Video critiques

Clips 1-3

These three clips show me introducing the story "The Most Dangerous Game" to a 7th grade classroom. In them, I notice a few things worth pointing out.

First: the coffee cup. This became a running joke for my students over the course of the semester, as I was rarely without it in my hand. It actually came at the suggestion of a professor to counteract my generally fidgety nature, the idea being that my hands would generally be less of a distraction if I gave them something to hold onto. This is something that I would like to improve moving forward, as at times it can be a distraction of its own.

Another thing that bothered me was that I seemed tethered to the front of the classroom. My cooperating teacher encouraged me more and more to move around the classroom, and in particular to position myself across the room from students who are responding to my questions. This technique has two advantages. First, it subconsciously forces the speaking student to speak a little louder, which prevents me from having to interrupt and call attention to their small voices. Second, it creates two focal points of attention in the room, the speaking student and me. This can cut out lots of unnecessary side conversation. 

But I liked how, in general, I was encouraging student involvement. This conversation came after the students had filled out 'gist statements,' which were predictions based on the various elements of the story, like 'cannibal,' 'General Zaroff,' 'Shiptrap Island,' etc. The 7th grade classes are small at Lolo, freeing teachers from crowd control and allowing or forcing all students to contribute to the discussion. I also like how, again in general, my diction is relatively clear and without the blights of 'like' and 'you know.' I could improve on 'going to' and the like, but in general I feel I model decent speaking habits of a 21st century adult. 

Clips 4-5

Clips 4-5 come from the same day as above, but with an 8th grade class. We were introducing the concept of an annotated bibliography that day, something that they would have to make ten pieces of to complete the gigantic research project we had just started on. The project was split between our language arts classroom and the social studies classroom next door. With two teachers in our classroom and two more in social studies, we divided the students up into groups by advisor, and we seated them at table groups based on who their advisor was. I liked this divide-and-conquer plan, though it did put the students at a bit of a disadvantage when they were in the class where their advisor wasn't. 

One thing that drives me crazy about the second clip is that I ran over to the computer to answer a question I asked rhetorically. This speaks to a lack of preparation for contingencies that I will eliminate going forward. 

I also notice that some of the attention of certain students wandered while I was speaking. In my defense: this was the largest class, and students had laptops in front of them. But too much attention was focused, for example, into the depths of backpacks, or to the screen. This is partially a peril of the novelty of having computers at the tables, but it is not one that I did enough to counteract.

Clips 6-7

Clips 6-7 show an 8th grade class working on the research project a few weeks later. At this point, we were settled into the routine of class periods being time for the students to work on research and writing with guidance and check-ins from two of the four advisors for the project. In these clips, I was working with a particularly reluctant learner for whom I modified the assignment a little bit. The class generally seems productive and on-task in these clips, though it shows how little our room resembled a library setting or other silent space for working. 

The novelty of having laptops at the tables seemed to wear off after a while, and at the end of the 6 week project, students were treating them like any other learning tool. This was a bonus and makes me think that the oncoming one to one revolution in schools is going to have fewer kinks than its detractors predict. 

Assessed samples of student work

Our 8th grade students spent the six weeks leading up to spring break working on a gigantic research project. It was structured vaguely like a traditional I-search paper, but really it was centered around a large, heavily-researched persuasive essay. This long lesson was split with the social studies teacher and his student teacher, so that there were four teachers on the job. We divided up the 8th graders so that each of us would be responsible for seeing 16 of the students through the process. This allowed all of us to engage intimately with the work that these students were churning out, and have lengthy conferences with them in class and during our RTI time to focus their research, push back against assertions they wanted to make, and hold writing workshops. 

The first thing that students did was to write a prologue for the paper, showing what they knew, what they assumed, what they wanted to learn, and why. 

The student whose work I will be using in this post wrote about government information gathering. Of primary interest was the NSA's metadata collection, but early on he wanted to take a look at the role of traditional spying, ala 007. 

 

It's sort of strange for me to look at this from a content perspective, as obviously the content is really centered around things generally considered part of the social studies curriculum. What I can tell about this student's understanding is that it's fragmented, based on pieces of news, parts of social studies lectures, riddled with holes. Like most 21st century US adults, this student's real problem was seeing a complicated issue in black and white, not making any real attempt to understand the motivations of those who would disagree with him. 

We rectified this by taking 45 minutes in RTI time one day and laying out pros and cons on the whiteboard. One of the paper writing techniques I wanted students to focus on for writing an argumentative paper was laying out the position they were arguing against, and refuting it point by point. This particular student, like  many others, was unable to articulate the possible logic that the opposing view relied on. In this case, the NSA is doing what they are doing in the name of national security in a post 9-11 world. We talked for quite a while about 9-11 and how it changed so much in foreign affairs and the personal lives of Americans, particularly with regard to what some, including this student, see as an invasion of privacy. But it is not for nothing that the NSA is doing what they are doing. One can disagree with their premises, but it isn't for nefarious, nebulous reasons that the NSA is collecting metadata on citizens. 

We used a standards-based rubric to assess the progress the students made on their projects. The standards used to assess this entire project were as follows:

Organization & structure: ELA.Literacy.W.8.2.A: Introduce a topic clearly, previewing what is to follow; organize ideas, concepts, and information into broader categories; include formatting (e.g., headings), graphics (e.g., charts, tables), and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.

Development: ELA.Literacy.W.8.1: Write arguments to support claims with clear reasons and relevant evidence.

Research: ELA.Literacy.W.8.8: Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, using search terms effectively; assess the credibility and accuracy of each source; and quote or paraphrase the data and conclusions of others while avoiding plagiarism and following a standard format for citation.

Language: ELA.Language.L.8.1: Demonstrate command of the conventions of standard English grammar and usage when writing or speaking.

Lolo grades on a 4 point mastery scale wherein 3 represents a skill at grade level. Work that earns a 4 is truly exemplary, and in my experience there, rare. This particular student earned a 4 in organization & structure, research, and development, while earning a 3.5 in language. 

My comments on the paper were as follows: 'Dear [name withheld]: this is a fine paper. The organization is excellent, and you do a great job of orienting the reader at the beginning of each paragraph as to where you are going. This skill will serve you well in all the writing you will ever do. The prose is a little stilted, but I appreciate that you are trying to write in an academic manner in most sections. This will come easier with more practice. You also let your opinion come out at appropriate times and in appropriate ways.
Your research was very thorough and you did a nice job of finding and evaluating a variety of articles. One area that could be improved in this paper is formatting. There are a few different fonts in the annotated bibliography section. Everything else looks great.
Let me reiterate that this was a fine, fine paper. I was excited to read your take on the NSA’s activities, and I can see that you turned it over in your head and really grasped the complexity of the issue. That shows a certain sophistication about you. Well, at least in academic matters.'


I'm not confident that I'll take on such a large project with an entire grade level again. The circumstances aligned such that we had enough teacher-hours to devote to really provide students with the feedback and guidance that they would need to complete it, and that is unlikely to happen in a normal school year. The grading process was streamlined because of Lolo's commitment to the Common Core Standards and their use of a mastery grading scale. In the future, I would probably do a condensed version, requiring a good deal less research and a correspondingly shorter paper. While this student excelled, others languished under the heavy yoke of spending six weeks on the same topic. That said, I do think we accomplished the important goals that we set out, and it had the benefit of showing these 13 and 14 year old students that they could, given guidance, put together a project that was four times larger than anything they had done up until that point.

Professional development: my professional learning community

Lolo School is dedicated to the Professional Learning Community model. While not strictly a professional development opportunity, I can say that my participation in this went a long way in furthering my own professional development.

Our PLC's format was an hour-long meeting once a week, wherein we rotated roles of discussion leader, note taker, and time keeper. Each meeting began with a preview of what our plans for the following week were, including noting any assessments, to try to avoid having three or more major examinations on the same day. It also allowed us to keep abreast of all the work of our colleagues, sharing pedagogical techniques from different subject areas that may have had transferability to our own classrooms.

Most helpful to me were comments from the special education teacher, who was able to teach all of us about some of the learning peculiarities of the students we shared with her. Mid-semester we enrolled a new student with asperger syndrome, and the special educator was able to give a sort of informal workshop on how to make accommodations for this student. Some of these accommodations made such simple, common sense that we ended up implementing them in all our classes, such as being meticulous about informing students ahead of time exactly what we would be doing and when during a week and putting it in writing on the board.

On another occasion we had two guest speakers come in and talk about executive functioning disorders, which gave us all new insight on how some adolescent brains do and do not work with regard to organization. As with the more informal workshops, some of the suggestions revealed new ways to go about organizing our classrooms to make learning easier for all students, not only those with diagnosed executive functioning disorders.

But most of all, the part about our PLC that I valued most was the homeroom-by-homeroom check in on students who were struggling, be it academically or personally. We were able to track students over time, arrange parent meetings if necessary, and in two cases, get students outside professional help for worrisome behavior.

Part of what I liked about this is that it reflected the traditional middle school model, which is one where, unlike high school, the teachers ventured outside of our discrete subject areas to make sure we were meeting the needs of all students. Whatever the grade level, I hope to work in a district that is committed to the professional learning community model.

Volunteer experience

In the last few years, I've had the opportunity to volunteer for two outstanding organizations.

During winter and spring of 2013, I was part of the Flagship program at Hellgate High School. We met during lunch on Wednesdays and read books that we chose together. The group was small and informal. Most of our conversations revolved around what we did and did not like about the books. The three novels we read were Cather's My Antonia, Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five, and Brooks's World War Z. We also read two short stories of the inimitable Donald Barthelme, "The Balloon" and "Some of us had been threatening our friend Colby." We talked about narrative structures, usually using the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings trilogies for examples, since everyone in the group was familiar with both of them. The students were sophomores to seniors, mostly of a delightfully offbeat disposition and with eclectic interests.

More than anything, this reaffirmed for me the notion that the more students read, the better, and also that students are more willing to think if they're thinking about something that is interesting to them. What this means is that as a teacher, I have to be willing to leave my comfort zone and venture into post-apocalyptic zombie novels, if that's something my students want to read. It also provided me an opportunity to be a fellow reader and meaning-maker rather than a two-bit expert. I had never read World War Z, and it had been eight years since I read Vonnegut, so I was not professing this or that about those books. I was simply modeling what a good reader looks like by making margin notes and making connections within the text and without.

Another valuable thing that I learned here that I hope I can transfer to classroom teaching is that students can read controversial texts and be mature about it. Slaughterhouse-Five has been banned sporadically since published, but these couple of students were able to read it and engage in the cultural criticism that has made some despise it.

While the group was not exactly culturally diverse, it did represent a variety of backgrounds and interests, which is the type of diversity that shows up even in predominantly white areas like Missoula. Interests of the students ranged from video game programming to horseback riding, but all shared a love of stories.

Since February of 2013, I have been involved with the Writing Coaches of Missoula. This organization sends volunteers into classrooms on the request of teachers to sit down twice, one week apart, and workshop first and second drafts of major writing assignments. Our methods were rooted in Culham's 6+1 Traits of Writing, focusing mostly on organization and ideas.

Most of what I learned about teaching writing came during my experience as a Writing Coach, where I dealt with a huge variety of students and their personal challenges as writers. Part of this was being able to respond directly and on the spot to the problems that they think they have as developing writers, or to point out problems that they didn’t know they had and work towards a solution. My experiences varied from helping a student who came with almost nothing start brainstorming an answer to a prompt, to counting words within sentences of a good paragraph in the midst of an outstanding paper. In the first case the student came back for the second week with a passable response based on the ideas and organization we had worked through during the first meeting. In the second case the student left with a better understand of how to pace her sentences in future writing projects.

The diversity involved here was about as wide as one can get in Missoula in that I have workshopped papers from 7th graders through high school seniors at various schools in the Missoula area. Some students were working at an extremely high level, while others struggled initially with putting their ideas down on paper in some sort of logical order. This was really my first exposure as an educator to middle school students and their work, which planted the seed for my love of that age group.

Student teaching goals

Goal 1: Make detailed, consistently-formatted lesson plans for every lesson I lead. I will have to develop a format to use, research Common Core particulars and note which requirements are being met within a lesson, and budget for time.

Outcome: My cooperating teacher and I met on Sunday afternoons to firm up lesson plans. Early on he told me that he expected some sort of theoretical basis for all of my lessons, which threw me for a loop at first. But in doing the research to find these best practices, I found all kinds of useful items to add to my repertoire. This is the sort of meticulousness I was very happy to have demanded of me by my amazing cooperating teacher.


Goal 2: Make supplemental aids for help in student writing. My idea is to make screencasts ala Bozeman’s Paul Anderson, except that mine will detail common mistakes in writing and how to identify and fix them.

Outcome: This was an utter failure, as it became apparent that I had enough on my plate without doing this as well. Also complicating things is Lolo's use of the OdysseyWare intervention, which took most of the RTI time that I would've used for tutorials to help struggling writers. I may revisit this in the future, but it would almost certainly have to happen over a summer, when I would have sufficient time to plan and make them.

Goal 3: Decentralize lessons. Lessons that I have witnessed work best for cooperating teachers are generally those where the student is given tools and then expected to use them to teach themselves. Whenever avoidable, I do not wish to be lecturing. The bulk of my lessons will be students interacting with their peers.

Outcome: My cooperating teacher emphasized this from the beginning, but it took a slightly different direction than I expected. It turns out that middle school students need more guidance than I had anticipated, especially with the above-grade-level texts we tended to use. But late in the semester, the 8th graders formed book circles, and my cooperating teacher and I each joined half of them. Two of the groups were reading books I had never yet read, and the third group was reading a book I hadn't read since high school. It was cool to act as a fellow meaning-maker with them, letting the discussions go where they may without being the 'sage on the stage.'


In all, I feel good about accomplishing two of the goals. The one I did not accomplish was simply a little far-fetched in my circumstances, but I still think it is worthwhile and I will revisit it when I have more time to devote to it.

Resume

My resume can be found here.

Final reflection

Student teaching is in the books.

As in my midterm review, I was happy to see that my cooperating teacher, my university supervisor, and I were all on the same page. At the meeting, I was almost universally praised for both my content knowledge and for my disposition with students. With the Standards such a big piece of the puzzle at Lolo School, we all felt that I was able to account for myself well, and that I was basing my lessons in best practice methods that would help us get to where we needed to go. The conclusion was that all I need is experience to start filling out my pedagogical quiver, which both of them assured me is something that can only happen in time.

I mentioned at the end of the meeting that I had more questions now than I did before starting. My cooperating teacher assured me with a phrase we've used both among ourselves and with our students: "if you're not confused, you're doing it wrong."

I understand now that classroom management is really a piece of preventative maintenance, for the most part. But I'm unsure exactly what procedures I'm going to use in my own classroom in, hiring committees willing, a few short months. Part of it will be grade-level dependent, as what works in 7th grade probably won't work for seniors. And while I know, for example, of many ways to get the attention of a group of people, I'm unsure which one is going to work for me. I used my cooperating teacher's methods while in his room, but I'm not sure that that's authentically me. They both reassured me that this, too, will come with experience.

Some parts of education school simply don't jibe with my experience. I can make solid lesson plans, but I am less certain of what to do for the student who is missing two days a week, be it for a traveling baseball team or for more nefarious reasons. I can design lessons universally, but that doesn't help if the students with special needs are cordoned off to a separate classroom for direct instruction during my class period with them. I can design extra help sessions, but I can't teach them if the student's study hall time is spent on a mandated tier two intervention.

I also understand much more clearly now how much more we have to prepared to help our students with beyond our subject areas. During our study hall period, I had to help struggling 7th graders with algebra and Punnet Squares and in Montana Native history. That was easier. Knowing what to do when a self-harming student comes into one's room during lunch justifiably balling about her home life is harder. Stranger still is having to hold the clumsy girl's hand as we wait for the paramedics to come and make sure she hasn't broken anything important when she fell down a flight of stairs, or knowing how to keep her classmates from gawking as she's rolled out to the waiting ambulance. They teach very little of this in education school, and I was told by all those around me that it simply comes with experience.

I understand now how important it can be to approach students from a different angle. Sometimes this meant having a side conversation to see if something was going on at home, where I learned of divorce or incarceration or that a student is taking care of her younger siblings. Sometimes this meant going to the volleyball or baseball games, proving to the students that I'm interested in their personal development and not just their academics. Sometimes it meant eating lunch in the cafeteria and learning that the quirky kid is actually a world-class filmmaker at age 13. Sometimes it meant ribbing the lads over their fuzzy little mustaches while flaunting my own. All of these things actually happened, and each of them allowed me to connect with a student on a different level, building a personal respect that could be transferred to the classroom.

In the end, I feel like my greatest shortcoming during student teaching is simply not having two decades of this under my belt. But I also feel that in fifteen weeks of student teaching, I've experienced and learned much more than I did in two years of education school, and that each day will get a little easier, so that I'll be prepared when the unexpected happens.