Tuesday, September 28, 2010

Ch. 3


Creative Connector
The beginning of chapter 3 reminds me of a very bad experience I had student teaching.  I think pretty much everyone has a story from teaching of a really bad experience they had in the classroom.  This is my story: it was probably half-way through student teaching when I had my really bad day.  It was 9th period, my hardest period.  The students in this class always gave me a hard time, but that day it really got to me.  They were constantly getting me off-track and once I was on track one student made some comment and I retorted without thinking, “I’m going to k-.“  I was impulsively going to say, “I’m going to kill you,” as I do when I’m frustrated with my friends, but luckily I caught myself.  My student wasn’t dumb though; he knew exactly what I was going to say.  Luckily I was able to diffuse the situation by convincing the class I was going to say, “I’m going to kick you out of class.”  Things got out of control this day and it almost got even worse than it already was.  Luckily I was able to start over the next day and regain control of that class.
            At the end of this chapter there is a piece written by one of Gregory Michie’s students, Alfonso.  He mentions in his writing that he wishes that teachers would call his parents to report the good things sometimes, too.  I had a student named Ben who said the exact same thing.  So one day when he did well on a quiz I called home to his mom and told her his accomplishment.  The next day he came in so pleased that I called his mom and after that he started to consistently do well on his work.  Sometimes positive feedback works wonders.

Essence Extractor
Everyone has bad days in the classroom, you have to stay strong.

Rigorous Researcher
It seems that a problem Gregory Michie comes across in this chapter is poor classroom management.  I did some research and found some sites that gives tips for good classroom management. 


This last page is a list of books on classroom management:

-Stephanie

2 comments:

  1. Steph, I love the comment you made about positive reinforcement of good work. I had a similar experience, I taught two sections of studio art both of which were very challenging, and in the later section I had a student who would just sit and not work on his project. Part way through the assignment I had the students (10-12th grade) fill out a self assessment rubric, and then I filled out the same one and left them feedback. For this student I wrote that I was really concerned because I could see him getting distracted and was worried that he wouldn't finish and his grade would suffer. He looked at me and agreed that the class was too noisy for him to work. I volunteered to work 1:1 with him whenever he was free, and for a week he brought his lunch down to the classroom and did work. He not only finished the project before everyone else, I was able to hold it up (with his permission) as a standard for everyone else to match. The school has a postcard home program where you write to the parents/guardians about a great thing the student did. I sent one home - never knew how it affected him but he did well the rest of the time in my class.

    Its good to know it happens all over!

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  2. Steph, I love the rigorous researching you did on classroom management! I feel, especially now while I'm subbing in a particular class all week, classroom managment is 100% most important and most effective to have a productive and successful classroom. I don't know what I would do if I was in Mr. Michie's shoes with that classroom when all of those instances seemed to happen at once!! I think these sites are extremely vital for teachers and beginning teachers like ourselves to check out and begin practicing immediately in our future classrooms! Thanks for sharing those:)

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