Internship Journal 2018-19

Name _Colter Guthrie__________________________________________

Please use this form to complete your journal entries and goals for each
week. Continue to add information and submit the entire journal each week
on Canvas in the EDU 5390 (or 6490 for graduate students) course.

Date Due:

Aug 26-

Journal entry (how did the beginning set up, prep and first week go?):

The first day I was awfully nervous, but did pretty good. The kids payed attention
to me as I was talking, and I followed Heidi’s advice to start immediately with
praising good behavior. Finding good behaviors to praise was not a problem at
all, since I am fortunate to have a good class. They were also a bit nervous on
the first day as well, so that helped with their good behavior.

Next day prep is getting easier. The Wonders and Go Math books lay it out fairly
well for you, but I do think I am going to need to work on adapting the Go Math
lessons, since math is a struggle for some of my kids, and the Go Math lessons
seem to be geared for kids who are on level. Heidi helped me with a reteach of
place value on Friday, and I was so happy to see that the reteach was successful
for a large number of kids.

There is one kid who may be a problem through the year. He is smart, and gets
his work done quickly. I need to find something for him to do in his spare time,
since he has behavior problems after finishing his work. His behavior problems
are basically that he walks up to me and just starts talking, even if I am talking to
someone else. I have him pretty well trained to raise his hand now, rather than
just walking up to me, but now he just seems sad in class. I have talked to Robyn
about this, and she says he has a rough life (moving between schools
constantly). Other teachers also tell me that he craves adult attention, which I
have gathered from how much he writes, draws, and talks about video games.
That seems to be all he does when he gets home. This week, I have tried to talk
to him in the mornings a little, asking him how he is, and walking up to him to see
how his work is going. I need to get through all of the letters and get a response
to him; hopefully that will give him some sense that I do care about him, and I am
not just a mean teacher who does not want to hear what he has to say.

Overall, the week has been good. I am enjoying this a lot, and I am looking
forward to what is to come, even though it will get challenging throughout the
year.
Goals for next week:

Get some fast finisher activities set up, get to know the kids more on a personal
level, especially the one mentioned above, and continue praising good behavior.

Sept. 2

Journal:

It was a slightly hectic week. School City, the beginning of year assessments,
took up a large portion of my actual teaching time, and I do not even have every
student finished yet. Getting Chromebooks situated was a big part of the
problem, but most of the kids now know their passwords, and are doing well
getting Chromebooks and putting them away. The transitions part of Class Acts,
where they mention calling up small groups of students for certain transitions,
was very useful with the Chromebooks.

My math instruction is doing okay. I am having a small problem with whole class
engagement. For now, I am stuck in the back of the classroom modeling
problems on the projector, which makes it hard to use proximity and make sure
all students are following along. Hopefully next week my Smartboard will be
working so I can project the book onto it, and model problems there. For now,
Heidi has given me some engagement tips that I hope to try next week. The tips
are to have students chorally read directions in the book, call on more students to
answer smaller parts of answers, and do not rely as much on students to
volunteer to answer problems. However, I was very happy with my Friday results
in math. I usually sort their formative assessment into three groups (understand
the concept, kind of understand the concept, and do not understand the concept)
and I did not have any kids in the lowest group for that lesson, and only about
seven in the middle group, and some of those may be due to small math errors,
not large misunderstandings.

Lastly, my relationship with the kid I mentioned last week is getting better,
although very slow. I actually sense that he likes me now, and is not just bored in
my class. With him though, it feels like playing whack-a-mole with behavior
issues. Last week he kept standing up to tell me things, then he began standing
up and talking to other students, and now he wants to read while there are
assignments going on. With him, I am just showering him with praise for anything
he does well, and he responds wonderfully to that. I will have to see what issues
arise later on. I hope getting some small group instruction in will give me a
chance to challenge him more, since he does understand concepts quickly, and
finishes his work quickly.
Goals:
Get science content rolling (should be taken care of in Tuesday PLC,) keep
building relationships with students, implement more engagement strategies for
math instruction.

Sept. 9

Journal:

My smartboard is up and working, and my math instruction has been far more
engaging. I took Heidi’s advice, and I am having kids read questions aloud,
having them answer parts of questions aloud, and letting them try problems that
they can do more often, rather than me doing it for them. Being in front of the
class certainly helps with engagement as well. I do need to make sure that I keep
up on my proximity a little when I am doing problems on the whiteboard. I did
notice I tend to get a little stuck to one side of the smartboard. When I turn
students loose to try a problem, I do walk around the classroom though to make
sure kids are working.

I think I am doing better on transitions, although they could probably use some
improvement. I will need to remember to ask Heidi about that. She has not said
anything about transitions, now that I am calling students up by table groups to
do things like get Chromebooks and get reading books. However, there is always
room for improvement.

Science content is going now. We have done two activities, both of which the
kids were very engaged in. I have more science activities planned for next week,
and I am fairly certain the kids will enjoy those as well.

I am starting ELA small groups next week, and I am unsure how it works overall.
Heidi has helped me quite a bit, and I am sure I will catch on as it goes on. I am
slightly worried about getting the kids to work independently. I will likely be
relying on Heidi for management tips for a bit.

I need to start teaching some social interaction strategies to the kids, as I have
several kids getting mad at the student I have mentioned in my previous journals.
I am unsure if I should do it with the whole class, or talk to that child specifically.

Overall, I am satisfied with this week. The students seem to be learning from me,
and no big problems have come up, although the social interaction with the one
student may lead to bigger problems in the future.

Goals:
Remember to get the last of the students finished with School City, gain a better
understanding of how small group instruction works and is managed.

Sept. 16

Journal:
Things are going well overall. I have small groups going fairly well, and the kids
seem to know exactly what is expected of them. I used Class Dojo on Thursday
to help manage behavior, and they responded to it very well. Now that
procedures are set, I will need to focus on getting more meaningful activities for
the kids to do during small groups. The smaller activities I have had for them
seem to go by quick, and I did have a couple of small behavior problems with
four students on the Chromebooks, but those have been taken care of, I hope.

I finally have some fast finisher activities, and a poster that tells kids what to do
when they are finished. It has made all the difference. I do not have the same 5-
10 kids that keep asking me what to do when they finish their work now. I will
have to keep up on keeping my fast finisher bin up to date. What do you think
about using some of the Go Math Enrich pages for that? I also found some other
math pages online. I should probably throw a few ELA type activities in their too. I
would also like to find a few art activities in with the fast finishers, since I have
one student who is very artistic and finishes quickly sometimes. Any suggestions
on where I might find something like that?

The student I have mentioned in previous journals seems to be getting worse.

This week the problems included theft, flipping other students off, grabbing other
students by the neck while they were playing, and refusing to admit to any of it. I
do not know how to get around the part where he will not admit to his actions.
Any suggestions on that? For now, I have just tried being consistent with
enforcing rules. I have also tried talking with him before school about non-
academic and behavior things such as video games (which he loves.) I may try
using him as a helper again when he finishes his work early this next week,
although I question how much other kids appreciate his help. He seems to do
fine helping other kids, but other kids just do not seem to like him.

Overall, I am very happy with this week. I had several activities that the kids
loved in writing and science, and math was not too bad. Although multiplication
may be a challenge, as I have a few kids who do not seem to understand
multiplication very well.

Goals:

Get more or better fast finisher activities, get prepared for parent teacher
conferences, and try to start planning a few days ahead of schedule.

Sept. 23
Journal:
A good week overall. One big highlight was having Heidi model teach a phonics
lesson for me. I originally just wanted a refresher on how to do a phonics lesson,
since I was unsure if the one that I taught to the whole class was good. It was
very beneficial to watch her teach. Seeing the way she gave directions, and
reviewed the directions with students has now worked its way into my teaching. I
am remembering to use more signals, especially to check if students understand
directions. I am also having students turn to each other and repeat the directions,
which has been great. Also, I am doing much better at remembering to give
students a break. I did the My Aunt Came Back song with the students, and most
of them loved it. They are actually wanting me to do it outside before coming in
from recess as well, which I did do once on Friday. Most of my breaks just
involve letting them get up and move around the room though.

The student who has given me problems was pretty good this week. I have been
far more consistent on making sure he is paying attention to the lessons, which
means making him put his library book away. I also got a chance to work with
him one on one on Friday. I had the students read a story in partners, and his
partner got sick and had to go home, so I took the opportunity to have him read
the story with me. Luckily, the rest of the class was focused enough on their
assignments that I was able to do this without having to move around the
classroom too much. It might not have been the best thing for classroom
management, but I hope it will pay off with his behavior improving. I have also
been making sure to give him some attention every morning; small things such
as complimenting the jacket he wears. The every morning part is very important
with him it seems.

Sheree gave me a good tip for math instruction, which was to add more “we do”
in the lessons. So I will try giving each table a problem to work on together before
turning them loose to work individually.

Overall, it was a good week. I just need to make sure I stay consistent on
enforcing rules and using positive reinforcement since I got a little sloppy with
that on Monday and Tuesday.

Goals:
Add more “we do” to all of my math lessons, give the FORI reading a try next
week with Wonders, and keep staying a few days ahead on planning.

Sept. 30

Journal:
Parent teacher conferences were not that bad. I had all but four students show
up. I was glad to get to talk to many of the parents about how their kids are doing
in the class, and ask for parent advice on certain behaviors. One behavior in
particular was a student who tends to have a temper problem. I have tried the
turtle method with her on its own, and it does not seem to do a whole lot. The
parents told me that last year, her teacher allowed her to find a spot alone in the
classroom to calm down. I gave that a try, and she seems to react well to it. She
does not get so frustrated that she refuses to do her work, and often times even
brings her work back with her for a bit.

I am very happy with the improvement in student writing. In the first writing
assessment, I had about an even spread between ones, twos, and threes. In the
second, I only had four ones, and the twos and threes both increased quite a bit.
I was very pleased in particular with one student who went from a one to a two.
The amount of detail in his second piece was so much better than the first, and
he sequenced the events in his story using transition words, which he did not do
in the first writing piece.

I have taken Sheree’s advice, and have been having students try a problem as a
table before I have them work individually. This seems to be improving things in
math very much. I also had the students use some base ten blocks during a
lesson on multiplying with regrouping. They were engaged in the lesson, and did
pretty well for the first day when they tried regrouping on their own.

I think we are going to start giving them fruit in class a time or two each week. It
happened on Thursday as a surprise, and the students got a little acted up when
the fruit came in. Do you have any advice for managing that sort of thing? Also,
are there any songs similar to the My Aunt Came Back song? I did that one time
with just my class, and then one time with both fourth grade classes before
coming in from recess, and now students are bugging me to do it every day. I do
not want to do it every day, since it will get old, but I would like to have a couple
similar songs to cycle through now and then for in class breaks, and occasionally
before coming in from recess.

My student who has caused me problems was also much better this week. He
was happy, attentive, and has been working well with his table group. I only had
one complaint from another student about him, and it was really just a tattling
thing between him and another student. However, he is starting to talk out again
in class, but it involves what we are doing, rather than random things he wants to
tell me. So far, I have been giving gentle reminders to the class on raising hands
quietly, and then praising specific students when they do it. It seems to work with
him, but I will need to be more consistent with it this next week.

Overall, it has been a good week. I do not think there was even a day this week
where I went home and thought to myself, “What did I get myself into?”

Goals:
Set up xtramath fact fluency, get some more reading assessments done and
planned, be more consistent on reinforcing quiet hand raising.

Oct. 7

Journal:
This week got better as it went. Monday and Tuesday had me a little beat,
especially Monday. I have talked to some others at the school about this, and
they told me that long weekends almost always lead to some extra misbehavior
when the kids come back. Do you have any tips for handling that? Right now, I
am thinking I should do a quick refresher on my expectations when the kids
come back, and make sure to be consistent on enforcing my rules. The
consistent rule enforcement seemed to work, but I always just feel a little mean
making so many kids pull cards after a long weekend.

I was on morning duty this week, and that was a blessing for relationship
building. The student who has given me problems followed me around every
morning, and his in class behavior was excellent, at least compared to how he
has been. Friday was the second time he has gone a day without pulling a card,
and I only held him in from recess once this week. Even when I did hold him in
from recess, and when I did have to redirect his behavior, he did not get mad or
act like I was being unfair. The talk outs are also so much better now, part of that
is due to Heidi helping me set up a behavior contract with him.

I am feeling like I am testing the students to death. I was not sure how to grade a
lot of the standards using proficiency based grading, and neither was Heidi or the
other fourth grade teacher. Apparently the whole school is lost on how to grade.
We are starting to figure it out now, but all of these assessments that I am trying
to catch up on is interrupting some of my actual instruction. Hopefully next
quarter will be better, and I will be able to spread assessments out more evenly.

I tried giving the students a chance to stand up every now and then during math
on Friday during their independent work, and it seemed to work fairly well. I will
have to rethink it a little, and remember to ask Heidi for her input on that.

I did not get the math fact fluency set up this week, but I did ask the other fourth
grade teacher how to do it. I am going to do that this weekend, and then I will be
ready to implement it on Monday. However, they do seem to be improving. The
multiplication chart I gave them probably has helped a lot. On Friday, there were
not as many kids using their charts, and they were still getting multiplication
problems right.

Lastly, I had my first new student this week. He seems to be doing well, and has
already made some friends. I asked him how he is liking the new school, and he
told me that he likes it a lot better than the online schooling he was doing.
Overall, I think I did fairly well with getting him introduced to the school, and
letting him know what my expectations are. I really focused on relationship
building with him as well. However, I would like to know if you have any tips on
getting new students oriented to the class, so next time I have a better idea of
what to do, rather than just kind of wing it.

Goals:
Actually get the math fact fluency website set up and implemented, get a more
clear idea on how to break up instruction, get through some more assessments
in reading.

Oct. 21

Journal:
I gave a lot of tests this week. I had to get caught up with the assessments for
proficiency based grading since the other fourth grade teacher and I did not know
how to assess them early on. Tuesday was the worst day because I gave five
tests. I did reward the students at the end of the day by letting them watch a
video.

There was nothing very exciting this week as far as behaviors went. I only had
one student practice lining up during recess, and had very few card pulls. I
suppose that is a good thing though. I was happy to only see about three yellow
cards at the end of each day while the rest were green. Either their behaviors are
beginning to mellow out, I did very well with classroom management this week,
or the tests made them too tired to misbehave.

I am not sure how I should feel about the grades now that the end of the quarter
is almost here. I have a decent number of students who are proficient, but still a
lot who are not quite there. For example, I have 50% of my students proficient in
writing for this quarter. Is that good, or should it be higher than that? The other
50% are all at twos, except for one student who has a one.

Heidi did have me change my poster of fast finisher options to remove drawing
since so many students did only that, and she thought it was not benefitting them
as much. I am happy with the changes, but now I have a large portion of them
wanting to do math flashcards, and I need to make sure they understand to do
those individually. It is a fairly easy fix, so I will have to focus on that next week.

Next week I am going to do mostly spiral review in math. I am planning on

posting math problems around the room, and letting students walk around the
room to solve them. I did a similar thing with science, and it worked very well.

Overall, it was a smooth running week, but nothing too exciting happened.

Goals:
Begin planning my assessments ahead of time so they are more spread out for
next quarter, ask the principal for ideas on how to assess standards I am unsure
about, add some more we do to my phonics lessons as well.

Oct. 28

Journal:
The week ran pretty smooth and was fun for the students. Most of them enjoyed
the math reviews using whiteboards, posting questions around the room, and
using Kahoot. However, I had a couple students who told me they would rather
do math in their math books. That was surprising, but makes me think that I must
be doing something right if they enjoy that part of math instruction as well. I also
did a refresher of some of the rules after the long weekend, and that did an
amazing job of getting them back on track after the long weekend.

Near the end of the week, I began having more problems with talk outs again. It
did not get too bad, but it just reminds me that I need to be more consistent on
enforcing that rule. It is hard, because many of the talk outs are good questions,
and in the moment I want to answer them rather than focus on the rules.
However, I am noticing exactly what one of the readings said, that the first few
talk outs are related to the instruction, then they become less related with
questions such as, “When is lunch?” On a related note, when students do ask me
when lunch is, I always tell them to look at the schedule. Is that the way to handle
that, or is there something else I should do? That was never a big deal until this
week, and I heard a couple other teachers saying they were experiencing the
same thing. We came to the conclusion that it must have something to do with
the rewards at lunch for participating in Red Ribbon Week. I will have to see next
week if it continues.

I am a little intimidated about what to expect on Halloween. I talked with Heidi

about it, and she told me to keep my expectations high and enforce rules, but to
understand their excitement. At the end of the week, I am going to give the table
with the most points the chance to have lunch with me in the room, so hopefully
that will give them incentive to control their behaviors.

You mentioned that one of the deadly habits is giving rewards to control
behavior. At the end of every day, I give the cleanest table a table point. Is that
rewarding to control behavior?

This quarter, I would like to focus on working with the other fourth grade teacher
on coming up with more fun assessments. Last quarter, my assessments were
all traditional paper and pencil. Heidi brought that up with me and Dave on
Friday, and we managed to get two fun assessments planned. I might also go to
the principal for advice on that as well.
Overall, it was a good week. The students had fun in math, I finished giving tests
for the quarter, and I do not have any work to take home this weekend since the
printer in the computer lab actually worked.

Goals: Plan more fun assessments with Dave and Heidi, keep an eye on the talk
outs, keep the students reasonably on task on Halloween.

Nov. 4

Journal:
I did a lot better on being consistent with talk outs after Halloween. I had quite a
few card pulls, even from students who generally do not pull cards, but I think it is
starting to make things easier for me. I also reviewed the rules for the attention
getters with a few individual students, and it seemed to work with them. The
consistent enforcing of talk outs did lead to me making my first call home when a
student got on blue though. The parent told me she was happy to hear from me,
and told me that I am the only teacher who has actually communicated with her
about her child’s behavior. I was worried the student would hold a grudge the
next day, but she instead gave me a hug first thing in the morning, and later told
me what her and her mom talked about. Throughout that day, she was one of the
best students in the class. I hope it keeps up.

My student who usually has problems was very good this week, overall. The big
problem I have been having with him is his temper now. Every now and then he
will get a problem wrong during math, and when I point it out to him, he
sometimes gets incredibly mad. He will start breathing heavily, will mumble stuff
under his breath, and might even write things on his paper such as, “I hate
school.” This is not a consistent thing though. For example, one day he did what I
described, and then about five minutes later, he called me over and asked for
help on a different problem, and was the extremely polite and smiling the whole
time I helped him. So far what I have been doing when he gets mad is try to stay
calm myself, and help him through the problem, but walk away as soon as I am
done helping him. If I stick around for much longer and tell him stuff such as,
“Everybody makes mistakes sometimes,” he seems to just get worse. Heidi and I
have talked about it a little, and she says that I am probably doing the right thing
with him by not acknowledging the anger, and letting him calm down on his own.
However, I was happy to see how reflective this student was with his behavior
grades on his report card.

The students did not seem too bad on Halloween. I was able to do my ELA
rotations that day without too much of an issue, and there was not a single
behavior problem during the Halloween party, or at least none that I noticed. I did
have a couple students questioning me about not doing a party all day, since last
year that is what they did. However, last year the school celebrated Halloween
on a short day, and I told them that, and also told them that since they are getting
older, they are being held to higher expectations with their learning, and cannot
expect to just have parties all day. For the most part, they seemed to take it fairly
well.

One thing I have noticed with being more consistent on card pulls is that I need
to remember to have kids move up once their behavior improves. I am having
students ask me to clip up after I have kept them on yellow for almost two hours.

Overall, I am happy with how things are going. The students seemed to be fairly
engaged in all the lessons after Halloween, and seem to be having an easier
time with division than I was expecting. I am hoping to keep up on this in the
following weeks.

Goals: Keep being consistent with card pulls, remember to have kids actually
move up when they improve behavior, ask Heidi for more help with my one
student’s temper.

Nov. 11

Journal:
I am keeping up on not allowing talk outs, but still have room to improve. I had
fewer talk outs overall this week, so the consistent card pulls is working. It was a
strange feeling however during math, with no talk outs at all while I was teaching,
I was beginning to think the students were not paying attention. However, as I
looked around the room, it seemed that all but the usual two or three students
were following along well in their books. I guess I have become accustomed to
talk outs being normal in math.

Every two weeks I have been sending home a parent letter, and one of the
sections is called, “In the Spotlight” where I name three students who show
outstanding behavior or achievement. This week I put my student who has
caused me problems in there. I praised him for working patiently even on
challenging topics, and calmly asking questions when he needed help. His
temper overall this week was hardly present, so I wanted to do something to
hopefully keep that up. I put another student in there as well who causes an
occasional issue, and he was very pleased to be in it.

I will be getting my first substitute on Monday for half the day. The principal wants
all of the grade levels to take half a day to plan CFAs. I am not too worried about
it, but I do plan on taking a couple minutes to discuss how they should treat a
sub, and go over the class rules again.

I am doing better on having students move back up cards after they have been
moved down, but still have room to improve on that. I only think two students
actually asked me to move them up after being kept on yellow for half of the day
this week.

I did have to do a reteach on what to do during attention getters. It seemed to

work well, with the exception of one student. I will have to talk to her individually
about it. I think her issue is just that she gets so absorbed in her work that she
does not notice what else is going on in the room.

Overall the week ran pretty smoothly. The students have been doing things like
lining up quietly on their own, walking in the halls quietly without the need for
much cueing, although I am still doing it, and cleaning up the room sufficiently.
There have also not been a lot of issues at recess that result in three to four kids
swarming me at the end of recess to tell on others.

Goals: Keep remembering to have kids move up their card when they improve
their behavior, remember to introduce some new attention getters, be more clear
on how to complete to “can dos” during small group math.

Nov. 18

Journal:
I got another new student. The day that she came in, the behavior specialist told
me all about the child, since she had been in the school before. Apparently she is
extremely defiant, will sneak out of class, and gets in fights. So far, the worst I
have seen is that she just plays around instead of doing her work. Part of that,
from what I understand, is that she has ADHD, and does not get her medicine as
often as she should. When I do go to redirect her though, she gets right to work
and does not put up a fight about it. I am hoping she does not get much worse,
but I suspect that she will.

I finally got sick, and teaching while sick was not the best. The biggest problem
that I had was my ears got plugged up, and I could see when kids were messing
around while I was talking, but I could not hear them. That certainly messed with
my goal of being more consistent on talk outs, but I was able to get back on that
during Thursday and Friday when I could finally hear more clearly. I am sure I got
relaxed on other things as well, but much of the week is a blur for me, so I am not
sure what else I let slip by that I normally would not.

I was worried that teaching long division was going to become a boring drill and
kill thing this week, but I did manage to make it fun, and it certainly worked when
I compared their first and second assessments to the third. The game I played
was called trashketball. The students have to work in teams to get the same
answer to an equation, and the teams get a point if they get the answer correct.
The teams that get it correct then get to shoot a paper ball into the trashcan for
extra points. I went from only about three kids understanding how to do long
division to about 16 of my 28 students understanding how to do it. I will be
spending Monday and Tuesday next week still working on long division. I think
the biggest issue for the kids who do not understand it is multiplication. Many of
them are still not that good at multiplication, but they seem to understand the
steps of long division. The small mistakes are just what messes them up.

Overall, I am very happy with how things worked in math this week. It was nice to
actually be able to spend a decent amount of time on a single concept, rather
than have to speed through concepts to keep up with the pacing guide. I am
hoping to find some more engaging activities to do as well, especially for the
challenging concepts. So far, I have mostly been sticking to the books, and not
straying too far from what they recommend.

Goals: Find more engaging activities for all subjects, keep being consistent on
the few talk outs that are still occurring, focus on relationship building with my
new student.

Dec 2

Journal:

I called the parents of my student who has given me problems on Thursday. He

was rough housing with another student during cleanup time, and I told both of
them to pull cards. This student wanted to argue with me about it, saying that he
was not doing anything. When a student argues with me about a card pull in the
moment, I tell them to pull another card and talk with me later about it. He kept
arguing, which led to enough card pulls to land him on the call home card. Similar
to the last parent that I called, this one thanked me and said that other teachers
have not communicated this sort of thing.

On Monday, the student also argued with me enough to get on the call home
card. I pulled him aside during a time when I send the students off with someone
else to call his mom, but realized I did not have a copy of his contact information,
so I went to the office to get it. When I got back, I had already taken 10 minutes
of his time, and I thought that was a sort of consequence on its own. I decided
instead to give him the choice of calling his mom, or sitting with him and helping
him reflect on his behavior. He of course chose to reflect, and did a decent job at
it. Unfortunately, his behavior on Thursday showed that the reflection did not
stick very well. I am now thinking I should not have given him that choice on
Monday. I should have just stuck with my already laid out consequences. I think
giving him that choice told him that he can still get away with things and not have
to face consequences.
I did have two reasons for giving him the choice on Monday. One reason is that I
was a little worried to call his parents out of fear they might give harsher than
necessary punishments, possibly hitting him, not necessarily beating him though.
After calling actually calling the mom though, I do not think that likely happened.
The other reason is that I was in a couple situations like that myself as a child,
where an adult let me out of the predetermined consequence, and I learned from
those. I thought that he might learn from it as well. From now on though, I am
going to just stick with my predetermined consequences.

One last thing with that situation, is having students pull another card for
arguing about card pulls a reasonable/effective consequence? I have asked
Heidi about it before, and she says it is fine. From the other students that I have
done it with, it seems to have ended their arguing. Just not with this student,
although he has never got himself all the way to a call home either.

The week ran pretty smoothly overall other than that situation. I am happy with
how well they understand factors in math, although they do not enjoy the tedious
nature of finding all the factors of a large number. I have also been doing better
with talk outs. There were a lot of card pulls for individual students, and I had to
take away some class points as well, but it is getting better. Part of it is they get
excited over some of the stuff we are doing, and have a hard time not shouting
out answers. Part of me is worried I am going to kill their excitement by having
them pull cards for shouting out answers, but then I remember that a few related
shout outs lead to more unrelated shout outs. Also, as I have been getting more
consistent on talk outs, I do not think it really kills their excitement, as I can still
see in their faces how excited they are to answer the questions while their hands
are up.

I did have a small issue with the Chromebooks and playing a math game called
Prodigy. Apparently it is an extremely fun game to play. So fun that I had
students rushing through work so they could play it. I was clear that it was
something they could do when they finished their work, which they did, just not
with much quality. I even went back and cleared things up about how they still
need to give their best effort on their work (one of the class rules,) but I still had a
lot of students rushing through their work to play it. I ended up taking Prodigy off
of their “can do” options, and will keep it off for the next week or two. I am
thinking I need to make a written contract of some sort for all of them to sign to
hold them accountable, and help with making my expectations crystal clear this
time.

Despite a few issues, I am still happy with the week overall. They were engaged
in science, most of the language arts activities, and they understood the math
concepts quickly, although they are not too excited about it.
Goals: Consistency on talk outs and remember I can also take away table/class
points, create a written contract for when I do bring Prodigy back, keep up on
relationship building with my two fairly new students.

Dec 9

Journal:

I am still playing whack-a-mole with my one student’s behaviors. After calling his
mom a couple weeks ago, he has been doing pretty well with his behavior.
However, he is now “forgetting” to put his chair away at the end of the day for
cleanup, and he “accidently” put his Chromebook in his backpack at the end of
the day. The forgetting to put his chair away is obviously him being defiant
towards the rules, and will be an easy fix. With putting his Chromebook in his
backpack, I am actually not sure if he was trying to take it home, or if it was an
honest mistake of just letting his brain go into autopilot. He seemed to be
genuine when he said it was an accident. I am going to have to see if he does it
again.

With my student who has given me problems, I was happy to hear some
feedback from the behavior specialist. He got called down to her room,
fortunately due to a misunderstanding with some other students at recess, he
actually did not do anything wrong, and the behavior specialist said that she
talked with him about his behavior this year. She said that she told him that this
was the first time he was in her room this year, and that she thinks it has
something to do with his teacher this year. She said that the student then said,
“Yeah, my teacher this year is great.” I am happy to hear that. I am making some
kind of an impact on him, although maybe it is not going as quickly as I would like
it to.

I was very pleased with this last unit in math on factors and multiples. It came
really easy for the kids, and I had some very good test scores. I think it was that
this concept was just easier though, I do not necessarily think I taught it any
better than I have taught other math concepts. The next unit is fractions, and I
am a little nervous about this one. I have some hands on materials, and we have
been given a significant amount of time to cover it, but I just remember fractions
being the big challenging concept when I was in school.

I am also happy looking through my ELA grades. The other modalities of

assessing it other than traditional paper and pencil has done well. It has also just
made for more engaging tests that do not feel like tests.

With Heidi now gone, I am feeling a little nervous. I am not too worried about
classroom management. The biggest thing she has been helping with lately is
coming up with other ways to cover topics. I will have to get more creative, ask
other teachers what they are doing, and look for ideas online as well. I have
already been doing that, but it was still nice to have her there to bounce ideas off
of. I will be sure to let you know if I need anything.

Overall, the week ran smoothly. I am wondering what behaviors I might see as
we get closer to Christmas break. I am assuming it will be similar to other breaks.
With that in mind, I know some teachers buy all of their students a Christmas
present. Do you think that is a good idea? Do you have any suggestions on what
to get?

Goals: Make better use of the Granite new teacher support website (look for
engagement strategies,) do not get relaxed on talk outs again (I am at a good
spot with it now.)