Monthly Archives: February 2015

02/19/15

Scripted Connection

Good evening, kind readers!

Thank you for staying with me through this rollercoaster ride of an adventure!  A whirlwind of assignments, presentations, projects, unit plans, and practicum looms on the horizon — perfect time for a storm-chaser like myself!  Building upon the way in which my previous lesson panned out, I had set several goals for myself.

  • Carefully plan out my lesson
  • After carefully planning out the lesson (and accounting for my crowd), script what I’m about to say
  • Commit the script to memory
  • Follow through on the script and don’t do anything strange

In designing the script, I tried to imagine myself in the gym in front of my class… and it all flowed to me — I foresaw several students having experience with lay-ups, with the vast majority not quite sure what I’m talking about.  Thus, to level the playing field (and also offer more experienced students a refresher), I decided to script step by step.  Before stepping into the classroom, I already messed up twice:

  • In consulting the detailed resource for the basketball unit… somehow I had forgotten to include the first instruction (approach the basket at 45 degrees)
  • The email with the lesson plan attachment didn’t send properly
  • I had my cheap plastic dollar-store whistle in my back pocket, and it shattered beneath my weight when I sat down… *sigh*

That first point is ridiculous.  Next time I am going to type up every single step verbatim before tailoring to my response.  Less emphasis on the image training — that should come after getting the instructions right.  As for the second point, I am glad that I followed through with my original plan to commit what I had written down to memory, because I realized (after my SA asked about my lesson plan) that it hadn’t sent… again.  I thought it was strange for us not to have discussed it earlier… need to purchase a new router tomorrow.  Either way, I quickly wrote down the flow of what I was to say, and my SA felt that my instructions were good.  She gave me a good suggestion (aim for the upper corner of the box on the backboard), which I wrote down and committed to memory.  Also, as some of the students still needed to be video-taped as part of Fresh Grade, I was to lead a set shot warm-up.  If that’s to be the case… warm-up will be changed to 3 laps and then a quick mini-lesson on the set shot, with the rest of the class getting videoed.  Once they were all done, lay-ups shall commence!

* * *

… French took a little to wrap up, so we began with ~5-10 fewer minutes to work with.  And I grabbed the wrong clipboard… off to a great start already.

During the mini-lesson I made sure to clearly demonstrate and describe the set shot — athletic position, arm at 90 degree angle, hold ball so it isn’t blocking view of the basket, aim, push UP with arms and follow through.  Demonstrated this twice, then separated the class among the 4 baskets.  I waited until my SA was done with all the videos, and then… lay-up instruction time!

I wanted all the students to be able to see me, so I instructed them to sit in a half circle around the 3-point line.  I demonstrated the lay-up step by step as per the script I laid out, paraphrasing slightly to elaborate on what I felt might have been important to keep in mind; while changing up the wording, I tried my best to stay true to the essence of the plan.  It felt… grounded to teach in that manner.  I demonstrated this skill twice, and then gave the students a chance to try.  This time, I split the class between the only two baskets with the box on the backboard (I wanted them to practice aiming for the corner).  Feedback from my SA, which I will follow through on next time:

  • Better positioning — while the half-circle ensured all students were able to hear me, most of them could only see my BACK during my demonstration
    • I need to be mindful of maximizing the students’ ability to see what I’m doing (this is PE class!)
  • When performing the lay-up, approach the basket from an angle (to really maximize the “aiming for the corner” technique)

This lesson felt quite good, but still left a somewhat sour taste in my mouth.  The class gave me their undivided attention and were quick to stop and listen when I called for everyone’s eyes and ears.  It could’ve been so much better, had I actually provided proper instruction… I can’t shake the feeling that my faulty instruction kept the students from doing better than they would have.  It may mean more time spent, but I definitely need to double my efforts into crafting a solid lesson plan.  I need just one — things may not go as planned, but I want to make sure I know what it feels to not just be prepared, but be backed up by valid and accurate teaching.

02/16/15

On the up-and-up!

Top of the morning!  End of Term 2A, unit-planning for practicum, keeping up with assignments… stepping back into the modular is always a highlight to the week!  This time around, things were a little different…

During prep block in the morning, my SA and I sat down and went through her report card software.  I was blown away by how organized the report card software was!  Drop-down menus filled with PLOs!  It was rather overwhelming scrolling through all those different PLOs, but as a side benefit… not only do I know for sure what I will be teaching, I also know the specific PLOs I will be designing my units around!  So excited!

* * *

Today I paid extra close attention to how my SA taught because there was no spelling to mark.  She went through expectations over the blog aspect of a novel study.  I don’t know what it was, but I think I can finally say that I was able to observe and fully appreciate her teaching approach.  Perhaps it was due to the increased emphasis on instructional methodology and the different means of assessment, but I was able to clearly discern how my SA pre-teaches important phrases and/or words, the assignment instructions.  She then elaborated upon her expectations, detailing (point by point) the criteria upon which students’ works would be addressed.

As an example, she instructed the students to transfer a conversation thread that they started on the blog.  She clearly defined thread as a conversation, and in going through the blog in search of a good example of a thread, she used humour to call attention to threads that were of inadequate length.  Unfortunately she was not able to find an appropriate example, which my TA turned into a teachable moment that culminated with a reminder to participate.  Moreover, she used that opportunity to discuss her expectations for proper online posting etiquette and expectations.  After our classes’ discussions on assessment and clarity (as well as previous conversations I had), I feel that I was able to pick up a bit better on the entire process and how it all comes together to offer students a firmer understanding of the expectations placed on them.

* * *

Today marks the beginning of a new term!  Sadly, there won’t be as many days at the modular as we are now entering workshop territory… also, next week I will only get half a day due to obligations arising from our math methods class.  We’ll make the most out of them and then hit the ground running!

02/7/15

Work in progress…

Hello again, blog… now for this week’s edition of Practicum, brought to you by the Social-Emotional Learning cohort!  This post will include more introspection-related musings, so bear with me… the initial post is for my own reference (to provide context), and the meat of this entry will appear after all the stars.

* * *

Today’s task is to teach a mini-lesson on long division featuring decimals divided by a whole number, and numbers less than 1 divided by a whole number.  I was fairly confident heading into this lesson, as I have quite a bit of experience with teaching long division — many of my pupils in the past have struggled greatly with this particular fundamental skill.  So, when my SA assigned this to me as a topic, I was excited for an opportunity to reach the entire class with my instruction!

Arriving early, I spent some time discussing my plan for the mini-lesson with my SA.  I had to clarify some of the particular wordings that I had used in describing what I intended (note to self:  clearer language!), and asked her for more input as to how she want the lesson to be taught.  I really appreciate my SA’s attention to detail — she teaches a strongly grounded, step-by-step method that not only guarantees the correct answer but also incorporates the importance of checking one’s answer after calculating.  She had emphasized the importance of instructing the students to write the equation out horizontally first prior to performing any calculations (ie — translating the bracket form into 3.45 / 4 = ).  This step is vital because while some students had issues with placing the decimal after dividing, this simple step of writing the question out horizontally greatly increased decimal placement.  I wrote down some sample questions that I intended to use as models (I’ve run into trouble in the past by not performing this step) and prepared for the lesson…

I typically spend the recess break reviewing my notes and going through the lesson in my head, reminding myself of the key steps and phrases that I wanted to use during the instruction.  Recess that day had been cut short due to several other goals I wished to accomplish (marking the rest of the spelling assignments).  I had instructed the students to take out their note page that was given to them by my SA because I wished to stress the usage of that resource, and intended to go over how to use the notes to guide their questions.

The first moments were spent setting up the projector (do this before the lesson!!), then walking over to turn out the lights.  In the future, I should ask a student to turn off the lights instead of doing it myself.  I launched into the pre-lesson by asking a question, “What is the first two things we need to write down during our test tomorrow?”  After exchanging puzzled looks, a student offered, “Our name and the date?”  Yes, that is correct… but I was looking for the two tools my SA had introduced:  the Place Value Chart and “HMS Bring Down” (how many, multiply, subtract, bring down).  After fumbling around, I finally wrote down the first question.

… and I forgot the most vital step that my SA stressed in the morning:  write the question horizontally before proceeding further.  It was not until the last question that I realized my error and told the class this vital step.  I walked the class through the process of dividing, stressing that dividing decimals by whole numbers consists of two separate goals:  dividing the numbers themselves, and placing the decimals correctly.  I broke down the steps provided according to the two goals:  the initial dividing was to be straightforward, with the estimation process intended to tell us where to put the decimal.  I ran into some issues with the rounding portion — we are supposed to round numbers bigger than 1 to the nearest compatible whole number; I intended to highlight this by reminding students to look for the first set of numbers we divided.  However, the way I phrased this was rather different from what has been previously taught to the students and fortunately my SA stepped in to correct my error and stated the step in very clear language.

The next question went relatively smooth, but because I had fully explained every single step in the first question, I had sped through the division portion and did not model the HMS Bring Down method mentioned at the beginning of the method.  In retrospect, I should have went through this as I had during my instruction of the first question.  The rest of the lesson went relatively smoothly; E, as usual, asked very thoughtful questions, A helped with a few good contributions, and M asked a really good question about how to decide where to put the decimal.

I fumbled M’s question somewhat.  The estimated answer was 1, after rounding the dividend up; she wanted to know whether to place the decimal before (.425) or after (4.25).  After going through the estimating process, I tied the estimated answer back to decimal placing by examining the numbers created by placing the decimals at all the possible locations.  When we got to .425 vs. 4.25, I explained that .425 is the correct answer because “.425 is closer to 1 than 4.25”, which was vague and ungrounded.  My SA offered a much clearer explanation — “when we estimated earlier, we founded the dividend up to get 1.  Therefore, the answer should be smaller than 1.  Where should you put the decimal to get a number smaller than 1?”

Wow.

* * *

I felt that the lesson proceeded very smoothly and devoid of Ums and Uhhs.  That being said, the way in which I taught the lesson brought out a very serious problem:  my SA had instructed me to teach a certain method and I had not done so; to make matters worse, the method I taught was exactly what the students were doing, and what we were attempting to correct.  During the discussion my SA made sure to clearly communicate the importance of that step as well as her reasoning behind the methodology, which I agreed 100% with and said I would teach.  I did not do that.

This, I imagine, is extremely frustrating for my SA, and this is definitely not the first time that something like this had occurred.  My SA always clearly explains the way she marks each kind of assignment, and I always fully understand her instructions and promise to act accordingly.  However, when time comes to actually follow through, I act as though I had not understood because… well, I had not done what was told of me.  This comes across as negligent and perhaps even suggesting a lack of attention due to a lack of care; definitely not an impression I intend to give off, but I cannot deny the fact that my actions reflect that.

I’ve thought long and hard about why this may be the case… one hypothesis is that the steps and things I omit are not what I would normally consider.  For example, for long division, I do not usually write down the equation horizontally before proceeding.  Moving forward, I believe I need to write things down as I am discussing matters with my SA, especially those points that are stressed.  I need to focus less on the big picture, but more on the details… because often it is these small details that have the biggest effect on the success of my instruction.

Forgetting to do things leads to shoddy teaching, and I do not feel that is acceptable.  My SA deserves better, and I definitely expect more of myself.  Hopefully this is the last time that something like this happens.

Ugh.

02/3/15

A belated update

Hello, readers!  This week’s update comes a little bit late, and for that I apologize.  And now, without further ado…

* * * * *

PE class this time around was a little more hectic, with chaos abound, but the class cooperated well with us.  My SA needed to assess each student’s fitness, as it is one of the components that make up their PE grade.  As a result, we had to go through the class roster in groups, as the fitness stations did not accommodate the entire class.  We split up the gym into two portions, with myself running set shot practice on the other side of the gym.

There were a few challenges we faced.  While we had access to two separate baskets, they were at 90 degrees to each other, which resulted in the two lineups bunching up together at the ends.  Fortunately the class did really well staying on task and practiced dribbling while they were waiting in line.  M, one of my students who is diagnosed with ASD, had a few challenges as well.  He had difficulties with the technique involved with set shots and was not able to shoot the ball high enough, which led him to attempt different kinds of shots such as overhead lobs, underhanded tosses, and so on.  These choices led to him gradually becoming off-task, with him starting to bother the classmates standing behind him in line.  Moreover, as the fitness test wrapped up for the first group, my SA called for other students to take their places; the transition created a little bit of confusion and chaos.

My initial idea was to run a set shot workshop similar to the lesson I taught last class, but quickly realized that this would not be possible after discussing our goals for the day with my SA.  Moreover, French class ended several minutes later than expected, so we had to make up for it by starting as soon as we entered the gym.  I decided to mainly focus on set shots and circulating to give individual tips while formatively assessing the students on their technique.  Initially I instructed M verbally, and gave him verbal prompts for redirecting off-task behaviour.  When that did not work, I began pulling him aside to help him focus on the proper technique, which was moderately successful for a short period of time.  As his off-task behaviour escalated, I informed him that continuing that behaviour would result in him being assigned a different activity aside from the rest of the class; he chose to participate in the activity properly, and I affirmed his positive choice with praise.

As I was transitioning into the “baskets for pushups/situps” activity that the class loved (D explicitly asked for it), my SA blew the whistle, signalling a group change.  We decided to continue with the previous set shot activity, as the new additions to our set shot camp were rather tired and not as receptive.  I decided to keep it simple and continue the workshop until the end of PE class, which worked out rather well.

* * *

My SA and I discussed our plan of attack for the extended practicum.  It’s coming soon!  I’m very thankful for the opportunity to lead the class… the idea fills me with excitement!  That being said, one of my objectives for the practicum will be to fully emulate and incorporate my SA’s teaching style, expectations, and structure.  Over the course of the first term I had seen the class grown tremendously and begin to shine.  I need to remain mindful of the students’ expectations, as I’ve noticed that a few of them have begun to assume that things are “different” when Mr. Tsang is standing in front of the classroom.  One of the first things I will do with the class is to spend perhaps an hour going over the classroom expectations (again) and being firm on the expectations.  I am contemplating, however, discussing a Social Contract with the class, tying the idea to the Social Students unit on Governance.

That’s all for now!  Time to put all those ideas swimming around inside my head onto paper!