4th Week: Comfort Zone

My fourth week student teaching has been much more comfortable. I am feeling more settled, and I'm beginning to find a rhythm with my classes and my students. I still have my challenges with classroom management, but it is getting easier as I try new things and stay consistent.

I have been forced to get out of my comfort zone this week. Monday was a full day. Carol Ann, my CSU Supervisor, came to my 5th Hour Entrepreneurship class to observe my SWOT Analysis lesson, which went delightfully well. The students participated and kept their phones put away. It was a pleasurable class, and I would do it all over again. I used the same class to practice the Market Research Lesson that would be observed on Wednesday in 6th Hour, and it also went well. Students were receptive to the lesson and worked diligently on their projects. I had a few chatty students, but with high school students, I think that is to be expected. One thing that I did differently that worked really well was to ensure that the students weren't logged on to the computers during class. Because they weren't logged in to the computers, there was less distraction.

The 6th Hour Entrepreneurship class, however, has been more of a challenge. There are very strong personalities in this class, so that's the first struggle. I find myself trying to find new ways to communicate with students and find new activities that may help them to engage and learn. Many are distracted by their cell phones and by the computers, so I'm constantly trying to keep them focused and on task. This was the class that was difficult during my observation. Most were unresponsive to my lecture and didn't participate when called upon during discussion. Again, I'm looking for new strategies to reach these students so that they will learn.

Monday was also our first Colorado State University Seminar. Marc Buffington, a Poudre High School Social Studies teacher, is the leader of the seminar. There are fourteen university students in the group. We all introduced ourselves and then talked a little about Response to Intervention (RTI) from an educational perspective. This service allows teachers to report a student that is failing or may not be doing as well as he/she thinks that they should. In reporting these students, educators and counselors can intervene if necessary and put the students on a comprehensive schedule to help them reach their goals. We went through real-life scenarios in groups. Our group read about a girl who had failed the 10th grade. She was missing a lot of class and had some pressure from gangs, but she did want to finish high school. The RTI team put her on an attendance contract and had her favorite teacher mentor her through the rest of high school, and she was able to graduate with A's and B's. In this case, RTI really helped a student to accomplish her goals. While this process doesn't always work, it does give teachers and counselors insight into a students' life and how to help ease some of their frustration along the way.

Mr. Long, my mentor teacher, has been giving lessons all week based on activities that relate to the objectives for the class. One of the activities was a paper airplane making activity in Economics. There were required to create paper airplanes as a group that would fly through a hula hoop. There were three or four rounds. Another activity was a Play-Doh activity in International Business. The students were divided into four or five groups, where some of the groups were Less Developed Countries and others were in Industrialized Countries. They were given specific products to make with prices on them. There were three rounds and some of the groups were able to change into an Developing Country or even an Industrialized Country. These products were made with Play-Doh. The final activity was the Pizza Productivity lesson in Economics. There were four or five rounds; the students were divided into groups of five. Each round was a little different in the way that they made the pizzas. Each round was judged by the teachers for quality, so pizzas were thrown out for not being perfect. There were some formulas that they had to calculate in order to determine the cost of each pizza and how much profit was earned. It was fun and inspiring to see all of the students participating and excited to work on these activities.