The Buzz of Teaching

1. It's Not About You; It's About Them I have always tried my hardest to have a student-centered classroom. If I feel I'm talking too much or too much attention is on me, I'll shift it around and give students a brain break, ask them to discuss something together, or simply give them time to quietly reflect on what we've done and then reconvene and share out thoughts. Sometimes I feel like I'm not doing enough in my classroom, like when I'm walking around during work time to check in with students, and they tell me they're fine and don't have any questions. It's at these times where I think...wait, am I challenging them enough? If they're doing this work without needing me, is it too easy? But then I'll wait, listen in on a few people, and then I realize that usually  (not always) the students are asking their classmates questions instead of me. At these moments I feel like I have helped them learn to rely on each other to work through p...

The text I read was "Constructivism and English Language Arts: Creating Inclusive and Relevant Curricula" by Sydney Redigan. Redigan's analysis of constructivism in my content area begins with a brief outline of why constructivism is traditionally thought of as a math or science-based philosophy. The analysis goes on to explain that educators can employ certain aspects of constructivism, like active learning, instead of trying to strictly adhere to every aspect of the philosophy. Finally, Redigan highlights how elements of constructivism can be applied to specific ELA standards relating to reading, writing, grammar, and literature. One aspect of the analysis I appreciated was the emphasis on students decoding texts and constructing the text's meaning to themselves as individuals. I try to emphasize this in my honors and AP level classes but those students are so used to their LA teachers being gatekeepers of information that it takes them a very long time to lean in...

Part 1: Enduring Understandings, Instruction, and Assessment Students will understand the relevance of classic literature. Students will understand William Shakespeare's influence on the English Language.  Students will understand the story elements of Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare Self-Assessment:  I began the lesson by giving students a Self-Assessment that we used to track students' progress on achieving each of our 3 Enduring Understandings. We set 4 Milestones throughout the unit. Almost all of the students self-assessed themselves at the beginning stages of achieving these goals. Interestingly, some students rated themselves higher on the 1st Enduring Understanding. These students were the students who enjoy reading and typically came from my pool of advanced learners. Teacher Prep: After students completed the Self-Assessment, I introduced the concept of using Context Clues to understand Shakespeare's English. To do this, I worked with Vanessa (b...

Blog Prompt In what ways have you been playing it “too safe” in your first two semesters of your M.Ed. journey?  In what ways could you be pushing yourself more, stretching yourself beyond what’s comfortable, taking risks in your classroom to maximize your learning?  Most importantly, identify what is causing you to miss opportunities by making you think “they’ll be other days”? My Thoughts I need to be more of myself. I have a weird defense mechanism - or something - that holds me back from speaking my mind or acting like my true self in public, especially in professional settings. I see our program as a professional setting, so I become more withdrawn. That doesn't mean my brain is turned off, though. In fact, I'm constantly thinking through what's happening, what my thoughts are about the topic, what I could add to a conversation, and sometimes I feel like what I have to say either isn't worth it or is somehow too-far past what we're discussing. I'm not...