Jillian Trebtoske

Reflection 1 January 28-February 1

This was the first week of lead teaching, and it was definitely a crazy one. We were supposed to start lead teaching on Monday, but we had two snow days which set my lead teaching back until Wednesday. When I got to school on Wednesday, despite how much I enjoyed the two snow days, I felt like I had been slapped in the face because I was so thrown off schedule, everything had to be pushed back, and none of my copies were made. This, of course, was something that I could have (and should have) had ready on the Thursday prior to the start of my lead teach, but I did not. This is something that I definitely learned from! Other than feeling the chaos that two snow days in a row brings, along with starting lead teach, I would say that I had a pretty successful week of teaching. I had new students in both classes which is exciting because when I first got to Bath, it was in the beginning of a semester and a unit; therefore, I was not able to set up my expectations as smoothly as I am hoping to with a new set of students. I had one lesson that went really well this week- an anticipatory lesson for Lord of the Flies. I gave the students a list of people, with descriptions, who had survived a horrible plane crash, but out of the 11 people, only 7 could fit onto the life boat to bring them home. The students had to work with a partner to decide who got to live and who got to die, and the activity was a success! I will definitely use this activity if I teach this book again. As I said before, I was frustrated with myself for not being more prepared for the week prior to starting lead teaching. I should have had my copies ready to go before the class had started. Other than that, I wanted to have time to do a get-to-know-you activity with my students, but we ran out of time to do my questions in a bag game, especially since the snow days pushed us back. However, I realize that when I am teaching my own classroom, I will encounter similar frustrations with not feeling prepared and not fitting everything in on the day that I had planned to do it.

Reflection 2 February 4-8

I had a great lesson yesterday during my focus class. I usually feel like I am always rushing to get everything done for each class, but yesterday, we had some time to get a mini-lesson on argumentative writing in. I first told them who won the character candidate election vote (it was Ralph), and then I asked them how many of them knew how to write a paper justifying their vote. After seeing only about 6 people raise their hands, I decided to have the class come up with an outline for an argumentative paper. We wrote our claim on the board, and I had one student volunteer to write while the class came up with an outline and how to fill in the outline.

Everyone was engaged and I actually saw some light bulbs go off for some kids. We then talked about how the conclusion should be more than just summing up what the paper said, and instead, it should tell the reader why this paper matters to them. After my lesson on Wednesday, reflecting on the lesson and talking with my field instructor, I realized how I could have expanded one of my lessons to relate more to the students. Although the students had a pretty fun class because they got to work with their peers, I am not sure they quite understood why the lesson was meaningful. I really like the idea of using the journal entry and chalk talk to scaffold into the main lesson. This way, the students are able to relate their own experiences to the lesson. I really want to work on making my lessons meaningful to the students. This doesn't mean making them easy, but I want the students to understand my purpose for introducing the lesson.

Reflection 3 February 11-15

I had a great week! I finally started connecting with some of my students, and since my mentor teacher was gone for two days, I felt more comfortable being my goofy self. A more specific example of what went well this week is a tossup between two lessons of English 10. During one day, we practice close reading as a class and the students did really well with finding the answer without having me give it to them. On the other day, we did an activity involving deindividuation. While I expected it to have some problems, the activity went completely smoothly. Im excited about my English 10 class because I have a great mix of students; they arent necessarily brilliant, but they are willing to learn. One thing that didnt go smoothly was an interaction with one student. She is in my English 11 class, she failed last semester and is already failing the current semester, and she constantly asks to go grab her book from her locker half-way through class. During one class when they were supposed to be silently reading, I noticed that she was pretending to read along with her friend, while they were actually not paying attention at all. Instead of walking over to her and asking her where her book was, I was so frustrated that I asked her in front of the whole class. I then asked if she brought her math book to math class, and if so, why doesnt she bring her materials to my class. The conversation got pretty awkward because everyone was listening and she rolled her eyes at me. It is extremely important to me that my students keep their dignity in my class and that they know they are humans, not just students; therefore, I was pretty upset with myself for causing a scene with a student I have had very few interactions with. The next day she asked if she could go get her book, I took her out into the hallway and apologized if I made her feel uncomfortable in front of her peers. I then told her that my intentions were not to embarrass her, but that I was frustrated with everyone coming to my class without their materials. We then decided that this was the last time she would have a pass to go get her stuff from her locker. I definitely learned that I need to be clearer with my expectations- if I want my students to come to class prepared, I should set that expectation from day one and not be so lenient after several weeks with my expectations. I also realized that I want to be more careful with how I address my

students because I do not want a student to dislike me for the way that I am treating them. If I am being fair, thats one thing, but I dont want to belittle or embarrass my students.

Reflection 4 February 18-22

One thing that went well this week was that I feel like I have finally overcome the rollercoaster ride and every class is steadily satisfactory. This might not seem that exciting, but I dont feel like I go back and forth between great days and horrible days. Dont get me wrong, I still have great days and lessons, but I did not have one horrible day this week. My students are finally seeing me as an authority figure rather than an interim teacher and so in turn, my classes go smoother. Something that did not go great was one of my tenth graders came into my class upset with another teacher, and I am never quite sure how to handle that. I want to be a support to my students, but I think it is important to be united as teachers. Nothing went wrong, per say, but I was unsure of how to act toward the student.

Reflection 5 February 25-March 1

My English 10 class had a great dialogic instruction that was meant to only take about 15 minutes but ended up taking the entire hour. The students were to read a chapter of Lord of the Flies at home and bring 2 discussion questions to class for the next day. The discussion questions had to require more than yes/no answers. The students grouped up, chose the best 4 questions and led a class discussion with their own questions. They were engaged and tuned-in to what was going on, and they had a great time acting as teachers. This week I struggled with apathy to the point that I came home exhausted and frustrated almost every day. The 11th graders are reading Grapes of Wrath, but they are not connecting with the text, nor are they making any effort to read, participate, or show any motivation for understanding why this text is important. My 6th hour junior English class is comprised of many students who want to do well, but would rather have me give them the answer than think for themselves. Luckily, I am doing my inquiry project on combating apathy.

Reflection 6 March 4-8

This week I received a compliment from a student through the form of a letter. One of the other teachers announced to the room full of teachers that I had gotten the best compliment from a female student in my English 10 class that said she hated school and English class before she had me, and now its her favorite subject because I make it so relative and interesting. To put this into perspective, this student failed almost every subject last semester. This compliment reminded me why I went into this profession- to light a fire in my students. However, not every part of the week went this swimmingly. Several of the grammar groups were not prepared at all for their presentation which meant that I had to choose between forcing them to stand up there and figure it out in front of the class, or do it myself for sake of time. I was extremely frustrated because the students had ample warning to prepare for their presentation, and they had the opportunity to come in and get help from my mentor teacher or me. I struggled with letting the students off the hook because then they got away with not doing the work. My decision was to have them stand up there while I talked them through it, and then took over after ten minutes. I am not sure if this was the best approach, but I at least made it clear to the following groups that they werent going to get out of their presentation just because they didnt prepare for it. I also told the class as a whole that the grammar presentations are meant to help them grow as readers and writers, and if they do not prepare for the presentations, they are only missing out on a chance to learn.

Reflection 7 March 11-15

Todays class went swimmingly. I have been nervous about teaching Hamlet because of my unfamiliarity with the play and the general feeling that most students hate Shakespeare. However, my students have been actively engaged from the beginning. Todays lesson involved choral speaking and readers theatre with the intention of getting the students familiar with Shakespearean language. Even though there was a lot planned and some overlapping activities, the lesson ended up going smoothly and I was able to informally assess my students understanding of the plot and the language that Shakespeare uses. Something that did not go so great was an email home to a parent of a failing student. The parent responded that he did not care to hear from me and hed rather hear from the real teacher and to use better social skills next time. This was disheartening, but I also learned from the situation and it brought up questions that I was able to pose to my mentor before actually having my own classroom, like: how do you respond to an angry and disgruntled parent? Although Im sure Ill never get used to being treated poorly from a parent or student, I was able to see how to react and keep my dignity as an educator.

Reflection 8 March 18-22

This week I got to sub! Even though I was more exhausted, it felt amazing being alone in the classroom all day. I was able to make quick decisions, students considered me as their go-to teacher, and everything felt more real. I also had a great discussion over Grapes of Wrath. It was the first time that my juniors and I really connected over academia. They were making universal connections and bouncing ideas off of one another. It was excellent. The only thing that didnt go as well as planned was having so many interruptions during the week. I was missing several students from each class due to school-related activities, and it was hard to introduce new topics that were pivotal to the learning targets for the unit. I had many students staying after school to get caught up, but I still had some students who did not and then became upset that they were getting zeros in homework assignments when they had missed class for other activities. I realized how hard I have to multitask in order to keep on top of things. I literally have about 150 students at a time who have different needs, and its overwhelming. Since staying organized keeps me sane, I want to spend some time this summer thinking of organizational plans that will help lighten the organizational load I will be hit with in my own classroom.

Reflection 9 March 25-29

Parent-teacher conference week! Although I have experienced parent teacher conferences at the middle school level, it was my first parent-teacher conference after lead teaching in a high school. What I have learned from parent-teacher conferences is: the parents who show up are those who have students with good grades, occasionally there is a parent who has just come to yell at you for being a horrible teacher, and the sandwich method is the best way to balance the positives and negatives that a student is facing. I had one parent in particular who became extremely aggressive with me and my mentor teacher. She blamed us for his medical problems and his inability to pass the class. My mentor teacher handled the situation extremely well by saying that we are willing to do anything we can do help her student succeed. She then showed her his grades, what he was missing, and how his formative grades directly affect his summative grades. After the conference, I immediately called my mom, who is an educator, and asked for her advice. She told me in this situation, it is best to tell the parent, I see that you are frustrated and I think it is best if we set up an appointment with ourselves and the principle. Thank you. Thank goodness for mentors and moms who are English teachers.