STCBlogPosts

  Today, I (we) will be talking about a potential increase in defeatism in students. Admittedly, there is not much research done on this topic, particularly as it relates to students in secondary education, or grades 6 through 12. Personally, I think more research needs to be done about this topic as it relates to current events. And by that I mean in a post COVID-19 world. Of course, since it’s only been almost three years since COVID started and less than a year since it’s really ended, there is even less research about this topic. Honestly, there’s not really any research about it at all. For the purposes of this podcast, I’ll be referring to levels of hopelessness in students as well as defeatism, with references to depression and anxiety, because there is more research done within these topics, and the implications of studies on hopelessness, depression, and anxiety could very well be linked to defeatism. So, before I jump in, I’d like to ask… What is defeatism? Defeatism is d...

  I taught the same lesson to the other class this week; the one that Dr. Spanke was sitting in on. He had a lot of notes but I think I’m doing well, overall. The main critique he had of me (and something I know I do often that I need to work on) is that I advance through lessons rather fast. My lesson last week was supposed to go for 45 minutes and I only went for 35. Added some things to the lesson for this week in hopes that I would have more things for students to do and learn so I could shoot for 45 minutes and it still ended up being only 35. I think this happened because I had already taught the lesson so I breezed through it and students may have lost out. I added elements to this lesson such as more definitions and a different approach to analysis, some helpful Shakespeare vocabulary they might encounter often while working through Hamlet, a potential practice assessment students can do while reading, and quotes we use in the modern day that students might not have known h...

  Defeatist Attitudes in Students in a Post-COVID World What do you know about the problem? It doesn’t matter if a student is truly “defeated” or not, it’s the mindset that ruins their chances Defeatism is the mentality that, no matter how much things progress, they will never actually get better This is a learned response Increases in anxiety and depression (relating to financial and social health) can lead to a more defeatist mentality Not much is said in research about defeatism and high school students Much is said about hopelessness in secondary education You can’t discuss hopelessness/defeatism without taking external factors into account All the results I’ve found for why students feel defeated/hopeless do not seem satisfactory https://m.aliran.com/web-specials/2015-web-specials/aggrandisement-and-defeatism-in-politics-and-education https://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ1068744 https://web.p.ebscohost.com/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?vid=0&sid=baac3c6a-6c21-4999-b928-6d05bafe41e4%4...

I taught my first official lesson on Friday. I started with what my mentor teacher deemed as the more difficult class, simply because they don’t engage as much as the other class. It went amazingly well! Students were actually engaged and I am far less stressed now after the lesson is over than I was going into it. Students are about to be reading Hamlet. Most, if not all, students have experience reading Shakespeare, but I still did a lesson about reading Shakespeare and understanding Old/Middle English (much of Shakespeare is written in an odd transition period between the two). I gave them a brief history and incorporated a lot of things that they might understand from the modern day that hadn’t necessarily changed for other languages. For example, English is, in part, Germanic, and we used to have words spelt with a ‘v’ instead of a ‘u’ and vice versa (the letters were almost interchangeable). I discussed how something similar happens in German where words with a ‘w’ are pronounced...

  Maus Lesson Plan Subject: English/Language Arts Grade: 7 Lesson Plan Day 1: Introduction to Maus and the Holocaust Purpose: Elicit prior knowledge in order to identify student understanding; Provide context as to why the content is important and in what ways it is relevant Anticipated Outcome:   Able to identify students’ knowledge of the topic Students have begun to make connections between literature and history Students are primed to identify rhetorical devices and think critically about the text Students are primed to think about the author as a character and narrator Hook: Immediately utilize prior knowledge and student participation through discussion Typing students responses out on slide so they can see and consider their responses Googling facts and allowing students to see on screen research being done Discussion Question: What do we already know or what have we already learned about the Holocaust? High Leverage Practices: Modeling Research Leading Discussio...

I chose my own lesson plan (it is only 1 day long)  that I wrote for Dr. Shaver’s class. I am still not sure I am meeting these standards for gifted and talented students, however I do know that I am asking a lot of seventh graders to ponder the questions I am posing. However, I do think that, with G&T students, I might be able to skip my front-loading activity in which I ask students about definitions like prologue and foreshadowing. I am worried that learning definitions might be tedious to them, but I might simply be able to go over it quicker than planned and, instead of having working definitions for the class, I can simply just identify them for my students. Even though I identify three different standards this lesson plan usually addresses, I would like to focus mainly on the first and last of the three. One component I like about my lesson plan that the previous one I chose to analyze is that I think my own plan has more diversity, which I firmly believe is the stepping...

  Lesson: Utopia and the American Dream (Notes) Lesson 1 Questions could probably be a little more open-ended for a gifted group (example: In what ways do you believe Winthrop’s ideas are manifested in society today? How are they not? Lesson 2 I like the focus on contradicting ideas of the American dream Comparative texts Lesson 3 I think the questions could, again, be a little more open-ended; Linking Kennedy and Winthrop is smart and makes sense in terms of front-loading information, but probably should have been done on day 2 Should have asked questions like: How has the American Dream evolved over time? Lesson 4 (1.2) (1.3) I don’t think we needed to refer to another president. This lesson plan appears to lack diversity. Why not hear a story from a regular, everyday person? Lesson 5 Questions seem too leading (except the first one asked in both images. That one is perfect) I like the choice of using pictures like this and drawing parallels again Lesson...

“Differentiation” “When you hear that word in a teaching context, what does that mean to you?” Differentiation makes me think of Montessori classroom and the integration of multiple outlets and mediums to accomplish a particular task. I think of differentiated instruction and think of what I could do or use to help students better understand the context of what I’m trying to teach/accomplish. To be frank, I could be way off base with what this means and could really be thinking of something else. But, to me, differentiated instruction means to connect diverging paths. Hopefully, it also is a means to help students understand a topic better than using my traditional teaching style.  Universal Design for Learning

Classroom management was a bit of an issue this week. Classroom management is always somewhat tricky, particularly on white days, and with certain students in particular. These are actually the same students I mentioned in a previous IFO that keep each other in check. However, this week, they seem to be becoming restless and have become more instigating than mediating. On purple days, classroom management was still a moderate issue but not as much as during white days. I might attribute this to the semester quickly coming to a close. Students also started a movie this week; a movie that, admittedly, is old by students standards and boring and difficult to understand because it’s Shakespeare. Some students were understandably annoyed with the movie, but others were utilizing the movie to complete the packet they had been working on for the unit, and were becoming frustrated with their classmates. I used this opportunity to test out different methods of classroom management. At first, I ...

For this week, students were starting a movie after my previous lesson, so there wasn’t too much evaluation in terms of assessment. However, students had been filling out a packet while reading Hamlet, as a method of both formative and summative assessment. Students were able to fill out the packet at their own pace and to go back and make corrections. Students are also expected to turn the packet in once the unit is over. In this way, the packet is a form of assessment as learning, giving students an outline of what they are expected to learn while reading the text, as well as facilitating their knowledge and giving them the opportunity to take agency over their own learning. This was also a form of assessment of learning because their teacher is able to grade it at the end of the unit and assess what they have learned or to what extent they were willing to learn. The packet was also an assessment for learning because the teacher (my mentor teacher as well as myself) could use this as...

I think I’m feeling better than I was the first week. I am still rather anxious about what my mentor teachers will be expecting of me once I am in a classroom. I am also worried about the state of my mental health, as my bipolar disorder is on the upswing and I have been having issues filtering myself despite taking many precautions to avoid this. I am worried about how I will be able to react to students because of this. Even though I pride myself on my transparency, I am worried about how I will approach this issue in class. I am also worried about the structure of this course. I am having difficulty following along in class and understanding assignments thoroughly. Much of our instruction seems vague and confusing at times and I find myself frequently asking my peers for help identifying tasks only to find that they are having trouble as well.

So far, I am terrified. I took EDJH a year and a half ago I think? COVID was still a very large concern, we wore masks to all the classes, were only able to attend/conduct class for two to three days a week instead of five, and we weren’t able to go into schools. I don’t know what I thought this class was going to be, but I wish I had either taken it at a different time or hadn’t had to have had so much time spread out between this course and that one. I am terrified of going into schools for practicum and, to be honest, I have no idea what to expect because I don’t have any previous experience. I suppose that’s all I have to say/think about for now.

 29 August 2022 Initial Impression/Opinions of UDL and how do you see it impacting your future practice To be perfectly honest, I am not sure how to feel about it. It makes sense, but I certainly have questions. It is meant to be about accessibility, and yet only really talks about technology, which not everyone has access to. Not only that, but not everyone works well with technology. I know there are ways I can utilize technology and not use it for other students simultaneously, but I really wish that were addressed in the powerpoint and class discussion. I understand that technology has been making things easier and more instantaneous, but I fear that something is being lost behind it all. I suppose I’m not quite sure what that thing is, so, until I figure it out, I might as well continue to use UDL in the ways I’ve already been taught.

 19 October 2022 "Drawing on Rimm-Kaufman, Tomlinson asserts that “Establishing routines, processes, and mechanics is about making learning more effective and efficient as well as creating a caring classroom culture.” What is your current position on this as it relates to your future practice/classroom?" To be perfectly honest, the idea of trying to navigate a differentiated or even simply a learner-centered classroom scares me. It sounds like a lot of hard work that I am not yet prepared for. However, I do agree with this statement, and I think that routines are important in helping facilitate learning, and understanding the processes of students and their use of mechanics furthers that. Additionally, none of this can be done without a caring, safe, and/or comfortable classroom culture. Still, while I agree with these things, I believe that the reality of the classroom is that this cannot always be possible. Even when trust is established, there will be days where it is not ...

30 August 2022 "As you think about planning and implementing instruction during your field experiences (which occur within educational environments very much focused on standardized test scores),  where might you see the possibilities of incorporating a student-centered approach?" This isn’t an idea that has occurred to me until very recently, but I do like the idea of giving students more of a choice. Not necessarily to take a test or not, but to take a test more geared towards certain things. I hope to eventually generate three different types of tests with various approaches to test-taking. Maybe some with more multiple choice, some with more matching, and some with more short answers. Obviously, each of these will have components of the others, but will still be heavy on others. At certain points, I will not allow students to make this choice, or I will make them pick an option that they don’t normally pick (I will keep this in mind while grading).  Additionally, as an En...

18 November 2022 I have not seen much problem based learning implementation in the classroom on the part of my mentor teacher. It appears that she generally teaches content just for the sake of teaching content, without typically using real-world applications. That isn’t to say that she doesn’t address issues in learning, but it, again, does not appear typical of her.  Rather, I have been attempting to implement problem-based learning into my own lessons that I have been presenting to the class. I have tried to introduce real-world applications and ways that Shakespeare still maintains relevancy in the modern world. I have been doing this by introducing modern-day sayings that have their origins in Shakespeare. Additionally, I have been trying to help students understand that I am trying to teach them how to implement independent thought processes, particularly while attempting to help them understand that myself or their teacher(s) will not be around forever to help them, and I am...

 13 November 2022 It has been difficult for me to directly observe data-driven decision making in my classroom. I don’t really see my mentor teacher doing much of any of it. I was able to do it myself during my own lesson that I presented. This was my second lesson and I decided to use the data from my previous assessment to inform my decision making in the second one. I had been asking students to be subjective about learning, rather than looking for the “correct” or objective answer. I then wanted them to justify why they came to the conclusion they did so that they might be able to demonstrate their learning. Many of the students did what I asked them to do, but a lot of them gave answers without giving a reason. I suppose I just wanted them to “show their work,” and that was kind of lost on them. So I did a little exercise/activity during my following lesson. I informed students about divergent vs. convergent thinking, and how I wanted them to think more divergently. To do this...

4 November 2022 I am having a hard time responding to the prompt for this week because I did not see a whole lot of differentiation, if any, that I can identify here. There are a handful of students in my class(es) who are either ELL students or have 504s… However, I have not really seen my mentor teacher differentiate instruction, and maybe only make accommodations, but this hasn’t occurred in any way I can actually identify this week. I gave my first official lesson this week, and I feel as if I differentiated instruction more than my mentor teacher did. I had students respond to a prompt, and they could choose to respond in whatever medium made the most sense or was the most functional for them. Honestly, I did this before I was informed of students who were ELL or had 504s. I did also give special assistance to my ELL students and simply rephrase the question and guide them to have a better understanding of what I meant. I did this by helping them break down the structure of the se...

21 September 2022 In both my classes (on white and purple days), technology seems to play an integral role in the classroom. Students start every day with their “bell work,” in which they respond to a prompt given by the teacher and post their responses in Schoology where the teacher is able to view them. Each student is expected to do this. All the information the students need about assignments and what will be happening in class is on Schoology. These prompts are also given to students via a projection of a word doc that is being displayed on Mrs. Kendall’s desktop. It has been somewhat difficult to make observations about technology in the classroom because both classes are working on the same project. Therefore, there hasn’t yet been a structure to how the classroom typically runs in order for me to see any changes in daily usage of technology and electronics. For the most part, students sit with their laptops open for the duration of the class period, some working on their projec...

13 September 2022 For my classroom observations, I am there on two different days (white and purple days). Both classes on purple and white days are senior literature classes. Both classes are fairly quiet and mild-mannered, but the class on white days is significantly quieter even still. For the purposes of this observation, I was only observing the white day class. The far side of the classroom by the entrance almost never talks, not even amongst each other. Two girls in the middle of the classroom really only interact with each other and the teacher (Mrs. Kendall). There are three kids that sit around me in the classroom that only talk to Mrs. Kendall and sometimes to each other. One of these students has had this teacher for several classes so they know each other quite well. This same student is also very good friends with the boy that sits directly behind her. There is a boy who sits at the very back of the class that isn’t surrounded by anyone, but he is very friendly and intell...