To teach is to learn twice. ~Joseph Joubert,

The class is still a bit difficult. This week we implemented a new positive behavior system. Before each time a student was 'caught being good' or answered certain question they could go to the prize box. We realized that we needed away to reward good behavior more to help persuade those students who have a hard time keeping hands to their selves, blurting out, not paying attention, etc. The stickers are given to students when they are using good behavior and then once they fill their chart (5 stickers) they can then go to the prize box. The whole school is using the PBIS but teachers are only allowed to give the blue tickets out when they see students in the hallway, not when they are in a classroom or during instructional time. (They will allow them in class next year) Students have actually caught on to ways of gaining more tickets. They are learning that if they act good in the hallways when they are alone they will most likely get a ticket, so they just happen to ask for more bathroom passes. This then allows them to take their time in the hallway and wait for teachers to 'catch them being good.' We've also noticed one other flaw with the program. We have one student who had 2 times as many tickets than the class while many didn't have any at all. This seemed unbalanced. I also noticed a lot of our good students didn't have any tickets while our 'bad' students had at least on or two. Teachers are asked to find students that are typically disruptive and then give them a ticket when they are behaving showing that their good behavior will be rewarded. Then they get a ticket and are entered into a drawing. This doesn't seem fair to those students who are always good and should always deserve a ticket.  The more I learn and use the PBIS system the more I don't know if I like it. I think there are many inconsistencies that need to be ironed out.

We learned that our new student who is often disruptive and seems to crave attention has a behavior IEP. The IEP came from another school she had only been at for a short time and addressed her issues such as blurting out, being rude to other students, and other misbehavings.  One of the items the IEP said for the teacher to do was to call on her during instruction time as soon as her hand went up. I noticed that she would raise her hand a lot before and if she wasn't called on she would just blurt out the answer (something we are working on with a few students).  It then said if the teacher couldn't call on her immediately there was a hand gesture in place to let her know she would be called on next. There are a few things I disagree about with this. I think that she needs to learn patience and if she is always being called on immediately she isn't learning how to be patient and that she isn't the center or the class. It talked a great deal about giving her a lot of adult attention. While I agree that some adult attention is good and needed, the IEP seemed to have an extensive amount emphasized. (Both the cooperating teacher and I agreed) I will be interested in seeing the new IEP for her time here.

I was able to see a wonderful 'teachable moment.' As the teacher wrote on the board during grammar she wrote "can not.' One student noticed that this word could be a conjunction. He then stopped and discussed with the class what a conjunction was. She also wrote on the board to demonstrate how the word was pulled together. During an earlier lesson Mrs. S told me about how this particular word tricks kids on tests because of the 'nn' together. I thought this was a wonderful way to add in that small lesson and made it relavant to both the instruction she was giving and a lesson that will be introduced later.

I was to instruct the 'word of the day.' This involves playing hangman with the class then they are given a short sheet where they fill in the definition, write a synonym, draw a picture, then write a short sentence. I forgot the modeling aspect of the worksheet. I think this was a learning experience for me. The students had used the worksheet for about every other day during the school year and the idea of modeling and discussing it seemed irrelevnt. I also was informed about everything  did differently than Mrs. S. This lack of reviewing in a way was a small test for the students. It was interesting to see who remembered what to do, who had a hard time with remembering, and who had a hard time with a different sequential format. Many students needed that modeling as more of a buffer than just to remember what to do. They were thrown off by the lack of familiarity and asked many question that they knew the answers to. For example one student asked how to write the sentence, and a few had a really hard time figuring out the synonym on their own. (Mrs S would come up with one for the class or they would come up with one together). Some also had a hard time just doing the work themselves. They tried to continually prod for answers in order to get away with not thinking on their own. This was a lesson that taught me a lot. I want to start helping them think for themselves and figure out how to ask themselves the right  questions in order to find the answer.

One thing I was proud of was after I taught a short lesson out of the PARRT series the teacher took on one of my ways of teaching. Before or after a question I would say "I'm going to take X number of hands." For me this seems to help with instruction time. Students could go on all day on one topic with stories if they could. My typical number to use was 3. This also helped the students know that after I called that third person they could lower their hands which then helped get their attention in order to continue.

I observed a foss kit lesson over seeds. The teacher that takes over for this is younger and very different then Mrs S. One thing that I want to take for her is that she will ask when time is cramped and a had is up 'is it a question or comment.'  Then if it was just a comment she would inform the student that their wasn't time for comments but they  could discuss them later. Then at the end when they about about 3 minutes left she told them that she would take the comments that students had before. I thought this was great because it allowed the students to share their exciting story as well as kept the lesson moving forward without pausing for a lot of different side topics.