The Behavior Battle

     Classroom Behavior Management.  That is a daunting phrase at this stage in my teaching career.  This week tested our preparedness in regards to controlling classroom behavior.  We have a GREAT class.  They are smart and happy students.  There are times however, as is common with any group of children, that they can be loud and difficult to manage.  For instance, my co-teaching partner and I have to take our fourth graders into a small office adjacent to their classroom for their social studies lesson in the mornings.  Our mentor teacher teaches her fifth graders math at this time too.  Rather than having us talk over each other about different subjects, we take the fourth graders to another room.  Eleven fourth graders. One girl and ten energetic boys sardined into one small space.  Something is bound happen. 

     Our most common issue is the noise level.  We have the students each read a paragraph in their social studies textbook out loud while the rest of their peers follow along in their books.  While one of the students is reading, other students often talk though.  Also, when my co-teaching partner and I are asking questions to monitor understanding, the room turns into a circus at times.  There are side conversations and other distractions that occur.  A student in particular tries to get his classmates to laugh at noises that he makes, pictures in the textbook, or actions that he does.  We remind the students to focus, respect their peers while they read, as well as respect us when we are instructing.  Oftentimes these reminders turn into small fits of agitation after repeatedly redirecting their behavior. 

     My co-teaching partner is much better in my opinion at getting the students on task.  I am thankful to be partnered with her because she is a great model, along with our mentor teacher.  I am going to really focus on appropriate behavior management in the last week of our pre-internship.  I would like to research more appropriate ways of behavior management as well as ask veteran teachers their strategies.  I want to be a warm demander, but not a dictator.  I understand that a certain amount of chatter and rowdiness is to be expected and encouraged.  I just do not want my classroom to be a hub of disrespect or outlandish behavior.  I need to make sure that I have enough authority while also giving my students enough leeway to interact with one another.  I wonder which methods of behavior management work best as well as what my methods of behavior management will be in my future classroom?       

Agree to Disagree?- Social Studies Debate

     This week my co-teaching partner and I taught a lesson about the Second Seminole War as well as events that occurred prior to and after the war.  We presented this lesson to the fourth graders in our class.  We had the students read aloud the section about the war from their social studies textbooks.  Then, we showed them a powerpoint in order to review what they had read as well as show the students additional pictures of important people and events during the time period.  Following the information session, it was my co-teaching partner's idea to have the students participate in a debate.                

     The topic of the debate was whether or not the students agreed or disagreed with the Indian Removal Act. This act forced the majority of the Seminole Indians, along with any Native Americans living east of the Mississippi, to relocate west to a reservation located in present day Oklahoma.  Before the students began debating, my co-teaching partner asked the students if they knew what a debate was.  Many of the students said that it had to deal with the president and voting.  My co-teaching partner mentioned that presidential candidates do debate each other and clarified that sometimes their debates sway people to vote a certain way after hearing the candidate's opinions of issues that they discuss during debates.  We mentioned that a debate is basically a discussion between people in which opposing sides listen to each other's opinions, then state their own opinions.  We clarified that when one person or side is speaking, the other is quiet and listening until it is their turn to speak.  We also mentioned that people often back their opinions up with facts.  Based on what the students had just learned, we encouraged our students to incorporate facts from the reading and powerpoint during their debate.  We then demonstrated a debate about which season was better- summer or fall? We wanted the students to see that they did not have to yell or argue during the debate.  We reiterated the need for respect when expressing your opinions.  Then we asked the students to put their heads down on their desks and raise their hands if they agreed with the Indian Removal Act or disagreed with it.

     I was under the impression that every student would disagree with it because it was not fair to the Native Americans.  However, three of the students in the class agreed with the act and believed that the Native Americans should have been forced to leave Florida.  Also, I expected that the students would not know what to say or would find the activity boring.  To my surprise though, the students were very passionate about their opinions during the debate.  None of them were too out of line or rude to the opposing view.  They said things like "I disagree with your statement" rather than saying that the opposing side was stupid or something hurtful.  Each of the sides also took the role of the Native Americans and the settlers by speaking in first person often.  They said things such as, "You forced us off of our land" rather than speaking in third person about the Native Americans and the settlers.  Lastly, I was blown away by the fact that the students referred to their textbooks during the debate, and they remembered a great deal of information from the reading and the powerpoint.  This showed us that they were paying attention and actively engaged during the lesson.

     Overall, this activity went much better than I anticipated.  Several of the students came up to us later in the day asking if we could do another debate.  I was pleased with the impact the lesson and accompanying activity had on our students.  It made me wonder if I should incorporate debates more often in social studies lessons, as long as I set clear ground rules about respecting each other beforehand.

Thankful for a Terrific Mentor Teacher

     This week was spirit week at the school.  Tuesday was celebrity and cartoon character day.  The students and staff had the opportunity to defy the dress code and be someone different for the day.  There was an anime character, a baseball player, a rapper, superheroes, and a Duck Dynasty reality show personality flocking our classroom.  I tried my best to dress up as a boy band singer that the girls in our class greatly admire.  I thought that the students would think it was funny- especially since I am a girl.  Our mentor teacher dressed up as a ninja turtle.  The kids went crazy with excitement over her costume.  Not just the kids in our classroom, but several of the kids at the school.  I just wanted to take the time this week in this post to recognizer her too.  She is not afraid to act silly or dress up if it makes the kids happy.  She is also a great teacher.  She is a real inspiration of how a teacher should be.  She creates a comfortable and fun environment in her classroom and loves her students.  It amazes me how much respect she is given from the students and the staff.  I hope to not be afraid to get into character and participate in fun events, like spirit week, at my future school.  I hope that I gain at least half of the amount of respect and admiration that my mentor teacher has earned.  I can see the impact that my mentor teacher has on the lives of the students that she teaches and passes in the hall each day, as well as the people that she works with.  I hope to be able to do the same when I officially become an educator.      

Florida History Lesson and Playwriting

     In our classroom this week, my co-teaching partner and I taught our first of three social studies Pathwise lessons for our fourth graders.  In our lessons, we are focusing on the people and important events that occurred during the time that Florida was a territory of the United States as well as when it became the twenty-seventh state of the U.S.
     For our first lesson, we had the students pre-read chapter five section one of their social studies textbooks.  The following day we presented a PowerPoint lesson for the students that directly dealt with the information that they had read.  We presented the information in a timeline format and included better visuals of maps and people discussed during the time period.  Each slide of the PowerPoint had a timeline at the top with the years 1821-1824.  We bolded and colored in green the year that we were specifically talking about on that slide.  Underneath the timeline, we listed important facts from the section in their textbook.
     After, reviewing the information with the students, we told them that we were going to put them into groups in which they would need to write a script for a play together about an event that we talked about in the PowerPoint and that they read about.  Then, we asked them what a play was and what needs to be included in a script in order to act it out.  After this discussion, we showed them an example of script found in the fifth grade reading text book and split them into groups.  There are three groups.  One group will be acting out what occurred when President James Monroe appointed General Andrew Jackson to set up Florida's government when it became a territory of the United States.  General Jackson only stayed in Florida for three months, then went back to Tennessee with his wife.  This leads to our second play.  Our second play is about President Monroe appointing the first non-military governor of Florida, William Pope DuVal.  The students will also be acting out an important meeting that took place between DuVal and the Seminole Indians known in history as the Treaty of Moultrie Creek.  Signing this treaty caused the Native Americans to give up many millions of acres of their land for incoming settlers and be forced to relocate to a small reservation in the middle of Florida.  Our last group will be acting out the time when Governor DuVal appointed two men to find a capital location of Florida.  The twist to this event in history is that the location that they found was a Seminole Indian Village...
     The students began writing their scripts after we divided them into groups.  We assigned characters, but gave each group the option to pick which members in their groups would act out each part.  We specified that if there was any fighting over parts though, that we would draw their names to choose who was which character.  There was a minor conflict in one of the groups, but the boys played rock, paper, scissors to decide who would play the character they each wanted.  This solved their issue.  The majority of the groups are very excited about writing their plays and are coming up with great ideas, remembering to include accurate information, and working well together.  One group with the only girl in the class is having difficulty though.  The boys in the group are not including her ideas or taking her input into account well.  I talked with them before the day was over about the importance of everyone in the group participating.  Fingers crossed everyone will work well together when we finish the plays and act them out next week.  Several of them even want to make props and dress up for their skits.  I am happy that we were able to create an engaging history lesson that will hopefully help them remember the information in addition to having fun.                  

Acting and Assessment

     Two weeks ago, the fourth graders in our class took the Florida Writes Test.  My co-teaching partner and I oversaw a reading lesson in which the fifth graders read and acted out a play from their reading textbooks while their fourth grade classmates were completing their test.  The play that the students acted out was an African story about a fisherman that tricked other salespeople from the market into giving him baskets and other merchandise.  He told them that a bridge that they needed to walk across to get to the market would break unless they lightened their loads that they were taking to the market.  He told them this lie because he could not find any fish to sell at the market in order to earn money to buy the goods.  The other salespeople ended up finding out that the bridge was not fragile and they played a similar trick on him in order to get back at him.  Overall, the students did a GREAT job acting out the story.  Most of them were very into character, read well, and used props found in the room.  Also, the fourth graders in our class completed their writing test and fingers crossed they did great too!

Fiction and Fractions

     This week in class my co-teaching partner and I taught two lessons together.  Our first lesson was a writing mini-lesson for our fourth graders.  The fourth graders are taking the Florida Writes State Test at the beginning of next week.  We took one last look at their writing and noticed that in their narrative stories, the students sometimes forgot the rules for using dialogue and quotations, such as what to capitalize and where to put commas and punctuation marks.  We also noticed that they needed to mix up their use of the word said with other words.  We made a PowerPoint of dialogue sentences and asked the students to tell us what was wrong or missing from the sentences.  The students were very engaged during the lesson, and we let them come up to the board and fix the mistakes in the sentences.  Then, we compiled a list of better words than said.  We gave the students two examples and let them run with them.  And that is exactly what they did.  They gave us over 20 GREAT examples of better words for said.  Several of them took note of the words and hopefully will look at them this weekend in a last minute preparation for the test.  This mini-lesson made me think a great deal about whether or not our fourth graders were prepared for the Florida Writes test.  It made me wonder if any of them will get test anxiety on test day and if there is anything we can do do relieve their anxieties.  It made me wonder how many of them will pass.  Ultimately, it made me think that they have spent an entire year preparing for the exam, and I am very hopeful as well as optimistic that their preparation will pay off on the day of the test.  You can do it fourth graders!! We believe in you.
     Lastly, my co-teaching partner and I taught a math lesson to the fifth graders.  The math lesson was on how to turn improper fractions into mixed numbers and vice versa.  Again, the students impressed us with their attention during our lesson as well as their grasp of the material.  We taught them a few tricks, with our mentor teacher's help, that hopefully made the lesson more concrete.
     Overall, I am greatly appreciative of the practice and guidance we are getting from this experience.  I feel more confident than ever in my ability as a teacher and more at ease teaching math.  Math has always been one of my weaker subjects, but getting the opportunity to break it down for the students is helping not only the students, but myself.  I understand the material and feel confident that the children understand it too.  Here's to another successful and fun upcoming week!
    

Greatest Common Factor

     This week in the classroom I taught my first individual math lesson for the fifth graders.  The lesson was on finding the greatest common factor.  It was also Valentine’s Day; therefore, I attempted to make it a Valentine’s Day theme.  I told the students that if friends or people like each other, typically they have interests or qualities in common.  In somewhat of the same regard, numbers have things in common too- called factors.  Their greatest common factor is the largest number that two or more numbers share. 

     The students’ desks are already split into three teams in the classroom.  I gave each team a series of di-cut hearts.  Then, I asked them find the factors of two numbers, find the common factors that the pair of numbers had, and write the greatest common factors on one of the hearts I handed out.  We repeated this activity two to three more times.  I thought it was a great ways for the students to work together and also assess the students’ understanding of the concept.  The students also had to try to use the greatest common factor to put a fraction in its simplest form.  Some of the students found factors that the numbers in the numerator and denominator had in common, but they were not the greatest common factor, so the students had to divide both numbers multiple times.  I explained that if they had found the greatest common factor, they would only have to divide both numbers once in order to put the fraction in simplest form.  Their original method would get them to the correct answer, but finding the greatest common factor would eliminate unnecessary steps. 

     After my math lesson, the students had a class Valentine’s Day party in which they enjoyed several ounces of sugar.  I was surprised by their focus during my lesson when they knew that their party was going to be right after math.  Despite the fact that they focused well during my lesson, I do not know if this will always be the case when students are looking forward to fun activities that may happen later in the day.  My wondering for this week is how do you keep students’ attention during lessons when fun activities are scheduled later in the day?