to answer them.

iii)                  It is important to have a combination of the two so that students are being assessed on various levels. Some students have test anxiety or just are not able to perform well on tests for a number of reasons.  If students were only being graded based on test performance many of them would fail.  However when other types of assessments are given such as group discussion students are able to display their knowledge of the subject to the teacher as well as their peers.  Being in a classroom setting where there are several MOD students I have been able to see that those students that fail a test are not failing because they are unfamiliar with the information covered in the exam but because they simply do not test well.  Giving students various outlets to display their knowledge proves not only to the teacher but to the students themselves that they are competent and that they can master the information.

iv)                 List three kinds of assessments:

1.       I would like to incorporate an exit slip (formative assessment) into the end of the class period and have the students place them in an organizer hanging on the door or near the door of the classroom.  They students will have a certain pocket they put their exit slip into so that I can collect them easily and so that they will already be in alphabetical order.

2.       I would also like to have class projects (summative) where each student has a responsibility for the project and the class completes them together.  I would give them the prompt and allow the students to delegate a leader and divide the components for the project so that each student within the class has one job to do to help complete the project.  I would like to do this once in the fall and once in the spring so that students will learn responsibilities and how to work as a team.  I would allow a select amount of time throughout the weeks to allow the students to talk about their progress and put the project together.  The students might even be divided up into smaller groups so that each group could take care of one part.

3.       I would like to do multiple group act ivies (formative) in the lab so that the students are able to perform hands-on activities to supplement their learning.  At the end of select units the class would enter the lab and complete an activity top demonstrate what they just learned.  Such as when the students finish learning about how plants absorb water the students would complete a lab in which they would place white carnations into various colors of water and hypothesize what will happen to the flower.

Reflection #1

My name is Britany Leach I am from Fort Stockton, Texas.  I come from a very large blended family and I have seven sisters, it is definitely loud but I love it.   I am teaching 8-12 grade Life Science.  Currently I am student teaching at Lake View High School in a 9^th grade Biology class.  The class that I am in is a co-teach class so there are some special education students in the classroom as well as a special education teacher in addition to the teacher that I am shadowing.  Upon graduation I would like to teach at one of the High Schools here in San Angelo or at the Central Freshman Campus. 

Teachers are expected to do a variety of activities within the classroom I believe that one of the top roles that a teacher has to play is to be a role model.  Many students do not receive any guidance from places other than school.  As their teacher you must be there for them and show them that someone is trying to help them along with being a person that they can look up too.  Since being in a High School setting is has become apparent that there are a lot students that need guidance and someone to show them that they care.

Teachers should also be able to make their students feel safe in the classroom.  I believe one of the most important things that a teacher does is to make their classes feel safe throughout the day.  The classroom should be a warm and inviting place for the students to go so that they are in the best possible environment that will supplement their environment.  When a student does not feel safe they are not going to be able to focus and learn from what the teacher is teaching them.

A teacher also needs to help students develop social skills and teach them how to interact with one another.  Being with 9^th grade classes has shown me that many of them do not have to social skills that society would expect them to have once they graduate.  A lot of them are introverted and try not to talk to people that they do not know unless they absolutely have too.  It is important for us as educators to encourage that interaction so that they can begin to develop those social skills that will help them get through life.  One way that I have seen this being done is through assigned lab groups in Biology class.  Since the students are will people that they may not know they have to communicate with people that they do not know which helps them to build on their social skills.