Jerry Fisher

Another week has gone by and I feel like everyday is getting more entertaining. After teaching a unit of Ultimate Frisbee and Tinikling, with the FITNESSGRAM thrown in for good measure, things are starting to pick up in the class. As with most of the chapters in the Marzano book, there is limited use of the strategies in a physical education class to begin with, in this class they probably would not have been used anyway. As I stated previously, the use of cues and some types of questioning can be seen implamented in the class as you attempt to teach strategies as they relate to an activity. The use of problem solving can be seen in most situations, as students attempt to gain an advantage in competition, or even in their attempts to get out of participating. The use of similarities and differences can come into play when your teaching new activities as most of the games that I introduced can be related to something that most students have played in their past. Some new activities are just variations of other familiar things, and I like to point out the differences and similarities when teaching these activities. Therefore, even as I find it difficult to relate many of Marzano’s strategies to the class, digging deep enough I can see some things that resemble those strategies.
As for a brief summary of my experience during this clinical, I have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy my time with the students. This week we again had to include some of the instruction time to the FITNESSGRAM and that again leaves a lot of dead time for students in class. This week I spent some money and bought a pair of team handballs and a portable pop-up net so that I could introduce the sport of Team Handball. The unit on Ultimate Frisbee helped to introduce the rules and the objective if the game, so the students picked it up quickly, similarities again. I was very amazed at the attitude of the students in regards to taking care of the items I brought in for them to use. I have seen them go out of their way to hammer other items that we have used in class without much concern. After a brief talk about the fact that I spent my own money on these things for them to use so they could experience something different, they made sure nothing got destroyed. I was enjoyable to see them not wanting to leave the gym for a change as soon as possible, a lot of them hung around and wanted to continue playing. Now I must prepare for the sunshine and the great outdoors as I promised to introduce Touch Rugby before school lets out. So even as my clinical time requirement has ended, I have decided to continue to spend time at the school. The students want me to continue and I feel obligated to finish some of the projects we have talked about doing once the weather breaks. Plus, now that I have this money invested in Frisbees, balls, nets, and Tinikling poles, I need to reap something out of my investment. Since I plan on student teaching next spring, and I will have to spend some time in the high school, I’m hoping that I will see some of these incoming freshmen and they will remember our time together.

The end

So my level two clinical is now officially over and I must say that I am relieved. I was so looking forward to learning from an experienced educator. Unfortunately it ended up being a nightmare situation. Oh well, I can now look at it as a learning experience because no matter how awful it was I did learn several things. It was really cool to see how kids will work for you if they think that you care. It was especially cool to see how one child may be a fantastic test taker and another kid who fails miserably on tests to turn around and design a fabulous poster that is just as important as the test. I really did get to see all of the different learning styles and then I would frown because all the supervising teacher does is worksheets and tests. I saw a few of the kids fail because they could not read. It was so sad. The kids who could not read had IEPs and the only modification that I ever saw made for them was the special education teacher read the tests to them. There was never any help with the worksheets and they were counted as grades. I helped them when I was there but what happens to them now?
In all of the awfulness of my experience I look back and realize that my teacher did do some of the strategies that Marzano suggested. The students were given homework and practice. She had them make graphic organizers once when I was there. There were questions in each class. She would summarize the chapters and give them notes. In other words she did use some of these strategies. The problem was with how she used them. Instead of her summarizing the chapters for the students and giving them a typed detailed set of notes, the students could have summarized and taken the notes. The homework, practice, and questions were all just simple recall questions that only required memorization or a quick look in the textbook. The graphic organizer was designed for them as well with the exact information that she wanted in it. It had to be exactly like the one she had. I honestly can say that I did not see her recognize any of her students for their good work or effort. It was if it was never good enough. Feedback is virtually nonexistent in this classroom as well. Papers are not handed back and if the students ask to see their grades on assignments she tells them to look it up on edline. They never learn what they did wrong. I was not given the opportunity to go over anything that the students turned in for a grade. I feel like I failed these kids in many respects. I normally would not hold my tongue if I saw an adult treat children the way that she did but I feel like it is more important for me to eventually get out there to teach. I will miss these kids. I told them the first day I taught them that I expected to learn just as much from them as they would from me if not more. They exceeded my expectations.
Anisa

Post #3 Hypothesizing

My clinical last week was very busy. I finished my unit on Tuesday, had a review on Wednesday, and gave the test on Thursday. I was nervous to give my students a test. I jump from one extreme to the other in my classes. One class is full of IEP’s, there are only six students who don’t have an IEP. My next class is full of intelligent and social students who love to answer questions and do very well on their work. I was nervous for first period, because I didn’t want to have to fail anyone. On Wednesday, I made sure to review extensively with first period. I felt that most were pretty knowledgeable in what I was going over. Most of the students were answering questions and getting them right. My second period class did excellent. They answered the questions so well I made them “hypothesize” on some. For example, we were discussing the gold rush, I had them tell me if the gold rush was a good thing or a bad thing and why and yes there were many bad things about the gold rush. Marzano speaks of this in chapter nine of his book. He talks about how important it is for students to hypothesis about information. That is what I was having my students do. It was more of a deductive approach, because they already knew the material, but I was allowing them to hypothesis why they thought something was good or bad. This type of learning is allowing the students to make their own decisions about a topic or event. It is also a perfect way to cross disciplines. For example, if we were talking about the gold rush, I could have a science teacher come into the classroom and teach to the students how gold is formed. Hypothesizing and crossing disciplines is a great way to use co-teaching or a thematic unit. This is allowing students to get the best of both worlds in one classroom. This is also a great way to allow students to make decisions about what there are learning in the classroom. From this, students could generate other ideas and further their learning process. For Example, they could go into reasons why the gold rush happened, how gold is formed etc… As for the tests, the students did really well. I had one student receive a “D” and this student was one of the students in first period that didn’t have an IEP. I was glad to see that my students did well on the test in both periods. I’m also glad that I am finished with my unit!

Matt Perry Deductive Thinking and testing hypotheses

What I can think of is how my 5^th graders use a lot of deductive reasoning when they are answering questions I bring up during lecture. I have a habit of going back to previous lessons to bridge their knowledge to the new topic so they have something to relate to. The best example I have of this is when I was teaching about the Industrial Revolution. I had just finished the end of slavery part of my unit so it was fresh in their minds. The students were having a hard time understanding how you could have a revolution in one part of the country and the other part of the country was left behind. So I would pose them with questions like “ what do we know about the south’s economy both before and after the Civil War” this got their minds flowing and thinking about how the South was an agricultural society that depended on slavery. These types of questions got the students thinking down the path of how the Industrial Revolution changed the north before it changed the south after the Civil War. This teaches the students the "Sherlock Holmes" way of learning by breaking down challenges using prior knowledge. This is a key step towards them learning how to develop their hypotheses in a better way.

Praise & Encouragement

Chapter four of Marzano talks about reinforcing effort and providing recognition. This chapter was very informative to me as a teacher and a mother. I understand how effective recognizing effort can be for a teacher. I have seen students who did not believe they could accomplish something try very hard and do well. The ecstatic look on their faces when I confirmed how well they did was priceless. This is not an easy task for a teacher to accomplish. Spurring on those students who have low self-esteem or an “I don’t care” attitude to try harder is like trying to get kids to eat spinach. Many times your efforts can be in vain, however, trying is still warranted. I need to remind myself of this when dealing with my own children, particularly my fifth grade son who has entered an alien-like world. I know these are normal changes for him to be going through, but making him understand effort is like teaching him Latin. The teacher that I am working with seems to do well with this at times, while struggling with it at other times. Her class of 24 students has only 3 girls in it. It is a very active class with so many boys. Several of these boys need more attention than the others. A word of praise or encouragement would go a long way with them. The teacher fails to do this regularly. The praise that she could offer them may very well be the only praise that they ever hear. When she does give them praise, it is easy to see the difference it makes. For instance, one of the boys did very well in a group project that she did recently. She took him aside and explained to him how well he did, encouraging him to keep trying. She also made it a point to praise him in front of the other students. When the group project was over, and they returned to independent work, this student's grades maintained at the higher grade level than he previously had. Marzano states that, "reinforcing effort can help teach students one of the most valuable lessons they can learn - the harder you try, the more successful you are!" I hope the students in this class, especially the few that really need it, understand this!

Group Contract

In my class, each time a new group project is begun, the students must write up a group contract based on a set of guidelines provided by the teacher. The groups are different each time and since he does a group project each 9 weeks then this is a really good idea. This way the students get to work with different students of different ability levels each time and they all have an equal chance at succeeding. The group contract is a great tool that helps the students keep focused on the goal (the final product) and helps them to make sure that each student in their group is doing their job. I think that by allowing the students to have some control in the classroom and in their groups allows for better learning and behavior. I've sent a copy of the groups contract rule to Dr. Cartwright and she's going to try and make a copy for everyone and post it on the Blackboard thing. But I'm going to attempt to attach it here.

Group Contract Requirements
Each group must have the following clauses in their contract:
1. Attendance
a. How will you keep team members informed when they are absent?
b. How will you ensure that your team members will be in class each day?
c. How will you ensure that your team members will be on time each day?
d. What are the consequences when a group member misses class?
e. What are the consequences if a group member misses a presentation?
2. Member Dismissal
a. Under what circumstances will you fire a member from your group?
b. How will your group decide if a member should be fired?
c. Firing is a last resort. What steps will you take to prevent the situation

from reaching this point?
3. Work Division
a. What process will you use to assign tasks to group members?
b. How will you keep each member accountable for what is on their task list?
4. Leadership
a. How will you designate a team leader?
b. How will you reach consensus on who gets the leadership bonus?
5. Contact
a. What contact information will you require of each other?
b. Provide outside of school contact information --- phone number, outside email,
and any other important information
6. Communication
a. When and how often will your team members contact each other?
**Contracts must be signed by all group members**

wait time and higher level questions

So this coming week is my final week in middle school. I am a bit sad but I must admit relieved. After nearly seven weeks with a teacher who has said to me that she hates children I am more than ready for this to be over. This week I found myself dealing with clashing schedules with my university supervisor. I have already completed my unit and my 18-20 days of teaching and I had only been observed once by my supervisor. I was informed that she would not be able to come back until April 30. My supervising teacher seemed to fume at this. She made me call Dr. McCain right then. I felt embarrassed and ridiculous. I really do want this to be over. It did finally work out I suppose even if it was not under ideal circumstances.
I wanted to talk today about wait time and higher level of questions. I have found that when I taught my supervising teacher’s lesson plans there was no wait time nor were there any higher level questions. She spoon fed them the answers to simple recall questions and they still did poorly on assignments or assessments. The essential questions that are written on the board each morning are often times not even on topic. As a matter of a fact I saw one that literally brought up issues and drama surrounding a certain clique. THIS WAS THE ESSENTIAL QUESTION FOR THE DAY!!! These children are not being taught to think for themselves. When I took over her class I had to use the essential questions and bell ringers that I was told to. She wanted to keep all of her students on the same page. I can deal with that I suppose. However I found that whenever we would go over the questions the students would just wait for me to give them the answer. The wait time seemed to last forever. All of these questions were simple recall questions from the book. I would tell them that they could find the answers in their books under the section that we were talking about. I would find maybe one or two in each of the three classes that I had take out their book and bother to look for the answer. These students refuse to read so I find it difficult to ask them higher level questions. I asked the students what they expected from me when I asked questions and their reply was our teacher always just gives us the answer. I took up a ridiculous amount of time each morning asking these simple recall questions but I refused to answer them for them. By the end of my time there were still only three to four students looking for the answers. What is the appropriate wait time? Do I spend the entire class time on these questions if they refuse to answer? I do not know the answers to this even after reading about the wait time. I did ask them four essay questions on my test that I had made up. Two of them were open ended questions. We went over them in class leading up to the exam. I even listed on the board a list of possible ways to answer those questions. They still disappointed me in their answers. I am trying to figure out what I did wrong. My supervising teacher made up her own test for my unit as well and chose the students that she wanted to take her test. They were her A students. I do not get it. That test did not have one essay question on it. It was all simple recall information. She allowed the students to use their notes and guided reading worksheets on all of the tests as well. So much for my unit.
Until next time,
Anisa Dye-Hale

Cooperative Learning - Danielle Pauley

I started a new unit on Newton's laws a couple weeks ago and during this unit, I implemented Marzano's cooperative learning strategy. There were a couple of labs that I chose for students to do during this unit. I allowed them to work in groups of three or four with these labs. As I was using this strategy, I applied Marazano's rules for the strategy. First, Marzano (2001) states "organizing groups based on ability should be done sparingly" (p. 87). I did not put students in groups based on ability because I believed it would be better for students to have diverse abilities in their groups while doing these labs. Some of the post-lab questions were challenging and if I had ability grouped, the low-ability group students probably would not have answered these questions. Second, Marzano (2001) states "cooperative groups should be kept rather small in size" (p. 88). As I said previously, I only allowed groups to have three or four members. This cut down on the chit-chat and allowed students to stay on task. Third, Marzano (2001) states "cooperative learning should be applied consistently and systematically, but not overused" (p. 88). During the unit, I incorporated other activities for the students to do independently. Therefore, I feel I did not overuse this strategy. Using this strategy in science is a great way for students to learn. While I mostly used it during labs, there could be several other ways it could have been used.

Graphic Organizers

As I have said before, I think the teacher I am working with is amazing! She seems to have everything so organized. The technique, or strategy I want to talk about, is using graphic organizers. The way she has used visual techniques is incredible. For "The Most Dangerous Game", she had the students draw a picture of the climax of the story. This allowed them to think about the climax and then interpret it in visual form. When I taught my unit on Poetry, she suggested that they draw pictures when we got to Imagery. I used the poems "In Just" and "Starfish". The students were asked to draw a picture of the imagery used in the poems. Their pictures were great. The way they captured the balloon man from "In Just" blew me away. And their depiction of all of those starfish scattered on the beach was awesome. I think they were able to understand imagery a little better by using their senses to describe it to someone else through art. A third way that graphic organizers in the form of drawing have been used is with the "Cask of Amontillado". This one was the greatest!! The teacher had them divide their paper into six sections. They were to label the sections: Plot, Setting, Rising Action, Climax, Falling Action, and Conclusion. Then they were to explain these elements of the story by drawing a picture in each box of a scene from the story. This technique made the students understand and apply the elements of a story. They enjoyed the activity and they learned as well. I have never been much for drawing pictures, but I have learned through Mrs. Adkins that this is a wonderful way to assess students comprehension of a story. She doesn't grade them on how well they draw but she does grade them on the way they displayed their knowledge about the story. I also think it is intersting that she started out at the beginning of the semester having them draw just one picture about the most exciting part of "The Most Dangerous Game". Then we moved into Imagery and that picture needed to be a little more specific. And now, this past week, they had to do a plot diagram in the form of pictures. She has made the visual assignments a little more difficult as we have advanced through the semester.