Please address the following:
- Explain the area and why you select it as needing improvement.
- Offer a suggestion if you have any.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
LAST Reflection: ARC Suggestion
The primary purpose of ARC is to prepare teacher candidates to be effective teachers. Choose the one area in methods you believe we can improve to help better prepare teacher candidates. Disregard any logistical constraints you think would hinder you idea. (You will have an opportunity to provide anonymous, official feedback as well.)
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I'm glad you gave this prompt; I was hoping to make this suggestion. I personally found the microteach presentations to be really difficult, more difficult than teaching real lessons to kids. The microteach lessons weren't real since the entire audience already knew the math. For most of us, I would think that what makes teaching kids so much easier is that we can feel what the kids are doing... are they getting it, are their eyes glossing over, are they chewing tacks, etc. We then respond to these. In the microteachs, there is no such interaction. I suspect other ARC cohorts may experience the same challenges. So, my suggestion is to have us teach our lessons to OTHER cohorts, and other cohorts could teach to us.
ReplyDeleteBy doing this, you (Randy & Jaf) can see not only our lesson plan and our verbal presentation of it, but you can also see genuine interactions with people that don't know the math (presumably). I personally would have felt more comfortable doing this, since it wouldn't be "acting".
The downside of this is that we don't get to see the interesting methods that other students are using, but those would be easy enough to share with the class without having to actually teach.
If you do this, I think it would be good to get feedback from the students for the ARC math teacher.
So, in summary, the microteachs to me felt a bit contrived since we were PRETENDING we were teaching people a subject they didn't know. To make the microteachs more genuine, we should teach to people that actually don't know the material.
One area I wanted to have more exposure would be the area of using newer technologies for delivering instruction. I think it would be a good idea for one of the micro teaches to have a requirement to use a newer technology for the delivering the lesson. As an example, the candidate teachers should be required at least in one of their micro-teach lessons to use the Smart Board or the newer interactive system (I don’t remember the brand name). This will serve two purposes: first the not so familiar candidate teacher would feel more comfortable in using it when he starts teaching and second he would be an advocate of these new technologies in his school, if the latter does not employ the new technology.
ReplyDeleteI think this could be incorporated better in the Methods but it can also be taught to the candidate teachers in the technology session. This brings also another improvement point which I think it is necessary for the ARC program. I think there should be two Technology sessions. I believe we got a plethora of good useful information in that 4 hour session but at a galloping rate. More hands-on time is necessary in that aspect.
Good start, thank you Bill and Lee!
ReplyDeleteI have a suggestion on the microteaches that addresses a different issue than Bill raised. I think that the microteaches are an essential part of methods training, but to Bill’s point there are aspects that are pretty artificial. One thing that was always problematic for me in the microteaches was understanding the context of the lesson, i.e. what lessons would have immediately preceded the ones being given. Summoning prior knowledge is an important part of a well designed lesson. I often found it difficult to figure out what the mock students should know already that is being built upon in the current lesson. I wonder if this problem could be addressed by having the class give 20 lessons from on course in sequence. After each week’s microteaches are presented, 3 new teachers can then be randomly chosen to give the next 3 lessons with their associated objectives. The new teachers would have one week to get their lessons ready. It would be pretty clear to the teachers and students what prior knowledge they’re working with given that they’ve sat through the previous lessons.
ReplyDeleteI think the program has been very helpful in preparing us to be effective teachers. I had some thoughts that might enhance the experience. I like Bill’s suggestion on teaching to another cohort that is not as familiar with math.
ReplyDeleteMy biggest problem with student teaching has been the classroom management. That is not to say that it is pure chaos in my classroom, but there are times when I think to myself, why is it that when I ask you to work out a problem you immediately want to have a conversation with your neighbor.
Classroom management issues during student teaching are skewed as well. The cooperating teacher is there most of the time, so we really don’t get really bad behavior, and we also are seen as a part time substitute. Some of the kids took to me right away; others still have a bit of an attitude.
My suggestion is to build upon Bill’s idea, and allow for distracted, uninterested students for us to present some of the Micro Teaches to. My cooperating teacher has given me some thoughts on classroom management. It will be different when we have our own classrooms, but we have to lay down the law from the beginning. In student teaching we are struggling with the lessons and trying to engage kids that probably don’t want us there and want their “real” teacher back.
So if we had some additional experience in the methods program prior to this, it would be helpful. To go one further, maybe it would be good to present the Micro Teaches to another Cohort, but have the Math Cohort there in the back of the room just to observe and not be part of the “students” in the class that we are trying to teach. The others would be there to draw upon the experience as well by being an observer of the lesson, and the engagement of the class.
Also along the same lines for experience in the classroom, I would suggest that like we did a one-day observation prior to starting the ARC program, that the teacher candidates should visit a school once a month while they are in the ARC program. This way they can start thinking about what they are learning and see how it is being implemented in that school setting, or how it could be. This would also give us better insight into classroom management. It would be interesting to read the reflections from those additional observations and how they can relate to things learned in methods and core. I don’t know if this would work for all candidates as many of us had full time jobs while enrolled in the program. Maybe not once a month, but every 2 months or 3 months, it might be helpful. This suggestion would not be possible for the Summer Program.
I'd like to second that... Lee's suggestion is really important I think. I was asked in a job interview earlier this week how I would encorporate technology into the classroom. I was also asked if I had ever used "geometer's sketchpad". These are likely to be things that all new teachers are asked about, and section 4 of the CCT says that technology should be incorporated to enhance our lessons, so I think it would be good to build in at least a little experience with the smartboard and tools like geometer's sketchpad. For the latter, maybe just inform the math methods students that the program exists and let them decide if they want to buy it and do the tutorials on their own (it's <$100), but at least those that want a leg-up will have the option to get some experience.
ReplyDeleteI would like to see more time spent on what are realistic expectations for the first year teacher. I still feel I may be overwhelmed by the breath of work required of a first year teacher. It took me many hours to prepare the lesson plans for the microteach and for my one day middle school lesson and there is no way I could commit this amount of time for each lesson the first year without burn out. How do other teachers do it? Is it really realistic to have detailed written lesson plans for each class each day? What are some time saving techniques that could be implemented? Maybe you could have some second year ARC teachers come back and present and then have a question and answer forum on their experiences their first year.
ReplyDeleteAnother area more time could be spent on is research for lesson plans. Where do you look for ideas? There are so many teachers that have been teaching the same math for centuries, there must be some way to access this prior knowledge. Coming up with your own original ideas is very time consuming and not realistic for every lesson for a first year teacher. The continued emphasis on activating prior knowledge and using real life examples is great, but it would help to have a depository to access ideas that have worked for teachers.
Along with having consecutive lessons given by the students as suggest by Paul, I might suggest three students getting together to give a complete lesson in place of the 10 minute section currently used. In this way a full lesson could be given and the students could work together and learn from each other.
I would like to begin by saying that you and Jaf have been two outstanding methods instructors for our group. I think you have done a great job trying to prepare us for most of the areas that I have seen in my student teaching. There appear to be a few areas that could use some time and attention in the ARC methods curriculum. The first, which is workload and preparation time, has already been covered by a few people. Another area that I think is important to cover is the rigor in certain courses or districts. Reviewing Homework, conducting discovery, questioning, modeling, guided practice, independent practice, all take time. I know every minute counts, and I tried to get the kids started every day on time. Yet, I felt like I was always monitoring and adjusting and rushing through topics to get to the next checkpoint in our schedule. As part of the rigor element, I would suggest we have a class with a live demo of the various ways of actually doing Homework review and time how long each one takes, and then compare and contrast each method. We did discuss homework review a bit, and I know Every Minute Counts has its own approach, but this seems like a topic that could use a live demo in a Methods class. Homework review was an expectation and norm that was set in the classes I taught. I tried different methods, but this was still something that was difficult to figure out.
ReplyDeleteI think that Randy and Jaf have done an amazing job preparing us. And I think many small things that they both said in passing, we’ve probably seen first hand in our student teaching and are saying gee I wish I could discuss more on x topic. For me, I think the paperwork and record keeping required of teachers is unbelievable and tips on how to be more efficient like with make-up work, tests, redo’s of tests, follow notes to parents, emails etc. is something I underestimated. And I’m seeing how important it is when filling out weekly student progress reports, behavior charts, etc.
ReplyDeleteOne area that I think ARC could do better in, and I’m not sure if it’s a Core thing or not, but I think it falls to “methods” is that I would have liked a few checklists from methods to make sure that what each of us is getting in our student teaching assignment is a little more “stardardized”. Like a more systematic approach to help set clearer expectations to the cooperating teacher of what we need as student teachers to get the most out of our 20 days. The difference here from what ARC currently does, is that we as the “student teachers” have to be “better versed” in what we need from the “cooperating teacher” when we arrive. I do believe as it is now, we all go in and get what we get and really don’t have a clear vision on what we should be getting.
I almost see it like a 5 page checklist of things that we need to have covered in our 20 days experience. Like one page of the “check-lists” would be one to discuss with the cooperating teacher like two weeks before student teaching with things we need to know, so the cooperating teacher can be more helpful to us with the transition when we get there. This will help ensure the cooperating teacher has the students ready as well as the planning under control before we arrive.
Items I’d like to see on such a 5 page check list really go beyond the simple list we got from ARC discussing when we are expected to observe and start taking over four or more classes. We, as the student teachers need to take more ownership to make sure we go over all these things with our cooperating teachers. But as it is right now I think we are all getting some things as we go along, but not all of us are getting the same things.
For example, like the Pre-Arrival Checklist: (This would kind of set the stage with the teacher to get ready for us.) include items such as:
-Behavior System in the School if there is one.
-Current behavior system used by the teacher.
-Discussion of the teacher’s current norms and how the teacher can help us with the difficult transition on the Classroom Management on our own.
-Provide us with seating charts done before we arrive. (This will help the teacher’s strategically put students in hopefully a good arrangement before we start.)
-Lists of SPED and 504 kids, access to the IEPS.
-Discussion with the teacher on how ‘differentiation” of these students are being handled now.
-Overview of equipment we’ll have to teach with.
-Get books.
Maybe the cooperating teacher would want to meet us with one week before our arrival too.
Then when we arrive, the first week checklist would have things like:
-How we take Attendance
-Teacher’s system of logging homework and grades in books or computer.
-Teacher’s plan for what courses we would be teaching and more definite plans on what lessons we should start preparing.
- Teacher’s current organization for make-up work, test redoes, ets.
- Teacher showing us how they do their lesson planning with their charts, etc.
-Set up with the cooperating teacher, what he/her expectations are for us for the week.
Next week: -- Meet with the SPED teacher and Paraprofessionals for discussion.
Last week: - Set up a brief meeting with School Administration thanking them for having us etc.
Continued
ReplyDeleteI really mean that there are “items” that we all need to cover during this 20 days and it’s really happening haphazardly now, but I feel that ARC with its years of experience with this “student teaching” part needs to have us “student teachers” better prepared to take more ownership of what we need to cover while in the field. As we don’t know what it is that we should be learning about, this is where a checklist of items to address driven by the Methods Cohorts that we each need to cover gets the whole Math Cohort as a group going out to the field taking more ownership of our experience. And I think will make it a better experience for the “cooperating teacher” as well. It really just nails down the expectations better.
For me, with the worrying about the lesson planning and Classroom Management and day-to-day stuff, these bigger picture planning items like most of us would have done in our old business lives as Project Managers have been totally lost in the shuffle. Now that I finished today, I’m wishing I had had more of a complete vision before I had arrived to get my “cooperating teacher” more focused on things to be sure we covered.
Joe, it's becoming a bit scary to me how often we think alike. Glen talked about the amount of time needed to create each lesson plan. That, by far, was my biggest issue for student teaching. However, I think that topic was addressed in Methods fairly well. It became clear to me my 3rd week in ARC that I would be getting very little sleep during student teaching and my 1st year or two of full time teaching. The one other big "issue" I had during student teaching was trying to figure out how much time to spend on homework review and where to fit it in on the lesson plan. After a few days of teaching, I figured some things out, but I really think the area homework review can be addressed a little better in Methods. I often felt like this area was being downplayed. I recall Randy and Jaf giving some tips on it, but as Joe said, I think there needs some modeling. My cooperating teachers often give a lot of weight and time during the lesson plan to homework review. The other problem I had was checking homework. The room I was in was difficult to navigate so it was taking me too long to check the homework. This, in turn, was impacting my routines and transitions. I believe I can figure out a better system for this as a full time teacher but I was using my cooperating teacher's model and procedure, which was to check each student's homework at the beginning of class.
ReplyDeleteI have had a different experienc than all but Tracie in that I have been in the classroom all year. I ahve really enjoyed the entire ARC progem because by Tuesday I am often trying things that were presented on Saturday. Sometimes they worked and sometimes they didn't; the answer "it depends" doesn't bother me. Therefore I really loved the tools given in methods. I have learned to emphasize the Objective during class. I have bought into classroom management by reenforcing positive behavior (Glen, shut-up). So there has been a lot of great things in methods.
ReplyDeleteI think have 2 instructors has been important. This has been especially valuable because there is consistancy in many ways and yet a very different style and personality maoung the two of you.
I skimmed above and notice some of the comments, but I didn't read it all carefully, so I hope to not repeat, but here is my suggestion:
For the microteach, it would take about 12 minutes for the teaching and about 20-25 minutes for each comment from Randy and Jaf. The comments had some differences, but a lot of similarities. I think it would be more productive to have 20 minute microteaches with one verbal comment and the other a written comment. Whether Randy or Jaf comments verbally could be random and then the opposite person for the nexxt microteach for the same person, so that everyone gets a comment from each instructor. It would save a lot of time, allow the student more experience and still give almost all of the feedback.
Throughout my student teaching, I wrote detailed lesson plans using the template provided in Methods class. This was a time-consuming process and I always planned much more into the lessons than I was able to complete within the 42 minutes of class time I was provided. My cooperating teacher took an informal survey of my students in the cafeteria (where he has duty every day) and they indicated that it looked like I was teaching from a script. With this feedback, I decided to create informal notes to guide my teaching while maintaining the formal lesson plans. When I worked without the plan in my hand, they felt more connected to me in the lesson. Although I did quite a bit of searching online looking for alternative templates to use for lesson plans, I never really found one that suited me. In Methods class, it would have helped to have and try a variety of formats throughout the Microteaches to see what works most effectively for each individual. When I had my evaluation, the evaluator gave me a document saying that new teachers spend far too much time developing formal lesson plans which just leads to burnout. I'm looking for alternatives which are effective, but not so scripted and formal. I think a lesson plan is an excellent and essential planning tool that promotes forethought and organization of lesson concepts and materials prior to standing in front of the class. I'm looking for a "Mapquest" more than a roadmap.
ReplyDeleteI would like to second what Joe said about you and Jaf being such outstanding teachers. We were all just so lucky to benefit from your wisdom...and it was also a lot of fun to be in the company of both of you. What would have helped me more, just because of the type of person that I am, would have been to have more "strokes" from you as teachers...more positive feedback. It is not that I did not get postive feedback, but it would have helped me to have more of it so that I had more confidence going into the student teaching. I would have liked to know what you thought I was particularly good at so that I could have gone in more confident and relaxed about that. I don't know if it would have been possible to get this from you or not given the constraints of the program. I also would have really liked to have seen either live or via video your classes in session, so that I could actually see how your methods worked in your classrooms. Even though what works for you might not work for me, it would have helped to be able to visualize some of the things you were telling us to consider as classroom strategies. The last thing would be to get more practice with developing lesson plans...even if they are not graded by you extensively...just to get the practice doing simple lesson plans, so that I was better skilled at creating them in a reasonable amount of time...that would have been helpful to me in student teaching and would have cut down on how overwhelmed I felt. But having said all this, I am going to miss Methods greatly...I think you did an outstanding job, both of you.
ReplyDeleteThe methods classes could require a lot more work, perhaps not during the summer session where classes are held every day, but certainly in the winter session where there is a week between classes. A lesson plan per week, reviewed and returned the next week, would not be unreasonable.
ReplyDeleteMicroteach sessions could be increased, but that would be more difficult. If you had a second room, each methods teacher and half the class could observe a different student present. The critiques could be shortened—the dual critiques often repeated each other.
I found the core sessions to be of little value. They could easily be replaced with more reading and either papers or tests for assessment. By and large the core sessions were long, boring, and at no time assessed whether learned anything at all. The classroom time freed up could be devoted to more methods sessions. This would permit more time spent on teaching practice and actual assessment of our performance.
In the case of methods, more is better.
Another thought I had was possibly to have some of the Core sessions to do online, with some sort of assessment to show that you participated in the online session. This goes along with what Everett said about the core sessions. I had thought that before, but I wavered on posting this idea, as some of the commentary during the core classes was good to hear and experience. Other commentary was for the student to hear themselves speak. I am not talking about you Everett. This could devote more time to Methods as Everett pointed out. Just another thought.
ReplyDeleteAlso, requiring a full week of observation prior to student teaching to really get to know the class and more importantly, how the cooperating teacher teaches and controls the class.
Also video taping your class after one week, two weeks and 3 weeks. It is very telling of what is going on in the class. I was shocked to see what was going on that the tape captured.
The importance of incorporating appropriate technology into our lessons cannot be overemphasized. Considering the short attention span of present-day students, I am of the view that more use of technology should be introduced into our ARC training. When students receive their lessons mixed with manipulatives, they pay attention better, the classroom becomes livelier and they can actually be part of the lesson. I would suggest that each ARC candidate presents a lesson using the smart board available in the training classrooms. Especially for math, that will be very useful when teaching geometry. Secondly, I would suggest an increase in the time allotted for microteaching. I observed that we all had great lessons to present. However, due to time constraints, some of the important parts of our prepared lessons were not shared with the rest of the class.
ReplyDeleteJaf and Randy , what you both taught us during our course is very much appreciated. I have suggestions for methods classes – Firstly, micro-teach could have be more effectively done. Though we spent lot of time doing two micro-teach sessions and on feed backs – which are very essential, I think if we could have scheduled for certain days and supervised in two different rooms and get it done by one day per micro teach, we could have as well, incorporated most of the core sessions held by that day. Moreover we could have done two more micro-teach sessions extra.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, it would have been more helpful, if we had different objectives for developing different lesson plans ,with CCI components included, for each micro-teach. Objectives like effective lesson planning , special education, assessments, differentiated instruction, reading , writing, thinking ,classroom management, technology etc . Each lesson plan could incorporate 2-3 objectives and each micro teach could address these objectives .I know it could have been too overwhelming to us as well as you both to assess, but we would have got used to managing 20 balls in air early on and it would have been a good training for us to incorporate these as soon as we dived into student teaching. We were mostly concentrating on one objective – effective lesson plan in micro-teach and feedback. After we started the blog we saved lot of time but if we could have started posting micro-teach feed backs partly on blog, early on , we could have saved more time for micro-teach.
Lastly, hereafter you both be friendly at least in front of the class. (just kidding ;). We loved to watch you guys fighting with words though