I have been teaching my unit over Kaffir Boy. This autobiography takes place under apartheid in South Africa. My CT originally handed me the textbook and said, "You're teaching this book." This has proved to be a pretty good idea on her end. This has enabled me to create my own lessons using a text she has never taught. This also allows her to make suggestions, praise, and critique without using her own lesson for the unit as a starting point.
Teaching this unit has been invaluable. I am nearly done with the unit, we will be starting the graphic organizers for the essays a week before spring break. What I like with this unit is the established routine. Everyday students can expect to come in, take a quiz, review, learn a new note taking strategy, and ultimately apply that strategy to the day's reading.
What I don't like is how large the book is. The book is over 500 pages. There simply is not enough time to cover the entire book, so I have had to snip and cut out chapters to teach. The school I am currently student teaching at does not have a large enough set of books to allow students to take them home, so work must be done in class. While this has been working, I would hate to do it again with another book. I believe I have been able to capture the most important and insightful chapters, but it does not make up for the amazing quality of the entire book. I would have liked to have done something smaller, but this is not a poor experience.
I have been struggling with homework turn ins. Many students are not used to having homework. I have assigned a few (literally, like two) homework assignments and I saw extremely poor turn in rates. It kind of swept the floor from under my feet. I am learning to adjust my lessons to incorporate more in class activities. I assigned a small homework assignment today, so hopefully this may see better turn in rates. I will keep my fingers crossed!
On a side note: I recently went to my first inservice, and it was enlightening! I learned a bit more about my colleagues and I was exposed to new teaching methods I hope to incorporate into my own classroom. I also experienced my first set of P/T conferences, and that was something in it's own. It is disappointing to see that many parents do not come to P/T conferences when their child could so easily benefit from the five minutes it would take to talk with the instructor.
Happy Teaching!
Ms. Hays
Ms. Hays,
ReplyDeleteThank you for this post about your student teaching thus far. I really like the fact that your CT chose a book for you to teach for which they have no materials. This truly puts the responsibility of the unit in your hands.
I completely understand where you are coming from in regards to homework turn ins. During pre-student teaching I gave a HW assignment for which I did not get great completion rates. One of my CT's policies is that he does not assign homework. I have adopted this policy up to this point in student teaching because it's what students have been comfortable with the whole year. Good luck to you in your future attempts at assigning homework!
I am also going to be in a similar debacle as you are in selecting meaningful passages from the book we are covering. All we can do is pick them carefully, and create the most meaningful activities from what students do read!
Thanks again, Ms. Hays, for this insightful entry.
Sincerely,
Mr. Wike
To both Mr. Wike and Ms. Hays,
ReplyDeleteEven though it sounds like the longer texts you have chosen are quite extensive and causing nuisances of their own, I'm envious of both of you in being able to teach them. I'm having to use some articles and short stories and I just would love the depth that could be taken by using a longer text/novel study.
However, I have ran into similar problems with homework as well. I do not think it would be as much of a problem if my CT had assigned it often before. You would assume that with how large of a group of my students are AVID and Honors, I would not have to worry about it, but I'm expecting very little return from the assignments that they ended up taking home with them Friday (which I had not intended for, we just ran out of time and I made the split-decision choice to let them take with them). I do not believe in excessive homework, but I do think practice at home can do a great job of both allowing the parents to have an idea of what their child is doing in class and simply to show the student that the work they are doing is important enough to use their own time for as well as in-class time.
Thank you for allowing me to see that my concerns are not just my own.
Mr. Thompson
I know where you are coming from with teaching a text that your CT has never taught. I did this with The Odyssey last semester and we also did not have enough books for out of class reading. I really liked teaching something my CT didn't teach as there wasn't any previously laid out direction and left open complete creativity.
ReplyDeleteHomework was also a problem for me I generally just assign reading for homework now and keep a quiz over every reading. I told students if they struggled to answer questions over discussion on the reading we would have quizzes to make sure they were doing the reading. This has encouraged students to read and they even tell other students to make sure to read as they don't want the quizzes so far they have all been able to participate in discussion.
Another strategy I have tried with homework is to start an assignment in class and have them finish it as homework. When they complete the first half already in class they tend to finish the rest at home so they don't waste the work they have already put in.
Hope your semester keeps going well!