First Week Success!

Hello fellow or future educators,

I just finished my first week in the classroom. I am not student teaching but am in a part of my program called Professional Seminar. To describe it, I am pretty much an aid. I get to stay with my assigned teacher all day (a double block of advanced math, a block of learning support reading, and a double block of learning support math) help students, collect homework, grade tests and quizzes, create exit slips, use the copier and all that fun stuff. I would have to say that I have learned more in this one week then I have in a very long time. I have not only learned from my assigned teacher, Mr. G., but also from my students.

I am placed in an urban school where the population is mainly Spanish. My students although they are very needy are also very giving and willing to learn. This week alone I have been made and given a hand traced turkey & an origami jumping frog. I have been told that I will be a good teacher because I am "Mad cool!" Also I have been taught a handful of Spanish words. One of my students had been calling me Dona (with an tilde on top of the n) I finally asked him what it meant the other day, he told me it was a way to show respect to a woman, like Miss. or Mrs. in English. Now all he does is call me Dona and I love it.

One of my reluctant learners lets call him R, he is the one that calls me Dona, plays the "cool kid" role in the classroom, so when I asked him to come sit by me at my table during the test, he wouldn't move. His friend L, another reluctant learner, said "I'll sit with you Miss. K, I could use the help." He moved his stuff and his test back to my table. I began to help him with his test, simply reading the problem out loud and being there to listen to him talk the problems out, got him through the entire test and from what I saw all the answers were correct.  After about 5 minutes of helping L with his test, I see R walking over with all his stuff, pull out the chair next to me and sit down saying "Can you please help me?" "Of course," I said. Let's start at the top. He is currently failing for the grading period and needed a good score on this test, from what I saw he also got all the answers correct. It is amazing what some individual time of just reading the questions and letting them talk their way through the problems can do for a student.

My teacher had an article printed out and sitting on my table when I walked in this morning. It was titled something along the lines of Immediate and Effective Feedback. I set up my table and sat down to begin reading. The article was comparing video games and school, it was based off a study on why children will play video games for hours but will not stay focused in class. The study concluded that it was because of the Immediate and Effective feedback the video games give to the children. If you think about it video games give you positive or negative feedback and a hint for improvement at least every level of the game, if not more. The article went on to say that is what education is missing, immediate and effective feedback, also along those lines formative feedback versus summative feedback. We need to be giving our students feedback that they can take and learn from and using it to succeed. Tied to that is the results the study showed about the deference between numerical marks on a paper and written feedback. Numerical marks do not give students feedback that they can use to succeed. Written feedback stating why they got the questions wrong and what they could do to fix them have a greater meaning to students. But however, if a numerical mark is attached along with written feedback the written feedback will be ignored and the competition of "Who got the highest score" will continue, which only increases some students self esteem, while diminishing others.

I know this post was kind of long, but I really hope that you enjoyed it and/or learned something. My program is requiring me to write a reflection every week on what I did, learned, and observed in the classroom so I figured I could type all my ideas out here, in "online talk" and then refine it for my reflections.

Until next time, from one of my favorite educators, real or scripted,  
“Believe in yourselves. Dream. Try. Do good” - Mr. George Feeny

-Miss. Kaitlin :)