Posters Everywhere

Day 16-

I think the title of this post is accurate about the postings in the room.  In APES, the students engaged in a jigsaw, which seemed to be really beneficial.  Science texts are tough, and decoding only one section seemed to be the best possible solution.  The made these rather awesome posters with cool cartoons on them and presented to the class.  A couple students, I would say, shone.  A newer student who has to do a good deal of make up work, is rather impressive.  She was able to bring the class up to date on important jargon on her section with wit, humor and obvious understanding of the concepts.  I feel that wit shows understanding.  A good, clever joke is based in the understanding of audience and what you're talking about, so it's great that she can do this.  Also makes for a pleasant break in monotony.  Next, they answered some personal response questions, which might have actually been less stressful than presenting, but students still complained vehemently to, it seemed, working at all.  It's interesting that, from my perspective of AP classes, their workload is fairly light.  I suppose to them, this is rigorous and maybe they don't quite see the point yet.  I'm not trying to impugn their past experiences, I'm just thinking that for many of the students, this is their first experience with an AP science, so it may be a hard adjustment for them.

Onto our meat and potatoes.  I had the pleasure of observing another observer today.  It was neat to see how my boys reacted to another man in the room, and how they spoke to him as compared to how they spoke to me.  They gave him a whole lot less attitude than me, but that's to be expected I feel.  Also, when they give me attitude, I gauge how appropriate it is and let them know their current appropriateness level.  As I said before, sometimes I love a little wit.  Sometimes, It's not okay, and they need to know that.  We started a lesson on the triple beam balance, which will be my observation for tomorrow.  It's my first formal one, and to say I'm nervous is a bit of an understatement.  I just don't quite know what to do in terms of reflecting and all that jazz.  It's a little stressful for me.  However, small victory, I made my first worksheet and did my first group presentation.  So glad that's over.  I think the next step for this class is going over American and International units.  It's going to take some repetition and review.  One student will repeat English words to himself after he hears them the first time.  I made sure to tell him today his practicing is paying off.  I love to see them working hard.  Makes me inspired to work even harder for myself.  

Two by two, hands of...not blue

Day 15-

Mondays are days of returning assignments and progress reports.  What shocked me were not students getting angry about low scores, but AP students being ambivalent about grades.  Like, no reaction at all.  My classmates would have been at my throat with some of the scores these students received, but they kind of just took it.  I'm not sure if that means that they were more mature, or just did not care.  

The EL class also had a returned work kind of day as well.  As well as their first assessment, a thinly (and I mean THINLY) veiled quiz.  Or, should I say "concept review"...  Yes, that was my brain child, and I'm not ashamed to say I was proud of it.  We also had to catch a couple of students up on some assignments, which brings us to the title.  I had pairs of kids coming to me to throw cotton balls and estimate and measure.  I got the pleasure, and I really do mean pleasure, to show a student how to use a meter stick.  Such a sweet boy, and he was so excited when he got it.  The other student I tried to teach wasn't feeling it as much, mostly because I, myself, am not a sweet boy.  This particular student prefers to learn from attractive males, which is her prerogative.  Pretty much the opposite of me.  Took me a long time to respect men.  She would wait for her boyfriend to tell her what to do.  She wouldn't really listen to me, and could have been language, but I feel like that's not entirely it.  I also worry because she's been reticent to do her homework.  Not such a good thing.  I'm going to keep an eye out for her.   

Measure for Success

Day 14-

I know how important hands on lessons are for students.  Believe me, I do.  I just there was a way to make them less stressful.  I think the best thing we can do is to front load them like crazy.  What kind of happened in this class, which connected really well to practicum, is we had to wait for a long time to get kids to respond.  I see this as a symptom of two things: 1.  Language anxiety and 2.  Social anxiety.  It's frustrating to watch.  I'm a strong believer in solidarity, so I stood with my DT.  What she did made sense at the time, but I wonder what we could have done differently to go faster.  We talked about cold calling in practicum, but for my kids, that may be too stressful, or it may be the push they need to speak up.  There's just so many different language levels.  Needless to say, I was tired at the end of the day.  

Grades, Gradients, Graduated

Day 13-

So another hilarious conversation was had with my opinionated girl.  She'd be easy to do an interview with for one of my classes, I'll keep that in mind.  Unless I want a challenge, and then I have someone else in mind.  For sure.  This other girl seems to retain material.  What questions she answered on the vocab quiz were right.  I feel like if she's knows it, she KNOWS it, which is most impressive.  If only she could apply it and not snore in class.  Speaking of vocab quiz, they had a vocab quiz today.  It's definitely a bell curve.  But shifted towards passing.  Actually, that's what I'm assuming right now.  The grades haven't been entered yet.  I'm curious to see.  My responsibilities certainly are expanding.  Taking grading on full force.  I'm going to get an in and out box for my desk for SURE to keep things organized.  That's the AP kidlets anyway.

Onto the physics class.  Today, I feel, was a difficult concept.  Especially for those who are under-schooled and have never used a balance, it can be difficult.  Even for students who are native speakers, using a balance for the first time or being forced to make a prediction is tempestuous at best.  So apply that concept on today's class, add in multiple stations and yes I had to raise my voice. This class is certainly the trial period, and I feel like we figured out that they need to be given very explicit directions on where to go and when and how.  Let's just say MARBLES EVERYWHERE.  That was I want to say frustrating, but I've already used that word and I want a new one.  But I can't think of one.  All I can say is thank goodness jazz music exists.  It's like an instant release valve on my brain.  I'm a music lover all right.  Maybe I can use that somehow...

The Victorious End of the Rockets.

Day 12-

FInally.  FINALLY.  THe rockets are done.  And today, I rather enjoyed it.  The highlight was talking about astronomy with the kids and trying to get them to think of how they would get their bottle rockets to space and what it would take in terms of fuel.  We had our usual herding cats moments with students not doing their work, as per usual.  These students are forming a pattern of not participating.  It's a bit frustrating, and that's an understatement.  It's hard to communicate why something is important when you can't communicate with the kids.  I think this will be easier-ish as their english develops, but I've had students before who still had a hard time grasping the concept.

The class after lunch was a bit more focused, but there are some personalities evolving in that class.  Another thing we did was go through the assignment log and make sure all their work was in order, which turn into a weekly thing.  One girl tried to pass off a fake grade as one we gave her.  Yeah, glad we caught it now.  For the most part that class has an issue with being almost too willing in some cases.  It's sweet, but exhausting and exhilarating at the same time.

Attack of the Rockets

Day 11-

Oh man, wings on a rocket plus erratic wind patterns makes crazy erratic rocket paths, but it was neat.  We did our first of the last launches today outside, and my darling kindergartener was acting up again.  When this one is helping, he's all good, but he's decided to play a new game of asking if I understand what he's saying.  I say no, because I don't some of the time, and then he'll say something else and some people will snicker.  It's become disruptive a bit, so I've had the respect conversation with him.  I want to get my language skills to the point where I can intercept this behavior, but man, that's something I just don't have time for.  

So, positives: I needed to find a way to keep the kids engaged while the rockets were being set up.  I would have them form hypotheses about the particular trial, and then had them explain it.  It kept them engaged and thinking about the activity, and some students really jumped on it.  I felt bad when one girl got called smart in derogatory way just because she was trying really hard, and had decent explanations.  It brought me back to when I was that age, or even in college.  It makes you not want to get answers right because you'll just get ridiculed for it.  This girl, though, offered to help me out later with another student's understanding, and I'm glad she's putting herself out there and pushing herself.  I love how well the students work together, and how you can tell they really want to help each other a lot of the time.  Pretty fantastic.

Only Slightly Chaotic

Day 10-

Another day of building rockets.  In this case, there was high highs and low lows.  One group was made up of students who could barely speak English, and spoke completely different languages, and they connected!  I was a bit surprised.  One student said to me "He speaks a little spanish!"  I asked "As much as me?" The student responded "Even less."  I'm learning, but the students assume my progress is faster than it is, so they'll come at me with long sentences, that I catch the gist of, but responding is...harder.  Anyway, the chaos was a bit more manageable in this class, but it's not my forte in terms of coping skills.  I think I'm the kind of person who's a planner, surprising no one.