Introducing the hermit crabs

Well the time finally came and we introduced our new class pet, three little hermit crabs. Now I don't know if you have ever been in a classroom when a class pet is introduced but it can be quite chaotic. The children were talking, excited and most of all wanted to get an upclose look of the new pet. It is hard to maintain control in a situation like that, but I thought on my feet and explained to the students that the hermit crabs won't come out of their shells if we are loud and moving around a bunch. It is hard to stick to a lesson plan when you are introducing a class pet but I think the lesson overall went really well. The second part of the lesson was for the students to watch the hermit crab crawl around and record what the student observed about the hermi crab. Initially, the students were suppose to be observing and recordin but it ended up that my cooperating teacher and I liked that the students were just watching and interacting with the hermit crab instead of trying observe and record at the same time. The joy of have two teachers in the class was that I was able to take the first graders and they all were able to hold or pet the hermit crab, and my cooperating teacher was able to take all the second graders and hold or pet the hermit crab. In the end it seemed more important that the students had that time to interact with our class pet, and we thought we would be flexible and incorporate the recording observations into the next lesson. All in all a wonderful day of watching students explore, wonder, think and discover!

Student Voice

For the preassessment lesson in our Unit on Hermit Crabs my cooperating teacher displayed a wonderful example of using student voice. One of our learning goals is to teaching the difference between living and non living things. As a way to pre assess this we were going to give students a worksheet where they were asked to circle only the living things. My cooperating teacher suggested that we instead have student draw a picture of what they think a living this is and why and draw a picture of what a non living thing is and why. This was a great example of student voice because all the students had such difference answers, and different ways at looking at the same questions. Their different answers to the same questions wouldn't have been heard if we had gone with the inital circling activity. This made me realize the importance of student voice when pre assessing and activating background knowledge in a lesson. Allowing students the opportunity to answer open ended question that they can answer from thier individual perspective provides teaching with the tools they need to decipher what students understand and what pre conceived notions they possess.

My first science unit inquiry lesson

Tuesday was my first inquiry lesson for our science unit about hermit crabs. The lesson was about asking questions to make an educated guess about what a ceonobita clypeatus is (the scientific name for hermit crab). As I was bringing the students in from reason I began with my lesson attention getter. I had all the students stand up against the wall and I said "Now students when you were at recess something really strange happened. Someone came into our classroom and put something on the wall, we don't who did or why, and we don't know what the word he or she put up means. So I am going to need your help to figure this out." This opener worked like a charm. The students got so engaged at the thought of an 'intruder' type person coming that they pointed out the word I put on the board, and also commented on other things they thought were moved or out of place (even though they weren't). One student even said "I'm going to get to the bottom of this!" Once the students sat down we talked about the word and they had a chance to draw or write what they thought the word meant. One problem, I encountered what that they were riled up by the mystery of some unknown person coming into the classroom that I couldn't get them to stop blurting out or having side conversations. I didn't know how much I could let slide because they were talking about the lesson and they were excited how finding out what the word meant, they were just being a little too chatty and silly. Another issue was that one of hints that the mystery person left was that the creature could live on land or in water. Well the class just finished doing a unit on frogs, and having frogs as class pets so many of them thought the creature was a frog and no one came close to guessing a crab or anything like it because frog was the first thing that popped in their head and so it was hard to steer their thinking and questioning from the frog guess (maybe one of my clues should have been, 'the creature is not a frog'). Teaching students to ask questions can be hard to grasp especially for first and second graders. I actually felt that they understand the concept of educated guesses better than the concept of why scientists asks questions. During my lesson it was hard to stick to my lesson plan because other things kept coming up, so they were some ideas and key phrases I wanted to address but didn't. At times my cooperating teacher say certain ideas I forgot to say and then I would feel a little flustered remembering what I forgot to say, and then I would think in my head that I needed to slow down. Besides that I thought the lesson went well, the students were engaged and seemed excited about it.

Motivating an unmotivated student

One student didn't want to write a letter to her family, she was unmotivated and said she didn't have anything to write about. I asked her what her favorite subject is and she said she didn't have one. She is a student that I have power struggles with and I could tell that she was in one of her stubborn moods so I knew I had to find a different approach. I told her to look at me, in my eyes and then I distracted her from her bad mood by commenting that we had the same necklace on only mine was black and hers was pink. That seemed to perk her up, so I then asked her what kinds of things she had been reading lately. She said she read time for kids about the presidential election so I asked if she would like to write about that. She said yes, and I said would be back in my five minutes to check on her, I also added, "and I really will be back" and I was consistent with that. She ended up full page letter about Barack Obama and how she is going to vote for him, she wrote "not to be rude or anything but John McCain is too old!" When she was done she came to read it me and she was so proud and excited, and read her letter with great expression. It made me feel very good.

The power struggle

There are three students in the class that are constantly having power struggles with the teachers in the classroom. One student loves to push our buttons and power is something she is consistently trying to gain I think maybe because she has been so powerless in her early childhood situations. Another student is extremely sensitive, and he is sometimes like a time bomb at times. He gets easily frustrated and and then if he gets reprimanded he just shuts off and pouts. He blames it on being tired, and when you try to talk to him after he shuts off you can not get him to budge, it is difficult because the slightest things can set him off, but also the right word at the right time gets he back on track, and then he does good work. The other student is similar but when he doesn't want to do something he will get other students off track, or will do every obnoxious things like lie on the floor, shout, and fall out of his chair on purpose. He has some social deficits so he says certain things, that are hard to respond to and you usually have to just end up walking away. Power struggles are hard as a student teacher because it is hard to gage how hard to push. When you walk away from them do they think they won the power struggle? And Sometimes the students I mentioned need you to sit and talk to them for a good ten minutes before they will check back in, but sometimes they won't check back in and you have ran out of things to say to them. When students are rude to you it is hard at times to keep talking to them, especially when you feel like you are talking to a brick wall, but I guess that is all part of the power struggle. I'm started to fully understand the idea of differentiated instruction especially when it comes to discipline and power struggle with students.

Gaining their respect in some areas but not all

After writing my previous post about gaining the student's respect I reflected some more and realized something interesting. In terms of classroom instruction the activity that I have consistently done the most often are read alouds. I was thinking that when the class is at the rug and we are doing read alouds, I have thier respect. They listen, sit quietly, they are engaged and they have their hands to themselves. I even introduced a technique I made up called the 'silent turtle.' It is when you make sign for turtle in sign language. I ask the student to show me thier silent turtle and then put your hands into your lap. I know that sometime implementing new techniques like this in a classroom that has never done it before doesn't always stick but they have all caught on to it and understand. Anyways, I have noticed that I do not feel like I have the same type of respect when I am teaching the class as a whole when they are at their desks or when I am working on word study with the students. During these time they are blurting out, and having side conversations. It is hard doing word study groups in the conference room sometime because they think it is fun to be in there so they get riled up. Also, during my first unit plan lesson it was so hard to eliminate the side talking especially because it was an inquiry lesson that students were excited about and asking questions about.

Gaining the student's respect

Making the transition from student teacher to teacher teacher can make it difficult to earn the respect of the students. Even if my cooperating teacher or I tell the students that I will be the teacher by the end of the year, I still don't think they understand. For example, the other day I lead the PACE afterschool program after our class field trip, and the students were not listening, out of control to the point where I had to turn off the lights and have them put their heads down. I think my mistake was that I gave them some slack because I knew they were tired from the field trip, but they took advantage of that and didn't think they needed to listen to me. It is hard to find the balance between being the student teacher who it trying to be nice and win the affection of the students, and being the teacher who needs the students to respect her and realize that she is the classroom teacher as well. I wonder if I am not being stern enough or consistent enough.