Reflecting about the Lesson Presentations

I have enjoyed all the lessons, because in every lesson I am learning new things that I could apply in the future in a classroom. Everybody is doing a great job. I especially like the fact that everyone is incorporating some type of Multiple Intelligence, like visuals, music, and videos into their lessons. I liked everybody’s lessons, but what I liked the most was that in Jaclyn's lesson on Tuesday, she introduced the traffic light to aid her in the classroom behavior. Honestly, I thought about misbehaving, but at the same time, I did not want to see my name in yellow or red light. It reminded me of my sophomore field when the teacher used this same method for those students who misbehaved. Just by looking at the traffic light, you could see which were the students who were always in green light and those who were continuously misbehaving. These methods are very significant because they can change the dynamic of a classroom. I remember how the second graders complained about not wanting to move their pin to a different light color once they have misbehaved. It is great that Dr. Luongo has incorporated the behavioral cards, so that we can realize that a classroom can be fun but also challenging. Also this experience can give us a picture of the things that we can expect in a classroom. Personally I am enjoying my education classes because I feel that my mind has awakened to new things. Education can be fun, but it all depends in how we approach the objectives. Being a teacher, is to be continuously learning to fulfill a curious mind that is in seek of knowledge, and new experiences.

Get A Handle on Behavior

I found this article, Get A Handle on Behavior, that I wanted to share with the class since we are doing our lesson plans and I feel that these are good tips that can help us while dealing with the classroom behaviors.
Patience
The first step to deal effectively with inappropriate behavior is to show patience. This often means you'll need to take a cooling period before you say or do something you just might regret.

Be Democratic
Children need choice. When you're ready to give a consequence, allow for some choice. The choice could have to do with the actual consequence, the time when the consequence will occur or input as to what follow up should and will occur.

Understand The Purpose
Why is the child/student misbehaving? There is always a purpose. Do you know what the purpose is? Getting attention? Power? Revenge? Feelings of failure? There is always a cause for a student to misbehave.

Avoid Power Struggles
In a power struggle, nobody wins. Even if you do feel like you've won, you haven't because the chance of reoccurrence is great. I honestly believe that the students’ attitudes in the classroom depend in the teacher’s behavior in the classroom. A child's behavior is most often influence by your behavior, remember this. If you are hostel or mad when dealing - they too will be.

Do the Opposite of What They Expect
When a child/student misbehaves, they often anticipate your response. Do the unexpected. For instance, when you see children playing with matches or playing in an area that is outside of the boundaries, they expect you to say "Stop", or "Get back inside the boundaries now!" However, try saying something like "You kids look too smart to be playing there" (or playing with matches). You'll quite surprise them.

Find Something Positive
For students or children who regularly misbehave, it can be very difficult to find something positive to say. Work at this, the more they receive attention for the positive things, the less apt they are to look for attention in a negative way.

Don't Be Bossy - This Too is Bad Modeling
Bossiness usually ends up with students seeking revenge. Ask yourself, do you like being bossed around? Chances are that you don't. Neither do children. After all if you employ the strategies suggested here, you'll find that you won't need to be bossy. Always express a strong desire and strong interest to have a good relationship with the student/child.

Sense of Belonging
When students or children don't feel that they belong, the result is usually the display of unacceptable behavior. Make sure the student has a strong sense of belonging. Praise the child's efforts to get along or work with others. Praise attempts to follow rules and adhere to routines.

Up, Down Then Up Again
When you're about to reprimand or punish a child. Bring them up first "Lately you've done so well, I've been so impressed with your behavior'. "Why today did you need to be involved with a 'hands on'". (Deal with the issue). Then end on "I know it won't happen again because you've been so good up until this moment. I have great faith in you." You may use different approaches but always remember: Bring them up, take them down, bring them up!

Students want teachers that:
· Respect them
· Care about them
· Listen to them
· Don't yell or shout
· Have a sense of humor
· Are in a good moods
· Let students give their opinions and their side/opinion

http://specialed.about.com/od/behavioremotional/p/handlebehav.htm

Report Cards

Report cards have always made me feel anxious. I always expect to do my best in every class, and I love looking at the letter A in my reports. It makes me feel proud of myself, and it compensates all the effort that I put to obtain the grade. Well, I remember looking at my report cards from elementary school, being an A student. Then in high school, it was pretty much the same way, always expecting to get an A in most of my classes. To get a letter B disappointed me a little bit, because I felt that I could have done better. However, when I was in my senior year in high school, I took AP Chemistry, and Calculus, I really started appreciating those letters B, because those two classes were so challenging and I knew I had worked so hard to achieve a B. You start appreciating things when they are hard to get.

The report cards are a communication between parents, students, and teachers. The report card shows where the student is standing at the point in time. Some students my try to improve, however there are some students who really do not care, how they are doing. As long as they pass with a D, for them is okay. In my case, I always wanted to do better, but I remember some students who only worried about what they parents were going to say about those C and D the day, of parent’s night. Once parent’s night was over, the anxiety was gone and they continued earning C and D. All I can say is that every student is different, and some my get motivate to improve, others will continue struggling to obtain at least a C or D, and some will not care at all what the report card says.

My Lesson Presentation

Teaching my lesson about Thanksgiving on Tuesday was a great new experience. Honestly, I was so nervous because I knew that my classmates had the behavioral cards, and all I had in mind was “what I am going to do to control the students when they start misbehaving?” I knew it was going to be a big challenge, because it was going to be something completely different from what I had experienced when teaching in other classes, where my classmates do what I tell them to do.

I felt like in a jungle! I wanted to have the control, when it was so difficult. For example, some students did not want to do their assignment, others insulted each other, some students did not want to share the materials, another student ripped the materials, the tattle teller, and the student who cut her hair. I went crazy, especially when I didn’t know what to do when, Adalise was calling me all the time, and telling me in detail what was going on around, I didn’t know whether she was telling me the truth or not. I definitely wished having extra eyes to observe. I tried as much as possible, not turn my back to the students, and keep an eye on everyone. I felt like Rachel said, “a robot.”

Wow! A lot of events occurred in so little time. I tried my best and I wanted to be nice and fair. However my classmates did make it a big challenge. Well after a while, I felt like if I was acting. I tried to remain calm and I avoided screaming because personally I hate when teachers scream to the students. I think that that is not the proper way to handle a classroom. Screaming creates a tense environment where the communication between students and teachers become more difficult. I think that there must be causes for students to misbehave, and by yelling at the students, teachers will not resolve anything.

After experiencing teaching in an uncontrollable classroom, I feel a little more prepare to face a classroom. This experience has helped me to learn so much of the things that I should do, and the things I shouldn’t do. I enjoyed teaching my class because I received so much feedback. I am also enjoying my classmates’ lessons because I am learning from them too. I think everyone is doing a good job, especially when we are making the classroom environment a big challenge. Thank you girls, and Dr. Luongo for your advices, I really appreciated them.

"If you find a path with no obstacles, it probably doesn't lead anywhere" - anonymous

Portfolio

When I think of the word Portfolio the first thing in mind is a collection of school work. I created my first Portfolio in eight grade, although the teacher was the one who picked all the pieces of work for the portfolio. It was the first time that I created a portfolio. Then in high school, I had the opportunity of picking my own pieces of work for the portfolio, although for the only classes that I had a portfolio were for History and English. Actually, I never thought of Portfolios in a different way, but just as a collection of work that I had to take with me to the next year.
Now thinking about portfolios, it brings me back to all the memories, all the time and effort that I dedicated to every piece of work that back then were just assignments that I had to do. Actually is great to remember all those things because I still have some of the work which I saved do it to the fact that it took me a certain amount of time and effort.
We can imagine many things about someone when we look at a portfolio. A portfolio is an introduction of the type of work, which we can expect from someone. We can even imagine how a person is, but I will always have in mind that “we should always be open to the possibility that people’s work will in a sense change depending on the mood and effort.” Every day there is a new story to tell, so what a better place to save it that in a portfolio. Therefore, as a future educator I am considering the idea of encouraging my students to have their own portfolio, at least in my classroom.

My Access

My Access is an awesome program to use in the classrooms. I think that this program will really help the students to improve in their written assignments. I am sure that most students would love to be able to use this program to write their essays. This program is great because it helps the students in the process of writing, from the first step of organization, until the last step of giving them a feedback of how well they did by just submitting the essay. When I used it to write my essay, I was a little unsure of what to write, so when I submitted my essay I got a low score. However, when I used the program to revise the essay, I used the prewriting features which in a way guided me in how to write the essay. The amazing thing of it was that when I finished the prewriting, it was posted on the space of the essay. This is great because you do not lose your time rewriting what you just wrote. Actually when I submitted the essay the second time, I noticed that there was an improvement in the score. This program has many features to assist the writers such as a word bank that suggests the use of vocabulary that makes the essay more meaningful. The program is wonderful and if I would have the opportunity of using this program in the classroom, I will welcome it because it is such a great innovation, which most students and teachers would love.

Technology in the Classroom

I do agree with the integration of technology in the classroom because in the society where we are living today, technology has become part of our lives. Students need to be prepared for the use of technology in their daily lives.
I think that in the classroom, there should be a combination of technology and traditional education, where the teacher not only is able to use some sort of technology, but also he/she takes his/her time to use the board and explain a lesson.

I feel that teachers and students should not be too dependent on technology either. It is not that technology is going to go away, well maybe, who knows, but I think that it is necessary to gain some skills without being so dependent on the available technology. For example, in a math class is important that students know how to use a calculator, but it is also important that they can actually do simple math like addition, subtraction, division, and multiplication without depend on a calculator to do all the “thinking” for them.

At the same time, teachers need to know how to apply the technology in the classroom. There are good teachers who teach terrible using technology, while there are teachers who teach fine with the use of technology. PowerPoint is very popular in the classroom. However, there are some teachers who teach using long PowerPoint presentations, which sometimes are boring. While there are other teachers who use PowerPoint, but their presentations are interesting and encourage the students to learn.

Teachers should be aware of the different ways that their students learn. Therefore they should use that information to modify their classrooms. The same method of teaching does not work for all the students, for example, for me to learn math I have to see where the numbers or letters are coming from. I just don’t like to copy what it is appearing in the slide and then have no clue where everything is coming from. I prefer the traditional teacher who writes on the board and at the same time explains me where the numbers are coming from and what they mean. I have been in classrooms where students use the time to copy the PowerPoint presentations, while the teacher is explaining. For me it is very difficult to pay attention, while I am trying to copy all the written material. That is how some students feel in the classroom, they want to copy all the notes, but did they learn something? Well maybe there are students who can copy and listen at the same time, but that is a technique that does not work for all the students.

I had also experienced being in classrooms where the teacher gives the students time to copy the notes and then he/she explains it. If the teacher gives students some time to copy the information and then he/she explains it, it might be a more effective technique. In this way the students are going to have good notes for reference, but also they can concentrate more in the point that the teacher is trying to explain without being distracted by trying to finish writing down the information from the PowerPoint. There are many ways to modify a classroom using technology. Technology is a very useful tool, but teachers need to know how to use it in their classroom. They should use it to do class more interesting, not boring and stressful.