...Bloom Where You Are Planted...

I was just looking over my e-portfolio on livetext.com because I have a job interview tomorrow for a position as teacher of English/Language Arts at Marlinton Middle school, and I realized that I hadn't blogged in over 6 months. What better time to post a new blog in my Teacher Identity Blog then the day before a BIG interview. I am very nervous about interviewing, but excited about the thought of maybe having my own classroom. I know that I have some competition, but I am confident that the Benedum Collaborative prepared me well enough to be the best teacher possible, after all I am a life-long learner and what I'm unsure of I will learn. I'm will bloom where I am planted....wherever that may be!

PLT-- A not so disaster, disaster!

On the evening of Janurary 14, 2011 I , the night before I was supposed to take the PLT, I accidentally set my alarm for 6:00pm instead of 6:00am, an action that I repeat often. Consequently, I didn't wake up until 7am which allowed me zero time to prepare myself like I had planned. Instead of waking up, getting a shower, sipping some coffee while reading over my study notes, and eating a nutritious breakfast, I had to run out the door without a shower, coffee, or breakfast with a stressed out disposition as opposed to a relaxed and prepared. During the last 10 minutes of the test I still had like 25 multiple choice and one constructed response left to do when I came to the realization that I had skipped a page on one of my constructed responses and didn't have a spot to write the last one. With only 10 minutes left, I had to write the last constructed response where I should have wrote the one that I skipped and crossed out all the numbers and wrote the correct ones. It seemed like I was having one bad luck moment after the other and for 4 weeks now, I have been stressing about my PLT score. I checked my score this morning and much to my surprise I have passed! I was so happy and despite all the bad luck I had that morning, I realize that I am still capable. :-)

First Week of my Last Semester...Check!

I know it's no longer a requirement for me to write in this blog, but to be honest, I kinda like it. So for all you followers out there who receive e-mail updates every time I add a new blog, I'm sorry! Anyways, It's official, the first week of classes has come and gone, and boy am I overwhelmed. Just as I always am at this time of year. Being bombarded with the stresses of every assignment that's due for the rest of the semester is overwhelming for everyone. Especially grad school students when they look through the syllabus and realize how much of their time they will spend reading! One professor actually said and I quote, "Don't stress out about the number of articles, they aren't very long. On any given week I'd say you shouldn't have to read more than, ahhhh 150 pages." HaHaHa! That's what I wanted to do right there in the middle of class, laugh one of those evil laughs like The Joker does. Reality Check, 150 pages is A LOT... especially when I'm supposed to read about that much for 3 other classes. I do like to read, don't get me wrong, however, that's not the only thing I like to do!
Next element of stress, the PLT, which I am taking tomorrow morning at 7:30am. I'll probably be the only person in the room that early in the morning, but I just want to get it over with. I've heard through the grapevine (I've never understood that expression) the it's the hardest test you will ever take. That's sure is scary because I've taking a lot of hard tests, and I'd say all these certification tests are at the top of the list. I also heard that my hand will most likely be tired at the end of the test. Duh, two hours of writing responses, sure thing my wrist is going to get tired. That's like doing 2 hours of cardio work, sure I'm doing to be out of breath! Actually, I've been procrastinating studying for this thing all day today, NOT that this is the first time I've studied cause it's not...I am just tired of it.
I should probably stop complaining now and finish with a closing statement about how proud I am of myself for making it this far in such a tough program and how excited I will be, and am, when I graduate with a Masters Degree! "Go Lisa, Go Lisa, Go Lisa, It's Your Birthday! :-)

Tis the Season...Naughty or Nice?

Even though we have only been to school 2 full days this week, it's been quite a stressful one. OEPA was in our school on Wednesday, which was also a 2 hour delay, so the entire school was under a lot of pressure to preform well and when you get 60 totally stressed out people in such a tight space things can get 'sticky.' When the noise levels get elevated, patience levels decrease and often teachers who work well together in normal curcumstances can get a little catty toward each other. I realized this week that these types of disagreements are a typical part of being a professional, and handling them in a professional way is important. The weekend will be a good opportunity for everyone to go home and let the anger and stress settle a bit and start fresh Monday morning, which is when I plan to make up my snowday from Tuesday of this week.

Parent Teacher Conference Reflection

On the Thursday before Thanksgiving Break, Watson Elementary had a Parent Teacher Conference that I attended. At first, I was nervous, just like I am in any new situation, because I wasn't sure what to expect. I had heard "horror stories" from my friends in the Benedum Program about Parent Teacher Conferences gone wrong and didn't want anything like that to happen to me. I wasn't surprised when the first parent that showed up was very attentive, listening closely at everything Ms. Karr had to say, asking questions, and reflecting on their child's academics and behavior. Ms. Karr went over the student's scores on the Unit Tests, gave the parents their child's grades for the first half of the second nine weeks, discussed strengths, and encouraged an effort for improvement. Time seemed to fly by as I sat and, mostly, listened to the conferences, every now and then chiming in with a 'word of wisdom.' I was pleased to have been so welcomed by all the parents in attendence, they all seemed glad to meet me, and eager to help improve their student's grades. All in all, it was a great experience.

Last week of full time teaching!

This is the last day of my last week of full time teaching and as sad as I am that I won't get to spend as much time teaching the children, I am relieved that I will no longer have to deal with the stresses of classroom management. I will admit, if I have learned anything through this fulltime teaching experience, it's classroom management. I still don't have the control I'd like to have, but I have greatly improved since my first week. I realized, pretty slowly actually, that it takes a little bit of 'teacher firmness' or "turning on your crank box" as my mom (who teaches 2nd grade) calls it, in order to keep control. At first, I was a little too soft for this group of students and it was difficult to "crank up" my firmness, but as I did the behavior improved. I still am pretty soft with the students, but I think I have gotten better!

I have finished my action research and I am excited to begin the data analysis process. I was a little bit stressed out about it, until I met with Sharon (thanks for the lovely breakfast). She really helped me get started with the process and helped me see that the data I have is good enough and it does tell me something! It's hard to believe that there are only a few more weeks left of my student teaching semester. It seems like it was just a week ago I was e-mailing Ms. Karr about when I needed to report to Watson. I have really felt like I was a part of this school and I will be sad when this experience is over. However, I won't miss not having any walls! :-)

P.S. We got a new student today and I look forward to getting to know him.

Spelling Scramble

Ms. Karr helped me with a new activity this week to help students learn their spelling words, it's called Spelling Scramble. All the spelling words are written on a piece of paper and given to the students. Each word is outlined with a box. All our words this week have a long a, one of them is face. You have the children find the word face and color it red (or whatever color you'd like). You continue this with all the words until every word is colored a different color. After all the words are cut out, assign each student a partner. With their partner students are to cut the letters of the word called out by the teacher and scramble it up. They then trade placesm unscramble the word, spell it as a class, and glue it onto a sheet of paper. This process is continued until all the words are unscrambled. Unfortunatly this week, we did not get to unscramble all the words because it was our first time so it took a while to get into the groove, however, it was still really fun for the students. They really enjoyed playing spelling scramble and wanted to do it again next week. We have an uneven number of students so one student got to play with Ms. Karr. He had a blast trying to "trick" her. He was spelling the words backwards and watching to see if she could fingure it out. I really like this activity, and so did the children. This is one activity I plan to keep in my mind and use in my own classroom. I love how engaged the students were and how much fun they were having. This is a great lesson to show that the novice teach is a facilitator for all learners because students are up moving around (kinesthetic), the words are color coded(Visual), and they are spelling them out loud(Audio.) Thanks Ms. Karr for the great idea!