Confidence. I really can't say enough about it. It is one quality that I feel is inherently important to my student teaching at Evan Hardy. To stand up in front of students and teach them about various subjects and topics, I HAVE to be confident in the words coming out of my mouth. I HAVE to be confident in my own capabilities of maintaining order in the classroom. I cannot falter and come across as though I'm unsure about my own capabilities to run a classroom or I fear that I will lose a great deal of credibility as a respected teacher in the classroom. In reality, I do not have all that many years on the the older students in the school. So especially in relation to my Grade 12s, I strive to differentiate myself as someone who is less of a buddy and more of a facilitator of learning that demands a certain level of respect in addition to being very approachable by students.
To date, I feel that I have maintained a healthy level of confidence in front of the classroom. I have conducted a few largely informal lessons in front of both English and Native Studies classrooms. The most recent scenario involved me taking half of a Grade 10 English class under my guidance and going over their responses to a reading they had completed the day before. With only minutes of prep time available prior to diving into the lesson, the situation is a classic case of "running by the seat of your pants." For every bit excited I am to have the opportunity to have control over my own classroom of students, it can also be nerve wracking. The story they are learning is new to me too. Not to mention, the literary terms and devices the class is learning are oftentimes somewhat unfamiliar to me since I have not necessarily looked at them in many years. All this uncertainty has a tendency to lead to anxiety, and as I began to teach my lesson it began to take it's toll...
I could hear the uncertainty in my voice as I answered questions from students about the writing style of the articles. I died a little inside as I stammered to find the right words to say in framing the story for the class. I was worried I was on the verge of losing control of the classroom as I saw visions of all hell breaking loose with the students uniting together to turn on me. Fortunately, that did not happen. And it's all thanks to confidence. I pulled it together. I told myself that even though I was unfamiliar with the story, I DID understand it. And even though I maybe haven't looked at some of the literary devices that I was teaching in many years, I DO know what they are and I AM capable of helping these students better understand them too. So even though I maybe wasn't as well versed in the most effective way to answer student questions as I would have liked, I still remained confident in the answers I put forth. As a result, the vast majority of the students were engaged with the subject matter for the half an hour of allotted time that I had with them. I left the classroom having earned a positive rapport with the students. All it took was confidence in my own abilities. Next time I won't be so quick to second guess myself.
Monday, 29 October 2012
Sunday, 21 October 2012
Over Your Head?
Another weekend has come and gone and I don't know what happened! Between assignments, organizing PDs and work, things are really starting to pile up. I hit a breaking point and decided I needed to break down and purchase an agenda today. However, just as I decided to do so, a buddy of mine informed me that I walk around with a $500 agenda in my pocket everyday and so I ended up spending the better part of my afternoon putting my life onto Google Calendar on my iPhone. As a result I am no further ahead with my assignments than I was this morning, but I AM more organized. Whether or not that will pay off in the long run, has yet to be seen.
Moving along, looking back at my past week in the schools, I can relate several scenarios I experienced with what Gallagher talks about in his book. The particular instance of the book that I am referring to right now is the portion that talks about student comprehension and confusion in regards to reading. At the start of an ELA 9 class last week I was asked by the teacher to work with one of the students who had fallen behind in order to help them catch up to the rest of the class. Once we began to work on some of the assigned questions however, it was clear that the student was very unfamiliar with the story and did not understand what had taken place in the story. Coming up with answers to the questions was next to impossible for the student and he quickly looked to me to provide him with the answers rather than looking to the text of the story for his response. The importance of a second reading proved to be very relevant in this scenario. However, because he DID he read the story the previous day, I decided it could be the case that there were merely PARTS of the story that he may not have understood. To get his answers, I helped guide him to specific paragraphs and have him reread it. After doing so, we went over what he read together in order to better determine what happened. After completing this activity, the student was able to come up with relevant answers to the questions without having to reread the entire story again.
Moving along, looking back at my past week in the schools, I can relate several scenarios I experienced with what Gallagher talks about in his book. The particular instance of the book that I am referring to right now is the portion that talks about student comprehension and confusion in regards to reading. At the start of an ELA 9 class last week I was asked by the teacher to work with one of the students who had fallen behind in order to help them catch up to the rest of the class. Once we began to work on some of the assigned questions however, it was clear that the student was very unfamiliar with the story and did not understand what had taken place in the story. Coming up with answers to the questions was next to impossible for the student and he quickly looked to me to provide him with the answers rather than looking to the text of the story for his response. The importance of a second reading proved to be very relevant in this scenario. However, because he DID he read the story the previous day, I decided it could be the case that there were merely PARTS of the story that he may not have understood. To get his answers, I helped guide him to specific paragraphs and have him reread it. After doing so, we went over what he read together in order to better determine what happened. After completing this activity, the student was able to come up with relevant answers to the questions without having to reread the entire story again.
Monday, 15 October 2012
Better Late than Never?
The regularity with which I have been composing these blogs has thus far left something to be desired. That changes today. I am on top of it from here on out! A lot has happened over the past couple of weeks in regards to both the EDUC 498 class, readings and of course, the field experience that ties it all together.
So, I suppose I will begin with a bit of an overview Kelly Gallagher's Deeper Reading: Chapter two and three. Gallagher provides a lot of information that outlines the importance of "framing the text" prior to teaching the work to students. Getting students to think about a personal story that will apply to what they are about to read will automatically engage them in the material. Framing the text may also provide the students with a more valuable perspective from which to examine the text as they read.
I had the chance to doing a bit of "framing" this past week at Evan Hardy. One of the teachers there provided me with the opportunity to formulate an informal lesson to students. My contribution was required to help transition the students towards their next topic of study; Pierre Trudeau. Because the class is a Native Studies 30 course, I had to keep the subject matter closely tied to issues surrounding First Nations. To get the students motivated about my lesson, I first posed questions to the classroom asking them whether anyone had been to a reserve and what they thought of them. This generated a lot of passionate discussion. By the time I got to speaking about the "White Paper" and the threat that this document posed to not only reserves but treaties in general, the students were actively engaged in the lesson at hand. In this scenario, Gallagher's "framing" strategy worked better than I could have imagined and it definitely made my first lesson at my partner school a success.
Appleman's text talked a lot about student perspective and the impact this has on how students will read a particular text. Each student's unique background provides different individual meanings for each student. In class we had a chance to put this idea to the text following having watched an extravagant advertisement for Pantene. Because I am something of a musician, I looked at the video from a performer's point of view and the satisfaction she would have received from her performance at the end of the clip. A female classmate looked at the video as though the focus was empowering women. Empowering women is a valid motive behind the video as well, however I did not even pick up on that. As a male student, my personal perspective did not pick up on that as a primary purpose of the video. Food for thought.
That's all folks.
So, I suppose I will begin with a bit of an overview Kelly Gallagher's Deeper Reading: Chapter two and three. Gallagher provides a lot of information that outlines the importance of "framing the text" prior to teaching the work to students. Getting students to think about a personal story that will apply to what they are about to read will automatically engage them in the material. Framing the text may also provide the students with a more valuable perspective from which to examine the text as they read.
I had the chance to doing a bit of "framing" this past week at Evan Hardy. One of the teachers there provided me with the opportunity to formulate an informal lesson to students. My contribution was required to help transition the students towards their next topic of study; Pierre Trudeau. Because the class is a Native Studies 30 course, I had to keep the subject matter closely tied to issues surrounding First Nations. To get the students motivated about my lesson, I first posed questions to the classroom asking them whether anyone had been to a reserve and what they thought of them. This generated a lot of passionate discussion. By the time I got to speaking about the "White Paper" and the threat that this document posed to not only reserves but treaties in general, the students were actively engaged in the lesson at hand. In this scenario, Gallagher's "framing" strategy worked better than I could have imagined and it definitely made my first lesson at my partner school a success.
Appleman's text talked a lot about student perspective and the impact this has on how students will read a particular text. Each student's unique background provides different individual meanings for each student. In class we had a chance to put this idea to the text following having watched an extravagant advertisement for Pantene. Because I am something of a musician, I looked at the video from a performer's point of view and the satisfaction she would have received from her performance at the end of the clip. A female classmate looked at the video as though the focus was empowering women. Empowering women is a valid motive behind the video as well, however I did not even pick up on that. As a male student, my personal perspective did not pick up on that as a primary purpose of the video. Food for thought.
That's all folks.
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