CCHS 03-31

This morning, I was in Mrs. Johns' class as usual. The students were working on what Mrs. Johns was calling a "lap book" and the students were filling their lap books with their work from the previous week. They had been learning about the Pythagorean theorem in math, and Mrs. Johns was able to translate that into some English assignments. For example, the students had to write out definitions of term and then complete a journal assignment. For the journal, students were presented with a few prompts like "When I encounter a math problem I don't know how to solve, I..." and "One of my best experiences in math class was..." Each student was instructed to write five sentences per prompt for a total of four journal entries.

While the students were working on this, Mrs. Johns and I walked around the room to offer help and to encourage students to get their work done. While all of the students did finish their work, it was slow going and I had to quickly learn some ways to motivate students to get things done.

One student simply did not seem to have any motivation to work. She was spending a lot of time on her phone and very little time working on her assignment. In order attempt to get things moving, I tested a strategy on her. I wrote out all of the things that she had to get done before the end of class, such as "complete last journal" and "create a title page." I placed this list at her desk in an attempt to show her that one by one, she could get these things done. This strategy was very helpful for her because she could see exactly what needed to get done and could mark off things she completed, thus giving her a visual of her progress. By looking at the paper and seeing all she had already done, completing the next task did not seem as daunting.

While this strategy did work for that particular student, it was not effective with everyone. A few students were not willing to work no matter what I did, so I simply completed some of the easiest tasks for them, such as taping pages together and cutting out paragraphs. By the time I had completed the simplest things on their lists, they could see that the end was near and then began to work on the last few tasks they needed.

This was a very good day! Even though there were some very frustrating times and working with unmotivated students can wear a teacher down very quickly, seeing students begin to work and get things done was very rewarding. I learned a few good strategies to implement should this ever come up in my own classroom (which I'm sure it will!).

CCHS 03-24

On March 24, I worked in Mrs. Johns classroom. There were two other mentors in the classroom with me, Melanie Beadles and Kaelynne Boyd. This week, the students took their usual Friday quiz over what they had been learning that week.
Since the computer system was down while I was there, I got the opportunity to help two students complete a packet over prefixes and suffixes. One student was less engaged and was not interested in completing the work, which posed a problem for me. Though he did complete a few things, while I was working with the other student, he was looking at his phone and texting instead of completing the assignment like I had asked him to.
The other student was very engaged with the material. Though he was listening to music, it was clear that he wanted to get this task done so that he could move on. We had a lot of fun working on one of the tasks, which was a type of matching game. On one side of the paper, there was a list of prefixes and students were instructed to decipher their meaning using three other columns of synonyms, words containing the prefix, and lastly a definition of the word that contained the prefix. For me, it was a refresher as well! The student clearly enjoyed working on it, and I got a chance to spend more one-on-one time with him through it.
The activities in the packet that I was instructed to teach were quite effective for the one student, but not for the other. There are many outside reasons that the one student may not have been engaged, but I would love to have been able to sit with him in a more one-on-one situation so that he could complete his work on time. I believe that, had I been able to sit on the other side of the table from them rather than between the two of them, we might have gotten more work done as a group.
It was a good day and I feel that my student and I were able to get a lot done while also having a good time and laughing at the fact that we were both trying to figure out what the prefixes mean. Coming down to the student's level made him feel much more comfortable and he was more receptive to my help. He knew that I was learning right alongside him.

CCHS 03-03

I spent this morning with Mrs. Johns. Anna Warnell was also in the classroom with me, and the two of us got to see each other in a professional environment. Her teaching strategies were helpful for me in thinking about my own teaching.

During this class period, students took a quiz covering the Harlem Renaissance. Mrs. Johns reviewed some possible questions with the kids, which helped them review what they were about to be quizzed over. Some of the questions included:

• Who was the "voice" of the Harlem Renaissance?
• Where did it take place?
• What kind of people were involved?

Throughout February, students have been learning about African American history. This topic was quite relevant and it seemed to hold their attention very well. The students enjoyed what they were learning because they could see how it was relevant in their lives.

Following the quiz, the students continued working on the legacy papers. Motivation was pretty low because of spring break, but they were each progressing. Many students were working on getting their essays up to the minimum number of words, which was 500. 

Since it was the day before spring break, this was a pretty relaxed day in the classroom, which I think was good for the students and Mrs. Johns as well!