DO NOT bad mouth your teaching colleagues

This happened in my middle school dyad which is why I'm posting it here; however, I think it applies anywhere. I was visiting other classrooms in other subjects and one of the teachers I visited was very negative about his workload and his lack of power in comparison to other teachers. I am sure he felt he had a legitimate grievance but I could feel my respect eroding immediately when he downloaded on a relative stranger. I was not in a position to help him and after that conversation, I saw him as a complainer rather than an effective teacher.

Knowing how the listener feels, I will be very careful in the way I voice my opinions about my teaching colleagues. He was the opposite of being professional which really brings home the importance of behaving professionally.

Transitioning to Middle School

I find it interesting that there are many concerns about the middle school students academics as well as the transitioning to middle school from grammar or primary school. I stubbled across a web site that provided some information that may be of interest to some.

http://www.ericdigests.org/1999-2/middle.htm

Using Notes on Tests

Today was the first day my dyad teacher (6th grade math) explicitly stated that students should take detailed notes, because they will be able to use those notes on the upcoming quiz. Once this information was processed, the students were extremely engaged in note taking for the remainder of the period. It also got me wondering what the pros and cons of allowing students to use notes on quizzes might be, and if it is an overall positive or negative for the students.

Pro:

Letting students know in advance that they can use notes on upcoming quizzes is a great way to get the entire class to take notes. The process of writing down information from a discussion or lecture increases the likelihood that the processed information will be retained.

Con:

Do the kids learn the material, or just right it down? Assessing learning on quizzes where notes are being used is something I think would be very difficult.

I'm sure there are more pros and cons out there, and please feel free to add to this list in the comments section.

I spoke with my dyad teacher at the end of the day and she also pointed out that using notes on quizzes makes more sense for some units than for others. For instance, in units where lots of notes are being taken, it makes more sense than units with very few notes. Also, I think that allowing students to use notes on quizzes, but not on tests, might be a good way to keep a carrot out for taking notes, but also still be able to have a quantifiable assessment in the test. I think allowing students to use notes on quizzes is an overall positive, but only with supplementary means of assessment.

Video Teaching

I found the above video after a quick search of "Middle School Math" on YouTube. He does a perfectly fine job of teaching how substituting variables works, and the video also serves as a refresher for the Order of Operations. I think this video would be a great addition to a math curriculum, but as a stand-alone video I would only expect the self-starting students to understand the substitution method after watching this video.



I was shown a similar chart in either 6th or 7th grade Language Arts, and it has stuck with me since. According to the learning pyramid chart, the information in the above math video would be retained by 30% of the students. Again, I think the math video was well put together and has all the facts down pat, but even with a perfect video, only 30% retention will occur, and that is not good enough. Having this video in a lesson that also includes practice doing the methods and discussing the substitution of variables afterward, would be a great way to include this video in the classroom.

The importance of teaching teamwork

I love groupwork. I think there are so many benefits to having students participate in groupwork not the least of which the skill will come in handy in the workplace.

However, I am student teaching a multi-session lesson in middle school and not everyone know how to work as a team. One would think that by middle school, they would have had experience and some training in teamwork. I was wrong. I should not be surprised. I don't remember being taught how to work effectively together with a group of classmates as a team. I was just told to work as a team.

Now that my lesson depend on effective teamwork, I learn that I need to make sure I teach teamwork before assigning teams. Confusion about roles, how to get along, how to interact, etc. affect a couple of teams and I ended up troubleshooting when I should be facilitating. I can see how setting expectations and groupwork training can make a difference. The next question is a good team building/how to work as a team curriculum unit. Who has done this effectively?