Module 5: The active side to teaching

In this final module blog post, I immediately marked a phrase that related to my job and I. Working in the transition department, I deal with classes that teach nothing but authentic tasks (page 457). These are lessons that relate to have problems and situations that students will encounter outside the classroom. Some of the different things we cover are: how to do your own taxes, making a budget, career exploration, applying and retaining a job, and how to pay bills. These are just some of the things we try and have everyone learn in the short amount of time we have with the students. Our goal is to help them transition out into the real world. I also find that having the authentic tasks has the students motivated to learn them. They know that the information we are presenting is somewhat useful so they exert a little more effort while in class.

Relating to teaching authentic tasks, the method in which the teacher explains everything is crucial to the students and their abilities to learn. Having a 40 minute lecture everyday may not make the information stick inside the heads of every student. This is especially true in the special education classes that I am involved in. In order to maximize the amount of learning, the teachers do active teaching (page 519). Interaction and demonstrations of the lessons goes on everyday. I have found that this keeps the students engaged more so than a lecture with notes. While written or verbal directions can become confusing, demonstrating part of the lesson is straightforward to them. The step-by-step process and explanations we do helps them understand the facts and motions.Direct instruction, while it is exhausting and takes longer, is more than worth it. 

Switching gears, my school just got down with the second round of PARCC testing. All in all, I had a neutral opinion about them. From the students however, I have never heard such contempt for it. My sister, who is a freshmen, simply did not care. She found it useless to even try. All she wanted to do was go back to her regular class schedule. I heard others say that their parents would call them in so they wouldn't have to take it or they were just not going to show up. While I understand some of the reasons achievement tests are done, this one was given so much that I couldn't help but notice. People want to see how the education system is teaching our kids so they have standardized achievement tests to see how much students have learned in a certain subject (page 580). I can see how having too many tests can actually prevent students from learning effectively but there might actually be a need for achievement tests. I hope that there is a balance soon.

Module 4: Self-regulating and motivating myself to write this

After writing a paper, building a concept map, and conversing with people on Moodle, it was only fitting that the chapters bring everything full circle. The use of technology to teach students has become more and more common. Having schools and colleges use virtual learning environments through the use of programs, like Moodle, can be efficient and it can make things easy for all involved. (Page 386). For an organized student it can be far easier than a traditional class. Personally, I prefer online classes since it lets me work when I want and at my own pace. But I can see how it can fail with students who cannot manage their time or that are not motivated to do their work. I am a 27 year old with a purpose. When I was a freshmen in college, I dropped out of every online class I had because I was just poorly organized. I have seen some of the students I work with be just as disorganized when given online work. I feel that there needs to be supervision for them to get anything done. Without a certain maturity level, the effectiveness of a virtual learning environment can be mute.

This leads to having self-regulation and control in and out of the classroom. The definition explains it pretty well, "Process of activating and sustaining thoughts, behaviors and emotions in order to reach goals" (page 410). To write a 6-10 page you need to sustain constant thoughts. For students to do their homework, they need to control themselves out of school. I found that I play a part in how students behave depending on the amount of control they have over assignments. When I give students some input in how their work can be done, it helps to motivate them a bit. When assigning a project, some students prefer a PowerPoint over a poster or an essay. We have also let them have a chance of picking their topics, in order for them to have a little ownership on the assignment. Like I said before, when they do online work they are often off-task. So we try to limit that and we are now trying to be more supportive. We figure that if they get off-task, they might be struggling with something and we can keep them going.

As I was researching for my paper for this class, I ended up heavily favoring one side and only finding information for that side. I ended up printing about 20 pages in research saying ho homework was bad when I realized that I had succumbed to confirmation bias (337). I was actively seeking out information that supported my belief. I then had to restructure my thoughts and the problem that I had in front of me. I have tended to notice that this bias happens a lot in younger students. They sometimes cannot restructure or believe the contradictory information. I had one student who wouldn't believe me when I said that soccer was a more popular sport than American football in the world. Even after giving him facts and statistics, he only could come up with information that applied to the United States, rather than the whole world. The belief perseverance was strong in this one (337). He couldn't see the entire problem but I know that he was meaning well in trying to convince me. He just needed to rethink his stance so that his idea could be looked at in a bigger picture. Students, in general, have to do that sometimes in order to be effective. I know I had to. I even learned a few new things in the process.

Classroom Mangement: Teacher Interview

Teacher Interview video

I had the pleasure to interview a true veteran teacher, Mr. Delwyn Essig. He is currently a special education teacher at Argo Community High School and is in his last year before he retires. I have had the pleasure to work for him these last two years and I was glad that he had agreed to help me.

Right off the bat, Mr. Essig explained a bit on his personal philosophy. He said that it is about treating others the way you want to be treated. This golden rule is the basis for his classrooms. Starting on the first day, he tells the students that he will give them the respect they deserve, and that they should reciprocate that respect back onto him and the other teachers. He did say that he has little to few rules in the interview. From my time with him, he does go over the two rules he expects to be followed every day. I will respect and pay attention to you and I expect that you respect me back. The other rules is that when he is talking, students should be listening. These are very similar to the rules for secondary school listed in the Woolfolk book, "Respect and be polite to all people," and “Listen and stay seated while someone else is speaking" (478). These rules, I believe are a great foundation for establishing and maintaining a positive learning environment. By setting these rules early on he lets the students know that there are rules to be followed every day. 

In the interview, Mr. Essig describes himself as "lucky" and "even keel" in his time as a teacher. I believe that his luck is attributed to being an effective classroom manager. According to Woolfolk, "effective managers focus on establishing rules, procedures, and expectations on the first day to students and consistently enforced during the first week of class" (484). By setting the stage from day 1, Mr. Essig's classroom has a set environment. The students know what is expected of them and distractions and disruptive behavior is limited. They know better than to go against the culture set by the teacher.

I talked to Mr. Essig about a few punishments and reinforcement techniques he has used in the past. He explained that when dealing with a student, he prefer to talk to student, privately and calmly. He feels and the Woolfolk text agrees, "Private reprimands are more effective than loud, public reprimands in decreasing disruptive behavior" (261). His approach is to remove the student from the classroom and have them step aside in the hallway. Then, he would talk to them and explain what had happened. This can give the students, and the teacher, some time to calm down. 

As a reinforcer, Mr. Essig does what he calls a Pay Day. Every two weeks, he brings in chips and drinks and the students get to eat them halfway through a Friday period.  Since he teaches a vocational special education class that focuses on employment skills, a lot of the work is hands-on. They do landscaping, build and maintain woods projects, and wash cars. So they have a pay day as their reward for the work they have down. This is a bit a similar to a token reinforcement system and group consequences (264-265). The students are working together, usually in groups, and they complete the unit in that time. As a reward, we teach them about getting pay and earning the right to get their food. There have been times when he has threatened to take away the pay day and that has worked as well. He also talked about giving praise to students for their good behaviors. This he feels is a great way to keep a student motivated and to reinforce those positive behaviors. Woolfolk has a list of behavioral approaches for teachers. One of them being, "praise must be a sincere recognition of a real accomplishment" (275). Since we have concrete projects, both the teacher and the student can see the work done praise can be given sincerely. Also, during a project, criticisms and encouragement can also be given. 

One thing that I really liked was when Mr. Essig said that making a connection to the students is important. Just getting to know them and becoming interested in them is a good way to make a connection with them. With this connection a student can become more interested in school, "warm encouraging relationships with teachers are related to many valuable student outcomes. including higher participation in class, greater critical thinking skills, lower drop-out rates, higher self-esteem, increased motivation, less disruptive behavior, and better attendance" (Woolfolk, 487). The students seem to like Mr. Essig's personality and they enjoy being in that class. He is fair and he treats everyone as fair as possible (or as he said in the interview, he tries to). I believe this is helping the students like school a little bit more. I also believe this is affecting students in their other classes. The behavior and expectations being taught are so that they can use them in the school and the real world.

Module 3: Contingency contracts, consequences, and concepts

The behaviors of students can vary from the exaggerated to the subtle. A teacher must be able to handle all these behavior in an effective and efficient way. This way, the teacher can reinforce the positive behaviors while hopefully extinguishing/limiting the negative behaviors. In the classroom, there have been multiple class clowns, talkative students, and students that are just not in a good mood. While I do try to praise students and reassure them that they have done a good job, it is the disruptive behaviors that are more memorable and noticeable. I have seen that using reprimands are pretty effective (page 261). I've noticed that pulling the student aside and simply talking to them about what had just occurred can help more so than publicly yelling at them. It not only gives the student to calm down a bit, but it also lets them reflect on his/her actions. In my experience, I have used reprimands and (unfortunately) engaged a student in a public argument. I wish I could go back and change the way I handled the latter situation. The student's temper was flaring and I was not doing the best job in deescalating the situation. A student supervisor had to escort the angry student to the dean's office for not being cooperative with the teacher and myself.

For some of the students with behavioral problems, I have seen contingency contracts (page 264) so that students can improve their behaviors. In one instance, a student was habitually late or absence to first period. With all the tardies and absences adding up, the student was accumulating detentions and in-school suspensions. These were not helping the student change his behavior, if anything it was making school miserable. The student's dean made a deal with him that if didn’t get one tardy or absence for a whole week, then he would buy him Portillo's for lunch. This did improve his attendance for a while because there was now a little motivation in it for the student. I think that these contracts are helpful in some situations. A student now has a little push to achieve a goal set, a student can see this contract as a sign of caring by the school, and this can be the support starts the reinforcement of a good behavior. 

One of the most subtle ways to lose a classroom's attention is with bad movement management (page 486). The way a lesson is organized and the way it transitions from one point to another has to be smooth and timely. Spending too much time on one point can bore the students to sleep they can begin to become disruptive. I have been in front of a class basically teaching the lesson when there was a sub for the regular teacher. I can honestly say that movement management is something that I need to practice. I either ran through a topic too fast or I talked it to death. The students were uninterested and opted to either try and sleep, goof off, or ask to leave for a water or bathroom break. Luckily the sub was a bit of a help and helped me keep things in, at least, a little bit of order. I can now see how even small flaws in a lesson plan can throw a huge wrench in lesson plans.

Module 2: Learning to live, living to learn

Every day that I work, I am in contact with students with IEPs. 99% of the students that I see have an emotional, behavioral, learning, or intellectual disability. Their abilities range from students who cannot read to students who are in honors classes and going off to college. There is such a variety especially when doing transition programming, which is basically my job. I help students with special needs prepare for college, the workforce, vocational training, and/or community involvement (page 150). My role is to find out what the student would like to do during and after high school and get them started on their path. If a student would like to become a chef, we talk to the counselors during the IEP meeting and enroll them in culinary art courses. The students with intellectual abilities, we try and prepare them for vocational training and getting them school sponsored jobs with supports. Students with learning and/or emotional and behavioral disabilities, we try to find a path for them. Whether it is college, a trade school, or a university. This is done with surveys and short interviews that I do with them throughout the year.

Until I got to chapter 5, I didn't know that I was part of Generation 1.5 (page 188). I was in the middle ground of being an immigrant student, but wanting and feeling like a U.S. born student. I came to America from Mexico at the age of 3 and I ended up learning English a few years into my schooling here. I was becoming a bilingual student. A problem that arose was that I was slowly losing my grasp on the Spanish language through subtractive bilingualism. I didn't care when I was younger because I wanted to speak English like my friends at school. Now as adult, I owe my job to knowing a second language (I am pretty sure that I only got my job for simply stating that I can speak Spanish). I translate for parents and students on a daily basis. And although my Spanish is not the best, I am slowly relearning everything. I even reiterate this to the bilingual students in school. Practice and maintain any language that you know, it can lead to you to completely new opportunities.

It is hard to think about relating your students' ethnicities and teaching at the same time. On one hand, I would like to treat all my students equally and fairly. On the other hand, I know that it might create problems with students especially if they are not used to that type of environment. In watching this module's videos, I learned that the perception students have of their teacher can be affected by the teacher's ethnicity. A student may respect a teacher more just because they share the same ethnicity. That and while talking to student in a certain tone may be harmless and necessary, it may offend or upset another student. It is a two way street in teaching and introducing the pragmatics of the classroom (page 237). The language a teacher uses can be the difference between having a student's attention and losing him to a distraction.

Module 1: How people grow

While reading, there were several terms that really resonated with me. The first one was differentiaited instruction (page 10). Seeing that I work with students that have IEPs, differentiated instruction is the way we teach all of the students in the special education department. Teachers and faculty take the information that they have on the student and then use it to effectively teach them in the classroom. I know that in one of our self-contained classroom, they have 4 different acheivement groups of students. The highest achieving group moves at a quicker pace and has more difficult problems and work. The lowest achieving group has more basic work to help build their skills  and more help with an aide or a co-teacher with them to help them along using assisted learning (page 63). The modifications done for students is unique for the different students that I see daily. The students with varying levels of learning disablities each are on different academic levels. Some may need help with reading questions while others need a modeling of the work to be done. I do know that without the ability to modify and change the curriculum and instruction then these students would be completely lost and frustrated.

Another term, or in this case theory, that I came across was Vygotsky's sociocultural theory. The theory revolves around the development if cooperative dialogue between chidren and more knowledgeable members of society (page55). Through this theory, children learn more about the culture in their community. With the classes that I work in, it is heavily reliant on social interactions. The students are tasked with a large group activity, with individual assignments. They are then supposed work with the others, yet minding to their responsibilities. It is a mix of group and social workings. The best part that I have seen is when an older student that has a bit more experience will help out. I then feel like everything clicks for the less experienced child. They now have more confidence in the task at hand. I can relate it to the reaching the zone of proxiaml development (page 59). An older student/adult is helping them master a new skill. They have seen someone else do it and they have the guidance if needed.

An idea that I am pretty familiar with is ethnic identities. I was born in Mexico but I have spent the majority of my life in America. With that said, I find it is important to have racial and ethnic pride in order to have a good self-esteem (page 94). I find that I fall under the biculturism category when it comes to my ethnic identity. I take parts of both cultures and mix them together to make it my own. I know that neither is perfect but I am proud of both sides equally. In talking with English language learners in my classroom, I identify with the hispanic students in a different way compared to the rest of the students. There are things that we just have in common and understand about each other, There are times when I see my students struggling with their identities. They either start dressing difffertnly, talking differently, or even having different role models. I want to say that it is good to get a little confused. It can help in giving a little direction once you start clearing away the confusion. Once tht is done, the feelings about yourself and who you are begin to be better. The older a student gets the comfortable they begin to feel in their skin.

Context for Learning Description of School and Students

School Name and City: Argo Community High School, Summit, Illinois

Type of School: Elementary school, Middle School, High School, or Other: High school

Setting: Urban, Suburban, or Rural: Suburban

1.       List any special features of the school or classroom setting (e.g., themed magnet, classroom aide, bilingual, co-taught with a special education teacher, pull-out program).

The classrooms that I am in are all special education classes where the majority are students with IEPs. There is a special education teacher and myself as an aide. There is one class where all the students have moderate to severe disabilities. In there, aside from the one special education teacher, there are around 4 aides that help out.

2.       Describe any district, school, or cooperating teacher requirements or expectations that affects the planning or delivery of instruction, such as required curricula, pacing plan, use of specific instructional strategies, or standardized tests.

The classes that I am involved with have to do with the transition portion of the students’ IEPs. The curriculum covered is mostly vocational skills. There is job training done and basic working skills since there are some students who will not be going on to college. The main focus is teaching students the different types of work and labor, work etiquette, and the knowledge of looking for and maintaining a job.

3.       For special education only: List any educators with specialized expertise in the school/district (e.g., specific disabilities, subject-specific pedagogy, English language development, speech therapists).

Although there are not many experts that I work with, the special education department does have a speech therapist, their own department social worker, and a transitions department in the school. A physical therapist and some art/pet therapy specialists are also contracted throughout the year.

About the Students in this Class [Give a brief or one word response]

1.    Estimated percentage of students eligible for free/reduced lunch: 60%

2.    Grade level(s): 9^th-12^th

3.    Number of

a.    students in the class: 16

b.    males: 12

       females: 4

c.     English language learners: 5

d.    students identified as gifted and talented: 0

e.    students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) or 504 plans: 12

4.    Complete the chart below to summarize required accommodations or modifications for students receiving special education services and/or students who are gifted and talented as they will affect instruction. As needed, consult with your cooperating teacher to complete the chart. The first row has been completed in italics as an example. Use as many rows as you need.

Special Education Category	Number of Students	Accommodations, Modifications, and/or Pertinent IEP Goals
Example: Learning Disability	Example: 4	Example: Close monitoring, follow up, and Resource Room
Learning disability	10	Test read-aloud, resource room, extended time, assignment accommodations
Emotional disability	2	Social interaction support, motivation and reinforcement monitoring, “Take 10” Pass

About the Class You Observed

1.    How much time is devoted each day to instruction in the classroom? Describe the class periods (if applicable)? Choose a content area of your specialty or major. How much time is devoted to teaching that subject?

                               

With instruction being very-hands-on, the instruction time is limited to only going over what the students will be doing that day and then the staff oversees the work done. We help out with any questions or confusions. This way we can accommodate any student that needs any extra help.

2.    Is there any ability grouping or tracking? If so, please describe how it affects your class.

        The students in the class are all around the same ability levels. They are all treated the same with accommodations and services applied equally during the course. This makes the class seem to go by easier and the students can move at relatively the same pace.

3.       Identify any textbook or instructional program you primarily use for instruction. If a textbook, please provide the title, publisher, and date of publication.

The class, called Contemporary Employment Skills I, doesn’t have a text book. There is a lot of hands-on work and real life experience going on. We do go over job applications, making sure students know how to fill one out and even recording a mock interview with the student.

4.    List other resources (e.g., SMARTBoard, manipulatives, online resources) used for instruction in this class.

        The class has access to a laptop cart, a SMARTBoard, and we use a wood shop for any hands-on projects that we plan on doing.

5.       What do you know about what your students know, what can they do, and what are they learning to do? What do you know about your students’ everyday experiences, cultural backgrounds and practices, and interests?

Most of the students I deal with do not know much about getting a job. They know that what a job is and why it is needed but they are unsure as to the steps and procedures to obtaining one. While some of the terminology is advanced for the younger students, we help them through the vocabulary.  There is a wide diversity in the classes I work in. I can see that there are Hispanic, African-American, Arabic and European students all meshed into the classroom. While I am not familiar with every culture, there is a good atmosphere where they all get along.

  

6.       Describe one teaching event. What best practices in teaching were used?

A unit that we have started is how to wash a car. We take faculty cars and the students are then tasked to wash it in an organized and efficient manner. Jobs are delegated and rotated every day. In teaching the students about the different types of jobs, the teacher (and myself) not only verbally explained the job but we also visually demonstrated it to them. We had a practice car that we washed step by step. The students took notes on what the job responsibilities were and some even helped out in the finishing touches. The next step will be for the students themselves, to wash the car in the proper manner under our supervision.