Hello everyone!
Today, I am sitting in my classroom all day just waiting for parents to come in and see me to inquire about their child's grades. This semester did go a little better than last semester, I would like to say. I have learned a lot about being a teacher during the first half of my first year. It has been a wonderful experience that I wouldn't trade for the world. Being here in Bahrain has had its ups and downs along with challenges. Obviously, the change of being all on my own and starting off new was a challenge. Teaching for the first time and to students who have varying levels of English is a challenge. But, with all of these challenges I have learned a lot about myself and have had an amazing adventure.
Today, I am going to reflect on my time as a teacher here at MKS so far. MKS requires that at the beginning of the year we look at teaching indicators that the school provides and then we hose at least on indicator from each of the five groups to work on and improve during the year. Being over-zealous, I'm pretty sure I chose about 20 indicators to implement and improve upon and, as I looked through them, I have noticed how much I have improved over the course of this year. My biggest improvement would have to be differentiation of instruction. I have been trying to hard to fit in new activities and new lessons that are more student-centered than a lecture and practice. During the first couple chapters I taught, I did A LOT of lecturing. I would become agitated when the students would talk so much and slowly I started to realize that lecturing is NOT the best way for students to learn. Obviously, I knew this but I wasn't implementing that mentality. With the past two chapters, I have started to incorporate little writing or group work activities in each lesson, just to take a break form the notes. We do still have some notes almost every day but, I try to limit is to a half hour (1/3 or of the class time) and then I use the other portions of class for review and working on HW and doing activities. It makes my job less stressful and I think the students enjoy it a lot more. I was even told this week by one students that I am the most creative teacher she has :) it really made my day because it just showed me that all the hard work I have been putting in is paying off. I'm still not sure what helps them learn the best so I gave them an evaluation to complete to tell me... we will see if it helps! Below, I am going to describe three of my favorite and most successful "activities" that I have had my students complete. I really like them and I plan on using them again!
1. Application Day
On application days, I give the students one worksheet, front and back, to work on for the whole period. On the worksheet are questions, problems and creative activities they have to complete during class. The purpose of this day is to have the students USE the information they have learned and APPLY it by using critical thinking. I remind them that the answers for the questions are not going to be in their notes or in their books, they have to actually THINK about the answers. Some of the things I have included on the application day are: videos with questions, critical thinking questions, diagram drawing, graphic organizers, poems and short essays. I allow the students to work together and they have the whole class to complete the assignment and I meander around the room and answer questions and help students fill in the blanks. During a class day like this, I am also able to help students who need more one on one attention in order to really learn and grasp the material. Our classes at MKS are not divided AT ALL so I have students who have above 100% mixed in with those who struggle to earn a 50%. I really like being able to help these students but it is difficult to do on a daily basis. This lesson gives me that opportunity.
2. Group reading
I pulled this lesson out from one of my English College of Ed. classes and it worked out so much better than I expected. First and foremost, my students REALLY like to copy off of each other. It's a really big problem in the school but, during this lesson I allowed them to copy as long as they completed some of the work! For this lesson, students had to bring their Biology books and I provided them with a packet that had a page for each section in the book. On each page there were four boxes, one for each of the "roles" a student could have. The first box was for a summary of the section. All the other boxes aligned with a "role"the student chose. There were three roles. First, the artist- this person displayed some of the information from the section as a picture, graphic organizer, or a diagram. Second, the word master- this person focused on the vocabulary in the section. This person needed to define the word and find a fun way to help the other students remember what the word meant. The last role was the question master. This students would make up three T/F or multiple choice questions about the section. After I explained all the roles, I split students into groups of three. Each student was responsible for summarizing the chapter and for one of the three "roles". So it was fair, they had to rotate roles for each section. I was a little apprehensive about this activity because a lot of the students don't like to read but, they really enjoyed it! Almost all were on task for the whole period! It was a great lesson. I think it was successful because they had a specific role and it switched with every section. This kind of variety helped them stay engaged and interested in the material. I was incredibly happy with this lesson and I will be doing it again.
3. Easter Egg Hunt (this name came from one of my students ha ha)
In class, the students had made a flip-book about dominant and recessive genetic disorders. This activity made them use the information they wrote while having a little fun! Students prepared for the activity by reviewing all the disorders as a class. I randomly called on students to re-teach about the disorder (with the help of their flip-book) and then I added any extra information. Then, each student took a full sheet of paper and number 1-20. They also made a small box in the top, right-hand corner and wrote all seven diseases in the box (this was treated as a word bank). Then, I took the class outside to our courtyard. All around the courtyard I had taped and hidden twenty notecards; on each notecard, there was a description relating to one of the genetic diseases we just reviewed. The students had to find the cards and once they were found, they had to determine what disease the card described. The whole activity took about a half-hour and the students loved it so much! It was fun watching them be really involved in a lesson. The best part, our superintendent's office looks out on to the courtyard, my principal came out of his office while we were outside and said that everyone in his office was really interested in the activity I was doing for class! I was so excited! Overall, I think the students really loved the activity and since they were enjoying themselves, they were learning as well. We will see come test time!
Well, I think that about sums everything up. These are my top three lessons! I'm sure I will come up with many more (the creative juices really have to flow teaching these students). I am having a great time teaching here and it has really made me have to think outside the box more which, overall will make me a better teacher!
Thanks for reading this novel!
Until next time :)
Today, I am sitting in my classroom all day just waiting for parents to come in and see me to inquire about their child's grades. This semester did go a little better than last semester, I would like to say. I have learned a lot about being a teacher during the first half of my first year. It has been a wonderful experience that I wouldn't trade for the world. Being here in Bahrain has had its ups and downs along with challenges. Obviously, the change of being all on my own and starting off new was a challenge. Teaching for the first time and to students who have varying levels of English is a challenge. But, with all of these challenges I have learned a lot about myself and have had an amazing adventure.
Today, I am going to reflect on my time as a teacher here at MKS so far. MKS requires that at the beginning of the year we look at teaching indicators that the school provides and then we hose at least on indicator from each of the five groups to work on and improve during the year. Being over-zealous, I'm pretty sure I chose about 20 indicators to implement and improve upon and, as I looked through them, I have noticed how much I have improved over the course of this year. My biggest improvement would have to be differentiation of instruction. I have been trying to hard to fit in new activities and new lessons that are more student-centered than a lecture and practice. During the first couple chapters I taught, I did A LOT of lecturing. I would become agitated when the students would talk so much and slowly I started to realize that lecturing is NOT the best way for students to learn. Obviously, I knew this but I wasn't implementing that mentality. With the past two chapters, I have started to incorporate little writing or group work activities in each lesson, just to take a break form the notes. We do still have some notes almost every day but, I try to limit is to a half hour (1/3 or of the class time) and then I use the other portions of class for review and working on HW and doing activities. It makes my job less stressful and I think the students enjoy it a lot more. I was even told this week by one students that I am the most creative teacher she has :) it really made my day because it just showed me that all the hard work I have been putting in is paying off. I'm still not sure what helps them learn the best so I gave them an evaluation to complete to tell me... we will see if it helps! Below, I am going to describe three of my favorite and most successful "activities" that I have had my students complete. I really like them and I plan on using them again!
1. Application Day
On application days, I give the students one worksheet, front and back, to work on for the whole period. On the worksheet are questions, problems and creative activities they have to complete during class. The purpose of this day is to have the students USE the information they have learned and APPLY it by using critical thinking. I remind them that the answers for the questions are not going to be in their notes or in their books, they have to actually THINK about the answers. Some of the things I have included on the application day are: videos with questions, critical thinking questions, diagram drawing, graphic organizers, poems and short essays. I allow the students to work together and they have the whole class to complete the assignment and I meander around the room and answer questions and help students fill in the blanks. During a class day like this, I am also able to help students who need more one on one attention in order to really learn and grasp the material. Our classes at MKS are not divided AT ALL so I have students who have above 100% mixed in with those who struggle to earn a 50%. I really like being able to help these students but it is difficult to do on a daily basis. This lesson gives me that opportunity.
2. Group reading
I pulled this lesson out from one of my English College of Ed. classes and it worked out so much better than I expected. First and foremost, my students REALLY like to copy off of each other. It's a really big problem in the school but, during this lesson I allowed them to copy as long as they completed some of the work! For this lesson, students had to bring their Biology books and I provided them with a packet that had a page for each section in the book. On each page there were four boxes, one for each of the "roles" a student could have. The first box was for a summary of the section. All the other boxes aligned with a "role"the student chose. There were three roles. First, the artist- this person displayed some of the information from the section as a picture, graphic organizer, or a diagram. Second, the word master- this person focused on the vocabulary in the section. This person needed to define the word and find a fun way to help the other students remember what the word meant. The last role was the question master. This students would make up three T/F or multiple choice questions about the section. After I explained all the roles, I split students into groups of three. Each student was responsible for summarizing the chapter and for one of the three "roles". So it was fair, they had to rotate roles for each section. I was a little apprehensive about this activity because a lot of the students don't like to read but, they really enjoyed it! Almost all were on task for the whole period! It was a great lesson. I think it was successful because they had a specific role and it switched with every section. This kind of variety helped them stay engaged and interested in the material. I was incredibly happy with this lesson and I will be doing it again.
3. Easter Egg Hunt (this name came from one of my students ha ha)
In class, the students had made a flip-book about dominant and recessive genetic disorders. This activity made them use the information they wrote while having a little fun! Students prepared for the activity by reviewing all the disorders as a class. I randomly called on students to re-teach about the disorder (with the help of their flip-book) and then I added any extra information. Then, each student took a full sheet of paper and number 1-20. They also made a small box in the top, right-hand corner and wrote all seven diseases in the box (this was treated as a word bank). Then, I took the class outside to our courtyard. All around the courtyard I had taped and hidden twenty notecards; on each notecard, there was a description relating to one of the genetic diseases we just reviewed. The students had to find the cards and once they were found, they had to determine what disease the card described. The whole activity took about a half-hour and the students loved it so much! It was fun watching them be really involved in a lesson. The best part, our superintendent's office looks out on to the courtyard, my principal came out of his office while we were outside and said that everyone in his office was really interested in the activity I was doing for class! I was so excited! Overall, I think the students really loved the activity and since they were enjoying themselves, they were learning as well. We will see come test time!
Well, I think that about sums everything up. These are my top three lessons! I'm sure I will come up with many more (the creative juices really have to flow teaching these students). I am having a great time teaching here and it has really made me have to think outside the box more which, overall will make me a better teacher!
Thanks for reading this novel!
Until next time :)
