Ruminations of a Student Teacher

Experiencing Just How Flat Our World Is

2009-01-28T14:39:00.003-06:00

Last Saturday, I was able to experience firsthand just how flat our world truly has become. Through my Personal Learning Network, I heard about the Flat Classroom Conference that was happening in Qatar. I am amazed and inspired by the fact that they were able to have so many schools from all over the world participate in such an excited project. Some of the student reflections have started to appear online and it is incredible to see the personal growth that they went through as a result of this experience.

Leading off the conference was a Question and Answer session with the author who inspired the teachers who created this project, Tom Friedman, who wrote The World is Flat. However, Tom Friedman was at his house in Washington, D.C., and was speaking to the conference via Skype. In addition to all of that, Steve Hargadon, who was in Philadelphia at Educon 2.1, created a virtual link up for other educators who wanted to participate in the conference and listen to Tom Friedman. As a result of all of that interconnectedness, I was able to listen to Tom Friedman (in D.C.) answer questions from students all over the world (in Qatar) via the web.

As I mentioned above, Educon 2.1 was also going on at the same weekend. Also via my PLN, I was able to watch presentations/conversations from this "unconference" in Philadelphia.

I am running out of superlatives to describe how excited I am about this age of hyper-connectivity we are living in. The impact of all of this on education is just beginning to be felt. And if this past weekends activities are any indication, the possibilities are endless. I can't wait to get started teaching and incorporate all of this into my classroom.

My (Borrowed) definition of 21st Century Literacy

2009-01-14T15:59:00.003-06:00

I know that I am way late in getting this out, but it has been kind of crazy around here lately. As I mentioned in my previous post, the whole discussion about what it means to be literate in the 21st Century has been incredibly rewarding for me. Throughout the process of trying to follow the conversation, I came across a post by Ryan Bretag about his own definition of 21st Century Literacy. I really identify in a number of ways with his definition:

Literacy is a group of evolving skills and skill sets as well as a form of knowledge needed for thoughtful, meaningful, and effective communication in socially relevant contexts.

I like that definition for two main reasons: the use of "evolving" and "socially".

Evolving

We have barely entered the 21st century and already people are providing definitions for what it means to be literate in this century. I believe that it is important for all of us to keep in mind not only just how much has changed, but also the rate that things change as well. As such, we need to make sure that we are changing right along with it. Making sure that we are fluid, relevant, and timely is critical to ensuring that we are adequately teaching 21st century literacy skills for our students (throughout the 21st century).

Social

I think that sometimes the focus is too much on technology and not enough on the social aspect that the technology allows. I love this quote from Michael Wesch:

This is a social revolution, not a technological one, and its most revolutionary aspect may be the ways in which it empowers us to rethink education and the teacher-student relationship in an almost limitless variety of ways.

Our students today already use these technologies to socialize with one another and it is only a matter of time before education fits into that picture. And having the definition for 21st century literacy focus on socially relevant situations is becoming more and more important.

Classroom 2.0 Badge

2009-01-10T15:37:00.001-06:00

The Great Debate: 21st Century Literacy

2009-01-06T16:35:00.007-06:00

Throughout the edublogosphere, much has been written lately about what exactly it means to be literate in 21st Century skills. There has been a number of terrific posts that run the gamut of trying to define it, to others who are done with it.

For someone who is trying to come into his own as a fully networked teacher, this whole conversation has been an excellent learning process for myself. I made an attempt at, but was extremely frustrated with trying to follow the discussion on Twitter. Unfortunately, I missed the discussion once it moved to Eluminate. I have been following the conversation via blog posts. However, this whole process has challenged me in trying to create my own definition for what it means to be literate in the 21st Century, which I will get to later.

My initial reactions while reading through the various definitions of 21st Century Literacy was that it was all just semantics. Literacy is such a broad term and it is difficult to pin down a precise definition, especially when there are a number of school subjects that need attention and new adaptations start getting bandied about like media literacy and information literacy. Most of the early posts I read incorporated these rather recent nuances to the field of literacy definitions. I thought that these definitions paint with a large brush and leave out the individual subject areas. I have been thinking a lot lately about what Dan Meyer meant when he said that there isn't a Web2.0 tool that helps him teach math. Sometimes we get so caught up in the flood of new technologies that we forget that we still have to teach geometry.

I also have a problem with the 21st Century label because we are trying to put a definition to what skills are needed for success in this century that we are only 8% into so far. And with the rate that technology keeps changing how we do all sorts of activities, it is becoming increasingly difficult to make such blanket statements.

And then I came across a post from Learning is Change about how all of us as educators need to come together and agree upon a list of tags to make the sharing of ideas, lessons, and concepts much easier.

We need to take ownership of terms like elearning and make them more specific. We also should be teaching our students to come together on terms to use so that all of their work can not only be found later, but also grouped according to topic, theme, or even skill level.

In order for us as educators to move forward and take action, we need to paint a picture with the definition of what is literacy in the 21st Century. And that brings me back to the post by Jen about taking action. Being that I am such a newbie to this Web2.0 scene, apparently, this discussion comes up quite frequently and nothing much is ever actually accomplished. This reminds me of the United States right after the Revolutionary Wars with Great Britain. There were a variety of opinions and ideas taking us in all different directions, and it was difficult initially to accomplish much. But through it all, a great nation was formed. It is my greatest hope that we can recreate that revolutionary success in the field of education.

The war on attention span

2009-01-02T16:43:00.005-06:00

Let me first go on the record as saying that I am really geeked up (both literally and figuratively) about all of the connectivity and collaboration possibilities of Web2.0. With that being said, there also are some potential downsides to constantly being connected 24/7 and I feel that it is something that we as educators should discuss with our students.

We have been hearing for years about how this new generation of students has the ability to multi-task. At first, this was seen as a good thing, with the thinking being that they could get more done because they can do many things at once. However, recent studies have suggested that this generation's multi-tasking is actually counterproductive. They tend to not finish tasks on time or at all because they are constantly doing so many activities (or web-apps).

On a related note, I came across this story about the new work ethic that is going to be needed for success in the Information Age. It talks about how hard work is no longer the most important aspect of a person's work ethic. With the rise of so many popular web applications such as You Tube, Twitter, email, Facebook and so on, it is becoming increasingly difficult to stay on task and get everything done that you need to, whether it is for work or the teacher.

I can't agree with this more. Ever since I finished student teaching, I have been trying to grow my PLN through a variety of means. I have joined social networks and Twitter, increased my list of blogs that I follow etc. In this time, I also have discovered that I have become less productive. I keep a list of digital projects that I am currently working on or want to work on for my digital portfolio, and as the days go by, the list just keeps getting longer and longer. (Now, this also has to do with the fact that I keep coming across such great projects via my PLN too.) This is similar in a lot of ways to my love of travel. As the saying goes (paraphrasing), "The more countries I visit, the more my list of countries that I want to visit grows."

The article quotes David Brooks of the New York Times:

"Control of attention is the ultimate individual power," he wrote. "People who can do that are not prisoners of the stimuli around them."

All of the ed tech evangelists talk about how we need to start having our students engage with all of the new technologies, and I agree with them. But at the same time, I also believe that we should give them coping mechanisms that provide a way for them to structure their time so that they can be as productive as possible without getting lost in all of the web-apps.

One of the solutions that I thought about for myself is creating a daily calendar that list the time allotments for each of the tasks that the individual needs to accomplish that day, including the digital tasks. I know that it's not groundbreaking by any means, but it could be helpful for students to see visually how their afternoon/evening is laid out for them so that they get everything accomplished that they need to. I think that this will help because it will limit the amount of time that they spend doing one task and it hopefully will keep them focused throughout. It is also important in this scheduling process to pencil in "fun time" as well so that it is not all work and no play (makes Jack a dull boy). But going back to the article again,

In one generation, we've gone from a total separation of "work" from "non-work" to one in which both work and play are always sitting right in front of us.

So I think it is also very important for the parents and the child to work together to come up with their own individualized definition of what "fun time" actually is. As I mentioned above, I am currently experiencing a war on my attention span and I am going to try out this possible solution and make a daily calendar of what I need to do for the day. We'll see how it goes.

Intimidation Part II

2008-12-28T17:03:00.004-06:00

My last post tended to ramble a little bit and I think that I missed the point I wanted to make. So here goes round number two.

For the past few months, I have been working on creating my own Personal Learning Network (PLN). I subscribe to twenty-something blogs related, both directly or indirectly to teaching and business education. I also started using Twitter and mainly follow the same people there whose blogs I subscribe to. The main reason for all of this activity is to become more connected with teachers all over the US and the world.

But those connections cannot happen without action on my part. I haven't posted to Twitter for a few days now, and it's not because of the holidays. I just flat out don't know what to say. I feel very intimidated writing knowing that these very distinguished educators will be reading what I write. With Twitter, I feel out of the loop because I am not currently teaching. I feel something like a fraud. I also don't have a lot of classroom experience to help my form my opinions and thoughts on the various topics that come up in discussion either on Twiter or blogs. I have the same feeling with commenting. I read an excellent post by Chris Lehman and I clicked on the comments. I had some thoughts in my head on the topic, but then I just closed the tab to comment. I know that I need to just get over it and start writing, but I am having a hard time.

I have also read some contradictory tips about what to write on Twitter. The tips mainly centered on not writing about what you are doing, i.e. I just finished eating dinner. I also found out ny lurking on Twitter that a lot of teachers post links to helpful articles or tech tips. I did that for a while, but I recently stopped because I found that I was researching earticles to post to Twitter and that it took away time from other things and that using Twitter usually doesn't require research. Also by lurked, I have found that some/most of the people I follow do include updates on what they currently are doing. I have been considering posting on that as well, but again the intimidation creeps in and I think that what I am doing is really insignificant to the others that I follow.

The other cause of anxiety/intimidation when I write online for my PLN is that I don't believe that I will contribute enough to the conversation. In order for these other educators to want to include me in their PLN's requires me to contribute thoughful, meaningful contributions to the discussion at hand, and I don't think that I have enough knowledge to do that.

I guess that in order to get over all of these fears, I just have to go out and start doing, whether it is tweeting or commenting.

Intimidation

2008-12-18T14:49:00.006-06:00

Ever since I finished student teaching, I have had some time on my hands. I have used that time to create and add to my Personal Learning Network (PLN). In hoping to add to my PLN, I joined Twitter. Over the past six months, I have heard a good deal about it and how useful/addicting it can be. I was initially skeptical because I thought that blogging was helpful, but didn't necessarily see the point of micro-blogging. I see that the power of Twitter, following other people and having others follow you, is essentially just like your own little PLN. Also knowing that a good amount of my students probably use it, I thought it would be helpful to be knowledgeable about this emerging way to connect with each other.

So I made up my mind that I was going to give Twitter a shot to see what is was all about. The signing up process was very quick and easy, but then came the hard part; the content. As I was considering joining Twitter, I also read up a lot on it, such as the do's and don'ts. One of the don'ts that stuck with me was to not just state what you are doing i.e. just finished dinner. I kept reading about making sure that you are providing value to the people who are following you, because who really cares that you are getting a cup of coffee. So after I started following the same authors of my blog roll, I now had to ensure that what I was posting was of value to these veteran Twitterers. I have a hard enough time coming up with ideas to blog about, let alone ideas to constantly post to Twitter. I know that I struggle as a writer getting the ideas and thoughts in my head onto paper, or the computer screen. I hope that one of the many benefits of blogging is to strengthen my writing ability, and I hope that Twitter does the same for me, albeit in a much shorter, to the point method.

As I have been using Twitter for a few days now, I have noticed a slight change in my behavior online. On my iGoogle page, I added a Twitter gadget to keep with my notworks tweets. Normally when I go to my iGoogle page, the first thing that I check was my Google Reader for any new blog posts. But suddenly, I am now scrolling down past my Reader box and going right to my Twitter box. The good news is that Twitter is living up to its billing as a tremendous place for resources. I currently follow about 20 people and I am having a hard time keeping up with it all. The good part is that a number of the people I follow are tweeting about links they find interesting. So I click on them and check them out. And then I read my Google reader. This is starting to take up a lot more of my time. In just a short time, I think that I am starting to suffer from some of the downsides to Twitter which is hyperconnectivity. Wes Fryer wrote an excellent piece about it the other day.

People on both the pro and con sides of hyperconnectivity say it will influence people’s health. While those who fear it say it will cause stress-related illnesses, those who welcome it say the flexibility it offers may improve mental health.

I’m with those who predict more health-related problems with hyperconnectivity than helps. Look how we’re struggling now to keep up with email, SMS messages, blog posts, and other news-related media streams? Discipline is hard. I think digital discipline is only going to get more challenging in the months and years ahead.

From page 132:

HYPERCONNECTIVITY WILL CREATE UNREALISTIC WORK EXPECTATIONS AND STRESS, AND INTRUDE ON LIVES - Many people see hyperconnectivy as a threat. Among the hundreds of elaborations provided by the respondents, only a few people perceived that blending work and personal time would tilt people’s lives toward more time for family, friends, and personal pursuits.
This finding has BIG implications for our need for both digital discipline and digital dialog.

I can't agree with this more and I believe that in addition to teaching our students how to connect with the world properly, we should also teach them how to disconnect with the world as well. The only good that came of this is that when I teach digital discipline going forward, I will have a real life story to go along with it.

I realize that I have only been using Twitter for just a few days now, and that I will start to get the hang of it and will stop being so intimidated.

Frustrated

2008-12-07T12:00:00.003-06:00

I have been struggling lately to verbalize all of the thoughts about teaching from my head onto paper; or virtual paper. For the past week or so, I have been working on my digital portfolio, or e-folio. During that time, I have had to write a considerable amount about my teaching philosophy, my teaching ideals, etc. It is a little embarrassing to admit, but I have had a hard time putting my vision to words. Writing has never been my strong suit, but I have always been able to do a decent job.

I started this blog for many reasons but one of them was to strengthen my writing. I also feel that this whole exercise of creating and adding to my e-folio will also enhance my writing skills, but that is down the road. In the here and now, I am very frustrated with the slow going.

I was very excited to create my own personal website to showcase myself to potential suitors, but I think that I was excited about the idea, not necessarily the creation of said website. Adding the text that explains my vision as an educator has proved to be very difficult for me. The only good thing is that hopefully this challenge will prepare me for job interviews.

I think that the frustration lies in the fact that I see so many wonderful examples of people expressing their own educational philosophies so well on the web. I read these posts, become motivated to create my own, and then sit at the keyboard for long periods of time suffering from writers block.

Maybe it has to do with the fact that I am oftentimes pulled into numerous directions due to all of the blogs that I subscribe to. Like I said above, they provide plenty of motivation, but I think that they often complicate and muddle the overall picture that I am trying to create for myself. I have often questioned myself about the adequate number of blogs that a teacher should subscribe to. When I was student teaching, I had trouble keeping up with my Google Reader. I wondered if I was spending too much time reading blog posts and not enough time planning and creating for teaching. With the technology still so new and everyone feeling their way through it, I think that everyone will have to find their own balance.

Well, this has been a meandering post, but has also been therapeutic as I have been continually typing and letting the ideas just flow. Hopefully, this will cure my writers block and allow more of the ideas to come naturally.

Using Humor

2008-12-02T17:07:00.003-06:00

While I was finishing up my last week of student teaching, I had some time during my prep periods to go and observe other teachers in the building. One of my cooperating teachers made a list of the teachers that she thought was worth observing. So I went around to four different teachers in various subject areas and observed them at their craft. These four observations were so incredibly more helpful and beneficial than the numerous hours I spent observing for my Practicum II experience. It largely has to do with the fact that I now see things through a different lens now that I have actually taught for 14 weeks. There are so many little things that I pick up on now that I didn't before. My main concern before was logging the hours necessary to pass the Practicum and try to defy boredom from a teacher who lectured for 90 minutes straight (and I had to observe him back to back). But now I can spot how the teacher gets the class' attention, what they do with the troublemaker, how they introduce a new topic, etc. This has been so beneficial that I am going to observe at the other high schools in my district.

As I was observing these four teachers, across different subject areas, one thing in particular stood out to me. All use humor in the classroom, and do so incredibly well. As a result, they all have a classroom full of engaged students. Each teacher used humor in a slightly different way, but all had the same effect. One was a smart alack, another used pop culture references, and the other two were sarcastic. I think this use of humor blends seamlessly with how intense they are when teaching. I realized some differences with how I present information and how they do. In addition to using humor, they also are loud and animated. I can easily see why they have the great reputation that they do.

Using humor is something that I tried to incorporate into my bag of teaching tricks. Some of the time it worked but more often than not, it didn't. I realize that some people are born funny and a large part of being funny is your personality. But I think that I was starting to find my place in the classroom and could be starting down that path to being an engaging teacher. I enjoyed some of the back and forth that I had with a few of my students. The funny part is that the keynote speaker at the IBEA conference spoke about how to incorporate humor into teaching. As I sit here and reflect on my student teaching experience, it dovetails nicely with my experience at the IBEA conference.

Seeing these teachers in action motivated me to make humor a much bigger part of my instruction.

What doesn't kill you....

2008-11-29T17:33:00.004-06:00

I am done with Student Teaching; the fourteen weeks are over. It was quite the ride; full of ups and downs. It seems like I just started and now it's over. (Technically, it ended last Tuesday, but I have been so busy until now that I haven't had the time to post about it.) And I still have papers to grade and a test and review guide to write, but as far as the teaching goes, I am finished.

It is definitely a bittersweet moment for me. On the one hand, I am glad to be done with the time-suck known as lesson plan creation and all of the stress that it created. But on the other hand, I really miss the actual act of teaching the students. I finished teaching on Tuesday and on Wednesday, I was in a funk. It took me a few days to figure it out, but I believe it is because I am no longer able to interact with and lead a hundred teenagers.

...Makes you stronger
This was my mantra I kept saying to myself the last few weeks. My cooperating teachers definitely made it difficult for me, but I feel like I will be a better teacher as a result. In two of my three preps, I had to fill the last month and a half with material that I created myself and I couldn't use anything that either of my cooperating teachers used. There were plenty of moments when I was so frustrated and upset with them. But I know that that is how my first year of teaching is going to be like. I want to have the classes be my own and the only way for that is to do everything yourself. I went out for a few drink with some of the other teachers and I was talking to a first year teacher. I told her what was required of me and she told me that she was doing the same thing right now. So I feel better prepared for my first year. Talking with other student teachers in my college program, I am a little ahead of the pack in that regard. I think it is also something I will bring up on job interviews as well, to try and separate myself from everyone else. I am glad that my cooperating teachers had high standards for me and didn't let me take the easy way out and just use their materials. (I hope to replicate these high standards for my students.)

The best part was that I had an opportunity to say all of this to my cooperating teachers before they left on Tuesday. And they also returned the nice praises as well. It was nice to hear that the hard work was worth the effort.

IBEA Conference

2008-11-18T18:38:00.002-06:00

I had first heard about this conference from another student at my college. He invited me to go along with him. I thought it would be a great experience to attend the Illinois Business Education Association's annual conference. I was lucky enough to have already attended a teacher conference before. My brother presented at a conference last year and he snuck me in. As a result, I was constantly comparing the IBEA conference to the one I went to last year. I have to say, IBEA didn't stack up well at all.

It took us forever to get down to Effingham from Chicagoland. From car trouble to rain to fog, it was all a bad omen for things to come. The conference started off poorly for me as the first presentation I went to ended up being nothing like the description in the booklet. The presenters broke every rule of PowerPoint presentations, which might be ok elsewhere, but not in a room full of business educators who teach proper presentation etiquette (i.e not reading directly off the screen). Most of the presentations I attended were this way. I felt bad constantly telling Jon how the conference I went to last year was so much better. The food for dinner Thursday night was really bad. It was a Jimmy Buffet theme, so I understood why we we served cheeseburgers, but they were not edible in the least. At least they gave us plenty of drink tickets. Friday, I did manage to see a worthwhile presentation about Microsoft Expression Studio. It sounds very promising and something I want to investigate further. The last session I went to was for new professionals. It was supposed to be more like a round-table discussion, but it ended up mainly being the four presenters providing us with tips and advice.

The other main reason why I wanted to go was the networking opportunities. The problem with going to the conference with someone is that you don;t really talk to anyone else. We ended up having dinner with some other Young teachers from downstate. So were all very nice, but I don't see any networking opportunities resulting from it. However, I was definitely glad that In had Jon there to commiserate with.

I am thinking about attending the NBEA conference because it will be here in Chicago. I just hope it won't be like the IBEA conference.

Going to State!!!

2008-11-02T10:59:00.004-06:00

I want to add a quick post about the tremendous cross-country team at my school. Both the boys and girls teams have qualified for the state meet next week in Peoria. I couldn't be happier for both teams because I have personally seen all of the hard work they have done throughout the season and they definitely deserve to go.

On a personal note, I am just as excited because I never made it to state in my high school career. I can't wait to soak up the incredible atmosphere at the state meet and also experience all that is entailed in taking a team on an overnight trip like the state meet affords. Hopefully we will come home with some hardware, either on the team side or the personal side. Stay tuned!!!

Student Evaluations

2008-11-02T10:33:00.003-06:00

This past week, we started the second quarter and with that came a new lineup of classes for me. I picked up a Consumer Education class to give me three preps. But it is 8th hour and I already was teaching an Intro class then, so I had to switch around my lineup of classes I teach in the afternoon. I wanted to have those students in the class that I was formerly teaching to evaluate me, and my cooperating teachers assisted in getting that done. (I didn't want to potentially skew the results by administering the evaluation myself.)

I was in the middle of grading papers when the evaluations were dropped off on my desk. I wanted to finish grading and then look over the results. But I couldn't resist the urge to immediately pour over them. These evaluations were from probably my "toughest" class so far. They are a very chatty class and I sometimes struggle to get them refocused and stop talking with their neighbor. A few weeks ago, I had to take a few minutes and discuss this issue with them and also assign them a seating chart in the computer lab. Because of all of that, I was really anxious to see what would come back on these evaluations. As expected, they were pretty mixed with some pretty good and some pretty bad ones. The good part was that there wasn't any that were really negative. A few even made me laugh. For example, one of the questions was: What could I do differently or better. One of my students replied that I should have chosen a more interesting subject to teach.

One of the more interesting aspects was finding out that I have a word that I use too much and repeatedly in class. This was one area in particular that I was paying close attention to. Both of my cooperating teachers have informed me that I use the words "you guys" very often throughout my classes. I have tried to make adjustments and work on this throughout the semester. The really interesting part was that not one student mentioned that I use a word too much, but it wasn't "you guys." There were three students who mentioned that I use the word "exactly" too often. So here I am trying to make sure that I don't say one particular catch-phrase and I end up using another one too much. But the good news is that I am aware of all of this and have something to focus on improving.

I can't wait to get the rest of my evaluations from the other classes that I am teaching to hear what they have to say. No offense to my college supervisor or my cooperating teachers, but I believe that the most important evaluation of myself comes from my students because they are the ones that have been with me everyday throughout this incredible journey and they are most important.

Cross Country

2008-10-20T19:39:00.002-05:00

I have yet to mention on this blog that I have been helping coach the Cross-Country team at my school. It has been tremendously rewarding and a terrific learning experience. One of the reasons why I wanted to become a teacher is to coach at the high school level. I enjoyed being the captain of my cross country and track teams in high school and I think it provided a good foundation. I was a little unsure if I could handle the stress and time commitments of coaching and student teaching, but the head coach has been tremendous in allowing me to miss practices if I need to.

On that note, the head coach is and will be a huge influence on me. The program that he runs at this school is absolutely amazing. It goes beyond the fact that his teams go to state every year. It is about his level of commitment, how he makes running fun so kids want to come out, and how he demands their best, without being a jerk about it.

The great part is that the head coach right now is so completely different from my own high school cross country coach. They were/are both very distinguished head coaches, but that is were the similarities end. I am now able to see two completely different approaches to coaching and also craft my own vision for the type of coach I want to be.

I have gotten out of coaching just as much as I have put in. The one main lesson that I have learned from coaching is that it is still teaching, but just in a different environment.

The Power of Sharing

2008-10-12T15:45:00.004-05:00

One of the big aspects of teaching that I like is the sharing of information, best practices, and tools with others. I am very fortunate to have people around me that also believe in that practice as well.

I am thrilled to have developed a relationship with a classmate of mine from the university that I attend. We call each other around once a week and talk about how our classes are going and discuss things that we have done, both good and bad. We also try to help each other out with ideas for lesson plans and such. It's a great feeling knowing that you helped someone else out of a jam for lesson planning, and it is great to have a resource that is just a phone call away when I get stuck.

A perfect example is a few weeks ago, I mentioned to him that one of my cooperating teachers had indicated to me that she would like to see me create most of the documents going forward for one of my classes. It was a pretty daunting feeling, but then he told me that he would copy all of the files from his high school for that subject and allow me to copy his flash drive. I couldn't believe his generosity and how lucky I am that he would share that with me.

Another excellent resource that I have is my brother. Our relationship is very similar to the one above, with the only exception being that we don't teach the same subject area. The good part is that he is an English teacher and I am always looking for ways to incorporate reading into my subject area. I believe that reading plays a very large role in instruction, no matter what subject you teach.

Last night, I was over at my brother's place catching up and I mentioned this project I am doing in one of my classes where the students pick a newspaper article out of the paper about the economy, summarize it and write about all of the different people who are affected by the article. He immediately told me about a graphic organizer that he uses at his school for someone very similar. So he emailed all of the different types of graphic organizers that his high school has and I was able to tweak one of them to fit my needs.

The other resource that I take advantage of is the Internet. It is amazing to me just how much great resources there are on the Internet. Also, with web 2.0 becoming more and more prevalent, I can only imagine the possibilities in the future. I am always trying to improve upon not only the links I have to resources, but also how I go about finding out about, collecting, and organizing those links. Once I am finished with student teaching, I am going to assemble a digital portfolio of myself, and one of the aspects that I want to include are my resources. I am ultimately looking to create a one-stop-shop for all things Business Education on the Internet. I am very impressed by pretty much everything that Dan Meyer does, but one thing in particular that I want to do is re-create when he posted all of his Math resources online, but only do that with my Business Ed resources. I am hoping to create a website(Maybe a blog) of some sort that I can upload all of my resources to, and so can everyone else. I have come across a number of website on the web that have plenty of resources, but none are directly orientated towards Business Ed teachers. The tricky part is going to be creating something online that becomes popular enough that a lot of people with know about, so they can contribute.

It's all about giving back and sharing....just like they taught us in kindergarten.

Classroom Management

2008-10-04T20:11:00.002-05:00

In my 8th hour Intro class, I laid down the law with them on Thursday. I told them that there was just too much chatting going on and I gave them a seating chart in the computer lab. The rest of the day Thursday they were fine because I think they were still in a little shock over what I said. But on Friday, the message stuck. We went into the lab, they got into their assigned seats and worked productively the whole period.

The same goes for my Computer class. My cooperating teacher told e to switch the seats around now that we switched units. So I moved a student who I was concerned about right in front of the teacher's station so I could keep an eye on her and make sure that she was keeping pace with everyone else. The next day, I was on her quite a bit about keeping up. She talked back and was getting increasingly frustrated with my numerous requests to keep pace. So the next day, after speaking with my cooperating teacher, I filled out a detention slip but didn't sign it. I explained everything to her, but she still didn't cooperate. I gave her the detention, and since then, she has been a lot better. I like the students where just testing me to see if I would actually act on what I was saying. I kept telling my 8th hour Intro class that I would give them a seating chart, but I never backed that talk up until now. The same goes for the student in my computer class. I showed her the detention form filled out but not signed at the beginning of class. She still didn't do what I said, until I actually gave her the detention form.

Always Something To Do

2008-10-04T18:18:00.003-05:00

In my last post, I talked about how sometimes I feel like I am as prepared as I need to be and other times I don't. Well, I learned a lesson this week in that I can never to prepared enough. I fell behind in my lesson planning and then on Monday evening as I was heading home from practice, I heard on NPR that the Dow fell almost 800 points as the House rejected the bailout bill. So when I got home, one of the first things I did was try to find out all that I could about this so that I was prepared to talk about it the next day in class. Well, the next day wasn't as planned out as it could have been and I had to move on with the lesson. Now, if I had been ahead of the game, I could have had plenty of time to read up on the breaking news and still be fully prepared. So I learned the very important lesson that there is always something to do, even when you think you are good to go. This lesson comes at a perfect time as I will be starting my third prep soon. I take over a Consumer Education class in the 2nd quarter and I am not as prepared as I need to be in that class either. So I am working to get back ahead in both of my classes and planning for the start of the third. All in all, I am glad that I learned this lesson now and not later on.

TheRoller-Coaster Ride of Teaching

2008-09-28T12:29:00.002-05:00

During the past few weeks, I have been on the roller-coaster of teaching. I have experienced the highs and the lows. Luckily, the lows have been few and far between.

The biggest reason for this is when I am thinking about where I stand in both of my preps. Sometimes, I feel overwhelmed by all that is going on and coming up. And other times, I feel comfortable with what I am doing and how prepared I am. So I guess it boils down to how prepared I feel. Sometimes, no matter how much I prepared, I still don't fell like I'm ready to go. Other times, I feel that I will be fine with what I have.

I am also beginning to realize that I might be more in the middle of those two feelings that I think I am. So, in other words, I am probably more prepared when I think I am not, and less prepared when I feel that I am ready. So now, it is a matter of trying to better identify my level of preparedness and work off of it.

Student Issues

2008-09-22T20:47:00.003-05:00

One of the things that caught me a little off guard was how many student issues I'd face so early on. A few weeks ago, I got my first taste of dealing with parents. I had to make a phone call to a father of a student who has been tardy for a number of classes. I was pretty nervous before and during the phone call. Of course, the nervousness came through and I didn't like how it came out. Luckily, I only left a message at work and I did discuss what I needed to; I just didn't sound as smooth as I would have liked to.

I also got to send an email home to a parent who was wondering why her daughter's grade was slipping. My cooperating teacher just told me to write it, but I had her check it afterwords. She took out all of my niceties and made the email so it was a lot more direct. Both the email and the phone call were tremendous learning opportunities for me. I now feel more confident about dealing with parents in the future as a result of these experiences.

I am just starting to get a grasp of ALL of the other things that are involved in the role of teacher, besides just teaching. And dealing with parents is just the tip of the iceberg.

Settling In

2008-09-13T08:40:00.003-05:00

I had breakfast this morning with the head cross-country coach, and a former assistant whom I ran against (and knew) in high school. Our meet this morning was cancelled due to the constant rain we have experienced the past 24 hours. But we still met for breakfast. Anyways, the former assistant is a first year teacher and we were talking shop. I mentioned a few lessons in the classroom that I was learning the hard way. And he said, "You learn really quickly what works and what doesn't work." It is a somewhat obvious statement, but it rang really true for me. Sometimes in the business world, it would take a while before it became noticeable for what wasn't working. One of the issues I have is the bathroom pass. This is something that I didn't really spend as much time thinking about as I should have. Both of my cooperating teachers have a pretty strict stance on giving out the pass. At first, I was a lot more sympathetic towards the students who "needed" to use it. I also think that attitude had a lot to do with my concern for how much the kids liked me (which I'll address in my next post). So now that I have completely taken over the classes for a few weeks now, I have started shifting the procedures to be a little more in line with my views. So the bathroom pass has been issued a lot more than the first few days. However, I have also noticed that most, if not all, students who ask to use the pass are abusing their right and are taking advantage of me. I now see why my cooperating teachers have the (what I formerly believed to be) strict view on bathroom passes. During my last class on Friday, a student came up to me and asked if he could use the bathroom. I told him that he has gone pretty much every day this week. I continued on about how I can't go if I need to in the middle of class and how he needs to work it out better. I am going to continue rejecting students going forward and letting them know that they have lost the privelidge of using the bathroom, at least until things improve on that front. We'll see how it turns out.

Two weeks in

2008-09-07T19:46:00.007-05:00

I can't believe that two weeks are already done with. They have flown by. And speaking of that, I was just thinking about how my days seems to fly by now that I'm teaching. As soon as I walk in the door to the Business Department, I am going until I get in the car to head home. Including practice, I am regularly putting in 11 hour days, but it doesn't even feel like it. I remember back when I was working at the bank and when I had to work a 10 hour day, it felt like it took forever. I'm guessing it has a lot to do with the fact that I am now enjoying what I do.

I am starting to settle in and get into the rhythm of the school day, which is reassuring. I am also a lot better than expected with remembering my students' names. I was really worried about it and everyone I spoke to just said "you'll get it". I was getting increasingly frustrated with what appeared to be their lack of help, but I am know realizing the wisdom of their words. There is no rhyme or reason to it and everyone has their own way of memorizing student names. These are a few reasons that provide confidence on my path to becoming a teacher.

One issue I am struggling with right now is remembering to take attendance. My computer class is no problem because I can do it right from the computer I am standing at. But in my Intro class, which is in a regular classroom, I always forget, until the bell rings, and everyone is walking out. There are a few different methods that I am going to try out this week in hopes of discovering something soon that works.

I'll go out this week on a high note: As I was leaving for practice Friday, I was walking out with one of my cooperating teachers. As we were about to go our separate ways, she stopped and told me that she thinks that I'm doing a good job. That was so great to hear, especially coming from her.

1st Week

2008-08-30T14:24:00.003-05:00

My first week is finally over. It seemed like a very long week. I'm not sure if it was getting up earlier (5:40am), getting home at 6:030pm every night after practice, or running with the kids during practice. I have a feeling that it is probably a combination of all three.

The biggest thing for me this past week was actually starting to teach some periods. I spoke with my cooperating teachers about mostly observing the first week and easing into teaching. I had watched the first section of Computer Business Applications and helped out a student with the same assignment in the Computer Skills class the next hour. So after lunch, I was supposed to observe CBA again. I don't know why, but I turned to my cooperating teacher and asked her if I could teach the lesson. She said sure and I was off and running. It went very well; so well in fact that my cooperating teacher left the room for a little while. Instead of that concerning me, it actually gave me confidence. It was validated once the period was over and she told me nice job.

My low point came during my 8th hour Intro to Business class the second day. I already had taught Intro 3rd hour and didn't realize I was speeding through the lesson during 8th hour. So I got to the end of the lesson really early. I had 10 minuted left and didn't know what else to do. It was not enough time to launch into what we had planned for the next day, and I had just finished going around the room and having the class introduce themselves to me. My cooperating teacher and I were unsure of what to do, so we just let them talk for the rest of the period. I really hated to do that because I don't want to send the message to my students that if they don't talk during the lesson and we get finished early that they can just blow off the rest of the period. But I fear that that is exactly what happened. So we will see how the semester pans out with that class.

First Day

2008-08-25T20:13:00.004-05:00

Wow, what a day. It began early enough at 5:40 am. I joked to the head cross-country coach that I haven't seen 5:40am on an alarm clock in quite some time. But I didn't even need an alarm clock, what with waking up at 3am, then 4am, and I was pretty much awake from 5am until finally getting out of bed at 5:40. But enough about the times.

I was able to get to school when I was aiming for and started right away with the finishing up prepping for the days activities. I was concerned because there was still so much that I hadn't covered with either of my cooperating teachers, but we finalized what we had. When 1st period started, we only had just a few small hiccups. The only issues were having two teachers, and both of us figuring out when to start and stop talking. But other than that, it all went very smooth. It was nice to have lunch with a handful of people, as opposed to how I would have to eat by myself at my previous job. Plus, it allowed my to meet some other teachers in the building. They seem like an entertaining group.

The highlight of my day came during 7th hour during Computer Business Applications (CBA). I had had a few sections of CBA earlier in the day and was pretty well rehearsed on what we were doing for the day. So I turned to my cooperating teacher and asked her if I could take it. She said sure, and I was off. I was able to hit all of the main points in the course overview piece and was able to talk to class through all of the steps for the pre-test from memory. I knew I was doing a good job when she left the classroom for a little while. When the class was over, she complimented me on my performance.

I like how my day is laid out for me, (so fay anyways). It is nice to have 9th (final) period off, as it gave me a chance to get ready for tomorrow, and also ready for cross-country practice. Cross-country was pretty long today because we had to get to a lot of miscellaneous things like handing out uniforms and picture order forms. When you throw in the 5 mile fartlek run I did during practice, it all made for one long day. But I can't complain because all of my classes went smoothly today and thier doesn't seem to be any major issues with any students, (again, so far).

Am I ready?

2008-08-18T12:04:00.003-05:00

I have so busy with helping coach cross-country that I haven't taken the time to reflect in quite a while. It's weird; I feel prepared, and at the same time, not even close. I am just wondering if there is more that I can be doing right now to start the year off better. I reviewed my classroom management plan and have my outline for my syllabus ready to go.

I shifted my focus from Computer Business Applications(CBA) to Intro to Business (Intro). My cooperating teacher told me that we will pretty much take CBA lesson by lesson. So now I have been pouring over the Intro book, trying to find ways to incorporate more cooperative learning, groupwork, and activities, instead of the lecture route. I also have been frustrated because I haven't been able to find a suitable icebreaker for the needs/wants lesson of the first day. I met with both of my cooperating teachers last spring and the one who teaches intro told me that she was looking for a new icebreaker for the needs/wants section. All that I have been able to find are aimed at elementary students. The last thing I want to do is start off the school year by talking down to my students. Hopefully, I will come up with something before Thursday, when I have a district and school-wide meeting and prep work afterwards.

Diving In Head First

2008-08-11T21:23:00.003-05:00

Well, I finally took the plunge. I quit my job last week, and I couldn't be happier. But I also have to admit that the feelings of freaking out and nervousness are starting to replace the feelings of excitement that I used to feel.

I can't wait to meet with my cooperating teacher to get some concrete plans for the upcoming school year. I feel like I am going to be unprepared and disappoint her if I don't show her all of the things that I have going on in my head regarding the type of teacher I want to be. For example, I want to show her my classroom management plans and also a rough draft of a syllabus. Is this too much? Not enough? I am going to error on the side of preparedness and show her what I have. Suddenly the golden rule of teaching (You can never be too prepared to teach) flooded back into my brain as I typed that last statement.

I am also excited about starting my coaching duties. I am lucky enough to have to opportunity to help out coach the boys cross-country team. On top of that, the coach has won a state title before, so I am getting to learn from a proven winner. Practice starts in a few days and I have so many question marks. Am I in good enough shape to run with the kids? What exactly will be my duties? Will I have any of these athletes in my classes? Who knows, but I can't wait to find out.

Welcome!

2008-08-11T20:04:00.006-05:00

This blog is going to be place for me to record my thoughts, feelings, observations, and the highs and lows as a student teacher. I have a lot in my head about what kind of teacher I want to become and figuring out how to get there is what I want to record here.

For a little background about me, I will be student teaching in the business education department. I am 28 years old and have spent the last five years working in the business world. I started out selling TV commercials, but the last four years I spent as an assistant branch manager of a nationwide bank. I am hoping to use all of the knowledge I gained during that time to help better prepare my students.

The thoughts and items posted in this blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect those of the other employees or the school where I am conducting my student teaching. I will never use the real names of anyone involved in my posts, especially my students for obvious reasons.

I am so excited to be finally embarking on this journey. I have been preparing for this for so long and I can't believe it is here. I look forward to providing an inside look at what goes into student teaching, with some coaching thrown in for good measure. Welcome!