Week 5 Lab Project

This week was my first activty in the computer lab. It went really well and the students were on task the whole time. First thing I noticed would be a problem is some of the students completing the worksheet and others just copying. I did not make a big deal of this I just moved the student to a different computer. This was good because I did not have to call any of the students out in class. The first day went smootly but I did notice that my 3 worksheet project was going to take the students more than two days in the lab. I was lucky because no one had schedule the lab for that Thursday and I was able to have students do make up work in there. The 2nd day the students were given a bit harder of a worksheet. Most of the class finished on time, but a few decided looking at homecoming dresses was a better option. I found that telling the students that the worksheets are due at the end of the period even if they aren't really gets them working.

Week 4

After reviewing the test I realized that most of the students did fairly well. There were a few issues in 7th period. This class has problems paying attention and some of the scores on the test have shown that. Many of the students that did bad were confused why. I went over the test with the class and answered questions on the test after the students began working on their homework.

I started giving the students homework last week and it is going terrible. The students do not care if they lose points for not turning in their homework. I only made the first homework 5 points and it hurt a lot of them, because they are not many points in the class. On the next homework assignment I give them I am going to give the students time to start it in class. I am hoping that if they start it in class they will continue it at home.

Next week I am going to the computer lab for the first time this year. The activity is well planned and it is about The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. I find the topic interesting and the students will to, because it is a major disaster in New York City.

Week 3

In my third week at North Marion High School I got a chance to start giving the students grades and homework. After 3 weeks I am getting used to the whole process of waking up, driving here, and teaching for 8 hours a day. I am really enjoying my time, and I enjoy doing lesson plans every week. One thing that I have learned about lesson planning is every lesson cannot be fun for the students. Every day some of the students are going to complain that they do not like what you have planned. Also I've learned to manage my time better during my plan periods. I also realized last week your lesson plans are going to change a lot from what you had planned at the beginning of the week. Also today I am giving my first major test it is on one chapter. It should be very easy for the students and I'm expecting most of them to do well.

2nd Week

My second week at North Marion High School went a lot smoother than the first. I have taken over full time for my teacher and got the chance to get to know the students. I find it interesting that the students look at me as way older than I actually am. This is important because unlike before when I was closer to their age they tended to cause trouble and wanted to be my friend. Now that I am a little older you get a lot more respect from the students and they listen when you lecture. A few of the students still think they can get away with anything they want in the classroom. I have no problem telling them to be quiet but I have yet to write one of them up for their actions.

7th period is by far my worst class. The class has 30 students in it and many of the students are very talkative. To make matters worse it is at the end of the day and the students are ready to go home. I am having trouble keeping the students on task. I believe that I am going to have to write someone up to set an example in the classroom. Also another idea I have had is embrace the talking by using discussion in the classroom and letting the students do group work. One day in 7th period I told the students to work alone. I offered the students a deal if they could work alone quietly next time we would work in groups. The students were quiet and giving them a deal really helped keep the class under control.

My First Week

My first week at North Marion High School I was exciting and was an eye opener. The 6 other interns and myself came the week before school started to participate in meetings and to get a head start in the classroom. I found the meetings to be very informative but unnecessary for us interns. It was good to see everything a teacher does prior to the start of the school year. Every teacher is the school was on edge because it was the beginning of the year. Most of the time during the meetings was spent arguing over non major issues. I was glad though I came in early because I got a chance to talk to my teacher before the students came. It was good to get to know her and she could explain to me how she runs her classroom.

My first day with students was Thursday. The students were very excited to be back and we started the day with a pep rally in the gym. My host teacher was not there the first day but she explained everything very clearly to me on how the first day would work. My homeroom students came in the classroom and I began to read off the names. All the students just looked at me until someone said "hmmmm none of those people are in here". Then I begain to panic, and try to figure out what the problem was. I quickly learned that two homerooms mine and another one needed to switch rooms. Once this was taken care of the rest of the day went without an issue. Friday my teacher returned and everyone went along as planned.

Practicum Plan Feedback

I found parts of the Practicum Plan useful and others not as much. The most important part of the plan was the dates and setting due dates for yourself. All of the other parts of the plan I did not use as much as I thought I would. I found the learning goals to be not very effective and as the year went on I did not use the Practicum Plan because I had so much other work and assignments due. I think the plan was a good idea for keeping track of when things were due but other than that it could use some modifications.

Artifacts

We believe that the novice teacher should have in depth knowledge of content.

I think this is one of the more important characteristics of a novice teacher because one never knows what a student is going to ask them. As I have learned throughout the semester you can never be fully prepared for what a student is going to ask you about the subject. I think a good artifact for this would be my History 153 paper. Even though the paper is from freshmen year it is one of the better papers I wrote for any of my history classes. It is basically a full summary of the class which starts in the time period after the Civil War.

We believe that the novice teacher should be an effective communicator.

For this characteristic I plan on using a clip from my video which I recorded this year. After reviewing my video I found many times throughout the video I displayed many good qualities in communicating effectively with the students. I think this will be a very good artifact for my portfolio because it will show how I teach and communicate in the classroom.

Practicum Plan

I have listed many learning goals on my Practicum Plan and I would like to achieve all these before the end of the semester. My first goal is use differentiated instruction more in the classroom. In my classroom so far I have used a Smart Board every day. In the upcoming weeks I want to learn how to use the Smart Board in different ways to teach my lesson or my mentor teacher’s lesson plans. Another goal I have is improving my classroom management. My classroom management has improved a lot over the first few weeks of teaching. At first I had a lot of problems with students having side conversations while I was teaching. I realize now that when you first get a group of students you must be very strict then you can back off a little bit once you have earned their respect. Now that my classroom management is improving it is easier to ask the students off topic questions then relate it to the material and keep the students on task.

One thing I added to my plan was create more organized lesson plans and have back up plans for my lessons. I planned a whole lesson on the American Civil War; I was informed by my teacher that we would be in the computer lab the whole week. When I arrived on school on the following Monday I was told we would not be in the computer lab at all and I would have to start my lesson today and redo all of my lesson plans. It was frustrating at the time but a good lesson for me. It taught me that I need to have a back plan in case something like this would happen again. Overall I have been on a good pace with completing my activities. I would like to get a lot more done before Spring Break so I can focus on my weakness in actual teaching.

Characteristics of a Novice Teacher

All ten of the characteristics of a novice teacher are very important to becoming a full service teacher. At WVU the Benedum Teaching Program has given me a chance to demonstrate and complete all of these characteristics.

Characteristic 7 states: We believe that the novice teacher should effectively integrate content and pedagogy. I believe this is one of the most important characteristics for a teacher because you must know your content and know it well. The students test teachers on daily and have many questions that you as a teacher should be able to answer. Content knowledge is also important because you must prove to the students that you know your content, this will lead to respect in the classroom.

For characteristic 7 I will be using my Unit Plan from my C & I class. This unit plan consist of 6 lesson plans on the 13 colonies. I enjoyed creating this unit because I was free to use any topic that I wanted. I got a chance to make my own worksheets and I created a final assessment. For this unit I made a test at the end and the students did fairly well on it.

Characteristic 9 states: We believe that the novice teacher should be aware of and have respect for human diversity. This something I did not have a lot of experience with at my first PDS. First school was primary white students, but now in my second PDS the student body is very diverse. A novice teacher must be aware of this because we do not know where we will end up teaching at. It might be in an area where all the students are a different race than you.

For Characteristic 9 I will be using my controversial current events lesson plan from my C & I class. My lesson plan was on the stoning of women in Iran. It was very interesting to the students because they could not believe that people still do this. The lesson end with the famous story of "The Lottery" which create a lot of classroom discussion.