Sunday, April 25, 2010
Ced0555: Week Four - From the Trenches
So, I'm up to my eyeballs in work. There's the portfolio and now this week the culminating experience. I'm excited about my project, but, as usual, I'm not sure if I've bitten off more than I can chew. This experience is reminding me a bit of my studies in college. Since I was the only english teaching major at my school (the others that year were elementary ed teachers), I was given the option of taking my english methods class as an independent study. The head of the department, a man with many credentials and little time, sent me merrily on my way with the textbook. I had no clue what I was doing, but I was to make a set of two week lesson plans, incorporating a variety of materials. The result was an extremely ambitious set of lesson plans that literally had students reading a novel one day and a play the next and a series of poems the following. It wasn't until I actually got into the classroom that I realized just how silly and naive I was. I'm hoping the same won't hold true in this situation. So far, I have really three different things that I want to have happen with my third graders; I want them to have an age-appropriate introduction to Internet safety; I then want them to learn about blogs and start blogging themselves; and finally, I want them to apply what they're doing already with virtual worlds like Club Penguin and Webkinz to an educational virtual world, Wiglington and Wenks. From my observation of my current third grade students, I think I will be able to accomplish my project, but I'm concerned that the one area I haven't focused enough on might be special needs. Unlike this year's group, next year's has several students who have issues but who have not been officially labeled. There are several low-level readers and others who have attention issues. I'm wondering if they'll be able to handle my rather ambitious plan. My other concern is with the classroom teacher. I think she'll be very open to my project proposal which involves her social studies curriculum, but I'd like to her to be a collaborator, and I'm concerned that she won't take the role I'd like her to. I'm wondering how I can get her more involved without making her feel overwhelmed at what I'm doing. I plan on setting aside plenty of in-servicing for her, so I am hoping she'll feel comfortable. Perhaps I just need to assure her that I'll be doing the majority of the work and that all she'll need to do is be a supportive member of our project community. Any suggestions would be appreciated!
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Kara,
ReplyDeleteAs a first year classroom teacher in Green Bay who was told my class was "Conceptual Biology" and was geared towards those students not going on to college - I was shocked when three days before the first day of school a man walked into my room and stated that he was my cooperating teacher. I later found that the "conceptual" class contained a majority of students identified as needing special education and therefore required the district to have a special education teacher in the classroom along with me. Even with the abrupt and somewhat shocking beginning, Tony and I - perfect strangers - built a wonderful partnership in the classroom.
My point is that your third grade teacher may be a bit reticent at the first thought of seemingly handing over her class to you, but once she sees where the project is headed - I'm sure she'll be extremely excited. I would suggest not only in-service for her as you plan, but also hashing out some of those classroom details ahead of time, so each of you are feeling prepared each day. For example, decide ahead of time when you're teaching a specific lesson who will do what. Will she observe and give students assistance? Who will take care of classroom management issues? Basically, hammer out what you expect her to do and find out what she expects of you so that in the moment in front of the class neither one of you are struggling to figure out if you're stepping on each others toes so to speak.
I honestly have no doubt that you'll have such a great plan in place that most all of it will be smooth sailing!
Kara, one of the things that I've found to be true is that once April and May come around, a lot of teachers don't ignore their classes, but they do start thinking about plans for the future.
ReplyDeleteNow is the time to strike, your future cooperating teacher is currently thinking of ideas for next year and has no idea how much work they'll be. If you approach her with an excellent idea, like the one you have, and the offer of assistance, there is no way she could say no. You could even toss in a few lunch meetings during the summer to get things started. Good Luck.
Kara I can say that I share many of the same experiences. It is difficult to go into a project blind. It is especially difficult considering that everything has been spoon fed to us through criteria, rubrics, and grades. All of a sudden we are told to create a project. There is no criteria or outlines to follow. Where do we even begin. I can say that I am extremely frustrated about it and that it has been a burden as well. However, I do see light at the end of the tunnel and I think that these project ideas are going to be very unique and will be great learning tools in our classrooms. Good luck I am sure that it will all turn out in the end!
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