Read & React #2 - Marzano

Teacher Scales for Reflection vs. 12 Qualities

I have to admit I feel rather ill equipped to answer many of the points Marzano stipulates, and not because they don't have relevance, but because I don't have my own classroom and have not had enough time in the teaching.  So I am going to speak from my experience as a student teacher and substitute.  One of the main reasons I wanted to become a substitute was so that I could have the opportunity to see multiple schools and age levels in one district.  If all one needs is 60 credits and a clean background check to sub than I was excessively over qualified when I started last fall.  Not to mention the years of educational training I have undertaken.

All that being said, I felt like the teacher scales were occasionally redundant, and at the same time with each new wording a slightly different aspect of teaching was pointed out as important.  I started with the elements I have had the most success with and went from there.  One phrase I heard myself saying over and over was "I have not had the opportunity yet of ...".  To try and keep this post from being unreadable I am simply going to say "yet/but".

What do I typically do to organize the physical layout of the classroom? –  4, I have not had the opportunity of design the layout of my own room yet/but.  From the spaces I have spent time in one thing I've found to be very important is clearly defined spaces.  With Head start aged kids it is vitally important that each area of the room be readable as it's own identifiable space, and that the kids know one area is not interchangeable with another.  

What do I typically do to chunk content into digestible bites? – 4, When I started my student teaching the only lesson plans I had written were from my courses at MU.  I often had a great deal of content I wanted the students to learn in much too short a time span.  Learning to create digestible bites of information was something I had to do from my first lesson during student teaching.  If while planing I expected something to take ten minutes, I would allot for 20 mins of class time.  

What do I typically do to help students revise knowledge? – 4, VTS is a wonderful tool for finding out what students really know and let students build off each others observations.  As each new comment is made, students question why and form opinions as to why. 

What do I typically do to students verbally summarizing new learning? – 3, (VTS)

What do I typically do to present unusual or intriguing information? – 4, I like to throw in bizarre artist from history to present a different idea for a topic.  Plus I love art history so it gives me more opportunities to discover along with the students. 

What do I typically do to demonstrate withitness? – 4,  It doesn't matter if it's a room full of 8th graders or 4 year olds, when one person acts out it starts a change reaction and in ten mins the whole room is in chaos.   I thing I have found the most helpful (besides moving around the room as much as possible) is to know the students names and the moment I see something starting anywhere in the room call attention to it.  Respect is earned not given but that is a two way street.  If I want my students to respect me I have to present myself as someone worthy of their respect, and not just demand obedience of them.  As a substitute this is my most important element. 

What do I typically do to let classroom rules and procedures go lax mid-year? – 3, I haven’t worked with the same group of kids for a whole year, but for the duration of my student teaching I tried to adjust my expectation for the students only once they were used to my rules.

What do I typically do to have the same expectations for low students as for the high ones? – 3, I have made a conscious effort to differentiate my lessons and grading criteria for students at different ability levels.

What do I typically do to celebrate success?  – 3, With small children age 3 to 5 up through 4th or 5th a constant stream of praise is needed.  When you're trying to get a class to follow directions there might be one or two who are doing exactly what you've asked, and by saying "thank you Jimmy for doing what I asked, or I really appreciate how Sally is following directions", those who are not follow directions will usually attempt to follow suit so they also can be praised as well. 

What do I typically do to notice when students are not engaged? – 3, It might just be a part of being a new teacher but I feel like I am constantly checking the level of engagement of a class, stopping occasionally throughout the lesson to ask question of those I don't feel are engaged enough.  

What do I typically do to use verbal and nonverbal behaviors that demonstrate affection for students? – 3, I am not a small person and if I forget to smile I sometimes scare kids, but not just kids anyone who doesn't know me really.  This is something I have struggled with since I was 15 and 5'10''.  One of the first critisim I received from my host teacher was that I needed to smile more so I didn't scare the students.  I tend to get really focused on things I'm still learning and forget to smile, thus coming across as pissed off.  Which really is the opposite of what is going on.  Getting down on the students level can be very useful, however. 

What do I typically do to establish and maintain classroom rules and procedures? – 3 to 2, Yet/But, Consistency and follow through have always yielded the best results.  Students must know what the rules are and fully understand that I'm always going to hold them accountable to them.

What do I typically do to help students elaborate on new info?  – 3 to 2, Yet/But, something as simply as asking the students to put the new information into their own words can be very useful.  In art demonstrating a new process or medium can be disguised as fun with purposeful play, in math it's like showing you work, not just the answers, or having a student demonstrate the new process for someone who was absent the day the lesson was taught. 

What do I typically do to help students track their own progress? – 2, It seems a fairly simple task to keep all work throughout the year and at the end compare early pieces to the most recent.  With the middle school kids I taught about 90% of them would throw their work away on their way out of the room.  It frustrated me to the point that I made a new rule to keep them from throwing their pieces away in my room.  My elementary host teacher would go so far keep all work for the year till the end and then return it all in the last week, but then the students wouldn't be able to track anything till the end of the year. 

What do I typically do to routinely providing students with rubrics? – 2, I have written rubrics for some of the lesson plans I created for my college courses but I’ve never actually used them in the classroom setting.  I have made lists of criteria needed for an assignment to be completed and posted them on the board.  I don't really think out exactly what makes an assignment A, B, or C quality until I have the group as a whole in front of me, I lay out those who have completed the criteria from the ones who didn't, and of those completed which were more successful, etc. 

Possessing all 12 qualities of a great teacher is only half of the picture.  Add in ten years of experience to work out how to best use those qualities in order to produce the best 32 elements.  Then you have One amazing teacher.  Until that point keep on keeping on. 

Family Tree - Education Lineage / Genealogy

I have never thought of myself as a literal kind of person, but as I sat down to work on this part of the weeks assignment I quite literally started at birth and wrote down every teacher I could think of, giving each one a + or - score.  Up until my college years it was a fairly straight forward recollection process, after college not so much.  I can't remember all the names but I remember at least one inconsequential fact about every teacher I had in K-12.  The surprising thing is I hated school so much back then, every good teacher has some sort of bad memory to accompany them: 
 - I remember being 5 years old and being humiliated for the first time.  Something about how I was a very moveable child and was told in no uncertain terms "do no get up again" or else, and sitting at my seat until I peeing my pants because I didn't ask to get up. 
 - I remember forging currency in 2nd grade so I could buy toys.  My teacher would hand out little slips of cut up paper, worth varying amounts, for following the rules or doing something well, and at the end of the semester we could buy stuff from her "classroom store".  I worked so much harder to fake the "classroom currency" than I ever did at following the rules.  
 - After a month and a half of third grade my parents decided to hold me back a grade because I was having so many learning troubles.  In that short span of time my teacher had confiscated a bucket full of stuff from me.  Every day I would come to class with something to play with, marbles, mini figurines, toy-shaped erasers, pens, pencils, etc., and everyday she would end up taking it away in an effort to get me to focus on the whatever she was teaching, to no avail.  Once going back to 2nd I was very self-conscious and felt stupid.  My teacher was amazing and made me her special helper for the year, which helped to bolster my spirits, but not enough.   
The list goes on, and on, and on.  As a child I was your typical, very active little holy terror.  At 5 my mom enrolled my sister and I in art lessons for the summer.  In the beginning, I’m sure, the lessons were more for my mother’s peace of mind than my own, but as the years passed I grew to cherish the time I spent each week learning to draw the world around me.  My teacher was a phenomenal artist in her own right and she had a gift for working with children.  I seemed to be continually moving in place when I was young and with drawing I could make myself slow down and be calm.  Throughout elementary and middle school, I remember feeling a great deal of accomplishment after completing a project and earning an A in my art classes.  I don't know how much of that was due to the teachers or just finding something I loved doing wholeheartedly.   
In 8th grade I started attending public school, I went form the same 15 to 20 kids 1st grade through 7th to over  a thousand students all the same age in one building and not knowing any of them.  The art room became my sanctuary.  
My freshman year however Mr. Utsler was my art teacher and the worst teacher I'd ever had up to that point, (that included my geography teacher from the year before who has us watch snow boarding videos and movies all year).   Mr. Utsler was in his last year teaching, and he hated students, hated teaching, maybe even art.  He infected everyone around him with a distaste for the subject and I didn't take art for a year after that.  
Throughout high school I remember being closer to my teachers than fellow students. I was no longer the holy terror in class but the teacher's pet.  The ones who really stand out as amazing educators each had something unique and genuine about them.  Whether it was a sarcastic/cynical wit, twenty years of experience and still being amazed by students, passion for their subject or compassion for the emotional roller coaster of life a teenager goes through, they all left a profound impression upon me.   Honestly, I think the "bad" teachers had a greater impact, because I wanted to be a teacher and prove it wasn't that hard.  The ones who screwed it up so badly had no excuse. 
During my senior year I did 50 hours of community service and I would spend an hour a day at an elementary school.  The 4th grade teacher who I helped out was in her last year teaching.  She did all kinds of little extras to incorporate art projects into every subject.  Watching her made me really want to be a teacher for the first time.  

College life was easy for the first couple years, not much of a challenge.  
My Algebra teacher was a Japanese guy who had been burned in a fire and over 90% of his body was scared.  When he wrote on the board he had to lift his leg because the skin didn't stretch enough, but he had the most beautiful hand writing!  I purposefully changed the way I wrote the number nine after taking his class.  
I opened up so much to my English teacher through the Journal writings she assigned that we kept in contact for four years after class ended.  I couldn't tell you her name now.
The first photography teacher I had thought he was God's gift to the world and if you didn't instantly get everything he taught, you weren't worth his time.  Thank goodness I could take good pictures. 
My Chemistry teacher was a washed up professional who thought he could just switch to teaching, not!  If not for a friend in the class I would have failed.  Just because you understand how to do complex mathematical equations in your head dose mean you can teach someone else to do the same. 
Then came MU, I have been a student at here for almost eight years.  The list of amazing teachers I have had the privilege of learning from is quite extensive.  I purposefully took every single course Mark Langeneckert taught just so I could work with him, and in all that time he only once gave me an A.  He is a phenomenal illustrator and instructor, but refused to let me get by without doing my best.  I truly respect him for it.   

The good and bad qualities of a teacher are much the same in college as they are in high school.  I have had teachers who should retire and won't, teachers with far too much intelligence to teach anything all, and others I didn't respect because I did a better job explaining how to do the assignment to classmates than they did.   
The Art and Art Ed departments at MU have some of the greatest artist-teachers ever.  (Kathy Unrath and Jo Stealey just to name my favorites)   The biggest impression I am left with after all this self-reflection is that I have such a long way to go to be anywhere near the level of educator my teacher's example has set for me. 

 

Read & React #1

"12 Qualities great teachers share"

It is hard for me to truly know how committed to teaching I am from experiences as a teacher.  Yes, that is a strange thing to say but I am not an art teacher yet.  I have done my student teaching and am currently a substitute teacher but an art teacher that dose not make me.  I am going to rate myself more on my hoped perception of my own abilities, and hopefully this comes across as more than a big ego.  On the other hand I am in my eleventh year of college because I refuse to quit until I am an art teacher.

Passion for Teaching - 1 / My earliest memory of wanting to teach or mentoring others was at seven when I taught my brother how to add, subtract, etc. at the age of three.  Granted he was and is an exceptionally smart person, but I was elated that he understood what I was trying to teach him.   I still have a deep desire and passion for teaching and I still get that feeling of elation when a student has that look of understanding dawning on their face. 

Love of kids - 1 / Children are exhausting, infuriating, tedious, maddening, and I love them for it.  I have been working at a head start center for the last month, kids aged 3 to 5, and out of the 16 students in our room almost half have some kind of behavioral or developmental issues.  Just yesterday when I left work my boss asked me if I was going to keep coming back, because she is convinced the room will eventually frighten me off.  One of the kids I love the most is the worst one in the room, but he is such a sweet kid.  In education if we are not unwilling to look past the rough edges to the diamond underneath then you have no right to be the the field.  I personally caused my fair share of grey hair, and I owe a great debt of gratitude to the teachers who never gave up on me.  

Love of their Subject - 1 / The only quality I might add to this list, and it is a pretty awesome list all on it's own, would be a core belief that anyone can create and make amazing art, no matter how primitive it looks at first glance.  Now this is very specific to art teachers, more so, than just a love for the subject matter one teaches and or is being taught.   Not every subject will apply but for me art is the most important because it can help to build characteristic in students which lend themselves to other subjects.  So aspect of creativity should be added to every other subject taught in school.  Without art life would be meaningless. 

Understanding of the role of a school in a child's life - 2 / For many students school is the one constant in their young lives.  With the staggering increase of rate of "broken" homes students often depend the school to have any kind of consistency in their daily routine.

A willingness to change - 2 / With every art or education course I've taken I see more ways I need to change my thinking or rational.  The hard part comes in when I try to implement these changes into my life.  As educators we must be life long students first and teachers second. 

A work ethic that doesn't quit - 2 / During my student teaching I got to know the night custodial staff really well.  I am a little sad to say that I would often leave after the custodian.  Part of that is that it was simply easier to stay and work on lesson plans and exemplars at the school than to bring it all home but I loved being able to work in a quiet space filled with art supplies and work. 

A willingness to reflect - 2 / "Thinking is the only way by which the mind can digest content", "students have difficulty thinking critically about their actions 'unless they are writing or speaking out these thoughts in settings in which others respond."
"Writing is not only a medium for thought, it is a potentially powerful vehicle for developing thought"
"... the practice of reflecting critically on their work -- a process inherently necessary for exemplary teaching.(Henry, pg. 17 & 20) are my favorite quotes about reflection by C. Henry and have been proven accurate.  What more can I say, with out reflection you can not become great. Henry, C. (Vol. 52, No.2, March, 1999). The Role of Reflection in Student Teachers' Perceptions of Their Professionsal Development. Art Education, 14-20

Organization - 3 / I have to admit I really related with Chris Lehmann on this one.  I have always been great at winging it, as long as I understand the topic I was talking about.  I am not organized enough and more than once I went a whole day without one lesson being written down.  I knew the ins and outs of what I was going to teach and always had exemplars but this is a very bad habit to let myself get into. 

Understanding that being a "great teacher" is a constant struggle to always improve - 3 / We all started our Teacher Education Programs with a life time of preconceived ideas and notions about what teaching really is.  We have been "participant observers" Preschool through College.  We must understand ourselves to

Enough ego to survive the hard days - 2 / There are days I feel a great sense of self-efficacy and then there are days when I doubt I will ever fully understand what I'm doing.  The key to surviving (I think) is finding the happy medium and allowing yourself to be a little cocky and a little terrified at the same time.  

A willingness to work collaboratively - 2 / One of my favorite people was my first host teacher, Dr. Ginnie.  I was amazed by pretty much everything about her, but one of the first thing she told me was about collaborating with other teacher and how vital it was to giving her lessons validity and value for her students.  The three V's!  I only hope I will get the chance to do the same with my own class someday. 

Introduction

Hello, my name is Esther McCune and for me art making is not successful until my hands are dirty, my clothes are stained and the room I’m working in is in a state of organized chaos.

This is the third year in my certification/master’s program at MU and true to form I am late getting enrolled in my classes because of some conflict with any one of a half a dozen departments.  I love and hate MU, I can’t stress enough how much I have respected and enjoyed my teachers but with equally as much frustration I hate having to deal with the bureaucracy of MU.  I need one class to complete my certification requirements.  Last semester by the time I was allowed to enroll the course I needed was full so for the spring semester I started trying to enroll back in November, but without success until a week and a half before the semester started. Once again the class I needed was full so I said to heck with it an took another graduate fibers.  This is my first art class in a year and I have missed it terribly.  I have been in a funk for months now but feel so uplifted being able to talk about my art and about doing more work.  After meeting with Jo Stealey just once I am registered in a Fiber Artist Convention the first weekend in February and will hopefully be presenting my work. 

This past spring I did my student teaching in the Independence School District and loved every minute of it. I got wonderful recommendations for all four of my principles and full marks from my host teachers, but no job yet. I have been substitute teaching for a couple months now and am really liking being back in the classroom.  So I will continue moving forward with the program and continue trying to get a teaching position. 

PS I applied for an elementary art teacher position that popped up Yesterday, so we'll see where it goes.

I am so looking forward to the new year and all its possibilities to come with a new semester, new blog, my new job, and a wonderful new experience in Art Education!