Day 10

Today was the second day teaching my lesson. Mrs. T and I were going to see how far the students got with their murals and if they needed an extra day to work she would finish with them. Either way, she would be putting the fish they had previously made and hang them in front of the murals. I was going to have the students rotate to different a different table and make a different part of the habitat than they did the previous lesson.

Right after the first day of my lesson I got very sick and still had a sore throat and a disgusting cough for the second part of my lesson. When the students were all seated I asked them if they could do me a favor. I told them that I had gotten sick over the weekend and needed them to help me out by being extra good listeners. If I was talking they needed to stop talking and listen so I wouldn't have to hurt my throat.

Maybe because I was sick or I just wasn't as prepared for this lesson as I was for the previous one, but I felt completely out of control and overwhelmed. It wasn't situation where everything that could have gone wrong went wrong, but I felt like I was off in almost every way. I did a review with them at the beginning for my anticipatory set, asking what they remembered about salt water habitats and what they were working on. Somehow, I underestimated the amount of cut tissue paper and other materials that I needed, forgetting that today the students would be doing 2 rotations. I only had enough for one rotation. With about 15 minutes left of class I ran out of materials and was bombarded by what felt like a hundred kids telling me their table didn't have any more paper. I had found some more, but not nearly enough.  Also, last class I didn't make sure to remember which students left off at which group, so today I couldn't remember and neither could half of the class. Last class the students were very good about not talking when I was talking and when I would clap to get their attention they would clap back and stop working and talking. Today that was not the case. Even after clapping with the microphone most of the time it was difficult to get their attention. I didn't want to shout so I felt like I was constantly clapping. Even once I got the student's attention it would last for such a small amount of time that I ended up talking over them. One student, who I knew was just trying to help, would sometimes start the clapping for me or shout at the class to be quiet. There were boys who were up at the front of the room taking tape that I knew they weren't allowed to use and putting it over their mouths. Instead of telling them to hand me the tape so I could throw it away if they didn't listen tell them I was going to count to 3 for them to give me the tape and keep working, I said "we're not doing that right now" and told them to go back to their tables. Obviously they didn't listen to me. At the end of class, I was going to do a small critique with them as a closure. I had planned to ask them if they could find something on one of the murals that was 2D, 3D, has different textures lines or colors. I also wanted to ask them how they thought something was made and what they could to do it to make it more 3D. Instead, because I was still so overwhelmed, I didn't ask half of those questions and of course couldn't get the kids to stop goofing around and come over by where I was trying to get everyone to gather around. At one point during the lesson I felt so overwhelmed that I literally just stopped and stared off blankly and didn't respond to the 23 kids who were all telling me that they didn't have any more paper.

After class ended I felt terrible and Mrs. T gave me really good feedback of what I could work on. She had said that if something isn't working to stop and try something else. If you think of a better way to go about addressing something, it's entirely ok to tell the kids to stop and tell then what they were going to do instead. It's better to fix the problem or trying something else if you think of a better idea. Mrs. T also said that positive reinforcement is a good way of getting the kids to do what you want. Sometimes instead of telling the students they need to use their inside voices a better way to get them to be quiet is to say something like "Table 5 is doing a great job of using their inside voices." This way the students see an example of the behavior you expect out of them, and because they want to be praised as well. Mrs. T also said that another way to get students to listen and stop talking is to wait and tell them that you can't continue until everyone is quiet and listening.

Mrs. T said that doing this is good because then it allows me to see specific areas that I'm comfortable with and strong skilled at, and what areas I'm not as comfortable and need more work with. I now know I struggle with discipline because I can be wishy washy when I want the students to like me. Now I know specific areas that I need to be more conscious of and work at, and I wouldn't have found that out any other way other than actually doing it.