Inquiry plan complete

Well, the plan is complete and 4 hours of video has been taken. My wonderful hubby will help me get it down to 10 minutes and online over thanksgiving break. My students have been really loud and out of control but God blessed me with laryngitis on Friday and I swear, it was the best day of the week! I just need to use that consistently and I think I will see a difference. It isn't me though. I hate having to constantly monitor my voice level. I'm passionate and get excited about what I teach and I want the kids to be excited about learning. Now I feel like a monotone robot. There's got to be a balance. I'm still looking and learning.

In responding to Lane's questions, my quiet days are those that I intentionally speak in a quiet voice and I either use silence, my quiet signal, and/or a bell to get their attention. On my noisy days, I use my voice to get their attention and I don't try to lower my voice during instruction. To be honest, I'm a bit concerned about the video and if I will be able to catch what I hope to. I know already that my tone really does set the mood. When I am louder, they are too. I also realize I can't ask them to work quietly when I myself don't "work" quietly. But, as they say, knowledge is 20% and behavior is 80%--it is so much easier to know than to do. I may know I need to balance my checkbook daily but doing it is a whole other story! I know that I need to lower my voice but it really does take conscious effort. I am a passionate teacher and when I get into a subject, my voice naturally rises. The real problem that I see is that when I start to realize that I lose their interest, I start to speak louder in the hopes to get their attention and that is what I really need to change.

Inquiry plan in progress

I began my inquiry plan on the Monday after Halloween so it was naturally noisy all day and they were rather chaotic. I also had a noisy day the next day and then paid for it the rest of the week! They were slightly quieter when I became quieter those three days but, in general, they were loud all week. I started to rethink my plan. I wonder if it might be better if I had those two noisy days, a week of quiet days and then on the third week of trials, have two noisy days and then see if they quiet down those three days. I believe that I am going to find that I need to be consistently quiet for it to really work over time. They are calmer when I am calmer but I also notice that they are also not as motivated or interested. When I act a bit silly to really peak their interest, they get louder and more chaotic. If I am serene, they have a tendency to daydream or occupy themselves with just about anything they can find in their desk. I guess it is all about balance! Next week I will film my video segment to give you a peak into my world:)

Task 5 instruction

I read an article, How to Keep Kids Engaged in Class on the edutopia website. It gave 10 suggestions. A couple of those suggestions I already implement such as picking popsicle sticks with their names on it from a cup (the fairness cup). I always say that I'm going to let God choose since I teach in a Catholic School. This is especially effective when I don't have enough questions for everyone to answer. I notice that the students don't seem as disappointed when I pick from the cup. To get my students' attentions, I state "Give me three" which means to STOP, LOOK, AND LISTEN. This has worked very well for me. I don't raise my voice, I just state it. If the class has become noisy, such as inside recess, I either ring my bell on my desk or I clap three times. I also once observed a teacher who did a "tone check." When the class was noisy, she would say "tone check" at the same level, and they'd repeat it. Then she'd lower her voice and say it again and they'd lower theirs to copy. She'd continue until she brought them back down to where she expected them to be. I think I may try that when we go back to school tomorrow.
I also read a blog about the 10 most ineffective things and the #1 was inconsistency. I know that is my number one problem. I use the green, yellow, red light system and what usually happens is that I end up reminding them of the rules over and over again until I "get tired of it" and then move them to yellow. They end up having several warnings instead of just one. I think this is probably my number one reason why misbehavior continues to happen. I do this with my own children as well and wonder why they don't listen to me!! Why do I feel like the bad guy when I have to punish them for their misbehaviors??????
I watched all four of the videos and there were a couple I really liked. I like the sign language one. We are doing Everybody Counts this year which is a program about people with disabilities. Each grade focuses on a different disability and my grade (second) has hearing disabilities. It would be so awesome to incorporate some sign language as classroom management. I had never thought of that. I also like the handshake question and answer because of the one-to-one. I think I need to do more of that with my students because so many articles say that having rapport is the best way to overcome discipline problems. Harry Wong (First Days of School) also says to stand at the door and greet the students. I think I need to do this more often if not every day. If you haven't read Dr. Wong's book or watched the videos (they will have them at the steely library once I return them!) you need to!!
As far as my inquiry plan, I'm still not quite sure where to put my energy. Maybe improving consistency. Keeping voice level down, especially while in groups, is something my principal wants me to focus on and is paying particular attention to in my classroom. Feel free to share your thoughts when you read my blog about what you think I should do. Sometimes I feel like I'm too close to the forest to see through the trees.

Task 4 Domains of Professional Practice

The domain I have chosen to focus on is #2--classroom environment. I chose this in response to my teacher evaluation at the end of last year. I don't mind sharing that my principal thinks I'm too loud. I speak too loud, so my students speak loudly (most of the time.) In fact, she said that this is my probationary year for "voice control." Other teachers tell me not to worry about it too much, they don't notice my room to be any different than anyone else's. However, if that is something I'm going to be evaluated on more strongly, it is something I need to improve if I want to keep my job! She also said that my classroom is chaotic. I think that is just a normal byproduct of living with 7 children, four cats, fish, and a turtle. I can tolerate a little chaos as long as there is learning going on. For example, she came to my room to observe once. I planned a pair activity with three centers using area, volume, and perimeter with third graders. With 24 students, despite the fact that the students were highly engaged and working hard, she said it was too loud and she couldn't wait to get out of the room because it gave her a headache. She said that many students need it quiet to think and that the noise level was detrimental to their learning. It took about 40 minutes to rotate to the three centers and she felt that they were out of their seats too long which contributed to the chaos. I only had two rules--be safe and be respectful--which was probably too broad for third graders despite all the time I took at the beginning of the year to discuss with them what positives and negative behaviors would fall into those categories.
I definitely feel that respect and rapport if what I'm most comfortable with. My students already know that I love them. I often tell them, "I love you but I don't like it when you (shout out answers, kick others, etc.)

I spent a great deal of time over the summer reading Harry Wong's book First Days of School as well as watching the videos to develop better rules and procedures. I spent the first week of school teaching and modeling those procedures. I review them when I see that the students are getting lax. I introduce procedures and model for new activities as they come about in my planning.

I think that the one that most closely impacts instruction is Establishing a Culture for Learning. I really struggle with motivating students to do their best work and take pride in a job well done. Personally, I think this a common societal problem--work ethic. Getting them to see the importance of what their learning is difficult for me. I can tell them that they need to know this to be able to do their work in third grade but that has not proven to be very motivational! This is where I would like to focus on in this portion of the class.

My question--How do you get kids to value learning and hard work?


My classroom--this year I only have 18 students (a plus!) I just had a smartboard installed so I have a carpet in front of the smartboard which is smack dab in the middle of my dry erase board in the front of the room. I have two small tables in the back of the room that I can pull together for my advanced reading group and pull apart for my smaller reading groups. I have a reading corner with all my books that they can either take to their seats, sit at the tables, or pull a chair over. The chairs are very light weight so easily moveable for all sorts of activities. My desk is in the back corner facing my students. There's also two large areas of open space for them to do group work. I had the desks in a U shape around the carpet but I had to move the students on the right side of the U to face forward in two sets of three because they couldn't handle the distractions and need to face the board. They each sit next to a "reading buddy" that they ask first for assistance, and then me if neither know the answer. This has really helped me to focus on helping those that genuinely need my help rather than be interupted by questions that a friend could answer. I reward 100's with an M&M. If they "stay on green" all day, they get a sticker for their behavior card. If they get all green days (kept track of in their student planner), they get Hubba Bubba bubble gum. After 20 behavior stickers, they turn in their card for a trip to the treasure chest.

task three: Instruction

All students do have the capacity to learn. I believe there are a lot of factors that determine what and how much we learn but all have the capacity. There are so many different learning styles that a student who doesn't have the opportunity to learn "their way" may not learn as much or as quickly. Say for instance, as student is a hands-on, kinesthetic learner but the teacher is primarily a verbal instructor. That student will most likely not learn as much that year. That's where teachers really do influence how much a student learns and the importance of differentiating instruction. I need to take into account the different types of learners as I am planning instruction. I guess that's why I connected with the beginning of chapter three when it said that we are not only teachers but facilitators, providing opportunities for students to learn. We really can't make them learn. We have to provide the motivation and the opportunities. Sure, I'm a teacher when I directly instruct a new concept but after that, my job is to provide what the student needs to comprehend and apply the knowledge. This isn't easy and differentiating instruction is relatively new to me and my school so I have a long way to go. I'm the only second grade teacher at my school and am self contained with no assistance. Luckily, I've got parents who are happy to help out. I don't often differentiate content unless it is enrichment but I provide lots of choices for how students apply and present their learning for me to assess.
As far as the Socializing Intelligence paper, I honestly didn't get a lot out of it so I'm eager to read other posts about it. I find it difficult to determine how we acquire intelligence when we don't even really know how to define it. Some might think that knowing a lot about other cultures and being able to speak multiple languages is intelligent. Others believe being able to spout off (sometimes useless) information is intelligence but sometimes those people don't have enough common sense to boil water. Some believe that wise people are the mark of intelligence and others say it has to do with an IQ score even if the person is a deadbeat. I consider my parents very wise yet neither went to college. My father is a computer genius and excelled his field of computer banking despite failing geometry in high school. I'm not saying that researchers shouldn't continue to try to determine what is intelligence and how one acquires it but it does seem as if we are trying to look for something in the dark.

I like having standards that guide my instruction. My focus is on teaching my students. Determining what to teach would be a whole other job! I took Classroom Assessment (624) this summer and it spoke a great deal on the Backward Design of curriculum. It stated that one of the negative aspects of standards is what we've all agreed upon--there is unrealistically too much to teach. James Popham stated that national standards are developed by professionals in their fields, not by classroom teachers. Those that work for the National Council of Mathmatics think that everything mathmatical is important so too many standards are set for each subject because they all think their particular discipline is the most important. I'm not quite sure who develops state standards although one would hope that they have at one time been classroom teachers who have just turned their focus onto curriculum instead of instruction. And with high stakes testing, you can be sure that if the tests are based on national standards, I'm going to teach those standards.
The standards play a key role in the Backward Design. The standards tell us what the students need to know or be able to do so if we design our assessment to make sure that it assesses if they know or can do what the standard states, then we can design our instruction to meet those goals. We have the freedom to decide how to teach and that's so important. We have to be able to adjust our instruction to meet the needs of our students. Sometimes I'm disappointed that I don't get to spend as much time on a concept as I would like but it is in the best interests of my students that I reach as many standards as I can, not spend a month teaching what I want just because it interests me or my students. I could go so much more in depth about life and space science because they're so interesting but then I won't have the time to teach physical science. That happened to me last year. I used to look over the assessment a couple days before the test (after instruction had already started) to make sure I had hit everything but it really does make much more sense to look at the assessment first to make sure it really assesses the standard or I can develop my own. Then I can make sure the activities I use will help them to succeed on the assessment. Sometimes that invloves a textbook or my Smartboard, manipulatives, direct instruction, group work or individual work but that's all up to me and I love having that freedom. The best part of my master's program so far is learning new instructional techniques that I can use to meet those standards.