The Big Day

t-5.

Every day was a big day, but today was DEFINITELY a big day. I was going to have the classroom to myself, and that idea alone sounded awesome.

“Everything is going to be perfect!” I reminded myself as I sat in the teacher’s seat staring at the empty desks in the classroom. 

t-0.

The bell rung. I stood outside the classroom greeting each and every one of my students like every other day. But they quickly noticed the missing piece of the puzzle –their classroom teacher was indeed gone. 

Students worked independently on a research project, but things weren’t going as planned.

“This is definitely not perfect!” I screamed at myself as students kept on chattering with one another, climbing out of their seats to tango their way to a friend, and asking questions to things that had already been discussed. I had lost control. 

The classroom froze. 

Jessica and Maddie are giggling like the ladies in a tea commercial. Blake and Jacob are fighting over the dry erase spray bottle. While in my mind I realized something that was going to change everything. I realized that perfection did not exist. I realized that precision couldn’t exist in the classroom. I was so used to planning out and imagining every moment of class, forgetting that teaching requires improvising and adapting to changes. I just needed to remind myself that everything was going to be okay.

And they unfroze.

Staying Humble and Remembering to Laugh

As I browsed through Google I decided to research the things teachers need to know and I realized the importance of teaching procedures. During core one, my professor stressed over the importance of procedures and now I know why. Little things that we as future educators don’t think about are these itty-bitty procedures that can transform the classroom into a much more enjoyable classroom.

In a blog post that I read titled “Love, Teach: The Top Ten Things I Wish I'd Known as a First-Year Teacher,” Love Teach utilizes Harry Wong’s methods of The First Days of School and states:

“First, you need to figure out exactly how you want everything done. What do I mean by everything? The way students enter and exit, when they can sharpen pencils, if and how they will borrow pencils from you, what heading they will use on their papers, what to do when a visitor walks in, how to ask to go to the bathroom, how you will get their attention quickly, how students will pass in papers, how to work in groups, how to demonstrate active listening, etc. Then, have students practice these procedures until they are not just ok, but perfect.  This can take anywhere from 1-3 weeks” (1).

It is important to make a list of all the procedures that you need students to perfect so that any future instruction could work out more smoothly and your flow of teaching won’t be interrupted. Creating a list of procedures that you need for students to perfect is also helpful because it gets you thinking about your classroom, how you want it run and envisioning is key.

            Love Teach ends her blog post on “The Top Ten Things I Wish I'd Known as a First-Year Teacher” by reminding soon-to-be-teachers that being able to laugh at yourself is part of the job. “Humility, a sense of humor, and a pack of people who love you are your best weapons for getting through and doing it gracefully” (Love Teach 1). Laughing at yourself helps remind us that we are part of the learning process and that it’s perfectly fine to laugh it off.

Works Cited

Love Teach. "Love, Teach: The Top Ten Things I Wish I'd Known as a First-Year Teacher." Love, Teach. N.p., 14 May 2013. Web. 04 Nov. 2015. <http://www.loveteachblog.com/2013/05/the-top-ten-things-i-wish-id-known-as.html>.

KATE Conference: Learning about Graphic Learning

Attending the KATE conference for the first time was nerve-racking, but the longer I stayed for presentations the more inspired I got.  I attended many sessions, but one that I would like to share as it has instilled many different ideas in me was a presentation over graphic learning.  Many believe in graphic learning and swear by it as others believe that it does not contain enough literature and is not an effective way of reading. In this presentation however, it was clear that learning through the use of images is an effective method of learning for students.

            Our presenter, Kelly Connelly started out by discussing the many instances where her students who have never touched a book voluntarily would reach toward a novel like The Odyssey; they would finish it in one day, and would inspire several other students to do the same.  When students are reading graphic novels, they are reading: word choice, syntax, length of the sentence, flow of ideas, shapes, the size of shapes, characters, and texts, colors, shading, placement, where the text is placed, characters itself, and the size of the overall picture. Students are looking at many different elements when they are reading graphic novels, and it also helps students who have a hard time visualizing the text. Being able to picture what is being read is a skill, and utilizing graphic novels can teach students how important this skill is.

            If teachers don’t have time to teach a graphic novel, graphic learning could be taught through excerpts as well. Students can practice graphic learning by taking a given word and the depicting it through a drawing. Teachers can also have students look at a small part of a text and then allow students to circle the words that stood out and brought strength to the text. Then show an image that modeled the small excerpt and discuss with students to see whether or not their circled words were depicted in the image. An example that Connelly recommended others use was an excerpt from The Odyssey where Cyclops lost his eye. It is a passage packed with numerous amounts of sensory details that could be visualized.

            It is important to give the students a chance to read what they enjoy reading, and graphic novels is one of them. Attending this session over graphic learning has not only taught me the many tips of tricks to teach graphic learning, but it has become something that I want to protect and keep around for my students. I want graphic novels to be kept around for my students, especially those who struggle with reading comprehension.

            The KATE conference was such an amazing and moving event. I definitely look forward to what the next conference has to offer.

A Letter to Myself

Dear my future self,

If you’re ever stuck, stressed, or questioning that what you’re doing is right for you, remember the moments that matter:

Remember that time when you couldn’t make it to class and students wondered where you were because they missed you.

Remember that in your classroom, sits the next and future doctor, astronaut, scientist, educator, and people who aspire to be better.

Remember that time when Student A came up to you, excited and eager about your lesson, because it made an impact.

Remember that kids who need the most love are the ones who ask in the most unloving ways.

It is tough, but what you do is beyond a simple paycheck, because you hold a piece of the future. Keep calm and smile on.

Love,
Yourself

Music and it's Relation to Learning

Music and learning is a relationship that I am curious about as a student and as a future educator. A lot of students in Class A that I am working with this semester contain a handful of students who enjoy listening to music while doing their work, but I’m interested in whether or not music is helpful or distractive. Many students as well as my classmates find music to be pleasurable when working, but some prefer instrumental while others like songs with lyrics. I also find that music helps students who are usually distractive or talkative to remain quiet and working. But does music help enhance students’ learning, or is it better for them to have a quiet environment? Yes, music may be pleasurable, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that it is helpful.

In an article titled “Does Music Help You Study?” Sheela Doraiswamy ran students through five different scenarios:

1.      A quiet environment

2.      With “steady state” speech. This means a single word (in this case, “three”) was  repeated for the duration of the test

3.      With “changing state” speech. This means a variety of words (in this case, random digits from 1-9) were played during the test

4.      With “liked” music, meaning a song of the students’ choice (such as Lady Gaga, Rihanna, or Arcade Fire). Students brought in their own music, the only requirement was that it had to have vocals

5.      With “disliked” music, which in this case was a metal song called “Thrashers” by Death Angel (all students in the study disliked metal) (1).

The results are as follows: “there were no significant difference between test scores with liked music, disliked music, and changing state speech. Scores were significantly higher for tests taken in a quiet environment or with steady-state speech” (Doraiswamy 1).

I find it especially interesting that there were no significant differences between liked music and disliked music. One would think that working while listening to disliked music would produce worse test scores, but Doraiswamy’s experiment proved different.

I wasn’t as surprised to find out that scores turned out to be significantly higher when students worked in a quiet environment, because music could be distracting and quietness would always be the most ideal for students. It is helpful to know this as a future educator as we often have the choice to allow students to listen to their music or let them know the truth about learning and music.

I would love to run this experiment with my students as well, because every student is different and have different needs. As mentioned before, I find that students who often had disruptive behaviors worked quietly and well when they were allowed to listen to music. Often time, students need these accommodations so that they could get their mind going, especially those who have so much experience in music.

Works Cited

Doraisamy, Sheela. "Does Music Help You Study?" Mind the Science Gap. 08 Oct. 2012. Web. 22 Sept. 2015. <http://www.mindthesciencegap.org/2012/10/08/does-music-help-you-study/>.