Weekly Blog Post: Week 5

The highlight of my past week was getting to go around to a few different classrooms and observe them instead of my cooperating teachers classroom. She was doing mostly quizzes and videos last Friday so I took it as an opportunity to look into some teaching and classroom management styles of other teachers. 

I had my first interactions with a freshman and sophomore English class. The freshman sent most of the time doing individual seat work with a little instruction at the beginning of the period on a new concept.  This is clearly a routine that they are used to by this time of the year as it was mostly quite and productive (or at least seemed that way) for the period. While the classroom routine is likely the largest factor in the management of this class, students sitting in their seats the entire period does not fall in line with a method of teaching I plan to use. Seat work can be beneficial  and I believe the concepts they were trying to learn are well suited to that, but asking a freshman to sit for an entire hour with little to no interaction is comparable to torture. 

The sophomore class was a lot more interesting and engaging. Students were working on a final project for The Odyssey in which they had to create a board game that included trivia elements about the story and followed Odysseus' travels though the story. The students started their planning phases and some started creating elements of their game by the end of the period. I had the opportunity to walk around to every group and discuss with them the layout and design of their game boards and how they planned on incorporating the trivia elements. It was a good experience in seeing how the students worked together. The groups maintained their working for most of the period, though a few groups started to get distracted and linger near the end. Two groups combined and were clearly just conversing about nothing related to the project. While it went on a for a little while, the teacher eventually brought it to their attention that she was aware they were not working. Her tactics were not quite what I would have done to disband the group, but she did effectively do so. 

The major issue that I keep seeing as a recurring problem (especially when it comes to the seniors) is keeping them engaged this late in the year. With the seniors, I almost feel as if it is a lost cause. They only have one month of high school left in their lives. At this point, they have calculated how low their grades and go and still pass. I struggle with letting them get away with that. But... I'm at a loss for what to do. As most of the teachers I see are just accepting this as a fact of life. 

I have said it before and I will say it again: group work! Not where other students are necessarily dependent upon others for their grades, but so there is interaction between students in the classroom. Sitting quietly, alone, and in a desk is something I want to try and avoid as often as possible. 

There is one student in particular that just does not like class. He always complains. Even when we watched a video. I don't know what to do about it, but I'm thinking about just asking him what he would like to do. And possibly trying to get a lesson going around that. Just so that he might open up more and realize that I am listening and trying to help.