Professional Journal entries
February 23
Today was not a day I felt good about my teaching. For the second day in a row, I had the class answer comprehension questions silently from the end of the chapter. Yes, I was tired and the class was more restless than usual, yes I needed a settling activity but it’s too easy to fall into this kind of ‘sit down and with it’ activity as a regular end of day resort. The highly able readers like Simon and Claire were really bored while those who struggle with reading like Edward, Jack and Mathilda appeared to be frustrated –the comprehension questions were not pitched at their level. Who were they pitched at? That’s part of the problem: They were aimed at some middle –of-the road child and none of the students in 4/5F are one of them.
What I need to do is think through my text response activities before I become tired and less patient with the students; after all they are tired too and need extra effort from me to engage them in the characters and narrative. Perhaps it’s a good time of the day to do some acting? Put some music to a scene? Design an alternative book cover…I’m feeling better as I write this – I’ll do more on it tomorrow.
4/4
The students in 4/5F are beginning to take on a life of their own. After the seating arrangements were changed I noticed huge shifts in social interactions. Simon and Ahmet have been secretly exchanging a series of drawings. What is public in a classroom and what is private remains important to me. The students must be allowed private times. Some things should not be shared or discussed by me.
It's taken a long time to begin to create(a talking classroom) where the talk is generative and produces wondering and speculation.
Together we are capturing (and dating)some of the moments of:
Science Talks
casual talk,
new friendship groups,
avoidance behaviours,
bathroom humour,
silences,
inventions and discoveries
problem solving
books being read,
action shots and video clips being made,
computer games being played
Their self evaluations are particularly revealing and all this evidence has been placed in their individual folders helping us shape a picture of their Literate, and Numerate and Social lives!
The folders spill over with these children's changes.
2/5
The idea for a group journal appears to be popular for some students and they are starting to record and comment upon our classroom adventures and draw them too! A sense of community is starting to take shape both within and outside the classroom. Some routines are in place yet some students are far less visible and remain fringe dwellers to the others.
I recognise that I am an imapient teacher, wanting community to happen, wanting them to learn faster, for instance, before setting up more of the means to allow this to happen.
I need to give over more control
I want to be patient - give time
and TRUST that it will happen.
June 12th
Just when I think I really know the students in 4/5F a few of them surprise me. In the past two weeks it has been Mathilda and Robert who have altered. Our preservice teacher has been in the classroom for a month and has formed some special relationships with these two students in particular. I deliberately withheld knowledge about any of the students in order for new thoughts to be formed about them.
Neither Robert nor Mathilda were cast with labels. It was not known that Robert had been diagnosed as having ADHD. In a month he has been steadily growing academically and socially. It was not known that Mathilda is often referred to as being reserved and shy. She has been given leadership responsibilities recently and has handled them extremely well.
What does all this say about self fulfilled prophesies? Subconsciously or not we tell students what we think they are capable of.
July 5th
I started a Staff Professional Journal at my last school. I thought it might help us get talking in the pages of a book that gets passed from one teacher to the next as well as our face to face interactions. The participation was (shall I say) interesting. At first only a small group of staff would participate. Then, when some did participate they were mostly making statements about their practice (almost defending it) rather than responding and supporting other staff. Somehow putting thoughts in writing seemed threatening for some teachers as though they were being judged in some way by their peers. Of course this wasn’t the intention at all but it was their perception and therefore very real. This experience taught me the value of Brian Treadwell’s work at Lathner Primary towards creating a shared philosophy in the school.
At Lathner Primary I’ve started an Online Staff Professional Journal as we have been fostering an ‘Opening Windows, Opening Door Policy’. It has been a totally different experience to my former school. The staff at Lathner made a commitment to supporting one another’s teaching and learning. They appear to feel safe in expressing thoughts (in writing and face to face) even when they are being critical of some belief or practice. Reading and listening to others thoughts help us better understand one another.
Some of the thoughts and ideas and questions that have emerged from the Online Professional Staff Journal that we might want to follow up are:
How can a teacher effectively dismantle the past, examine the present but teach to the future?
I don’t know of any topic I return to more than listening - the need to listen to students in more concerted ways. How do I better accomplish this?
As each year approaches we need to return to the beginning yet each year it’s a different beginning. How should I begin?
I’d like my teaching to be more like storytelling.
How can I see, hear and feel learning? How can I measure it?
When should I lead and when should I follow as a teacher?
The students come with so much knowledge and experience? How can I learn to harness all they bring to the classroom?
Will I ever know enough?
What do these 21st century students need to know and why?
September 6th Teacher’s Language
After reading Choice Words by Peter H. Johnson, I started thinking even more about the power of my language- my feedback. Following this, I started tape recording a few of my small group discussions with the Year 4/5’s to examine how my language positions them as learners. Among other things, Johnson discusses some of the assumptions we make about what students know and understand and whether our language is inclusive for all students.
This exercise is very confronting because what I think I said and what I actually said are often quite different. It is painful at times to listen to my voice and my questioning. It makes me very aware of my lack of clarity at times, the high pitch of my voice, not completing sentences, and sometimes using terms not all students understand.
I don’t have time to transcribe these tapes so I listen to them over and over in the car. Following this I’ve been jotting down some of the comments and questions I used with the students that align to my beliefs about teaching and learning. Rather than focus on improving my weaknesses I’ve decided to build on my strengths like I ask the students to do.
What follows are some of the comments and questions I posed that affirm my beliefs about what students bring to their learning.
- You really taught me something new today. (Acknowledging that students have many things to teach me) (I am a learner too)
- Readers like you…
- Writers like you…
- Thinkers like you…
- Now researchers, let’s look at what we found out? (Letting students know that I consider them to be readers, writers, thinkers and researchers…)
- Why do you think the author used that expression?
- Why do you think these two facts are so different?
- Why do you think the dinosaurs died out? (Acknowledging the importance of speculation) (Demonstrating the importance of asking ‘why’ questions)
- What do you think you want to learn next?
- Do you think you’re ready to take on a new challenge? (Allowing learners to direct some of their learning)
- How did you go about solving that problem? (Valuing the processes of learning) (Exposing students to a variety of ways of solving the same problem) (Sharing a range of problem -solving strategies)
- What have you learned when you wrote that? (Encouraging students to reflect on their learning).
Johnson, P.H. (2004). Choice words. Portland, MA: Stenhouse Publishers.
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Save Date: 24/05/2006
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