ELLEN
BERG
Diary #14
So Far, A Successful Year
Monday morning duty after a long holiday vacation: Blecch.
I am standing in the front of the gym monitoring the enthusiastic antics of returning students when Shawn walks past and says, "Hi, Mrs. Berg." He walks a few steps further, turns around and tells me, "You know, last night I was at my cousin's house and I just started thinking, 'Man, I really want to see Mrs. Berg right now.'" Shawn blazes a grin at me and walks off to join his friends, unaware of the impact of his statement.
I confided my problems with my homeroom's behavior in an earlier diary entry this year. Until I read How to Talk so Kids Can Learn and began to actively avoid the punitive way I had been handling discipline, my homeroom students were justifiably angry, hostile and uncooperative. I was on the road to creating lasting resentment and an unpleasant learning environment. Fortunately I realized the pattern I had fallen into and made positive changes in my behavior that resulted in better behavior from my students. Shawn is proof I have mostly reversed the damage, and I am thankful I was able to do so. Overall, the year so far has been a success. I believe my students have a solid understanding of character, narrative writing, and making predictions and inferences. They understand what primary and secondary sources are, how to ask research questions, locate answers and information, and generally participate in the research cycle. The majority of my students have mastered or at least progressed with the concepts we have worked with in class. Real discipline problems are few, and I am developing excellent relationships with my students. I spent some time over the long break looking at our Terra Nova scores, rejoicing over my students' strong areas but also becoming quite aware of their — and my — weaknesses. Here are a few of my goals for the coming semester:Evaluate and Extend Meaning: We are going to do a lot more reading. We're going to do a lot more talking about what we read and writing about what we read. I am trying to find easy ways to insert more of this into everything I need to cover. I don't want the writing to seem disconnected, but I don't want to have to turn everything into a major project.
I am thinking of setting up an electronic bulletin board where kids will post ideas about what we read, continuing to use an interactive bulletin board for our read-aloud (kids have been writing their predictions on post-its and posting to the board), and looking for natural opportunities to write. It is clear to me we need to do a lot more writing about what we read because my students really seem to get it during discussion, but it's not showing up on paper.
Editing Skills: Across the board my students are showing up weak in this area. I can only attribute it to their lack of practice really *seeing* errors. I think they are doing a fairly good job at revision, but editing is always like pulling teeth.
It is clear to me that grammar and mechanics instruction in context is not enough practice for my students. So, I'm going back to the good old Daily Oral Language system. Fortunately, my SmartBoard is supposed to be up in the next week or so, so I'll be able to post the DOL there using Power Point. I'm planning on having kids work on the DOL as a bell ringer in pairs; they'll save it to disk and place the document in our shared folder on a biweekly basis.
I already know this is going to be difficult, but I'm hoping the consistent practice will push them along. We'll find out next October (when Terra Nova comes around again) whether it makes a difference or not.
Problem Solving/Critical Thinking Skills: My students do not stick with problems for any length of time. If the answer doesn't come to them quickly (30 seconds, tops), most of them put any old answer down. I'm reexamining my projects to see how I can routinely place students in situations where the answers aren't immediately clear. I am trying more problem-based learning, puzzle-solving and analogies. I'm thinking of limiting groups to pairs or triads because my "lazy thinkers" too often hide behind more active problem solvers. I recognize they need assistance, but I want them to be active participants. Word Study: I bought Cunningham's Making Big Words yesterday, and I am planning on using this with my kids as soon as the SmartBoard is up. My students scored low on vocabulary, and I have noticed many of them do not recognize patterns. I think our word study will not only improve their vocabulary, but it will also improve their reading comprehension. Too many times I have had a student call me over to tell them what a word in a passage is. Once I say the word aloud, they recognize it. I am hoping we can skip that step in the near future.New Tools for New Challenges
I have some challenges, but I also have some new tools to help me. While I was out on break, the gentlemen from technology delivered and set up my computers. I walked into a completely different class today. I have 14 student computers at my disposal, one on each student table. My students each share a computer with one other student, a huge improvement from the four computers to 26 students ratio I had before.
As I reflected on the influx of this new technology over break, I realized one really important thing: Now that they are here, if I do not use the computers daily, it will be tough going with my students. Even today, before the software was installed and computers connected to the network, my students were itching to use the technology.
I have planned lessons for the next quarter that will take advantage of our abundance. I am trying to think in new ways so that I make full use of our computers. I want to make sure they are the best, most logical tool for the task and not just an extremely expensive pencil. While it is difficult to change my thinking, it is exciting to realize the world of possibilities that have opened up to me because of this gift.
I am looking forward to the growth in my students and myself this coming semester. I invite you along for the ride.
