TCAP

This year UVEI is participating in the New Hampshire IHE Teacher Common Assessment of Performance (TCAP) program, a pilot program to design a state-wide teacher assessment.  I believe other states are doing similar things, all with the hope, I think, that it will go nationwide in the near future.

I like the idea of a common assessment so teachers are assessed using the same standards across the board, much like students with the Common Core State Standards.  I'm not saying they have to teach the same things or the same way, but it makes sense to me that there would be common factors in the assessments, much like the standards that exist for other professions.

This TCAP pilot program is not a requirement for UVEI, but they gave us the option and encouraged anyone to try.  I decided it would be a good way to challenge myself, pushing my learning at UVEI further.  It has given me the opportunity to think deeply about my lesson process, from the initial examination of the class through to the assessments and lesson reflections.  The whole process is considered.

For my lesson series I started with the Bridges in Mathematics program, which we use at my current school.  We were approaching a series of lessons around story problems, so I decided to do my TCAP project with that.  I created a four-part lesson series based on the Bridges program and tailored to my particular class.  I did case studies of several students and considered how to address their needs, and those of the class as a whole, in my lesson plans.

A student created story problem.

I then taught, recorded, and reflected on my lessons.  The lessons included acting out story problems, using sea creature plastic figures to create story problems with manipulatives, drawing our own story problems, and then solving the problems the students created.  The four-part series ended up being five lessons in total because the class thoroughly enjoyed the final lesson, solving story problems their peers had created, and wanted to continue past our available time.  For the fifth lesson we reviewed the first four, reviewed story problem solving strategies, and then tackled some of the more challenging problems the students had created. 

Using strategies to solve a story problem.

While teaching the lessons I made observational assessments on a formative assessment checklist I maintained throughout the lesson series.  I also collected the story problems the students created and I had them each solve one story problem on paper so I could collect that as well.  I scored those two work samples against a rubric I created for this project. 

I'm now in the final writing stages of the TCAP project, making sure I've addressed all of the questions answered, thoroughly analyzed my video clips, checked and double-checked my writing, and then checked it all over again.  Then I will submit it to UVEI and see where it goes from there.

Then, on to the next writing piece!  No shortage of planning, reflecting, and writing in a teacher's busy day!

Assessment mistake

Last week I taught my kindergarten class a science unit on force and motion. It wasn't a unit I created, but one that an intern in the other kindergarten created last year and the teachers liked, so I offered to teach it this year. On the third day we did a hands-on experiment where the students each got a chance to push little wooden cars through four different buckets, each containing a different substance: wet sand, dry sand, water, and air. At the end of the lesson I gave them an assessment showing the four items and told them to X the one that took the most force and circle the one that took the least force. I was going to give them clipboards and spread them around the room, but we ran out of time so I just had them sit at their seats. I repeated the simple (or so I thought) two-step instructions several times and even looked around the room for a quick place to write them down, but nothing was convenient so I just repeated them again.

The first two students handed in correct sheets, then a third student handed in a sheet with three circles and one X. Two more marks than needed and completely invalidating the assessment. I grabbed my one remaining blank copy and started to re-explain the directions. Before I got far though, other students started handing in their papers and I noticed every kid hand marked all four items with Xs or circles. All of them did it! I sighed, shook my head, and just started collecting them.

When I showed my mentor teacher she just laughed. She said, "I knew, as soon as you gave two step directions, things would not go well!" She had chosen, wisely, to let me learn that lesson all on my own. We both had a good laugh.

The next morning I made more copies of the assessment and pulled the kids aside one by one, telling them I had given them incorrect directions and asking them to redo the task. Many of them found it amusing that the teacher had made a mistake.

For the final assessment at the end of the unit I was careful to take them through the directions one step at a time. "First circle all the things you can push," pause, pause, pause, "Next put an X through the things that are moving," etc. My final assessments came out much better! :)

Solo week and play-dough

This week is my first solo week in kindergarten.  Yesterday was awesome and I was really looking forward to today.  I was up late last night making play-dough for a fun project around the Monsters Love Colors book.  I thought the kids would love it.  Unfortunately today did not go as well.  I think they were going easy on me yesterday and today they decided to test every single limit.  Every. Single. One!  Sigh.  So my play-dough is now sitting on the counter at school, next to the book and a big bag of googly eyes.  Maybe we'll get to it tomorrow.  Or maybe we'll have  snow day tomorrow.  You just never know with kindergarten in March.

In all fairness, the students did test every limit but I, being over tired from staying up late to make play-dough, did not respond as well as I should have.  There's always a lesson to learn.  I'm off to bed now so tomorrow WILL be a better day!

Solo week, coming right up

My solo week is coming up right after Thanksgiving vacation. What this means is that I'll be the primary teacher in the room for the entire week. My mentor teacher won't be around at all. I also have to do all of the lesson planning for the entire week, from morning meeting to end of day grading and everything in between.

I'm feeling pretty mixed about this. I have a fun project for the writing class and I'm excited about that. However, my mentor teacher and adviser keep asking me things like "what are the students going to learn on this day," and "what is your objective for that day," and I just want to have fun. Sigh. I guess fun isn't the primary goal of teaching.

As excited as I am for the writing class, I'm a little less confident in the rest of my lessons. I have them, loosely, but they still need work. Work that will have to be done over Thanksgiving vacation, while travelling.

I'm also mixed because I get excited when I finally firm up lesson plans, but then things never go as planned. A fact of life, I know. Five days is a long time to be "on" full-time. One misstep or off day and I'll have lost that class for the rest of the week. No pressure.

Plus I'll be observed and recorded off an on throughout the week. Then I have a mid-year assessment due the following week, based on the lessons from my solo week. Lessons that aren't yet finalized and apparently don't have any "hooks" or student learning in them.

I have to just keep reminding myself that I knew this would be a tough year. This will be a tough year, but time goes by. Whether you're ready for it or not. Time goes by. I have less than four weeks left in 5th grade!

Sometimes it all comes together

I'm doing a solo day tomorrow. It's my third, so you'd think I would be comfortable by now, but nope. Actually, in the classroom I'm perfectly comfortable, but I have been struggling with the lesson planning at home. I was complaining to discussing with my husband a few days ago and he suggested a writing lesson idea I really liked, but my mentor thought it wouldn't be great. :/ Last week my mentor had suggested a lesson on slang because a lot of the students write "gonna" and "cuz" in their work. I liked the idea, but struggled to find support or inspiration for it. All of my Google searches were turning up street slang or SMS shortcuts. I don't think "slang" is really the term I needed, it's more like lazy writing. I watched YouTube videos, read articles, browsed Pinterest (with just a touch of procrastination mixed in!) and just felt stuck.

Last night, while my husband got my son ready for bed, I continued to push through my block. Research, frustration. Then I took a break to lay down with my son and snuggle. Our nightly routine. While we cuddled he was so soft and so still. With my head on his pillow I listened to his breathing and felt his warm head pressed against my face. Now here I would like to say I was zen, at peace, completely present in such a wonderful moment... but that would be a bit of a lie. I was at peace, and calm, and suddenly my lesson solidified in my head. All on it's own. It just came together, a simple, straightforward lesson that my students would learn from and enjoy.

It felt like a weight was lifted. When I was done cuddling my son I came back downstairs and typed it up. I was hesitant to show my mentor, in case he disagreed with me, but I did and he loved it. He also agreed to let me do a bulletin board with the students projects from this lesson. It will be awesome. I can see it in my head already.

I went from tense and stressed about this solo day to feeling completely at ease and ready to rock tomorrow. I am going to have to do some serious reflecting (or something!) on why lesson planning is so challenging and stressful for me, but when it comes together in a moment of peace, it's a wonderful thing.

I'll post details of the lesson and a picture of my awesome (I'm sure!) bulletin board in a few days.

So much information

There is an amazing amount of information out there. From Google to blogs to Pinterest and Facebook. In some ways it's just amazing. Anything and everything you've ever wanted to know about is out there, just a quick click away. In other ways... totally overwhelming! You can spend HOURS lost in the Internet. I was recently told I need to incorporate technology more into my lessons, not just using technology, but also having the students create with technology. Ok, can do. My mentor teacher does really cool projects. Unfortunately my mind has been a blank. Actually, not a total blank. I have one cool idea but I'm saving it for my solo week next month, as it will take a few days to complete. For single lessons though, involving cool uses of technology, there's nothing up there. So I spent the evening on the interwebs, trying to find inspiration. I found everything else, it seems, but no inspiration. Then I started to realize that the more I browsed, the less inspired I felt. Instead of being inspired, I'm just overwhelmed. There's so much out there!

Chris Jernstedt, Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at Dartmouth College, spoke at UVEI a few weeks ago. When asked about note taking and how that helps or hinders learning, as part of his response he said that the novice takes copious notes because they don't know what to filter out, they don't know what is important and what is not. That has stuck with me and as I browsed the web tonight I realized that as a novice teacher I really don't know what to filter out either. Everything looks interesting, but not exactly what I need, and I can't easily scan things as I imagine a long-time teacher probably can.

Or maybe the fact that it's 11:30pm has something to do with it. Perhaps all this inspiration/overwhelmed-ness will percolate overnight and a great idea will come to me in the shower tomorrow! :)

Lesson planning

Much to my surprise, lesson planning has been the hardest part of this new endeavour.  My district does not have a clear ELA curriculum so I feel like we are largely guessing at what to do.  My mentor teacher, of course, has years of experience and therefore has a good grasp of what 5th graders are capable of, what they need to learn, and how to build the lessons and their knowledge (scaffolding?).  I, however, have none of that and am trying hard to create relevant, interesting, appropriate lessons for the students.

So far I've done two solo days, and several individual reading and science lessons.  While that doesn't seem like a lot, especially when you consider that real teachers have to plan for every lesson, every day, it still has taken me hours. Hours for each lesson!

I start with a general idea of what we are working on. Then try to choose a concept that will be relevant and related.  Sometimes I feel like it fits in smoothly, but other times I feel like it ends up being a one-off thing.

Both solo days have left me feeling defeated in the lesson planning department.  I've gone into the days with what I thought were strong lessons, but the students quickly prove me wrong.  The first writing lesson I did, on chronological storytelling, ended up being confusing to the class.  I used the mentor text Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and we discussed both chronological storytelling and catch-phrases.  There was my mistake.  I based my lesson on one I found online, but I should have dropped the catch-phrase part.  My class was just confused.  By the third class I was seriously downplaying the catch-phrase part and focusing my efforts on the chronological aspect only. 

Today's writing lesson, for my second solo day, was on proper comma usage.  Again I based the lesson on something I found online and again it left my class confused.  Actually, this time they were more bored than confused.  I used a presentation to show the six main rules of comma usage, but as much as I tried to make it engaging it really was just boring.  I was worried about that before I even got to class.  It felt boring on one hand, yet it also felt like we moved through the lesson too quickly.  Once we got the end and the students broke up into pairs and punctuated sample sentences I had given them, their interest picked up.

My reading lessons and science lessons have been equally eye-opening.  No devastating failures, fortunately, but each lesson has left me with so much more to think about.  

I think I have to re-evaluate how I go about my lesson planning.  I wish my district had an overall outline though, a road map per se, so I could better place my lessons within the overall context of 5th grade learning.  However, since that is not the case, I will continue to work hard and practice.  It's wonderful that UVEI, my awesome placement school, and my amazing mentor teacher provide so much opportunity for me to practice these skills and learn from the pros!

So much to learn!

What did people do before the Internet?!?

Obviously they didn't do much blogging, of course! 

I finished my lesson plan for my solo day this week.  I was feeling a bit apprehensive about the whole thing, but now that the lesson plan is done (off to my mentor teacher for review), I'm feeling much more confident.  I have no doubt I can get through the day, a year of subbing has shown me that, but I want to be sure the students have fun and learn something as well.

I was feeling a bit lost as to where to begin, so I turned to the the trusty Google machine and did some exploring.  Did you know there are TONS of great resources out there?!  Of course you knew.  The Internet is a wonderful place.  I discovered WritingFix and Responsive Classroom and ReadWriteThink and so many other invaluable resources.

I decided to do a writing lesson on chronological narration and a reading lesson on using paraphrasing to better understand what you've read.  I think both should be fun.  I also found a few other activities for throughout the day, including Human Bingo (get to know your classmates!) and an experiment on left/right side dominance.

I have the lesson plan written and the necessary supporting materials created, and now I feel more eager than anxious.  A little preparation goes a long way!

Planning for a solo day

Next week will be my first solo day.  I'm not only in charge of the class for the day (something I've done many times as a sub), but now I'm also in charge of actually educating them!

I've been working hard on lesson plans.  Due to the nature of our class rotations I only have to plan a morning meeting time, one writing lesson (to be repeated with several different classes), a science experiment, and a reading group lesson.  When I write it all out somehow my "only" from above seems less appropriate!  That is four separate blocks of time to plan well to ensure a quality education for my students.

I found a cool site called Writing Fix with a wide variety of writing lesson ideas.  They have fully developed lessons based around picture books, called "mentor texts."  I love picture books.  They make me feel at home.  I think my writing lesson will involve Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.  A cute story (that I happen to have in my own personal collection) and a good lesson on chronological story telling.  The lesson on the website is long and involved and could easily span several days, so I'll be tailoring it to just one lesson period.  We will read the book, discuss chronological storytelling and why an author might chose to write that way.  Then maybe I'll use a graphic organizer to have them write a brief chronological narrative.  I think the students will enjoy it.

I'm trying to find a balance of teaching fun, interesting, grade level (something I'm learning fast!) activities that will engage them and hopefully they might learn something along the way.  My mentor teacher is really fun and the kids all like him, so I want to make sure my plan for the day isn't too dull.    Fun, and interesting, and educational, of course.

On lesson planning

I've been thinking a lot about lesson planning lately.  I planned my first lesson last week.  I've taught several before, as a student teacher and as a substitute, but this is the first time I've planned a lesson.  The lesson went well enough, but I don't feel like I planned it properly.  I'm not sure if that's because I didn't (probably) or because I felt like it should have been something "more" or "more complex" than what it was.

My mentor sent me his lesson plan template, but it didn't work properly on my computer.  He has a template that has all of the Common Core elements listed in a drop-down box and many essential questions to choose from.  It looked easy-peasy on his computer, but didn't work on my Linux machine.   So instead I turned to the UVEI lesson template, but that didn't make a lot of sense to me either.

I ended up using my mentor's outline, without linking Common Core and just taking a guess at other elements.  My focus was on the step-by-step outline of the lesson because that is the part that made the most sense to me.  That was what I could wrap my head around and felt confident moving forward.

I drafted two versions, each going in slightly different directions, and sent them to my mentor.  He wrote back suggesting version A with a select few elements from version B as well.  We discussed and I moved forward to a "final draft."  I say that with quotes because I don't know if you ever have a truly final draft.  Does it count as final if the lesson changes a bit in progress?

My lesson was on a maps and was to be taught to one of the reading groups.  The lesson, as I had written it and as I had it in my head, was an introduction to maps and a discussion of the common elements found on a map.  When I discussed it with my mentor one final time, on the morning of the lesson, he made a comment about how the EQ should be along the lines of "How do maps help you to better understand what you're reading?"  That made sense, of course, since this is a reading group.  However, the EQ I had settled on, after working through my step-by-step lesson plan, was "What are the four key elements on a map?"  Not quite the same thing!

I taught the lesson, including the topics and activities I had planned, but modifying it on the fly to address how maps help you understand what you're reading, and then forgot the EQ at the end of the lesson anyway!  Oops!  My mentor jumped in at the end to wrap it up and bring it back to the essential question, "How to maps help you better understand what you're reading."

Overall I think the lesson was ok.  My mentor did a brief check-in at the next day's lesson, tying a map into his plan and asking the students how it helped them understand the text.  They seemed to get it.

However, a big lesson learned here is that it's important to start with that essential question!  It's important to keep in mind who you are teaching to and what you are teaching.  This was a reading lesson, after all, not a social studies lesson. 

Despite the hard work I put into this lesson plan, I still very much feel like I stumbled through it.  I'm looking forward to our upcoming UVEI session on lesson planning.  I have a few solo teaching days coming up and I'll need to do the lesson planning for them.  I hope to be a little more comfortable and confident in my planning abilities before then!