Blog: 18-19
Morgan Kueter:
I am a first year science teacher at Fossil Ridge School. This blog is designed to archive my struggles and successes as I implement new technology into my classroom.
I am a first year science teacher at Fossil Ridge School. This blog is designed to archive my struggles and successes as I implement new technology into my classroom.
1. Description, What happened: I recently had a bad day on Thursday. There were three students who chose to cause a scene in my class because they did not like their grade. I defused the scene by reminding the students that they can always can and talk to me about their grade and defend their work if they feel that they deserved a better grade. However, I was upset the outburst occurred and effected other students in the class, as well as in reflecting on their work I believe I was more than fair when grading. On top of that I also found out that morning that someone had stolen the study guide answer key from the classroom. I also had to talk to a student later that day about whether or not he plagiarized part of a large project that he turned in earlier that week. These three things I allowed to snowball on each other causing me to be more upset than a single event would have caused.
2. Feeling, What were you thinking and feeling?: These three things particularly got to me emotionally because I try and create a culture of mutual respect and trust within my classroom and all of these instances went against the culture of the classroom. I was feeling annoyed that once again these students are causing a scene about a grade when I have procedures in place that allow for them to address their opinions more appropriately. I allow students to advocate for their work and I am available for students every single day to have this conversation and instead these students choose to act like children and throw a fit. I was also feeling disrespected that a student would steal the study guide when I allow them to take picture of the answers, so that they can double check that they are studying the correct information. And on top of that the student who stole the study guide is taking away an educational resource from other students in the class because I only make one copy of the answers. Overall, I was drained that I have put a lot of time into establishing a specific classroom culture and it was overlooked on 3 separate occasions all in one day. 3. Evaluation, What was good and bad about the experience: A good thing about this experience is that it is going to allow me to address again classroom respect and the differences between rights and privileges in the classroom on Monday when address the study guide issue. Another good thing is that I was able to have a one on one conversation with the student I thought plagiarized. It turned out he did not plagiarize, but we did have the opportunity to talk about individual perceptions as well as how to take that into consideration during his next project. I also was able to reflect with my colleagues about how they create rubrics and use them for grading. This gave me great insight into how I can continue to improve my rubrics in the future. What is bad about the experience is that aspects of the classroom culture were clearly disregarded, and we now need to review respectful behavior. This also is going to result in the loss of certain privileges which is going to result in more work for me. 4. Analysis, what sense can you make of this situation: Overall what I am making of this situation is that I cannot assume that just because we have maintained a respectful classroom culture for a quarter that we do not need continuous, consistent reminders to ensure everyone is held accountable. I also was able to determine that I have some wonderful colleagues who are very supportive when having a bad day and are willing to listen and help you grow. I am taking from this experience that leaning on my colleagues is okay and that developing those relationships is crucial to making it though a tuff day. 5. Action Plan, if it arose again what would you do: If this were to arise again I would again rely on my colleagues and be grateful for the relationships and supportive culture we have built between each other. I would also like to work on being mindful when these events snowball on each other. I allowed myself to get emotional and then I prayed and spent time in rest with the lord. It would have been helpful to take a minute and recenter myself before I let my emotions get the best of me.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Archives
November 2018
Categories |