My Semester as a Participant

Reflect on your work in your PDS this semester. How have you benefitted from the mentoring relationship you have with your mentor teacher? What actions have you taken to be sure that the mentoring relationship is beneficial to you both? When commenting on your partner's posting, reflect on your prompt and your partner's prompt, then discuss what you plan to do next semester to ensure that this mentoring relationship is successful.

This semester as a participant at North Marion High School has been an incredible learning experience. My mentor teacher is a third year teaching of 10th and 11th grade Language Arts and he also teaches Journalism for one class period. Fortunately, I have been able to work a bit with the journalism students and it has really been great. My host teacher has a background in folklore and he is also a musician so it has been interesting to see him incorporate this into his teaching.
I plan and teach a lesson on my own once a week. I usually ask my host teacher what the students are working on that week and guide my lessons from there. I rarely sit back and observe the classroom. On the days that I do not plan my own lesson, I typically co-teach for three class periods. We have a lot of class discussion and the students seem to enjoy having two teachers to interact with. My host teacher and I also share many of the same (though not all) beliefs about education. I have learned a great deal this semester about myself as a teacher and my students. I am completely comfortable in front of the classroom and I am confident in my teaching abilities.

What I've Learned from Wiki

In creating the WIKI page for North Marion High School I learned a lot about using collaborative online tools in an education setting. I found that it was both interesting and helpful to have a variety of authors complete information about a given site/topic. We each have different opinions and ideas for the WIKI and I really believe that by combining all of our work we created a much more solid and successful wiki. Also, the Wiki group was a great way of combining a lot of information without feeling an overwhelming stress. By assigning each group member a portion of the work none of us felt intimidated by the workload and we put our specializations to work. For example, the guys in the group have a focus in Social Studies so they were interested in finding information about geography and history of our PDS. I have a focus in English so I was able to do a lot of the editing and research for the page.
It worked out really well!

I think we did a great job of discussing what a PDS is and what our role is as participants in our PDS. Also, the history page is interesting and says a lot about the town and its residents. For someone who has no experience with North Marion High School this could be a great way to learn about the students and staff.

northmarion10.pbworks.com

Understanding by Design & Differentiated Instruction

Understanding by Design and Differentiated Instruction are both very helpful in producing effective lessons. By using the Understanding by Design we are able to create lessons by looking at the main idea of what we want our students to learn and the breaking it down into individual concepts and sections. This is easier for us to keep track of our main goal in teaching and allows us to stay on a direct path toward learning. Typically by using the design we are able to avoid including assignments and lessons that are unrelated to the material being taught at the time. It also allows for sequential learning. With differentiated instruction we are able to address to learning needs of all of our students. We are aware of the different learner types and can mold our lessons so that we implement various teaching strategies. This is essential to a productive classroom because not all students learn in the same ways and it is important that we provide an equal learning opportunity for everyone in the class.

My question to fellow tutors is: Although we are only in our PDS one day a week, I believe that it is important for us to begin practicing the Backward Design Plan. In doing so, do you all coordinate with your host teachers and focus on a particular area of focus from their lesson plan? Or do you create your own lesson based on what you want the students to learn and work your way down from that?

Expectations for Spring Semester

I will be tutoring at North Marion High School in a 9th grade English classroom. Throughout the course of the semester, I would like to learn a lot more about lesson planning and the creation of IEP's. During my last semester my host teacher asked me what CSO my lesson met, however, because we have yet to discuss CSO's I had no idea. Also, I would like to learn more about age-appropriate teaching methods. For example, I do not want to go into a classroom and teach in a way that the students feel is too adolescent for them or too advanced. In previous courses we have learned a lot of psychological theories about teaching, however, most of the time those are easier said than done. I would like to see some real life examples of how teachers implement effective teaching style and classroom management. I am actually somewhat nervous for the coming semester. Facing 19 hours and tutoring once a week will be quite difficult, especially with a focus in English. However, I hope that the assignments and presentations prove to be helpful in improving our teaching effectiveness. I also hope that after each assignment I can reflect and truly gain knowledge from my experiences that will be helpful in my future career as an educator.

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Now that I have been in my PDS a few times (very few, considering all of the snow :D ) I am more comfortable in my situation and not as nervous about the semester. I really enjoy working with my host teacher and she is super helpful when it comes to creating a lesson/tutor activity. I have noticed ways in which she makes the material age-appropriate and interesting for her students and I plan on using these strategies when creating lessons for my own classroom in the future.

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A question for my peers: How do you incorporate the various instruction methods, which we have learned about in our Education courses, into your PDS classroom? Also, how do you make the lessons relevant to the students' lives?

Planning Techniques

While planning a lesson for the English students at my PDS I initially consider the content I am teaching. I ask myself questions like, "How can the students relate to this information", "What information is most relevant to this material", and "What types of activities would be beneficial to the lesson"? I also refer to my mentor teacher for successful teaching strategies for the classroom I am in and also ask what they have already covered. I usually develop an outline for my lesson which I keep with me while teaching. However, if the students are really engaged in one particular area of the lesson I am not against making changes to my lesson plan. Also, I try to use differentiated instruction methods for the benefit of learners who are struggling or those with disabilities.

Leaner-centered education is instruction which focuses on the individuals in the classroom. Rather than spending the majority of the class time lecturing, the lesson tends to focus on direct interaction with the students. This could include experiments, class discussions, small group instructions, and presentations. This type of education really focuses on and involves the students in the success of their learning.

A question for my peers is: We are only in the PDS once a week, for two hours. However, I believe it is important that we get to know the students so that we can make our lessons more interesting to them and make them more comfortable around us. In what ways do you all get to know the students during the two hour time period without interrupting teaching time?