Thursday, January 28, 2016
Unit 2 Blog Response: Time Management
Unlike some of my peers, I have not met with my cooperating teacher as often as I would have liked. My placement got processed later and she has been out due to meetings and professional development events, which leads well into this blog discussion. In the time that we have spent together, I have noticed and discussed with her about a few areas that time is wasted in the classroom. Often times, the students in my classroom are working on different material and a lot of time is spent getting everyone on the same page. In this same way, a fair amount of time is spent changing lessons during the day to fit where the kids are on a day-to-day basis. My teacher wishes that she had more time and support to prepare lessons that would fit the needs of all students without leaving anyone out. It is difficult to keep up with an ever-changing curriculum that has the pull of many outside opinions. She also spends a significant portion of her week in meetings with the school board, coworkers and parents. The meetings are very effective, but it takes away from time that could have been used for classroom planning.
From a more personal observation, I have noted that quite a bit of time is wasted during transitions between or before class changes. My teacher and para-pro discuss a lot of how the lesson is going to go while the actual lesson is supposed to be happening. I don't think this is for lack of effort, both are very dedicated to the class and their students, however, I think that keeping up with the general education curriculum and up to date with all of the meetings that the school has set aside for them, they do not get much time to discuss what happens in the classroom before they are actually in the classroom. With all of this said, however, time management is something that all teachers have to struggle with and I continue to learn tips and tricks as I go through my student teaching journey.
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Amy, I really enjoyed your blog post. I just got a new placement and last week was my first time there so we are in the same situation in regards to that. I'm just now beginning to see some of the same things in my placement that your teacher is dealing with as well. My CT wished that she had more time to give to the students to provide better support, but she's stretched thin with her large caseload and being the only special education teacher 8-12. It's different for my CT and myself because we do push-in with the general education teachers, so we provide a lot of support within the general education classroom. I think having us plus the general education teacher contributes to a lot of on-task learning, but still the students get off task. Our school also requires the teachers to create and display an agenda for that hour so the students know what's expected and if there is anything they can get started on right away, perhaps you guys could try an electronic agenda. It's high school though so I think conversations and distractions will be constant! I hope your placement continues to go well!
ReplyDeleteHey! It's kind of stressful not having spent a lot of time in the classroom but it definitely has motivated me to get to know my students and my classroom very quickly! I'm kind of jealous that you're in a push-in classroom setting, I have only ever worked in self contained and am interested to see how that setup works in real life (and not just by textbook standards). I will have to talk to my CT about the electronic agenda. I have just started using Google Ca lender for myself and would be open to using a similar system in the classroom. I hope to hear more about your placement as well! Good luck :)
DeleteI think it is great that you were able to discuss areas that could be improved in your CT's time management. My CT has been teaching for 20+ years, so I feel awkward mentioning things. I hope by the time I am in the classroom full time I can make suggestions to him.
ReplyDeleteFor the most part my CT keeps the students on track. My previous CT had a problem keeping the students on task during down time. It is interesting seeing the two different teaching styles.
My teacher went through the Grand Valley program and has been through the steps before (although it was a while ago). She is extremely open to discussing how she can help me with my student teaching, including telling me ways that she has to improve!
DeleteI also find myself comparing this semester's classroom to last. My teachers are complete opposites so I find myself trying to figure out what kind of teacher I want to be in the future. It'll be interesting to see how all of these skills that we are learning in the classroom come out in our future classrooms.
Hi Amy.
ReplyDeleteNow that you mention about students not being on the same page on their work, that also remands me my Spanish class. In my class there are students who speak Spanish and there are also students who do not speak Spanish at all. Students who speak Spanish they are always done with their work faster that the students who do not speak the language, so most of the time they are ahead of the rest of the class. I understand it is very frustrating to teach a lesson when all the students are in different levels. Now we have pair our Spanish speaking students with other students who do not speak Spanish and seems to be fixing the our problem.
Have a great day, Amy
Hey Josefina! I love the idea of using students as peer models! We do that in our reading lessons because we have a few kids who are significantly more advanced than the others. They like the opportunity to help each other and I think it saves the teacher from having to monitor every student in the class every second.
DeleteWell said. There is a lot of what you mentioned that I can connect with. Getting every student on the same page is a struggle that is faced at my placement as well. The academic levels vary vastly in my classroom, and it is always a difficult to provide enough support to some student, as well as challenging material to other students. I think this is something that should be easier with a smaller caseload or classroom. However my classroom only has seven students, and we are still faced with the challenges of giving each student what they are required to receive, an individualized education plan. The whole individualized concept seems to fade out when the teachers time management isn't as productive as it needs to be. Or rather that the school just simply doesn't have enough support to offer its students an individualized education plan in its truest from.
ReplyDeleteIt's so tough to balance. Schools put all of these students in the same classroom and expect it to be a homogeneous group and sometimes I think that people forget how diverse our students truly are (just like any group of students). It takes so much time to get that individualized support and I completely agree that it gets neglected when teachers have so many other priorities in their schedules.
DeleteIt is difficult to personalize instruction due to time. The worst is just applying a one-size-fits-all approach. However, getting to know your students quickly should allow you to find commonalities between your students. In turn, that can allow you to try to streamline those aspects, which could hopefully free up time for personalization.
ReplyDelete