Differentiating means doing it differently?

So this week was a very fun one for me. I got to teach two classes back to back, third and fourth block,which was an experience. Anyone who knows anything about middle schoolers know that the lesson never goes the exact same way twice, but it went well both times. The classes are very different and third block didn't want to talk much but then again, they never really do. They require more leading to get to a conclusion or answer while fourth block gets to the conclusion or answer before I can even start the question. This made me think about differentiation and what  that word actually means because the meaning changes dramatically when you teach the same lesson twice. I had planned just to teach third and she asked me the day before if I wanted to teach fourth as well and of course I agreed. So, I went home and thought of ways I could change the lesson so that when I taught it to fourth it would better suit the personality of the class and the skill level of the students. I did some things differently with them to better fit with their work speed and our discussion was deeper because of the questions from the students. What I realized though, after I taught the lesson to both classes is that while I anticipated the discussion fourth would have and how much they would get into what we did, I forgot that third would not respond in the same manner. I watch my CE teach the two classes at least twice a week and I knew that there were significant differences in their skill level and personality and I differentiated in my lesson but not quite enough. I had never experienced teaching two totally different classes back to back and it really made me think about future lessons and what I will differently with third to get them into the same depth of conversation that fourth was able to get into.

This is where I find myself as I go forward with my preparation to be a teacher. Classes will be different and they won't enjoy the same things and that is okay. It is just important to remember that there are things that can be done to engage the classes on the same level, even though those things may be completely different. I just want third block to have the same enthusiasm as fourth and while they may never have it, I think there are things I can do differently for them that will at least raise the excitement level a little bit. Is that not the goal of differentiation after all? To get each class and each student engaged in the material in a way that requires them to make connections and learn in a way that is meaningful to them.

End of the semester crunch.

This week has been soon busy! I have had so much to do, for school and not for school. This week, my time in my classroom has been minimal I hate to say. I am hoping to go for a full day on Friday and for most of the day tomorrow.

This week I taught a lesson to my second block, with both professors observing. The class I taught is one of the classes I have not been able to see much because of my school schedule, so I didn't know really know them all that well. This made me EXTREMELY nervous, not to mention our professors are enough to make anybody nervous (just kidding but really). I also found out, the day before, that there was a new student in the class, which really added to my stress. I thought the lesson went well, until I read the comments. They were not bad but really gave me some things to think about. I also received some great feedback from my CE. She was very complimentary but gave me some constructive feedback, which I really appreciated. I also realized that children get nervous when there are guests in the room as well. The students are well behaved anyway but you could tell they were trying to make a good impression on me and my professors. I do hope though, that they warm up to me as the semester goes along. There is not much else to report this week but next week I will be going a lot to make up for this slow week!!

Always Be Prepared.

For those of you that do not know, "Always be prepared" is the motto for the Boy Scouts.  This is the quote that came to mind when I was in my classroom this week. My CE was up at the front of the room teaching and then these two boys began to talk, not quietly either. She stopped what she was doing, which was rare because she usually reprimanded and continued on with whatever she was talking about. She then said "What's the conversation about?" They both stared at her for a second and one of them said "he doesn't have a pencil." She shook her head and said "so you're not prepared and you're disrupting my class? You can have silent lunch tomorrow." She then walked over and got him a pencil out of the pencil box she keeps in the back of the room. Also, the same day, the phone rang probably ten times and someone knocked on the door and came in 6. She said that her room was like Grand Central Station. She told me later that sometimes you answer the phone and the door more than you actually teach. 

This made me think about, what type of things will I need to be prepared for?  Murphy's Law says that "anything that can go wrong will go wrong" and that's what I need to prepare for, anything. I have to be prepared when students don't have pencils and when they are talking while i'm trying to teach. Any time there are 25 twelve year olds in one room, something you are not prepared for will happen. I decided that I need to keep an open mind and just roll with whatever punches I am thrown. My CE seems to handle her punches very well and I hope that I can do the same. 

Atychiphobia or Gelotophobia?

It is always a question between these two in the classroom. The first, fear of failure and the second, fear of being made fun of. It is always a battle of these two phobias when it comes to answering questions. This week, I saw probably 15 students put their hands up with confidence, only to say "never mind" because they second guessed themselves or were afraid their answer was wrong and didn't want people in the classroom to laugh at them (not that anyone would have). With all of the standardized testing, we have created an environment in the classroom to where students are scared to say the wrong answer because we put such an emphasis on being correct and having a high score. 

I guess it might just be the age that the students are that discourage them from answering questions but it is still a problem. My CE has never been mean to a child who answered a question wrong and would send anyone who was mean out of the room. I think students just don't want to be humiliated if they answer a question wrong, and why should they be? If you are never wrong you can never learn, because if you are never wrong you already know everything. We have bred fear into the students and it keeps learning from taking place. We are supposed to teach the students and answer their questions but it is socially unacceptable for students to ask questions because it makes them look "dumb." 

Sorry for the rant, but it all seriousness, this is a serious problem. As a future teacher of my own classroom, I have to ask myself what will I do to fix this problem? I could have a question box for students to ask me any questions they have in private but that only partially eliminates the problem. Sometimes, students need questions answered right then in order to understand the rest of the lesson or concept. I am just wondering what I can to so that students know that it is okay for them to ask any question that relates to the content. Has anyone else come across this problem with their students or is it just middle schoolers?

Also, I had a quite humorous exchange with a student this week. A boy, who I go to church with, asked if he could call me by my first name. My response was obviously no but he persisted. I explained to him that I was going to be the teacher and that he didn't call my CE by her first name. He still said he was going to call me by my first name when I hear "I have something that might change your mind." My CE had an office referral in her hand and was smiling at him. He laughed it off and said "I will still do it." She then told him she could start filling it out if she needed to and he shut up real quickly. I am worried that I may have to deal with this problem later in the year and will just have to cross that bridge when I come to it. 

Silence is not always golden.

This week was the best one so far! Since we didn't have school because of fall break I was able to go see first and second block. It was the first time I had ever met them and it was great! Although it was great to finally meet them I found myself thinking back to the proverb "silence is golden," but silence is not golden. Especially when you have a room full of seventh graders and you just asked them a question. It was like pulling teeth to get anyone to answer a question or respond in any way. There were about 3 students who wanted to answer everything and the rest of the class just sat there, silently. It was obvious my CE was becoming frustrated. She would let the students who wanted to answer, answer one or two but then she would have to encourage everyone else to talk and even call on some of them specifically. This was strange to me because all of the other classes are all so eager to answer questions and to talk and ask questions that she doesn't hardly have time for all of them. I made me think about how I am going to have to differentiate for them next semester. I will have to  make my lessons VERY engaging and interesting, otherwise, I will just be standing up there like Dora the Explorer waiting on an answer that is never coming.

I think I have some neat activities planned out for my unit next semester but after seeing fist block I wondered if they may not be exciting enough. My job is to teach them and to facilitate their learning, but to be able to do that I have to make them want to learn. The other three classes will not be this difficult because they are already more engaged from the get go. When I am planning my lessons, I need to focus on motivating these students and coming up with creative ways for them to learn, that everyone will want to do. I know this is the goal for every lesson we teach, right? We all want every lesson to be phenomenal and that send our students home telling their parents how great of a teacher we are but that doesn't always happen. I fear that if I do not find a way to effectively motivate the students in first block, they will never go home and talk about how much fun or how much they learned in social studies today.

This is a meme that I found that reminds me of this situation:

On the other hand, second block was the complete opposite. They needed to be focused and reigned in because all they wanted to do was ask and answer questions. There class was much more energetic and my CE was much more at ease with this group. This is not to say that she doesn't like first block. I think she just becomes exasperated with their enthusiasm for participation. I actually found myself more energetic and more excited to listen to what they had to say. I think it is only because they had the same enthusiasm to answer questions as Katniss did when she volunteered for her sister in The Hunger Games (I couldn't help myself).

Either way, I need to find a way to give first block, second block's enthusiasm and inquiry. I have not yet thought of a good way to motivate them yet so I will take any suggestions anyone has. Also, I know the least about them so it's hard to think of things that would get someone motivated when you don't really know what they like and dislike. It would probably be a good idea to spend a little more time getting to know what they like and what they dislike so that I can get a better sense of who they are as individuals and as a class. 

Chaos can be organized?

I will start out talking about what caused me to choose this title. Today was a big day for the school. It was the day they played their county rival in football. Now, we all know that high school football is a big deal but apparently so is middle school. They had a pep rally to prepare for the game and it was a mess! Don't get me wrong, it was very fun and the students had a great time but it was a nightmare for teachers. They released each grade one at a time but in the halls it was still very hectic. There were kids everywhere and very excited kids at that. Me, being the size that I am, became very overwhelmed walking in the halls because most of the students are taller than I am. It was overall a good time. The students were very excited but became tired and chatty after being in the gym for almost an hour. Leaving the gym was a little less chaotic only because my CE and I ran up the stairs and to the room to head off the children. It was very exhilarating, which sounds silly but it's true. The students were amazed at how quickly we made it up to the classroom. As I was leaving the school I got to thinking about the pep rally and realized that it wasn't as crazy as I thought but more like organized chaos. I realized than anytime you gather 1,000 middle schoolers in one place, there will be chaos but it's worth it. The students really had a great time and got really pumped up for the game and it apparently worked because THEY WON!! My fiancé works at the rival school so we went to watch the game. At the time it seemed like a huge mess but in the end it was a break for the students and a great way to give them pride in their school.

The rest of the week was not as exciting as the pep rally but interesting non the less. I was able to see my CE link two units together in a way I thought was extremely clever. When the students came in, she had them take out a sheet of paper and write the alphabet down the paper in the right hand margin. They were then to title the paper "Geography to Middle Ages." The assignment was that they were supposed to write something they learned about for each letter. For example, for the letter C they could write Catholic Church, Constantinople, or  Crusades. They could write multiple for each but had to write as many as they could in about 15 minutes. I found myself trying to think of words for each letter and found it rather challenging, especially for some letters (e.g. X or Z). After they were finished they had to count how many letters they had words for. Most students got at least ten and a couple even got over twenty. They then went through the alphabet and everyone who got a word for that letter would raise their hand and she would call on them and tell them whether they were right or wrong and why the answer was right or wrong. Some of the words would spark conversation and discussion so going over this took about 20-30 minutes. When they had finished going over it they had to count again to see how many correct answers they had before they changed or added any answers. The student who claimed to have the most correct turned in their paper for to check and to be eligible for a prize (a piece of candy probably). She then wrote the words "Old Roman Empire" on the board and they created a "timeline" from there to the Renaissance, which is where they would start the next day. The students had to use words from the ABC Review to help her make the timeline. The timeline ended up looking like waves because if times were good the timeline went up and if they were bad it went down. They were not taking notes so they were helping her make the timeline and making some great connections with the events leading up to the Renaissance. She also talked about what Renaissance means and with the timeline and the words they had written on their paper why the Renaissance occurred. I found this extremely interesting and the students were 100% engaged. They all wanted to share their answers from their paper to be included on the timeline. It was a simple activity but very beneficial in my opinion.

Momma does't know everything.

This week I got a little taste of "my momma said what you taught us was wrong." I was under the impression that this type of thing only happened in movies (naive I know) but apparently it happens in real life much more than I thought, especially in middle school. This was said not just once but three times by the same student to my CE. She was very polite and said things like "we'll look it up" or "maybe she was talking about something different." I thought it was handled well but I began to think about what I would do. Because in this instance Momma was wrong and I mean DEAD wrong. I think this is a tricky thing to handle because  you do not want to embarrass the student but you also want to make sure they know and the class knows that what they said their mother said was incorrect. I am sure this will happen to be when I am a teacher and I need to be prepared to handle the situation in a diplomatic way, no matter if Momma is right or wrong.

They also went over their study guide this week. I saw MAJOR differentiation with this. They were supposed to play a game with the questions on their study guide but they didn't finish them the day before when they were in partners so instead, they had to go over them. 3rd block, which is the lowest, went over theirs slowly and there was lots of discussion and writing on the board. 4th block, which is the highest, moved through theirs quickly and even go to play a small game. She had them finish their questions with girls completing the odd numbers and boys completing the even. When they went over them she kept a tally of how many questions each group got correct. The group that won got some Halloween candy (the girls won). It was a simple way to spice up the review when there wasn't time for an actual game. The students still enjoyed it because there was some friendly boy-girl competition. This was also a way to simply differentiate since 4th block didn't need as much instruction as 3rd block required. This is probably the way I will have to differentiate. 3rd block will probably always require more instruction and assistance while 4th block will be a little more independent and can move quicker through the material. This also will allow me to do some more "difficult" or in-depth things with them.