Daily success journal 6

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Daily success Reflection

All in all this wasn't a bad week. There are several times throughout the week when I know that I get frustrated but that seems to be part of the process of student teaching. I managed to get a couple of wins out of the week through interactions with students and instruction. The one I enjoyed the most was when the sub was here because I wasn't sure how the students would react without the cooperating teacher here.

My second favorite day was when I was teaching the theory of forms to the students. It’s a very difficult subject to grasp (and teach) but the students did fine with it. It was kind of exciting to see that that it started to “click” with some, and then most of the students. I don’t enjoy having to discipline any of the students but sometimes it is necessary. It was nice to see the students react to discipline in a positive manner though. This was a pretty good week with a few ups and downs.

daily success 5

Friday, October 25, 2013

Today in class I gave a lecture over ancient Greek government and philosophy. I know that I enjoy this subject but some students don’t care for it. I tried to make the lecture as interesting as possible by using videos and trying to make references to the students’ lives. The students actually responded well and we had a discussion about Plato’s theory of forms, which is very difficult to understand and explain. This can be a difficult section to teach but I liked the way that I did it and I thought that the students responded very well and they seemed interested. Sometimes just getting some students interested in history for an hour is a win.

daily success journal 4

Thursday, October 24, 2013

Today the students in the classes that I am teaching took a chapter exam. We have been going over this chapter for a little over a week now. I was a little nervous to see how the students would do because there was a large amount of information in this chapter. My win for the day would have to be that the students did do very well. It is nice to see that the students are responding well to instruction and it is nice to see that my instruction seems successful so far. The students played a review game yesterday and I believe that turning the review into a game can help as long as it doesn't get out of hand.

daily success journal 3

Wednesday, October 23, 2013
Today in class I had the students play a review game so that they could review for the test. The students in this class are usually good but they can get a little out of hand at times. During the review game some of the students started playing around too much (the game involves the use of a tennis ball). I wanted to lose my temper and start yelling but instead I calmly turned of the projector, had the students get out their books, and we started doing review questions. After a few questions the students decided that they wanted to behave so that they could play the game. I don't like having to discipline students but by taking the game away for a few minutes the students all calmed down and I didn't have any other problems from them for the rest of the class period. The last time we played this review game the students actually did very well on their tests, the test is tomorrow so I hope it goes well again.

daily success journal 2

Tuesday, October 22, 2013
On Tuesday my cooperating teacher had to leave school for a few class periods and a sub came into the class. This was my first time to be the main authority figure in the class since most students don't listen to subs to well and I have always had my cooperating teacher in class with me. The students responded well, they paid attention in class and were respectful to both me and the sub. I wasn't sure how they would react without the cooperating teacher in the building but they did very well. Sometimes students don't behave this way for student teachers because they know how young we are and they will try and see what they can get away with. That wasn't the case on Tuesday and I enjoyed the experience.

daily success journal 1

I accidentally posted my reflection 2 on a different blog under the same name but the rest of my postings will be under this blog, sorry, I'm new to blogging.

This is the first post for my daily success journal.
Monday, October 21, 2013
I have two students in my freshman class who have a tendency to get a little "rowdy". Both of these students are on the football team that I am coaching and I know them pretty well. On Monday both of the students were horsing around with each other and they were disrupting the class. Rather than calling them out in class I asked both of them to stay after when the bell rang. I sat both of them down and had told them that this type of behavior had to stop and I explained why. Since I waited until Wednesday to make this posting I have had the last two days to observe the students and both students have been behaving much better. They responded much better to an explanation rather than just hollering at them in the middle of class.

reflection 2

Part A:

Only offering multiple choice or chapter tests limits the thinking and abilities of the students we teach because these forms of tests do not encourage higher thinking. These forms of tests are also limited in what type of questions they can ask. I believe that it is important for teachers to use several different types of assessments. Using different types of assessments is one way that teachers can try and reach all different types of children.

Part B:

I: Examples of formative assessments: Class observations, daily quizzes, exit slips, small daily group work, class discussions, and worksheets

II: Examples of summative assessments: chapter/unit tests, essays, I haven’t used a presentation project yet but I will in the near future

III: It is important to test students’ knowledge in many different ways. Different types of formative assessments should be used daily to make sure that the students are understanding the material. There should be a summative assessment at the end of a chapter or unit to make sure that the students understand the main themes or the main ideas from the lesson.

IV: The three different types of assessments that I want to try and use in the future are; presentations, group projects, and a class debate. For one of my next chapter tests I would like to have the students give individual presentations for their test grades. The students could choose something that is relevant to the chapter, write a short essay over the topic, then give a short 5 minute presentation over the topic. The presentation could count as half and the essay could count as half. I would also like to give my students a group project that would be a summative assessment. I am not sure if the group project would include an essay or presentation. I would like to do use small groups, two or three people at the most. I would also like to have a class debate. This would more than likely be a formative type of assessment. The students could also prepare for a debate at the end of a chapter and turn in papers for the debate, this could make it a summative assessment.