Student to Teacher

Temporary Leave of Absense

2012-11-03T18:44:00.001-07:00

Hello to all of you who read this blog. I'm taking a temporary leave of absence. I won't be submitting any new posts until November 26th. The reason why I'm taking this leave of absence is because I've taken my 4th attempt at what is called a TPA. TPA stands for Teacher Performance Assessment. As someone studying to become a multiple subject teacher (elementary), you must complete four of them

Student Disagreements in Sports

2012-11-02T18:47:00.001-07:00

I was watching five or six boys play this outdoor sport called army ball. Their game had paused because they had disagreement on the rules of the game. Before I get into that disagreement, I need to describe a bit on how the game is played. Army ball is very similar to baseball but you use a dodgeball for the ball and one of your arms for the bat. But, there could be more than just two teams.

Teaching Unfamiliar Words

2012-10-30T21:18:00.002-07:00

Today, we read a story called "The Bicycle Man." The author, Allen Say had dedicated this book to a 1st grade teacher of his, Marita Sensei. We talked about how Marita gave her students words of encouragement during sports and played outdoor games with them. So, Marita may have influenced Allen in terms of morale support and teaching him new outdoor games. After we read the story, I gave the

Answering Less Questions

2012-10-28T21:34:00.001-07:00

I'm not quite credentialed to teach and I haven't had my own classroom to manage. But, this is my speculation at what almost every teacher values. Every school day is limited in duration and a lot of lesson objectives must be covered. For those reasons, I think something that every teacher values is time. Even as a student teacher, I value completing all of my objectives within the time that I

Students Doing Their Fair Share

2012-10-25T21:21:00.002-07:00

In the after school program that I'm a teacher in, I've been thinking of ways to get students to clean up the auditorium before we head back down to the lower yard. Just to give a little context, from students in grade 3 through 5 go to the auditorium and upper yard from 2 or 3 to 430. Then, everyone heads back down to the portable in the lower yard. It is there that students wait to be picked up

Angry VS Calm Teacher

2012-10-23T21:24:00.001-07:00

How do you want to earn your respect as a teacher? An angry teacher will strike fear in the hearts of their students. A calm teacher will ideally just be an unshakable individual regardless of how you interact with them. I need to give you a little more detail. This angry teacher isn't merely angry, but this teacher also expresses their views through sarcasm and openly questions the intelligence

Problems with Praising Scores

2012-10-21T21:00:00.001-07:00

Some teachers have a practice of making a big deal out of making it known which students got high scores on assessments or assignments that they had done. They might pass out the assignment and say "So-and-so got a perfect score" or "So-and-so got a 9 out of 10." The great thing about that is that the students who you praise feed off of that recognition. It boosts their spirits. However, what

Quick Full Class Assessment

2012-10-18T21:22:00.002-07:00

So, I was teaching a lesson on interjections (e.g. Hey!) and exclamatory sentences. We had confirmed that they knew the difference between an interjection and an exclamatory sentence. Basically, I pointed to an interjection that I wrote on the whiteboard. Then, I simply said, "Raise your hand if you think this (interjection) is a complete sentence. (I check to see how many students raised their

Saving Pencils and Erasers

2012-10-16T21:15:00.004-07:00

My current mentor, Ms. Massey, a 4th grade teacher has been having difficulty with preserving her supply of all of her pencils and erasers. She bought 20 pencils and 20 erasers for the class. She left them each in their own separate buckets. Within a few weeks, they all just disappeared. Reasonably, she's discouraged from buying 20 more pencils and erasers because she doesn't want the same thing

Tracking Attention During Reading

2012-10-14T21:51:00.000-07:00

I learned an interesting reading trick from my current mentor, Ms. Massey. When I read, I tend to focus on the how and the why. I attribute that to me being philosophical in how I think. Philosophy was my major and I still continue to think and ask questions in a philosophical way. But, how and why questions within a school text often require self-reflection. On the other hand, what questions can

Quick Attendance During Field Trips

2012-10-12T21:32:00.000-07:00

In a recent post, I talked about how an easy way to track students' novels is to assign each student with a number and have each student use a novel which is labeled with the same number. Turns out that assigning each student with a number is also helpful for taking attendance during a field trip. We took a field trip to the Oakland Museum. It was for a Native American exhibit since that's what

Limiting Costs from Lost Novels

2012-10-09T21:21:00.001-07:00

This year, in Ms. Massey's class, a fourth grade teacher who is my mentor until November, finished reading a novel with her class. They were reading Babe. Every student would have a Babe novel that was assigned to them. Every student has a student number. Every Babe novel has a number. If a student's number is the same as the number on a Babe novel, then that is the Babe novel which is assigned

An Informal Lesson in Responsibility & Independence

2012-10-07T22:45:00.000-07:00

Currently, I'm student teaching in a 4th grade class. Despite being much older than kindergartners, they still rely quite a bit on grown ups. I sit in the back. Immediately behind me is a few book shelves. Students were working on a quiz from Babe. Most students had finished responding to the quiz. Usually, when that happens, they can grab a book from the shelves behind me. It's about time for

Distraction Free Typing

2012-10-06T10:27:00.002-07:00

This is my first experience with this kind of device. It's called Alphasmart. Basically, its purpose is to write documents. It comes with a standard keyboard that comes with any laptop or desktop. With the same device is a calculator-like screen that is just above the keyboard. And, that's really all there is to it. The great thing about this product is that it lacks all of the distractions that

Leave the Games for Last

2012-10-03T21:45:00.000-07:00

So, I've been tutoring this first grade student. I've been trying to come up with a variety of games for him to play. I've been doing that for two reasons: #1 If he has fun, then he'll want to keep playing the games. And, when he keeps playing the games, he's practicing the phonics patterns that he's supposed to be practicing (e.g. -at in bat or -an in ban). #2 If we play the same game over and

Students' Imagination as a Lesson Hook

2012-10-01T19:54:00.002-07:00

Last Thursday, I taught a Social Studies lesson. The lesson was on the "First Californians." I didn't just want to do a dry read from the text. What I could've done was simply read paragraphs saying that the First Californians (i.e. Indians), lived 15,000 years ago and the various large and small animals that they hunted. I didn't do that. I tried to frame the beginning of the lesson in a way

Time Limiting as a Proficiency Booster

2012-09-26T21:31:00.001-07:00

So, I've been tutoring this student from Chabot Elementary. Its been going pretty well. There's one idea that I've found particularly useful. I've been using a phonics wheel. This is how it works. You have two paper plates. Both one paper plate rests on top of the other. The paper plate on top has a two letter ending for a three letter word (e.g. -an, -at) at the very right center of the plate.

Students & Microphones

2012-09-24T20:15:00.000-07:00

My current mentor, Ms. Massey is one of several teachers who were selected for a pilot program. The pilot program involves Massey using a set of hardware with one of her classes. The hardware set consists of a headset, a transmitter, speaker, and a handheld microphone. The transmitter is to convey a signal to the speaker so that when Massey speaks into the headset, you hear her voice from the

Restroom Ordeal

2012-09-22T10:25:00.000-07:00

Every Monday through Friday, I am in the auditorium for the afterschool program that I work in. We start the afterschool program by taking roll. That is, we are trying to determine which students are present and which are absent. We have about 120 students to take roll for. That's a lot of students. So, it takes a while to account for everyone. The easiest way to take account for everyone who is

Advantage of a Class Website

2012-09-19T20:12:00.002-07:00

So, my current mentor has mentioned her interest in setting up a classroom website. On it, she would post the assigned homework for the current day. To me, that's a pretty big deal. It's a big deal because I hear so many students in class say that they didn't bring their homework because they didn't know what the homework was. They could've not written the homework down in their planner while in

Descriptive Writing About Monsters

2012-09-17T20:18:00.001-07:00

My current mentor brought up an idea to the class a couple of days ago. Her students seemed really into it, so I'll share it with you. Just as a reminder, my current mentor teaches 4th grade. Basically, I think my mentor wanted to form an idea of how her students perform in terms of giving precise descriptions. First, everyone made their own monster. That is, they used a lined sheet of paper to

Tutoring Elementary Students

2012-09-15T23:49:00.003-07:00

So, a while back, I told you about my strategy for getting some tutoring jobs to make some extra cash. Chabot Elementary, the school that I'm a before and after school teacher has a "broadcast." Basically, that's an online newsletter. Interested individuals submit their ad to Chabot Elementary by email before Wednesday and their ad is included in the following week. The "broadcast" is displayed

Sparking Student Inquiry via Real Events

2012-09-12T20:24:00.000-07:00

So, 9/11 was yesterday. Originally, my current mentor wasn't planning on talking about it, but the principal announced that each teacher would indeed talk about it. Basically, my current mentor explained how a couple American Airlines planes were hijacked and crashed into the twin towers and the pentagon. She also described how a couple thousand people had died. She said that the attack was done

Making Chairs Unstoppably Quiet

2012-09-10T20:30:00.003-07:00

This is something really small, but its such a distraction. Its when students scoot towards or away from their desks. On a solid floor, depending on the chair, the screech of a chair sliding on a floor surface can directly compete with a teacher's voice. The bottom line is that the less disruptions you have in class, the better. For whatever reason, students will move their chairs about. It could

Principal's Pedestal of Shame

2012-09-08T23:17:00.001-07:00

Last week, I was supervising the upper yard of Chabot Elementary. I was watching three 4th grade girls mind their own business. They were simply conversing with each other. This 3rd or 4th grade boy comes up behind one of them. He's holding a basketball. He's got this devilish smirk on his face. He chucks the basketball at one of the girl's backs. He runs off. I point straight at him and yell for