My Action research began with a unit concerning Logic.My control group for the first unit was Period 6, while my experimental group was periods 5 and 7.So far, students have taken pre and post tests, as well as pre and post surveys for the Unit.I have graded the tests and input all day, including the surveys, into Excel.
I have been keeping daily logs of both period’s journal entries and keeping track of responses from the students.With the completion of the unit, I have noticed that periods 5 and 7 did appear (according to class averages and percentage of increase from pre to post test), but it is too early to make any assumptions.I have been keeping a daily journal with my thoughts during the journals and after reading the journals.
Overall, my Action Research is going very well and I have been keeping up with inputting data. I feel that the journals are a great assessment technique and help me to get to know the students better. I feel that they are something I will strongly consider using in my own classroom.
I have officially completed my first week as an Intern at Morgantown High School (MHS) with my mentor teacher, Mrs. Rebecca Tucker. Returning to school to see students and faculty was a wonderful experience and made me feel truly at home this year. Attending the training sessions and meetings to being the year also helped me to learn more about what’s going on at Morgantown High and to feel like a true member of the faculty. Attending these meetings related to my intern rubric by showing my responsibility for professional development, under Characteristic 1.
Meeting the new students and getting to learn more about my mentor teacher made this week exciting and fun. I am thrilled to work with Mrs. Tucker and learn more about teaching effectively this year from her and other faculty members. I am also anxious and excited about teaching the students and establishing a routine.
I attended the MHS football game on Friday night where I was able to see my students and faculty members in a new setting. It was nice to socialize with faculty members, support the students, and be involved in the school community. I think it’s always wonderful to learn more about the students and see them outside of the classroom.
I completed my first full week of school, which proved to feel a lot longer than a week!As busy and tiring as it was, I feel as though I’ve accomplished a great deal and have already learned a multitude at my placement. One of my goals for the week was to learn the students’ names, which I think I have almost accomplished, and I am hoping that the 3 day weekend does not erase my memory!
As teaching always is, the week was unpredictable, with my host teacher needing to leave town for family reasons for a day and a half.This gave me the opportunity to step up and lead all classes while she was gone.I was able to teach 3 Geometry classes (2 different lessons), Probability and Statistics, and Algebra Support.I had the opportunity to have a wonderful substitute, a retired teacher from MHS, help me in the classroom and give me positive feedback and advice for future lessons.This experienced and effective teacher was the first to observe my teaching for the year and gave me extremely supportive feedback.She helped bring my attention to small parts of a lesson that make a big difference, such as telling students where to place answers on worksheets, making eye contact with students as a classroom management strategy, and not asking questions that allow students to respond with negativity (ex: “Do you want to do another example?”).I tried to execute her advice when teaching the next class and found her advice to help the classroom flow and environment.
Along with her advice, she gave me compliments about specifics in my lessons and about my overall presentations.She expressed that she would recommend me for a job and would think I was at the end of my placement, as opposed to the very beginning.She specifically complimented my ability to relate familiar terms with unfamiliar ones and work with the IntelliBoard.This positive feedback helped me to distinguish elements of my teaching that should be frequently incorporated in other lessons.
Overall, I was extremely pleased with how the week went.Students were very well behaved throughout my teaching and responded well to me.In my Probability and Statistics class, I created a PowerPoint presentation on the key concepts and definitions, which was probably my favorite lesson.I realized that my psychology minor is going to play an imperative roll in teaching this course, and I enjoyed calling on prior knowledge from my courses to give the students sound information and examples to illustrate the concepts.
Another experience this week was attending Open House.My host teacher was not certain if she would be able to attend, so I prepared a PowerPoint of information from her syllabus to give a general overview for the parents.Creating this PowerPoint came from the excellent advice of Mrs. Muniz and helped me to be fully prepared for the evening.My host teacher was able to attend and was appreciative of the presentation that she can hopefully use in future years.Meeting the parents of students at Open House helped me to learn more about them and to better connect with them.
Due to the fact that Open House was from 5-7pm and school lets out around 3:00, I decided to stay at school and utilize the resources of other faculty members.I was able to meet with another faculty member, Mrs. Knaggs, to discuss statistics.Mrs. Knaggs has a vast knowledge of Statistics and teaches the AP course at MHS.Her willingness to help during that time and invitation to stop by for help anytime helped to illustrate how other faculty members at my PDS affect my learning and are an invaluable resource.I was also able to stop by my former host teacher’s room, Ms. Shaffer, to discuss my placement thus far, seek her advice with any questions, and just catch up.I am beyond lucky to have her guidance and support and am still so thankful for my placement with her! (Thanks again, Mrs. Muniz!!)
Overall, my week was a success.I got experience with teaching and open house, and was able to get better acquainted with my students and faculty members.I have also greatly enjoyed getting to better know my fellow interns and spending time eating lunch and “bonding” with them.Next week, I will begin to teach the 3 Geometry classes, which are the classes I will soon begin to conduct my research.Additionally, I will help teach statistics and will hopefully conduct a lab.I am looking forward to this week and all the wonderful surprises I’m sure will arise!
My experience is growing with each day at Morgantown High School and I am grateful for the events of each day that aide me in learning something new about my classroom and my teaching. Friday helped to show the importance of flexibility within the classroom when our classroom’s IntelliBoard quit working. I saw how one can become increasingly dependent upon technology, which can be very unreliable. I have learned to always have an alternative way to present notes to students, such as having ample space on a chalkboard or white board. I was able to adapt to the situation by having a previous class’s notes presented on the IntelliBoard while my host teacher helped use the computer to progress through the notes. This allowed Mrs. Tucker and me to interact during the lesson, in a co-teaching manner. As much as I appreciate the lesson of flexibility and alternative note taking strategies, I am hoping that the technology issues are resolved as soon as possible so I can continue to present information on the IntelliBoard.
I have begun to consistently teach Geometry and will be beginning my Action Research in this course in about one week. I have begun to prepare for Action Research by creating my pre-survey and attitude surveys on computer software that will allow me to compile students' responses by using personal response systems, or clickers. I am grateful for the willingness of faculty to allow me to borrow the software and to install the software on the class’s computer so I am able to compile data with clickers.
I’m looking forward to another week of teaching Geometry and for finishing our first unit and seeing how students perform on their first chapter test. I am anxious to see this assessment to get a better understanding of how students are retaining the information and areas that they are struggling. I’m sure there will be many more lessons learned in the upcoming week.
My week teaching Geometry overall went well, even though technology was again an issue.All issues have been resolved thus far, but presenting notes and problems to students was much more difficult without the use of the Intelliboard.It also seemed to disappoint students, and their regular routine of using the IntelliBoard was altered.I am relieved and grateful that Mr. Gibson was able to fix our problem and our board is back to “normal.”
With the appreciation of technology, I have decided to present some notes and definitions on the IntelliBoard pre-typed.I think this will help students with the presentation of new material, as I recognize my hand writing is not always legible.I will see how students respond to the presentation of the definitions and am aware that I may have difficulty not presenting or discussing important content or new material while students are writing the definitions I have already typed.Normally, I am repeating the definition while writing it myself, which enables the class to work at the same pace alongside me.However, I have noticed in the past that if information is already typed (such as on a PowerPoint) I tend to want to fill the silence with discussion and elaboration on the concept that all students may not fully comprehend due to their concentration on writing the notes.
In the last week, I have administered my first test and am anxious to see how the students perform.More tests will be given on Monday and a new unit will begin on Tuesday.I am excited for the new unit to begin and have put in a large amount of time preparing the materials.I greatly enjoy the content of the new unit, symbolic logic, and am excited to transfer my positive attitude to students.
Overall, in the past week the prevailing theme was flexibility again.I suspect that this feeling will be an overwhelming theme of my teaching career!With assemblies disrupting classes and technology being unreliable, I adapted lessons to resources I had available.Also, I have decided to alter my Action Research to avoid collecting survey data by using the IntelliBoard and clickers, in fear that the system will not work again.I am confident that the upcoming unit will run smoothly and that I will learn a great deal about my teaching with my first presentation of a full, self created unit.
This week started out as expected, with students in Geometry taking their first test on Monday. I was anxious to see how they performed on the test and excited to begin a new unit on Logic the rest of the week.
This all quickly, and quite drastically, changed. I suddenly became sick on Monday, which proved to alter all good intentions and plans for the rest of the week. I ended up missing school from Tuesday-Friday. I wish I could say that this gave me time to work on assignments instead of lay in bed, but unfortunately I feel like I lost a week of my teaching experience and life with the doomed sickness.
I had planned to begin my Action Research with Pre-Tests and Pre-Surveys on Tuesday and Wednesday with three different Geometry Classes. I was also intending to introduce the new Unit and begin teaching about inductive reasoning. Lucky for me, I have a wonderful host teacher who is always supportive in my plans and assignments. She wonderfully picked things up for me and had students complete the pre-tests and pre-surveys and completed the first section on content with the classes. Due to her cooperation, I will finally have my first pieces of data for my Action Research.
Throughout the week I was gone, I was extremely grateful for the cooperation of my host teacher and my coordinator.They were both incredibly understanding and Mrs. Tucker’s willingness to use the lessons I had prepared and make sure my Action Research got off to the right start by giving students the pre-test allowed me to have much less to worry about.
In the upcoming week, I plan to teach more lessons from chapter 2, which introduce symbolic logic.Additionally, I will present my students with math prompts and review their journal entries and reactions as part of my Action Research.I will also video tape my lessons and hopefully gather all of my paperwork together so I can be completely caught up from the time that I missed!
I was relieved and excited to be back to teaching this week! With sickness behind me and a week of adventures ahead, I was back in the classroom for the entire week. It was fun and surprising to see how excited the students were that I had returned, and I was able to quickly get back into the routine of school and finished introducing the unit's material to the students.
The week’s lessons went well, with no major mishaps or exciting news. I’ve begun to prepare my lessons more thoroughly by typing homework answers, definitions, and directions to example problems for note taking during lessons. Due to my messy hand writing, I thought this approach may help students and also allow me to be more organized and focused on the content. So far I find the pre-typed notes to be a great help and am working towards perfecting my pace and presentation of the notes with this method.
On Thursday, I was able to be observed by my coordinator, Mrs. Muniz, which is always a helpful experience. She was able to observe my instruction in a Geometry class and give me useful and constructive feedback. Her suggestions will be a help to me in my future lessons and hopefully something I can improve on within the upcoming weeks.
Thursday and Friday allowed for time with faculty members to discuss information in our Professional Learning Communities (PLC). I always enjoy being a “real” member of the faculty and joining with other teachers in the school as a way to be better informed and united. We were able to discuss PLC issues, Quantiles, and discuss power standards and pacing guides for different subjects.
My fellow PDS interns and I prepared a site-based seminar on Friday afternoon for the participants and tutors to attend. We discussed classroom management as a group and then broke the tutors into one group to discuss Digital Stories while the Participants discussed the Wikki assignment. I was able to talk to the participants about their Wikki, as well as field general questions about life as an Intern. I really enjoy getting together with other education students and felt that the seminar went very well. We had a few technical difficulty problems that were luckily able to be resolved with “back up” plans and help from Mrs. Muniz, which also helped the seminar to run more smoothly.
We had a great turn out and I think the Participants and Tutors really appreciated our efforts in presenting information to them. They had great questions for me and even stayed a little longer (on a Friday!) to discuss questions and concerns they had. I was pleased we had the opportunity to get everyone together at the seminar.
The upcoming week will be excited but busy! With homecoming festivities taking place this week, I will have the opportunity to be involved in a lot of activities this week. I'm excited about getting more acquainted with students and faculty through participating in the school's Homecoming celebrations!
