Thursday, April 22, 2010
What are your Teaching Goals for the final weeks of the semester?
The academic year is winding down, and we are on our last stretch of classroom practice. In the next two weeks, as you work with and learn from your students and cooperating teacher, what goals do you have for yourself? How might you concentrate your focus on a few key areas of your teaching and yourself as teacher? What still feels shaky to you as you assess your strengths and weaknesses?
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As we go into teaching at the high school level, there are a few things I definitely want to work on and strengthen. I need to work on my questioning because I tend to get very uncomfortable if there is silence after I ask something and I also feel like sometimes I ask questions that are way too easy and/or don’t allow for much depth beyond surface comprehension. I also want to work on my attitude in the classroom. I kind of feel like, “Who am I to tell these kids what to do?”, so I definitely want to work on feeling more comfortable in the classroom and being confident that I am supposed to be there. I am also going to focus my observations on how Melissa is able to be so informal with her students while still getting them to do what they need to do. It might be hard to try to discern that from this time of year (I would probably have gotten a better sense of it coming in at the beginning of the year) but it is very important to me to figure out how to achieve that balance because that is the type of teacher I want to be.
ReplyDeleteAs I finish my placement in High School, there are two main things that I want to focus on. The first is my presence in the classroom. I have to say, that I find High School age students a bit intimidating. I felt so comfortable, very fast, in the middle school. Those are my peeps; that age is what I do!! Seriously, I know it is probably because I have experience relating to sixth graders (since I am the mother of one) and I understand where they are at in life, in general. I relate to them as a mother. When I am in High School, I seem to relate to the students more from a place of remembering what it was like to be in High School myself. I hated being treated like a child rather than like the grown-up I thought I was! Now, I realize that teenagers are not grown-up but they aren’t children either. So, I guess that with that in mind, I am cognizant of the line I need to walk with them. It doesn’t feel quite natural yet, but I am really excited to work with this age group! I am sure that with time and guidance, this will feel natural as well.
ReplyDeleteThe second thing is my merging of content and methods. I need to work on having a balance between the two. I feel that sometimes, I get so excited about how I am going to teach something, that I risk losing the content in the chaos. In my middle school lesson, I feel that I did plan a lesson that ended up being successful; but, there was the risk that the students were not really getting the vocab words I was trying to teach. In the end, I think most of the students learned the words; but, a few probably got lost in the shuffle. This is something I will not be able to work out in two short weeks; but, I will be aware of it and work towards finding a successful balance.
Jill emailed me this post from her iphone and asked me to cut and paste it because her internet is down, So, Jill said....
ReplyDeleteAs I get ready to teach a class full of sophomores on Wednesday, I am worrying about my presence in the classroom too! I'm sure my nerves will ease up a bit when I am a full-fledged "real" teacher, because the classroom will be full of "my kids." But for now I feel like Kathryn--who am I to be telling these kids what to do!?! So, my goals to focus on are: stop being nervous that I am going to flop (since I am sorts sure that I won't...) and remember that I am a "real" teacher, or at least I can pretend to be and the kids will never be the wiser! I am the adult in the classroom, I am the professional...this will be my new mantra...hopefully I'll begin to believe it before Wednesday!!!!!!!
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My biggest problem has always been projecting my voice. I don't realize sometimes how quiet I am being, until someone asks me to repeat what I have just said. I know that as a teacher I will be repeating myself often, but the repetition will need to be for clarification, not simply because I didn't speak loudly enough. Also, I hope that the lessons I create are interesting and (not too) challenging for the students. Right now, I am thinking about a lesson on Atalanta's and her suitors' motives in reacting the way they do through a feminist lens. I want the students to be interested but I don't want to bore them or lose them in a concept that is a little complex. I want to challenge but not be unreachable.
ReplyDeleteI seriously need to work on my comfort level in front of the class. I have to find a way to relax and just let it flow. I hope that kids look forward to my class because they are engaged, I do fear, however, that I will not know how to differentiate instruction for the different level learners. It scares me to think that I may leave kids behind. I also need to work on my tolerance for show off kids and remember what I was like (I didn't turn out so bad) and be patient. I guess it is like having a customer that is mean or continues to tell stupid jokes that aren't funny, and I just want to tell them off, but I don't, I hold my tongue and kill them with kindness. Like I said, I have to learn to relax and just be me. No one likes a fake! I have quite a bit to learn but I believe that it will come with time and experience.
ReplyDeleteI am so pleased to read the goals you’ve set for yourselves. And, as I compiled a “nutshell” version of what you’ve written about so far, it struck me that ALL of you should be paying attention to all of these things in the next couple weeks. Look at that—we’ve made a collective list of novice teacher goals. Cool! (It also might strike you as interesting that many of these goals—most, actually—show up in research I have done with beginning English teachers. So, validation for your worries.)
ReplyDeleteLearning to be comfortable with silence (wait time!)
Forming comfortable relationships with your students (“informal”)
Asking questions that compel students to think deeply
Developing a classroom presence:
--Coming to terms with your new authority status
--Finding balance: “the line I need to walk with them”
Merging content and method—“the What meets the How”
Developing your Teacher Voice—projecting, asserting, engaging
Practicing patience and reflexivity
One of the items from the list that resonates with me, as I gear up to come see you teach in high school, is “merging content and method.” One of the easiest traps to fall into as a novice teacher is to put the activity before the content (the cart before the horse, so to speak). In the often desperate search for that “golden lesson” that will wow everyone and win the hearts of the students, folks often turn to a “cool activity” without first thinking about WHAT they are teaching and WHY. The HOW—the method—is super important, of course, but it totally depends on the What (content) and the Why (purpose).
What are you teaching?
Why are you teaching it?
Once you’ve figure that out, then you ask:
How will I teach it?
I would approach the teaching/reading of a play differently than I would a reading of a poem or an essay. I would design different teaching methods for engaging students in literary analysis and for drafting personal essays. So, as you are developing your lessons for the next two weeks, please, please keep this in mind. Let the stuff you are teaching, not the activity, drive the lesson.
The first goal I wish to achieve is distinguishing my voice over the students. As I learned in the middle level placement, my voice tends to get lost among the chatter and my authority (I’m not sure if that is the right word to use) within the class lessens. Fortunately, I was not overpowered by these students and was able to get them back on track but they were a small class and at a younger age. I feel as if this were the high school things might have gone a little different. Since I am tiny I tend to blend in with the rest of the students and I need to make my self appear “bigger” then I actually am. The second goal I am setting for myself is strengthening my discussion skills. I have noticed that when I question students they just answer the question and discussion stops there, only receiving one or two responses from the students. I feel as if some of the best learning comes from discussion and learning from one another and I hope to achieve this in my own classroom!
ReplyDelete