Week of Reflection: 10/21/16

This week overall I would give a 4. The beginning of the week was kinda crappy, I had my second observation and it did not go as well as I would have liked it to. I really had a hard time getting through all that until Friday. On Friday I was tired of feeling so terrible,so I wanted to push out of the slump. So I just went into the whole day and taught all of the classes. I pushed everything out of my head and just did what naturally worked. Rather than trying to force a plan I just went with the flow and had an amazing experience. I really feel like I was reaching the kids but still being firm to have them learn. One of my goals is to gain more meaningful professional development, this week during planning we attended a literacy in our content area professional development. The whole time I thought of Dr. Clark and how I learned a lot of this in Ed 316. So it was really awesome being able to contribute to the conversations and get some info. to help in my personal conversations. The beginning of this week was one of those "should I really be a teacher?" weeks. I felt extremely defeated and I was really down on myself. But I got out of that mindset after my classes on Friday. Next week is when I am supposed to be doing my edTPA, I am really nervous about it just because I really am challenging my students. I just have to do the best that I can and hope I reach some students in the process. This week I have really been focusing on how I am going to instruct the percussionist after marching band. Most of them are extremely un-motivated and don't want to do anything in class. So if we do concert band music the whole time they will become bored and that creates no motivation as well. So I found a percussion ensemble piece and also a body percussion piece I want to try with them. No major advice this week, more of let's finish strong! 

NCTCS:

1a) Friday when teaching the freshman band I felt like a real leader. I facilitated in running the marching band show and gave opportunities for the sections to talk to each other to name their sections trouble spots. 

2b) My school that I am student teaching at is not really diverse in general. The main population is almost 80% caucasian students. So I have been struggling with how to  express more diversity in the classroom. What it came down for me is, the biggest diversity is the different social classes. There are a lot of really wealthy students and a lot of very poor students. With this being said, the band program is selling band jackets that are $83. For someone wealthy that is pocket change, but for someone not a wealthy that is saw as like a million dollars. This really struck with me and I was scared that these jackets could really divide the band and show the wealthy, "better" students having the jackets and the poor ones not being "cool" just cause they didn't have a jacket. So I came to my CT with an idea about the jackets. I wanted to see if there were some band parents/teachers/ anyone who would be willing to be a sponsor for a couple band kids who really wanted a jacket but couldn't afford it. He really liked that idea and it is in the works.

 3c) We had that professional development this past week about literacy in your content area and it really helped refresh my opinion of literacy in the classroom. It really is so important to incorporate reading/writing/analyzing texts all of those things that can help enhance literacy skills. This also is going along side with helping the school improvement plan to improve ACT and English II scores.

4a) I have been struggling with how to act with my freshmen class. They are in high school but aren't really at the maturity level for being in high yet? So I was being very harsh with them because they weren't listening and they talked all the time. So this Friday I learned to let go of some of the nonsense a little because they aren't my wind ensemble who are used to being in high school. I feel like I now have a better balance with them. 

5) This week I have done a lot of reflecting from my last observation. Just really trying to see where I can improve, I brushed some of the negative thoughts out of my head and really did well in class Friday.

Portfolio stuff I have set to the side. I'm just trying to get through edTPA. (HALP) My CT and I are doing okay. I'm looking forward to going to Dr. Soja's house on Monday evening!