Step 27: With the Help of my Friends

I was recently speaking with a prospective student about the elements of this program that stood out to me as particularly valuable, and I realized that one that I have not touted loudly enough throughout this blog is my dependence on my cohort. I cannot imagine having gone through this year without them. To have a group of classmates/colleagues/friends who are sharing my excitement and my frustrations in the Penn classroom, the elementary school classroom, and everything in between, has made every challenge much easier to endure, and every high much more fun to celebrate! Pragmatically speaking, it has also been helpful to have a built-in group of 30 people who know my class schedule and assignments. Most importantly, however, is the fact that I now have a group of new friends who are working toward a similar goal. Even though I will be leaving Philadelphia at the end of this program, I will doubtlessly rely on these friends as I face the tremendous difficulties of my new teaching career. And just as we faced 10 miles together in the cold and rain, I am confident that we can endure other challenging conditions with each others' encouragement and support!

TEP classmates facing the wet Broad Street Run this weekend!

 

Step 26: The Home Stretch

Believe it or not, I submitted my last project of graduate school last night. As previously described, the Term V assignment is the Inquiry Portfolio, in which we develop a question to examine through our student teaching experiences. Our question thus serves as a lens through which we can reflect back on our year; in addition to this reflective purpose this project also gives us experience in using our classroom for teacher action research in the future. As a former education researcher, I found the Inquiry Portfolio to be a great opportunity to link theory I had previously explored to the classroom practice that I am currently engrossed in.

When I recognized this connection, I actually changed my Inquiry Topic to something that I studied in my former work. In the past I was particularly interested in researching the effect of noncognitive factors on student success. These include a wide variety of feelings and concepts that students get out of school that are not specifically academic in nature. A well-researched noncognitive factor is self-efficacy, or a students' belief in his or her ability to succeed. In the past I have evaluated and written about the extent to which increasing students' perceptions of self-efficacy positively influences their performance (academic and behavioral); and so in this portfolio, I took the opportunity to explore the ways in which, as a teacher, I could build self-efficacy. This link between my past work and future career was a fitting culmination of my time in this program. And yet, interestingly, this all seems somewhat anticlimactic. Indeed, I am left somewhat "unsatisfied" - though by this I do not mean that I am disappointed. Rather, I think that this sense of dissatisfaction comes largely from the fact that I am not "done" with anything. Although my coursework is mostly over, my preparation as a teacher has only really just begun.

Logistically, however, the year really is wrapping up. We have two seminar classes remaining, and the last day of student teaching is next Friday!

Step 25: Bucket list

As my time in Philadelphia begins to wrap up, I am working my way through a bucket list of (mostly food-related) gems in this city - and let me tell you, Philadelphia is full of great ones! Hosting guests last weekend motivated me to do quite a few of them and I figured I could share them with you so you can start your list much earlier in your time here.  In no particular order, here are some fun Philly experiences I put off until the end of my year, and now I wish I had more time to go back to!

• See The Moth Story Slam at World Cafe Live. This performance venue is super close to campus and yet it took me until April to get there. This is especially shameful because The Moth is one of my favorite npr shows/podcasts, and this live story slam takes place monthly right here in University City! One of my favorite nights in Philly so far was the one I spent last Monday eating delicious appetizers and listening to these stories at the World Cafe.
• Wandering around South Philly and eating Italian pastries - I recommend those at Termini Bros, whose cannoli and cookies are incredible.
• Dinner and/or drinks at Frankford Hall: I finally made it to this beer garden last weekend and kicked myself for not having spent all of last summer there! With Jenga on every table, face-sized pretzels, and excellent beer, there is something for everyone here!
• The Franklin Institute and Philadelphia Museum of Art: Philadelphia has a lot of wonderful museums, and luckily for grad students, many offer discounted/free entry on certain weekends/nights/etc. Last week I visited an awesome Pixar exhibit at The Franklin Institute (the local science museum) which I would highly recommend, as well as a pop art exhibit at the art museum! Keep your eye out on uwishunu.com (a great site for city happenings) for discount days, etc.
• BYO Italian at one of many wonderful restaurants in the city. I have never been in a city where BYO is so common; I'm not sure why it's such a "thing" in Philadelphia, but I sure appreciate it! Bringing my own $7 bottle of wine makes a nice dinner out much less expensive. A couple favorites that I have tried so far include Sotto and La Viola. 
• And of course, the great cheesesteak taste off.  We did the classic Pat's v. Geno's and to us, Pat's won hands down!

Step 24: An Inquiry Stance

Although I only just wrote to you last week about my Term IV project, the truth is I am currently deep into my work on my fifth (and final!) integrated term project. Term V is also called the Inquiry Portfolio, and the title suggests both its role as a culmination of our development throughout the year, as well as its focus on encouraging an "inquiry stance". This term largely embodies the TEP educational philosophy: that good teachers are researchers who constantly ask questions about their practice, collect data in their classrooms, and make improvements to their teaching. This also fits with my strong belief that those with firsthand experiences in the classroom should be the people making the decisions that govern the classroom - and here, too, an inquiry stance should inform policy and practice. This focus on teacher researchers is largely what drew me to Penn GSE, and it is exciting to now feel myself truly acting as one in my current classroom.

And I must thank you, blog readers, for some of the inspiration for my inquiry question. See, as I found myself reflecting on my days and weeks in the classroom (as I have done publicly here, and through more frequent journals, etc.), I realized how valuable it is to truly challenge myself to self-assess, rather than just answer the common "how was your day?" with a typical, "fine." While doing this for myself, I began to think about how I could prioritize it in my interactions with my students as well. That is, if I personally was finding that I could best cement my learning experiences through reflection, it seemed only fitting to encourage that practice in my students, too. The question that I am exploring, therefore, is along these lines (exact wording is not yet determined):

How can I facilitate meaningful self-assessment of both behavior and performance in my classroom? And why should I do it?

To investigate this question in my current classroom, I am facilitating conversations with my students about previous behaviors, and encouraging goal setting; I am giving self-assessment rubrics with  assignments; I am using a behavior monitoring chart that requires students to reflect on specific daily actions; I am tracking student behaviors and performance, and more. This research is unlike that which I grew accustomed to in my work as a research analyst where we were concerned about controlling variables, seeking pure causation, etc.; I do not for an instant believe that I will be able to truly find a cause and effect relationship through this inquiry. I do believe, however, that by trying some purposeful things in the classroom and by keeping my eyes and ears open to student responses, I can improve my practice as a teacher.

Step 23: "The Takeover"

I vividly remember a phone conversation I had just about this time last year with a then TEP student who told me that she was about to begin her 2 week instructional "takeover" of her student teaching placement. Frankly, I was in awe. The idea of fully planning for and teaching a class for two whole weeks sounded like a mammoth task that I could not imagine taking on.

Well, I'm here tonight to tell you that my 2 weeks are done! Actually, I finished my "takeover" last week before spring break ... and to be perfectly honest, I have just needed a bit of time to process the experience before writing about it.

Initially, I have to admit, the first week of my “takeover” felt pretty anticlimactic. Now, with some distance, I believe I felt this way for a couple of reasons: 1) I did gradually build up my responsibilities in the classroom, so when the "takeover" began I was not doing anything that I had never done before that week - I just did more of each thing; but also because 2) the reality of a “takeover” is not exactly as I once feared it might be. Teaching “full-time” does not exactly mean taking on the daunting responsibility of completely filling every minute of the school day for 10 days; instead, I have learned how teachers build off of existing curricular materials, facilitate independent learning time, and make other skillful, but less active plans that do not require the teacher to be “on the spot” all the time. Furthermore, we were far from alone in preparing what and how to teach during that time. For one thing, we all had material that we needed to cover based on the school’s curriculum scope and sequence. In my case, for example, I began my 2 weeks right at the beginning of the students’ unit on fractions, so naturally I led them through the math book’s lessons much like my classroom mentor would have had she been teaching them during that unit. We also had a great deal of input and support from our seminar instructors, who oversaw the development of our “Integrated Unit”, which acts as our Term IV project (see previous posts for information on Term I, II, and III projects). This unit is meant to give us experience with longer-term planning, and teaching interdisciplinary units in a full class setting. You can explore mine here, by navigating to the Term IV page. As you can see, we have come a long way from planning single subject, small group lessons and yet I really can say that we have built up to this in small enough steps that this task that originally seemed like a mountain became a really surmountable climb!

The opportunity to really be in the teacher role consistently for two weeks straight gave me a great chance to reflect on where I am now, what I’m proud of, and what I still need to work on. A few of my current takeaways include:

·       I have definitely become more comfortable overall standing up in front of the class for a lesson. I have been noticing that I approach each lesson less like a “performance” and more just as a part of my ongoing interactions with my students. I think that this shift has helped me to be more aware of students’ reactions, because I am not just delivering material to them, and to remain more flexible.

·       Speaking of behavior management, think that I am becoming increasingly comfortable with moments of discipline and had a few instances this week when I was particularly happy with the way that I was able to react not out of anger or snap judgment, but instead with firmness but also inquiry into root causes and larger meanings of student misbehavior. That said, one thing that I need to continue working on is establishing and following up on consequences, for while I am comfortable having corrective conversations with students, I don’t really know what to do as the “next step” when I begin to have the same conversations over and over again.

·       Finally, I have definitely noticed a difference in the way I am able to react to small and large “bumps” in my lessons and school days overall. I remember that as recently as in the fall, when I scrambled a set of directions, or had a challenging conversation with a student, I left school feeling the huge weight of my mistake. While I definitely believe I need to take responsibility for my mistakes, I also think that it represents progress for me to now be able shrug off small things such that I can focus on bigger issues.

Thanks for coming along on this journey with me - and please feel free to reach out with any questions or comments you might have if you are thinking about joining next year's TEP cohort! My email is RSarnoff@gse.upenn.edu.

Step 22: The "perfect storm"

 Monday, 3/14

  Losing 1 hour of the weekend
  Darker morning wake up
  Dreary rain
  Cold season
+Monday
________________________
"The perfect storm"


Truly it is not usually any great stretch to "stay positive" in my reflections on this blog. I can honestly and enthusiastically say that I am enjoying my time in the classroom, experiencing real growth as a teacher, and loving the city of Philadelphia. And yet Mondays can be very hard! (And, let's be real, so can Tuesdays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, or even Fridays...) This term, student teaching really is a full-time job; and along with the fantastic highs of this role, also come daily trials. Today's efforts to get students' heads up off of their desks and their brains focused on math in the late afternoon were particularly tiresome when I, myself, also would have loved a break! In these tough days, my relationships with my Classroom Mentor, Penn Mentor, and friends in my cohort are invaluable. It was actually my fantastic Penn Mentor (a retired teacher who visits me weekly to observe, provide advice, and overall act as my fairy godmother of the program) who pointed out how dramatically the cards were stacked against us yesterday - and yet she provided great solace in my day, both by helping me to strategize ways to engage my students, and also just by lending a caring and compassionate ear to my trials of the day. Similarly, it was comforting to check in with my classmates today and hear that I was not at all alone in feeling "off" yesterday. In fact, I cannot emphasize enough how important sharing the experiences of this whole year with my classmates has been. From quick texts to long library study sessions, they are always there to get me through the tough days and projects, and I couldn't dream of doing it without them!

Step 21: Teacher Networks

I am continually impressed by the number of teacher networks organized in Philadelphia. It is truly inspiring to see how a large community of teachers comes together for funding opportunities, professional development, and even just emotional support. Within the past month, I attended two events, hosted by different groups, but not at all in competition with each other. The first was the PhilaSoup Winter Brunch, where three local teachers presented on projects that they hoped to do with their students, and based on the votes of the attendees, the organizers distributed grant money to enable them! At the event, we also learned about other grant opportunities available to teachers, chatted with teachers from other schools, ate great food, and even got to take home a ream of paper (invaluable to teachers)!

Just this past week I had the cathartic experience of attending a meeting of the Action Research Group. This group, which meets at Penn but is not affiliated with any particular school, serves as a "third space" for teachers to come together to discuss research they are pursuing within their own classrooms. I was drawn to their meeting particularly after a presentation some members did at the Ethnography Forum a few weeks ago that really helped me to understand what teacher research can look like, and how valuable it can be to a classroom (more on this is an upcoming post). The meeting, however, really satisfied not only the researcher side of me, but perhaps even more so the overwhelmed grad student and prospective teacher side because it helped me focus on the "light at the end of the tunnel" so to speak. Many of the current members of the group are TEP graduates from recent years, and seeing them now as teachers, employed, and (despite daily challenges) really loving their jobs, was reinvigorating. They reminded me that each assignment I am doing this term is in service of becoming a better teacher, and that I should focus on doing these things to benefit me, not for the grade etc. This came at an important time, as I turn my attention to my final portfolio assignment. I hope to be able to use this assignment not only to sum up my work from the year for external audiences, but to give myself an opportunity to reflect on all that I have done this year!