Adventures in Learning About Learning

  Share 3 things that you learned through your practicum experience this semester that you don't want to forget. Select 1 one of those and draw a connection between it and something you learned in this course.  I did my practicum with a group of 7th and 8th graders, and I learned so much from them.  The first thing I learned was that I love middle school. I went into this course with a pretty clear idea that middle school was NOT for me and that high school is definitely where I want to teach. And upper level high school at that! After being with these students and building relationships and getting to know them I've come to appreciate what an interesting stage of life adolescence is. they still have childish curiosity but at the same time are starting to come to terms with some real world issues. They are free spirited, and loud, and not afraid at all to make mistakes. When we get older we get so concerned about our professional/ academic demeanor and...

  What have you seen as the biggest challenge for your cooperating teacher since you've been there? How are they working to overcome it? If you were in their shoes, how might you approach this challenge? This week was really  interesting because I was able to come in twice. Once just in the morning, and another time I got to be a part of professional development. The biggest challenge I have seen my cooperating teacher face is, as part of professional development, completing part of an equity audit. All the teachers were given about an hour to fill out one 2 sections of an equity audit, and my cooperating teacher worked with the other humanities teacher to do this. The conversation was long and in depth and they often disagreed on where they considered themselves on the scale for different categories. They worked through this by going back to the question at hand, and combining up with a common understanding of that question. Once that was done, and they got to the root o...

What formative assessment strategies have you seen your cooperating teacher use?  How were they used, what purpose did they serve, and if possible, what did your cooperating teacher learn from them? Provide at least 2 examples. More are welcome. I had a really interesting chat with my cooperating teacher about formative assesments. I explained to him that it was formative assessment week in this class, and he shared that his philosophy about formative vs summative assessments is that they don't necessarily have to be vasty different. He described using a specific formative assessment 3 times in a unit, once in the beginning, middle, and end. The last time he administers it, it's actually a summative assessment but since its in the same format its not recognized as one by the students. We then talked about how this was only really possible because of proficiency based grading. In the assessment he looks for their ability to...

Provide an example of a standard that your cooperating teacher has been teaching to. How did you find this out? How was it communicated to learners? In what ways did a lesson(s) you were there for connect to that standard? ​​ The way that my cooperating teachers design lessons is turning "standards" into "indicators". These indicators are in learner friendly language, and are very short and concise. I believe that these standards are discussed at the beginning of each unit, though I don't know for sure. I joined the class at the very end of a unit so I haven't seen much lesson work yet. Some are more general, and some are more specific to the unit. One example of an indicator is,"  I can write informative and explanatory texts." This is the standard " Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas, concepts, and information through the selection, organization, and analysis of relevant content." written in learner ...

What are you most excited about now that you've started and what are you now most nervous about. Why? Be specific-- we want to learn something about your experiences in your practicum so far based on your response. Now that I've started my practicum, one of the most fun parts has been chatting with students and getting to know them. I've worked with these students specifically one on one, and as a helper in the classroom, but never with them in a whole class setting. The other part that has been really cool, which I didn't expect, was just how fun getting to know how the classroom works behind the scenes. I have never been a part of planning time, so that was really cool. My cooperating teacher (here and forever known as "Kaleb") works very closely with, let's call her, Amie. They work together and teach humanities collaboratively. During planning time they talked about their plans for after this break, and shared the curriculum document with me. I got to ...

 My other boss called me, and it sounded like I was about to be in trouble. He's an interesting man with a hard to read cadence, at least to me. It's one of the reasons I like him so much, I'm normally able to read people immediately and understand what's happening around me. With Peter, however, I am not.  The camp that I work for means more to me than anything else in the whole world, and when Peter told me he saw the work I was doing and made me the director of communications I had no words. I had spent so much extra time working on these projects, and to see that work being recognized I felt very content. He explained that the Vermont Humanities Council had one, so why not Funnery? Also that he was frustrated with people not answering emails, so he wanted me to reach out via other social media platforms.  So far I have made a GTTTF instagram, planted a seed for a relationship with the MAC Center for the Arts, and done a shit ton of promoting.  Thus begins my new ...