Blog 7: I feel very ineffective in teaching my students reading. Common core requires students to contextualize and read (even in math problems!). For my students at lower reading comprehension levels this adds another challenge to math. I couldn't even tell you where to begin to help these students. I have a hard enough time teaching math, I don't know how I would incorporate reading into my lessons. In all my lessons I try to reflect common core standards. It helps that our school's tests and quizzes all aligned with common core. We also have received a curriculum map which aligns with common core. I use all these resource to help me plan (although sometimes I question how successful I am). The most helpful thing I could have in terms of support would be helping bridge the gap between my students who are ready for common core and my students who need more guidance. Scaffolding and differentiation have been really hard for me. Sometimes I feel like I give them too much guidance and sometimes I don't give them enough. I need to find a way to find the middle ground or away to reach both my high and low students better.

Blog 6:
The article I read was a discussion about a first year teacher's experience teaching seventh grade. Veteran teachers were responding to her struggles with classroom management. Some of the advice they gave included: greet students at the door, have task for them to complete everyday when they walk in so they have a sense of urgency from the beginning of class, understand and plan for the curriculum. The biggest item I took away from this list (and some of the other suggestions in the blog posts) where to have an activity for students to do right away when they walk. In theory I have had this since the beginning of  the year but in actuality this does not always play out because I didn't practice it enough with my kids at the very beginning of the year. Having my kids start an activity right away will save time and effort because they will (theoretically) start the class off being focused.

Classroom management has been my biggest struggle this year. At the beginning of the year I didn't fully understand the need to be consistent and the need to be very strict from the beginning. These two factors have hurt me because my students know they can take advantage and if they push me far enough I sometimes will break. My main struggle is that my students talk when I am talking or someone else is talking. My classroom is often loud and very hard to focus in if you are a student who really needs quiet. My biggest accomplishment is that students have large disruption in my class (normally) and that they do listen to me. My students always move seats when I ask them two (sometimes I need to ask them more than once but they do always move) and they will eventually quiet down if I do a countdown clock.

Differentiation Blog: Webinar 11

I differentiate my lessons by giving guided notes and trying different strategies during my group work time. As I mentioned in the webinar I like to do point systems during class. I have questions broken up into sections. Each section gets progressively harder and is worth progressively more points. Students must reach a certain number of points to complete the activity but they can choose any level of question they want. For my high students I sometimes challenge them by saying answer all the hard questions or I up the amount of points they must reach to end the activity. For my lower students I lower the amount of points they need. Beyond activities such as this my differentiation skills are lacking. I think that differentiation is really important in the classroom but I haven't found ways to be really good at it. My lowest and highest students get lost among my challenges with management. Currently I struggle more with my high students than my low. I can see them getting bored and annoyed with the classes paces and material. I usually give them their homework earlier but after they complete that I don't have anything else for them to do. I have tried doing peer tutoring but that only works with some of my high students. I think some of my management problems would be fixed if I could have my lower students understand the material better and my higher students be more challenge. I just sometimes feel overwhelmed by it all.

Blog # 10

I feel very inadequate as a teacher working with ELD students. Amiss the hustle and bustle of my classroom I often loose my ELD students. My challenges come from the fact that I don't give them as much attention as they need. With common core's emphasis on explanation and world application problems I have been having a really hard time having my curriculum be accessible for them. I recently gained TA for one of my classes and she has been helpful in translating some of the curriculum for me. I had students doing it but I found that it started to hurt their grades and created some distractions. I think the main things I need to do is give them more attention and make sure they feel welcome in the class. I currently don't include them as much as I should in classroom conversation. I think what will help me the most is increasing my overall management skills so I can give my ELD students that extra one-on-one time.

Blog # 9

To be honest I have stayed away from technology in my classroom. I have used some Khan Academy video to introduce new material and my kids have respond well to the activity. I have them answer questions has they watch the video. In general, however, technology scares me because of management. I am intimidated by making sure students stay on task. However. I think that it could be incredibly useful if presented and structured correctly. For example, I always start the day off with vocabulary and instead of giving my kids the definitions I could have my students look up the definitions on their phones. I could also use technology for homework, having students watch a video and answer questions at home that introduce the days material. This way students have some prior knowledge coming into the lesson.

Prompt # 3:

I am trying to make modifications for my special education students by providing them structured guided notes and more examples than my other students. I also modify tests and quizzes. For example I helped them by underling important information in word problems. I think I could improve by further providing modifications on tests and quizzes. I also think providing other visual aids such as foldables would help. I also need to become better at scaffolding questions.

Prompt 1:

Two things I am proud of are: I am happy that my students have somewhat of an entrance procedure. Everyday my students know to enter the classroom and take a piece of paper from the back of the room and sit down. I am also proud that I continue to try to implement knew activities and things in my class room. Sometimes they are successful and sometimes they don't work but I am continuing to try! Two things I want to improve on are I would like to improve my management so that students don't talk when I am talking. I would also like to make my activities more interactive in order to increase engagement. I am going to try and do this by increasing the number of Kagan activities that I use in my classroom. I think that making my activities more engaging will also help with management.

Blog Post 5

I would give myself a 6 on assessment. I have tried to get into the habit of always having an exit ticket at the end of class. This is usually in the form of 3-5 questions. I use these to guide my teaching for the next class. If they mastered the concept I don't review it as thoroughly. If they don't do well on the exit ticket I refocus and reteach. The other main way of assessment that I use on a daily basis is I ask lots of questions. I scaffold the questions and switch up whether I call on a student randomly or if I have students raise their hands. I normally start with basic questions and then move towards having students explain entire problems to the class. I think I could become better at assessments by becoming better at differentiating within in my class when it comes to quizzes and tests. I still haven't done a very good job of differentiating questions for both my lowest kiddos and my highest kiddos. All my tests and quizzes are district mandated and I still don't fully understand how differentiation and modification works for district mandated tests. The other area I think I could improve on is I think I could become better at making my assessments more interactive by having students talk to each other more during class (Think, Pair, Share, etc) so they are more engaged in the class.

Prompt #4:

Currently I am feeling overwhelmed and frustrated/down on myself (I am incredibly critical of myself... which is both a good and a bad thing). My largest concern is connected to management and engagement. I am struggling get my students to stop talking while I am talking and also to take me seriously (that is mainly with my older students). I did a class survey and the biggest feedback I got from my students was to be more strict. I feel bad because I can't control my talkative students so my quiet students learning is compromised. I think if I can fix this I will do a better job at getting through to my most difficult students. I am getting through to some of my most difficult students, but most definitely not all. The ones I am getting through to are the ones who I have the most parent contact with.  To increase engagement I have started something called Table Talk, where they turn to their partner and talk to them about a question. We then as a class answer the question after they have had a chance to discuss it.  I did this for the first time on Friday and it worked pretty well. I also use Rally Coach all the time (which I know is a Kagan strategy) and I have seen some really positive things come from the activity.To increase more engagement in the class I think I can use even more Kagan strategies and I also think incorporating more class discussions will help break the class up more and increase engagement. The largest step that I need to make sure I stick with is I need to be consistent in my management and consequences. Once I have that locked down better I will be able to pull small groups, etc. to ensure students are one task.

Prompt 2: I think my biggest problem as far as management goes is consistency.  Next year I am going to do two things from the start (and for the rest of the year). I am going to be consistent about consequences from day one and I am going to implement a class points/rewards system from day one. I added a positive reward system later in the year and I have been having a hard time remembering to use it to reward good behavior. I get lost in the hustle and bustle and forget to give out "neel notes" (individual rewards) and classpoints. I also have already changed how I collect homework (about three times this year). Currently I have them turn it in bins. Next year I think I will separate it out even further and have separate bins for each class.