Trying to Put the "Public" in Public School Teacher

How have I grown at being public as a teacher this quarter?  Well, I am teaching more, often in front of not only my CT but also IAs and parents, so that feels a lot more public.  Also, I have been more transparent in sharing my teaching experiences on my blog, thus being more public with my cohort peers (and beyond, if anyone is looking).  I did change the settings on my blog this quarter so that it is more accessible to the general blog-reading public, though I haven’t gone out of my way to “advertise” my presence anywhere other than the time I left a link with a post on an outsider’s blog (and I did get a comment back -- more on that in a minute).  I simply didn’t have the luxury of time to purposefully do more of this type of commenting and linking.  

This has been a very challenging quarter in terms of balancing student teaching with course requirements.  I really enjoy exploring the blogs of my cohort-mates and professional educators, however there just has not been the time to read them except for the few required for class each week.  I believe that blogging is a valuable practice and hope to have the time to explore and share more in the future.  Even if I don’t have time to keep up my own blog in the near term, I now know what a valuable resource the blogospere is for teachers. 

The only successful blog “conversation” (outside of the cohort) that I have had this quarter was with Jenny Orr around her blog post Terms I Hate: Classroom Management and her comment back to me on my post Management vs. Leadership.  It was exciting to get that feedback and I look forward to exploring these avenues of online conversation further as I begin my own teaching career next year. 

A big change I noticed this quarter within our own cohort blogs was that the writing and commenting were more authentic.  Even though many were blogging only because it was a requirement, we were all teaching more and therefore had more authentic experiences to share and genuine questions to pose.  Two examples of constructive comments I made to others are: this one on a post entitled Observe and Report (again on the topic of classroom management -- not surprisingly, this was a hot topic this quarter as we all took on more teaching responsibility) and this one on a post entitled Communicating With Parents.

The most meaningful posts that I made this quarter in terms of being public with my own teaching practice (and also starting a meaningful conversation with others) were my posts on classroom management:  Management vs Leadership and Promoting Self Management.  I was transparent about difficulties I had while subbing and created a space for others to share similar situations (both online and in class) so we could all brainstorm solutions together.

Lastly, regarding other online PLC opportunities besides blogging, I have found Diigo and Pinterest (our cohort postings in particular) to be a very valuable resource this quarter as well.  These are sites where I have found connections to a multitude of teachers and other educational resources this quarter and I know that I will continue to use them regularly in the future.

Process vs. Content

Process and Content, these two words have bubbled up continually in various contexts this quarter.  In writing lesson plans for different courses, we have been told we could have a learning target that was either content or process oriented -- for example, a learning target of understanding photosynthesis or comprehension of a text (content) on the one hand, or a learning target of understanding the scientific method or a specific reading strategy (process) on the other.  It has been helpful for me to differentiate the two types of learning goals in thinking about my lesson planning. 

What I learned this week is that it is also vitally important to think about process and content when giving students directions.  I taught a writing lesson on Wednesday and when I gave the students their “off you go” instructions for independent writing time, I felt like my directions were too long-winded and found, not surprisingly, that many students did not have a clear idea of what was expected of them.  I was not surprised when my CT brought this up after the lesson.  She agreed that I had re-capped the learning objective and given them directions on what to do during their independent writing time, but her observation about what went wrong was spot on.  I had interwoven the directions (process) with the lesson recap (content), which ended up muddling the students’ understanding of both.  I was relieved that the solution was so simple. 

The following day I had my formal observation during my writing lesson.  This time I was careful to delineate between the end of the mini-lesson (content recap) and the “off you go” instructions (process).  I further supported the students in accessing and understanding each piece separately by having an anchor chart that summarized the lesson content on the wall and a list of task instructions up on the ActivBoard.  It felt better to me as I was teaching and I had no confused students approach me afterwards about what they should be doing.  Everyone got right to work.  My field instructor commented on how well the end of the lesson had gone and, of course, I gave credit to my CT for her astute observation the day before.  It really drove home to me the importance of separating process and content in my teaching.