Week eight provided me with two distinct valuable aspects with one of them being the survey I created for the students about myself. I presented it to the students as their opportunity to grade me instead of me grading the students which grabbed their interest. It was helpful to view the students' feedback of their opinion of me, the effect I have on them, and their suggestions to improve the class. I will definitely do my best to implement this information into my future lesson planning. The second aspect that stood out to me are the non-instructional interactions I had with some of my students this past week. I'm not sure if the students are reaching an increased comfort level with me or what else made a few of them open up to me, but I received a reminder or reality check of what some students experience outside the school environment. I had at least four students share something significant about their lives with me this week. One even included me talking to the guidance department about one of the students. It was an eye opener to me and I sympathized with them because they are good kids-just not so good home lives. From this experience I just want to emphasize to you, my fellow student teachers, that a student's misbehavior is not always caused by the student just not wanting to follow directions or whatever the case may be. Talk to your students; find out what the real issue might be.
From this week, I would improve my lack of thinking through the class period for Friday's Money and Banking classes. I had a test planned for the students which went fine; it was the time after the test I didn't consider. I hadn't thought about the fact that students may not need the whole class period to complete the test, which none of them did, and I didn't plan any other activity. I improvised and added a link to my Delicious account for the students to access. In class we have been talking about currency and coins and the students have been questioning the legitimacy of commemorative coin collections. I found a link on the U. S. Mint site to an article about Obama coins that had been released that aren't issued by the Mint. It helped both with the students understanding additional content from the unit that they weren't necessarily tested on and it saved me from not having something else planned for the period. Now I'll be better prepared for our next test day!
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I can't say enough how much I can identify with what you have to say about "non-instructional interactions." To think of what some of my students come from, it's amazing to think they are not more of a disruption. What they often leave at home, or at least attempt to leave at home, is beyond comprehension in some cases. Getting to know my students has been the most significant blessing throughout this whole semester. You certainly hit the nail on the head with your advice:
ReplyDelete"a student's misbehavior is not always caused by the student just not wanting to follow directions or whatever the case may be. Talk to your students; find out what the real issue might be"
I have found that once a student opens up to you, and you have that opportunity to sympathize, and perhaps identify with some of the struggles they have, in some cases you can almost watch their behavior improve. For this reason, I have come to the point where I try not to wait until there has been an issue in class to get to know what my students are dealing with. Every student handles it differently, but so often many of them are just looking for someone who cares enough to set some time aside to listen. We don't always have to be masters of psychology to help our students. Many times they just need someone to listen.
I'm happy to hear you're being a leader in that regard. Keep up the good work. So much of teaching, isn't even teaching...
It sounds like you are making an impact on your students. That is great! I felt the same way with my students as more of them are beginning to talk to me about things outside of school in their lives. It is great to talk with our students and understand what kind of background they come from. Keep up the good work with everything else as well and have a great week 9!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you in that the survey was very enlightening. Most of my students were excited to learn the survey was to be completed without their name on it. Almost all of my students responded honestly and provided great feedback. Most of their responses were not a suprise. But other responses were unknown to me. i found this to be an invaluable tool to become a better teacher. Good luck with the second half of your semster.
ReplyDeleteI am so glad that you learned about students having other reasons for misbehavior than just the choice of noncompliance. You are so right; talk to your students. I would stand at my door and greet each student as he or she walked into my room. After you get to know them, you can spot problems in their eyes.
ReplyDeleteRemember....the eyes are windows to the soul. :)