Author Archives: Tony

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!

01/25/15

I think I like PE now!

I must admit… prior to stepping foot into the classroom as a teacher candidate, the idea of teaching physical education unnerved me somewhat.  So does the thought of teaching French, but we will save that story for another time.  Fortunately, I have the wonderful opportunity to study under Steve McGinley and learned that PE doesn’t have to be taught in a meritocratic manner.  And so, tasked with leading a class full of wonderful individuals possessing a diverse range of experience and skills, I move forward with this week’s task:  dribbling, chest passes, bounce passes, and a juicy introduction to set shots.  In the sake of brevity, this post will focus solely upon the lesson and lessons learned from said lesson.  Another post to follow on the meat of the happenings of last week, and more musings to come…

* * *

Plan:  modified warm-up allowing for dribbling and pass practice.  How to achieve this and introduce/set shot practice?  Well, I wanted to make sure each student had a good opportunity to practice, which involves time… and I had no clue how many baskets were going to be available (we had 5 at my elementary school as a child… which, in retrospect, was a rather impressive number).  So, during the drive to the school (and while weaving in and out of rain-slogged traffic), I had the bright idea of forgoing the typical 3 lap jog around the gym and use the skills practice to warm up!  Seeing as we recently covered assessment techniques in PE, assessment was somewhat on my mind…

… and so I hatched the great idea of having them all run around the gym to pass me the ball.  Yes, just me.  While it was great for formative assessment (and the kids loved the idea of doing something other than running around the gym), it created the unfortunate problem of TRAFFIC JAM!  On the bright side, most of the students took the opportunity to practice their dribbling while chatting with their friends, but this issue could have been mitigated by separating the class into small groups or partners.

My set shot mini-lesson and following activity went fairly well.  The students were having fun experimenting and celebrating their successes; I stopped the class and gathered everybody around for some strategy-sharing.  After giving a few more pointers, I tasked the groups with trying to score as many baskets as they can (as a group) within 5 minutes, with the winning group deciding on a kind of exercise I would get to do (ie — I do pushups, or burpees).  I feel that changing the focus from individual to team helped some students get away from their fear of failure to simply having fun participating with their classmates.  While no group got even close to the minimum number of baskets I challenged them with (haha, nobody can get 100 baskets!), we still had a great time debriefing.  Well, they did — I did a pushup for each student’s contribution, whether it be something they tried that worked or “nothing”.  I temporarily forgot that there were 25 students in the class, and that while they all had the option of participating, it was still in front of the class.  Perhaps next time I will use more Think-Pair-Share.  And next time I’ll have them join me in pushups, too!  Or perhaps a Walk-and-Chat, that would make a nice cool-down… can’t wait to try next week!  My class is awesome — it’s hard to believe that the same class who bounced off the wall in The Story of the Wasp is the same class that gave me its undivided attention as I hit the rim not once or twice, but three times as I was demonstrating the set shot.  Nothing but net on the fourth attempt, though!

PS — D was invaluable as a classroom resource.  Initially he shared, nonchalantly, “I have to shoot from further away.  I can’t score baskets up close.”  I looked at him and jokingly replied, “seriously?”  He replied, “yes, Mr. T,” turned around, paused for a second to aim, and shot a basket from just outside free throw range.  Nothing but net.  “Respect,” I said to him, passing him my ball.  Without a word, he shot the ball I tossed to him, which followed his to its home through the red iron.  Okay, I trusted him to give his classmates pointers from then on.  I’ll share the story of how we began our amicable relationship another time.

01/8/15

And now, for a change of pace…

… and we’re back to school!  Winter break was very enjoyable (a little too enjoyable), but it’s great to get back into the groove.  And back to school means… back to practicum, and back to another fun-filled day at the school!  My SA requested that I try my hand at teaching another PE class last time we met, so we went into the gym after French.  The kids all brought their gym strip!  I was so impressed with them that I immediately sent them on 3 laps around the gym (being sure to touch all four walls) to get the party started… and hadn’t noticed that I had yet to turn on the lights.  Ecstatic, E shouted, “All right, Mr. T!  You’re awesome!  Guys, let’s go run in the DARK!”  Being the way he is, he shouts this as he’s running into the gym.  Fortunately he stopped when I told him to wait as I fumbled around for the lights.  Aside from that, the lesson turned out very well!  We were starting basketball, and my SA had suggested that I try to teach some passing techniques along with dribbling (which I originally intended).  The kid surprised me with their full, undivided attention and enthusiastic participation!  By the end of the class everyone was able to do chest passes — a few of the girls, who’ve actually never held a basketball (what?!), exclaimed that they were actually good at a sport, which brought a huge grin to my face.

Aside from that, however, today was a teaching-free day.  Today’s math block was self-guided; science in the afternoon was not only self-guided, but my SA was assessing the students’ ability to independently follow instructions and problem-solve.  So, I can only speak of the French lesson that took place within the classroom (our prep block).  The following is an observation of a team-taught French lesson (!) that I absorbed via osmosis, as I was marking the kids’ spelling homework.  This announcement may have been met with alarm, but please, suspend your uneasiness for a moment — it will make sense further on.  PS:  my SA told me to pay special attention to the other teacher, because his teaching style was very different from my SA’s.  This interesting change is made even more interesting in that I now know that the French teacher was actually replacing the teacher who normally taught French.  And that teacher, interesting enough, is our vice principal.

* * *

The lesson hook was simple enough — the kids recognized the vice principal and were rather energetic… very uncharacteristic of the class, as French was usually met with little enthusiasm.  The vice principal and his partner took turns talking and teaching:  the vice principal would say a phrase en francais, and his partner would provide an English translation.  He spoke in English as well, but the vice principal spoke mostly in French during the instructional phase.

The interesting difference, I noticed, is the fact that the vice principal taught in an anecdotal method.  He would say a phrase, ask the class to repeat the phrase several times, after which he would teach the meaning and tell a short story about the phrase, or make a short comment or joke.  Today, I learned that asking for the “wash basin” (which means washroom) in the wrong place in the world would be met with snickering and a retort, “Why, do you smell?  Do you need to take a bath that badly?”  Funny enough, few people make that association in English, as most public bathrooms don’t come with fancy shower facilities.  Or any facilities, but I digress.

The students quite enjoyed the lesson, and showed their enthusiasm in full participation.  Several students carried on side conversations, usually comments on the funny and silly anecdotes the vice principal shared with the class; while my SA and I would normally address the side conversations, the vice principal was very comfortable with these and as a result, the environment was noticeably noisier and more boisterous.  I can say without a doubt that the kids all enjoyed today’s French class; whether they retain the phrases learned, however, will need to be determined in the future.

Perhaps the students quite enjoyed the change of pace; perhaps they liked the more active nature of the new unit.  While they didn’t exactly all rush off to the toilet at the same time, the kids got plenty of practice standing up, sitting down, raising their hands, asking for words like “banana” (banane), “roast beef” (rosbif), and “salad” (salade) en francais.  They particularly liked the vice principal’s silly pun — his way of saying “making roast beef” was “duing rosbif” (du is a subject marker, and a fun homonym for “do”).

And the class, surprisingly, calmed down and lined up orderly (with no chatter!) in preparation for PE class.  I find it kind of cute how one or two students would find out I was teaching (one or two kids would always ask me in the morning, “Are you teaching us today, Mr. T?”) and quickly spread the news, sending everyone into “best behaviour mode”.  I’m thinking that this might be a good thing to take advantage of… oh well, I’ll take it!

11/29/14

Challenge: Physical Activity in 30 minutes

Back in school again!  While I relish the opportunity to collaborate and dissect theories and concepts with my colleagues within the classroom, it lacks the intensity and excitement that comes from entertaining a group of children.  Before we begin, story-time:

* * *

My last lesson offered quite the learning experience.  Moral of that story is… simplify, simplify, simplify.  Just like fractions!  And so, when my SA asked me to lead a PE class, and to focus on picking a game that is fun and engaging yet straightforward, ideas immediately began to swim in my head.  See, I didn’t really like PE as a class, mostly because I was not very athletic; fortunately that is not a concern with my class.  Nonetheless, I went on a search for fun, team-based games that offered opportunities for inclusion.  I suggested two games to my SA:  one volleyball-based, one open space-based (we weren’t sure whether we would have the volleyball nets up or not).

… she again stressed the importance of keeping things straightforward and simple for the students.  Right, right… I had to teach the students how to play the games before actually playing.  So, back to the drawing board… I found a tag-based game called Prisoner of War that I thought would be quite a lot of fun, seeing as it’s team-based and offers students a variety of different strategies (lots of running, or strategic short bursts of speed).  I also suggested Jailball and “Ga Ga”, two hugely popular games from my days working at a childcare centre.  My SA shared that her class has played Jailball before (under a different name), and that I could consider Prisoner of War or Ga Ga… although I should consider how much time is required for each (the students only had half an hour for PE every Thursdays).  In my zeal I overlooked this important detail!  Note to self:  consider all aspects of problem-solving when considering possible solutions…

* * *

I admit that I’ve been taking advantage of the students’ enthusiasm for class management.  I told a few students “I will be teaching PE class today, and will explain the game we’re playing today once we’re in the gym.  And we’ll head to the gym after everybody has their PE strip and shows me they’re ready by standing in line.”  To my amazement, the students began to self-organize, spreading the message (Mr. Tsang’s teaching today!) and giving each other friendly reminders to get ready for PE class.  Confirmation, again and again, that acknowledging each student individually goes a long way!  I’m really glad that I took the time to get to know each student during my first few weeks observing.

The students got changed relatively quickly and the first few students ready (E was the first; he’s the only student who prepares for PE by arriving at school wearing his gym strip), but we had to wait a few minutes for the previous class to clear the gym.  Once the previous class cleared out of the gym, I instructed the waiting students to run 4 laps (which was met by a few groans).  And once the students were winding down, I informed a few of them that there was a reason I made them run 4 laps as warm-up, because… they will be running even more during the activity!!!  They would likely all boycott my gym class if I pitched it like that, so I repackaged it as a fun game.

Thing is, as I was image training by imagining the students running around (all of whom were having fun, of course!), I had imagined the gym to be much bigger than it actually was.  My SA noted that the game would be a lot more fun if we were playing on the field, since 13 students standing in half the gym was… actually rather cramped!  I had foreseen the students not paying attention if I started off by telling them they would be separated into two separate groups, so I separated them prior to telling them about the game.  In a moment of silliness, I sent them to opposite corners of the gym… and to confirm that I didn’t exactly make the right choice, I saw out of the corner of my eye E jumping up against and kicking the big cushioned barrier on his side of the gym.  So as to not call attention to him, I instructed everybody in the class to sit down and await instructions.

Now, with the added difficulty of communicating the rules across the gym (good job, Tony!), I relied instead on students to repeat back the instructions/rules to ensure they understood.  I would tell them a rule (your side of the gym is along the outside white lines to the middle red line marked by the cones), and then ask a targeted question where the answer would be what I just said (which part of the gym was your side?).  Originally I set the jail area to be rather large, with the edge fairly close to the centre line.  Sure enough, E picked up on this and expressed his concern, “Mr. Tsang, it isn’t going to be very fair because the jails are pretty close to the centre line,” to which I replied… “… this is on purpose, E, to make the game a little bit easier for us all so we can practice playing.”  I’m sorry, E.  Teacher’s rules!  My SA asked me a question (to help me clarify the boundaries, bless her!), which gave me a chance to clarify the exact boundaries to the students.  Confirming that they understood both the rules as well as the boundaries, they were ready to begin!  Students slowly got up onto to their feet and stalked tentatively towards the other side…

3… 2… 1… start!  And at first, few people moved, opting to stay safely on their side of the gym.  There were a few students who tempted members of the other team by sticking their limbs temporarily over the line; the occasional daring soul would jump two steps over the line, only to giggle and run back when the other team started in their direction.  This standoff continued for several moments, until A made a break for it along the boundary on the far side of the gym.  Around this time I noticed that the gym was rather cramped for a game of this magnitude… and this was confirmed when a student approached me and said, “Mr. Tsang, this is pretty hard… A made it into his jail, but I think he might have run out of bounds to avoid people tagging him.”  Pausing to think for a moment, I decided that it would be a better idea to remove the outer boundary to create more freedom for the students.

Sure enough, shortly after this announcement, several students huddled briefly (likely to discuss strategy), and then darted randomly towards the other side to rescue their friends.  To further encourage this, I temporarily paused the game to reduce the size of the jails, following E’s earlier suggestion.  The game really picked up at this point, with students from each side encouraging each other and sprinting.  There were a few disappointed sighs when players got tagged, but everyone was honest and walked back to their jail, ready to run again.  Soon, the game was over — one side had emptied their jail and won the game!  There were some cheers, some content smiles, and a few sour looks; I called the class over to the middle of the gym and had them sit in a circle around centre.

I invited the students to share their opinions of the game.  In general, they had a lot of fun, but a few of theme expressed frustration at the lack of space and the prevalence of “puppy-guarding” (standing really close to jail to prevent captured players to escape).  Seeing a good opportunity, I decided to engage the class in a short discussion on “strategy-planning”.  Noting that puppy-guarding was both an annoying and effective strategy, I invited the class to brainstorm some ways to defeat the strategy.  There were quite a few good ideas — a few students suggested waiting for when the Guards were “distracted” to make a run for it (the importance of awareness and perspective-taking).  Upon further prodding, A shared his winning strategy with the class — when the rest of the group is distracted with other players teasing and tempting across the line, he snuck along the sidelines and sprinted when he saw that the coast was clear.  After a moment of bubbly excitement, E added to this strategy — “what about when you and a teammate run together at the same time?”  E had successfully used this strategy to help his team win the game:  after whispering to his teammate, they waited for a moment when the defenders’ attention was distracted, and bolted in opposite directions.  The defenders, temporarily confused, were paralyzed and before they could start in either direction, both students had crossed the centre line, winning the game.

The entire class chomped at the bit, eager to try that winning strategy for themselves.  I moved towards resetting the game, but (fortunately) my SA stopped me and reminded the class that the recess bell will be ringing in 5 minutes, and the students needed time to change.  The entire class was disappointed by this sudden interruption; I expressed my own disappointment, telling them that I lost track of time myself and promised them that we would try the game again next time I had an opportunity to teach PE.

* * *

All in all, I was very impressed by how the class managed themselves.  They showed me that despite their challenges with slowing down, paying attention, listening to instructions, and following through, they are capable of excelling.  I was also very impressed with A, who unreservedly shared his strategy with the rest of the class instead of holding onto insight; I could see that he was quite pleased that his contribution was acknowledged in front of the class.  I think I will give him his own tag, as I foresee more interesting contributions from him in the near future.

Take-home learned lessons:

  • Carry a whistle with me into the gym (SA mentioned this, and I agree — should try to preserve my voice)
  • Separating the class into two groups and sending them to opposite ends of the gym makes it very difficult for me to monitor their attending… in the future, I can simply have them sit on either side of a line, but still congregated together
  • Begin setting an alarm to signify the end of the lesson, perhaps with an included 5 minute warning — I wore my watch, telling myself that I would be constantly checking it… unfortunately, I had not really done so, being so invested in students’ experience and encouraging participation
  • Class collaboration gives some students prone to making “negative choices” a positive outlet; however, I still need to work to promote participation from more quieter students.  I noticed that the students who normally wouldn’t contribute to class discussion speaking amongst themselves during the game, which was still a small victory; I would imagine that the more boisterous students (A, E, and a few others) may intimidate those who are less sure of themselves; I would go so far as to say that those students are comfortable with making mistakes and sharing the wrong answer, and as thus feel more empowered to contribute their opinion.  With time…
11/21/14

Here we go again!

Hello again!  At the beginning of the year I wouldn’t have imagined I’d say this, but WOW, I SURE AM HAPPY TO BE BACK IN THE CLASSROOM WITH LITTLE PEOPLE!  On a more serious note, it was great seeing my SA in the morning again.  Morning strategy-planning/debriefing/preparation provides a slightly different warm fuzzy feeling than learning and absorbing new information and skills within the classroom… maybe a bit more orange.  On a lighter, second note, the more casual tone is representative of today’s realizations…

* * *

The students missed me!  They asked about me!  Outside, I was all, “Oh, heh, that’s awesome, kids.”  Inside, I was like, “OH REALLY, YOU GUYS ARE THE BESTEST BEST KIDS I WANNA HUG ALL OF YOU!!!”  Definitely one of those awesome hug-a-bear feelings that you can only get from being a parent or a teacher.  Oh yes, I liken teaching to parenting, albeit higher stakes (though each could make a strong argument for their case).  Today, I feel confident.  Today, I feel prepared… because today, I will be teaching math!  I had horrible experiences with math while I was younger, but slowly (and surely) I overcame my challenge and have since remained inseparable with math — I’ve tutored math for over 10 years.  I admit, today my breath definitely smelled of hubris… was what I thought.  More likely conceit, but who’s keeping score anyway?

Last post, I mentioned that I realized that one of my biggest pitfalls is that I idealize the students to the point of overlooking telltale red flags that would otherwise indicate a change of strategy.  To compensate, I began by sounding like a stiff board and rushed out the gate with heavy content-laden questions, guaranteed to scare even the hardiest of my supporters from even trying to learn!  My SA is constantly gushing about how far her class has gone since last year, and to this day I cannot imagine the same students who occasionally rib me from time to time as little whirling tornadoes of destruction, creating messes and disruptive behaviour throughout the classroom.  I mean, when I say things like, “everybody, can I have your attention please?” they actually turn their heads and look in my general direction.  Unfortunately, the class did not really offer me any chances to practice those interesting classroom management techniques during the math lesson.  Bummer.

One undeniably positive thing that happened today was E stepping up to bat for Ol’ Mr. Tsang when he was floundering about.  Let me tell you a little bit about E.  This child comes from a very difficult home environment, yet for some reason remains extremely resilient.  If there ever were a child who should not be cheerful it’s E.  He is full of energy, chatty, and very bright; sometimes I can see a sparkle in his eye whenever we talk about something that really catches his attention.  Which is why it is so frustrating to see him constantly making careless errors, forgetting his homework, completing his homework incorrectly, forgetting and otherwise demonstrating complete disinterest and/or understanding of instructions… it’s very hard to look at E and not be disappointed.  That’s not to say he isn’t trying hard, which adds to the frustration.  I’m pulling VERY HARD for this kid to succeed because he NEEDS for his efforts to be validated.  He NEEDS to see that he can contribute in a positive way.  It broke my heart 2 weeks ago when I made the mistake of asking, “Who feels that they are a bad person?” and without hesitation, E shot his hand up high into the air and looked me right in the eyes.  I saw no guilt in his eyes.  What I saw was trust — he was not proud to admit that to the class, and it took a lot of courage for him to put his hand up like that; he was joined shortly by two other hands.  But what I saw in his eyes was “because I trust you, I am going to take a risk and share”.  I froze up and for a few seconds, I was completely overwhelmed at his simple gesture… I nodded in his direction, and quickly changed the topic.

Anyway, E…  I care for all my students equally.  Thing is, with E, I also really, really, REALLY hopes that one day he succeeds.  If I could help him succeed in any way, I would be extremely grateful.  Today… I felt he succeeded.  Here is what E did.

I was teaching a lesson on BEDMAS.  I was nearly through everything I had to say, and upon scanning the room, my eyes were met with quite a few confused looks.  They looked maybe… 50-60%?  While I was scratching my brain and moving my mouth-parts, E put up his hand and asked a question I did not expect to come from him.  As I was looking for a good way to gather my words and explain things, E put up his hand and asked a guiding question — he had noticed that I had not yet gone over the fact that multiplication/division are equally important, and that the only rule governing them was “left to right”.  And he asked me specifically in a way to get me to give that explanation and dig that idea out of the myriad ideas swimming about in my head.  Oh, he didn’t stop there.  He kept asking guiding questions until most of the students in the classroom began slightly nodding their heads.  Not only did E understand Order of Operations, he helped me teach the class!  While I would prefer that he demonstrate his leadership abilities in some other manner (preferably not at my expense), he did a fantastic job.  I look forward to telling this story to everyone I meet.

So, that is E’s story.  It’s a story of how a struggling student saved a drowning teacher candidate.  Okay, perhaps I am exaggerating a bit… I wasn’t quite drowning, but my head was definitely beneath the water.  Today, I learned the value of simple instruction.  I am a wordy person; words follow me, and I like to throw punctuation everywhere.  But from now on, fewer words.  Simpler words.  Effectiver instructions.  Okay, that’s enough out of me.  But I get the point — right now, the goal is maximizing everyone’s success.  And E has shown me that I’m not simply being optimistic.  I look forward to sharing similar stories about everyone else in the class.

PS — another student, D, approached me after class and said, “Thank you for today’s math lesson, Mr. Tsang.”  I was slightly confused, so I asked D for clarification — you’re welcome, and I really appreciate your thanks, D.  But what exactly do you mean?”  He responded (that was one of his spelling words!), “before today’s lesson, I didn’t get Order of Operations at all.  But after you taught that lesson, I really get it now.”  Next week, I’ll tell D that it was actually E who deserves most of the credit for that lesson.

PPS — E approached me while the class was working independently and asked me, “Mr. Tsang, I think I’m done… do you think I can tutor anybody?”  Let’s see if we can’t turn him into a classroom resource!  He gets his own tag now.

11/9/14

From the Ashes: the End of an Era — end of practicum reflection

The past two weeks have been a rollercoaster ride.  Prior to the practicum, sitting inside those classrooms in Scarfe, I always thought to myself, “yeah, I’ve got what it takes.  Just put me in front of those kids and I’ll show them some learnin’!”  This week taught me that I, like the students who will be under my care, have lots of learnin’ to do myself.

My class gave me the wonderful opportunity to learn why it is important for lessons to be designed specifically for a given class and should not be generalized.  There is a gap between theory (lesson plan) and practice (teaching to the class) that, without careful preparation, can go sideways at any moment.  The responsibility is on the teacher, as classroom facilitator, to make these contingency plans.  Because things will go sideways, and according to Murphy’s law, they will always do so at the most inconvenient moment.

One of the first steps to contingency planning, I’ve realized, is having the proper mindset.  By that, I don’t exactly mean being in a “problem-solving mindset”.  I believe that contingency-planning must begin from a firm desire to place the goals and needs of the class before our own individual intentions.  A facilitator who feels compelled to push the pace forward to catch up with his intended schedule will inevitably lose touch with his class and may very well notice his students starting to disengage, zone out, or perhaps even some rebellious behaviours, all resulting in decreases in academic performance.  A facilitator who insists on teaching a concept through a certain activity, despite knowing his class lacks the skills with which to succeed, may end up introducing feelings of inadequacies in his students

This is, of course, barely scratching the surface of the ideas swimming about in my head — it will take some time to tie them down and anchor them to words.  Hopefully that can occur within the following days.

* * *

In retelling the story of my last lesson, I liked to place extra emphasis on The Wasp for triggering the cascade of events that led to me losing control of the class.  Mostly because it would be easy for my audience to sympathize with random occurrence leading to catastrophic failure; in fact, I intentionally used this to redirect the conversation away from what I was focusing most on during the past two weeks.  The decisions I made, whether in reaction to escalating energy to where I wanted the lesson to end up, all had something in common.

  • When A expressed fear after noticing the wasp, I allowed him to get up off his chair, and did not object to his moving about the room in an attempt to escape The Wasp’s insecty wrath.  Assumption:  helping A take action to remedy his feelings of anxiety would allow him to de-escalate and refocus
  • After witnessing A’s extreme reaction, several other students began to feel anxious as well, starting to get out of their seats.  At first, I tried to model calmness by completely ignoring The Wasp as it buzzed irritatingly close to my body, performing fly-bys of my ear on a few occasions.  What that didn’t work, I suggested/instructed the anxious students to stand by our EA.  Assumptions:  modeling “calm behaviour” will help students realize The Wasp wasn’t really that scary; that congregating as a group may be successful in dispelling anxiety and fear (this I find, in retrospect, extremely humourous)

In case it isn’t already apparent, the big similarity between all those assumptions I made was that I idealized my students.  One of the secrets to my passion to teaching and my bottomless care-pot is the fact that I believe in the best of all my students, and I try my best to remain optimistic and generous, always giving the benefit of the doubt.  My SA has shared, on several occasions, that certain students (while very pleasant to chat with) were taking advantage of my “niceness” — namely, I neither reacted to nor reprimanded disrespectful behaviour, and by my actions communicated that I condoned that kind of behaviour.  I thought I was cutting back that aspect, but every once in a while I would notice that I am (again) letting things slide, albeit not quite as smoothly as before (I would still believe the students to be angels, but reprimanded their behaviour by just calling attention to it and saying, “I know what you’re doing”).  And when The Wasp invaded the modular, I learned of another dangerous aspect of such an assumption — idealizing my students causes me to lose touch with them, which in turn leads me to react in a completely random way.  And I say completely random, because since I can no longer claim that I’m acting in the children’s best interest, and I definitely wasn’t asking in my own best interest.  Safe to say, it was benefiting somebody… at least then someone could benefit from that whole experience.

The decision to continue with my original plan of learning through collaborating as groups and sharing role-plays with the rest of the class was equally delusional in the sense that I convinced myself that not only would the students be able to overcome their earlier heightened emotions and focus, that they would be productive and on-task through the entire activity.  To add a cherry on top of the chaos pie, I had neglected to really lay out the ground rules (I don’t think I laid too many of those out) and consequences for off-task behaviour; so I ended up interpreting horsing around with “having fun with the activity”, and students falling over each other and laughing as “part of putting together their role-play”.

… yeah.  I don’t really think it was The Wasp, although he was quite the worthy adversary.

Lessons learned:

  • Be pleasant to each student, and love each for who they are… beyond that, focus primarily on what they are saying/doing at the moment
    • My care and affection for each student can and should manifest itself in my conscious choice to address the behaviour, not the student him or herself, no matter how much the behaviour bothers me
  • Being firm is an important way of caring for my students.  Being firm allows them to form consistent expectations, which in turn prepares them for future success; by being inconsistent or too permissive, I run the risk of communicating to them that there are no boundaries, or that they’re so far apart they may as well be no boundaries.  What then are they to build on?
  • Assume the best, plan for the worst
    • Remain grounded, in the moment, flexible, observant, and reactive to allow for smoother transitions.  After all, teachers play the most pleasant role of behaviour monitor to 30-odd students
  • Start low, go high — everybody benefits from clear, concise, easy-to-understand instructions with clear, logical, natural consequences.  If it truly is review for everyone, then everyone will let me know… hopefully that’s what’s actually shown!
11/1/14

Both Feet In: After the Completion of the First Week of Practicum

I entered the practicum with big goals.  The lessons that I previously delivered to the class (on discerning good/bad questions, and how to generate good questions based on an area of interest) were well-received, albeit somewhat “wild” initially — the students, at this point not used to a large degree of freedom, embraced it by participating in the activities as children are wont to do.  Nonetheless, I was very surprised and proud when I noticed certain students (who, I was initially warned, were difficult to motivate and thus often not focusing) contributed quite often during class discussion.  I was under the impression that things were going smoothly, and that the logical extension of the Questions lessons — Genius Hour — would be a smashing success.

Students were assigned homework in preparation of Genius Hour — after choosing 3 of the “passions” from their self-generated passion list and for each passion, the students were instructed to create good “I wonder…” questions.  “Good” questions, we decided, could generate other questions and be conductive to formulating a research project or experiment(s) around.  The day the assignment was due… only a handful of students submitted questions; the majority of students who submitted their questions did not fully complete the assignment, as they only generated 1 question per passion (for a total of 3) as opposed to the expected 3.

Those who submitted questions followed the “I wonder…” question prompt offered as a sentence stem.  And while the students displayed interest in certain areas, they were somewhat discouraged when informed that their questions “were not good enough” — many of them asked simple “what” questions, or “can I” questions… there were quite a few “I wonder if I can learn _____”; assertions that the student could easily answer that question “yes” or “no” was met with blank stares and puzzled looks because as far as they were concerned, these were valid questions that they had asked regarding their passion.  Another common modification was “I wonder if I can learn ____ in _____ [unit of time]”, suggesting that introducing a time limit constituted “challenge” or “investigation” for most students.  I realized that the very act of creating good “I wonder…” questions invokes a certain kind of creativity; like most forms of creativity, some individuals are born with natural talent, and others must nurture their growing talents with practice and determination as supports.

Perhaps the students’ responses were indicative of the a lack of critical thinking and creativity, which, in my opinion, is not surprising given the primary form of assessment (recall and recall-based analysis/evaluation) for most academic subjects.  Even science, whose very epistemological foundation is formed on skepticism, curiosity, and applied theory, is no stranger to heavily regimented processes by which information are integrated into a working body of knowledge.  Students conduct experiments based on research questions originating from teachers, or from other experts outside the classroom; their responses are heavily structured into labelled sections that call for information to be reproduced in a certain form.  Within this model, there is little room for the students’ creativity and curiosity to truly manifest itself — there is no such field such information may be recorded, and if those curious questions were to be recorded in any of the answer sections, it would be marked wrong, thus dissuading further creative “outbursts”.  This was confirmed by myself when students were instructed by my SA to “play around and experiment” with their battery and lightbulb kits.  She intentionally provided no instruction, instead telling her students, “try different things, and write down your observations.”  Several times she had to rein me in when she noticed me trying to “help” certain students — I was so ingrained with the notion of delivering information in a clear, concise, and easily digested way (so as to maximize students’ understandings) that I had not realized that in doing so I was actively destroying those students’ opportunity to experiment!

Creativity, in its current form, seems to occur primarily through interpretation of existing information.  In physical education classes, students are taught certain skills, after which they are taught pointers aimed at improving technique.  Language Arts class involves the learning and recitation of spelling words, each carefully analyzed thoroughly and dissected with the assistance of spelling rules.  Math class is the worst offender — the basic concept –> alternate applications –> word problems progression is so common that breaking that pattern in any way (such as introducing a self-paced, fundamentals-driven curriculum) creates confusion and decreases effectiveness.  It is, therefore, no surprise that students’ idea of learning and investigation consists solely of finding a WHAT — for every question there is a definitive answer, and each answer has been shown to be intimately linked to “knowledge”, the demonstration of which suggests proficiency and is rewarded with good grades.  Unfortunately, this has the consequence of communicating that the goal is far more important than the means — the ability to produce the proper, expected answer is rewarded far more readily (not to mention much easier to assess) than each student’s individual path towards that goal.

The answer is definitely important, but I believe that more attention must be given to acknowledging the learning process itself.  What is more important, in my opinion, is the student‘s answer — the path the student chose to take, in this case, is far more interesting and worth focusing on than where they actually end up.  Attempts to introduce inquiry-based learning exposed a glaring flaw with traditional pedagogy — students are trained to associate TRUTH (or the correct answer) with RIGHT (the fastest way to get a student’s defenses up, or deflate their ego, is to tell them they are wrong) and to devalue any methods that do not produce RIGHT answers.

That being said, inquiry-based learning offers a means by which facilitators can steer their charges in the right direction.  Given an understanding of the student’s own perspective, natural abilities, and preferred method by which to engage subject material, facilitators can encourage or suggest certain “modifications” or alternative applications of existing skills to achieve the intended goal.  And in doing so, the facilitator will be able to properly acknowledge what the student brings to the problem space and help them feel empowered to explore subject matter in an effort to create their own knowledge.  If this discrepancy must be corrected at the post-baccalaureate level in training teachers, need we say more about students in elementary school?

I started planting seeds of dissent among a small handful of students at a time.  I tell them, “a good question gives you a chance for you to find your OWN answer to something you are curious about”; that a good question “has nothing to do with what other people say is right or wrong”; that the whole point of the question was to guide students towards engaging in enactive practice (no, I didn’t use those words specifically…), which may or may not involve students designing their own experiments.  A few confused looks, a few questions; it might need some more refining.

But I made the mistake of starting off with “it’s perfectly fine for your question to lead you nowhere and to discover a big pile of nothing”, and “the whole point is for you to EXPLORE something interesting in a way that YOU find interesting; what you actually discover is beside the point”.  I told developing pre-teens that their perspectives and opinions were valuable, and that they possessed the means of producing or discovering meaningful information through interacting with their surroundings; I told them that what they could come up could be better than anything adults could come up with.  Perhaps that is why they were unable to come up with good questions… I was assuming that students believe that.  And in doing so, I made one of the biggest and most grave mistakes I feel an educator can make — how can I claim that I teach to students’ individual strengths and abilities when I make assumptions about what they can or cannot do?

It is important to note that despite the aforementioned challenges and drawbacks, my SA and I remain optimistic in our students’ ability to take ownership of their learning.  All the structure and procedural niceties necessary to ensure a well-maintained and secure learning environment, I have come to realize, can be harnessed to provide students with the requisite skills with which to maximize their learning potential.

At first, many students were not able to figure out how to set up their circuit and immediately raised their hands for assistance.  Quite a few of them were frustrated with their classmates and themselves, and I am sure that a few of them may have thought to themselves, “I’ll never be able to do this.”  A few “yes, I got it!” shouts were met with mild anxiety from students in the vicinity, fearful of the eventual shame and blow to self-confidence that inevitably accompanies the acceptance of failure.  Yet they worked on, and before long, students were referring to their notes, collaborating, and most importantly, trying whatever they could come up with.  Soon every single group was able to complete their circuit, bringing a smile to our faces.

But what really made our smiles widen was hearing some children exclaim, “this lightbulb is so dull, how can we make this brighter?  Is it broken?”  Sure enough, by the end of science block, most of the groups had figured out ways to brighten the lightbulb, and were visibly and verbally disappointed when told to pack up their materials in preparation for the end of the day.  So that’s what learning is supposed to look like… I have a lot of work to do.