Htravisunc's Blog

Case Study-Behavior notes 1

So this week I have focused on gathering as much information as I can on my child. I have been primarily using the frequency observation form and I have also been taking frequent anecdotal notes.  I have noticed a lot of patterns that seem to be present when looking at behavior patterns and times of the day.  My focus child seems to be totally random as far as when he acts out. We have been trying to figure out why and when he acts out but it is never consistent so we are still watching carefully as the year progresses.  Something that I have noticed is that the student I am observing has really improved since the begging of the year, at least I think he has.  I feel that he is having a lot less melt downs, and he is really able to focus on tasks that need to be done more than he was in September.  I have also learned that my student goes home every day with his grandmother and she is very involved in his academic life.  Grandma usually helps with homework and many other school related tasks.  My focus child now also will be seeing a tutor to help him with school.

I just believe that the more people who will help, the better.  The improvements are very clear to me. During class, the types of behaviors that I am seeing usually result when he thinks he is not doing something good enough.  His self-confidence levels are clearly an issue and I think that is playing a major role in the overall impact of his behavior in and outside of the classroom. Usually when my focus child comes back from lunch and recesses this is a time where I struggle to help him.  He is very hard to get through to when he shuts down and says he can’t do something.  We have been working really hard, and this time of the day has gotten a lot better. Recently, writing has been a time of difficulty and not so much after lunch and recess.  It is just really interesting the time of day or what we are learning can impact a child’s behavior so much in the classroom.  I hope to be able to take a closer look at the notes I have been taking and I am hoping to make sense of this information and be able to help him more and more as time passes.

EDUC 519-Week of 2-7-10-2-12-10

This week was really fun in 2nd grade.  I like evreyone else am teaching more and more as the weeks arrive.  I was teaching Math again this week seeing how I picked that up the first week, and I added a reading group this week.  Both I had a great time teaching!  I gave my first math assessment this Friday because it was the end of the Unit, so weird! And it was crazy!  The kids actually did really well, for the most part so that made me happy! The reading groups were interesting because I have a very very very challenging group this week.  I had already done a full week of reading groups with them to kind of prep them when I first came back in January, but then I stopped and then it was like back to square one.  I don’t know, the kids were fine most of the days but 3 out of the 6 kids in my group have SEVERE learning challenges, and BEHAVIOR INTERVENTION plans set in place.

That made it almost nearly impossible to get through any lesson without having an at least one  issue any day.  Then, of course on Friday during my observation of this reading group with Jennifer every possible behavior problem thta could possibly go wrong, DID!  It was insane, meanwhile….our SmartBoard blew up in the background, made a huge pop, then began to smell like a fire.  Then one child thought it would be okay to just leave reading group, while another was not sitting properly or reading during my lesson.  Another child thought it would be okay to skip chapters in his book, and then go back.  Another child thought that a question about Valentine’s day candies was more important so he got up and was asking our TA questions about that.  Then, when I tried to help another child by writing the directions in his journal when it came time for the reading activity-he made it very clear he did not want my help.  This was  a strategy that I discussed with several teachers and him, and he refused to let me write it.  I gave him a chance and then he went back to work and had nothing written after about 5 minutes. Luckily when I went to check on him I asked to see his journal becasue I told him I was going to write the directions, he almost melted down and responded with, “BUT YOUR DIRECTIONS WERE NOT CLEAR”. They were verrrrrrrrrrry clear.  So the OT teacher told him he needs to let me write in his journal.  To say the least, it was the craziest guided reading lesson I have ever had to deal with. Overall my objectives were met, but with many many distractinos. But…now Jennifer has seen what I get to do each day!! ha ha (but she already knew that)…Also, it was good for some of the other Support teachers to see the way he was acting because some of them had not seen how directly defiant he has been.

Math went really well this week- and most of the guided reading lessons were fine the other days..jut Friday..WOW! (but…it also was the Valentine’s Day things, and Jump Rope for heart, so may of them were excited and just did not want to be doing school work!) ha ha..hey, at least most of them did really well on the math assessment:) Next week should be interesting!

Basically I try my very hardest to get through each day just modeling EXACTLY how my teacher has treated and worked with these challenging students because I have no other experience dealing with students like this, and so far it seems to be working really well.  It is just really overwhelming because I feel like I am being mean, even though I know I am not, and things that are said and done are just NEEDED when it comes down to it.  We give them choices and if they choose not to follow them, there are consequences.

EDUC 517-Chapter 7

EDUC 519-The week of February 1-5 in 2nd Grade!! :)

As we all know this week was really short.  Monday was a whole day off for everyone at my school, teachers included.

I tried to use that day to get ahead with planning, that did not go as well as I hoped. Even though my kids had Tuesday off, I was

still at my school, planning with my CT. It was so helpful!  We literally sat in our classroom for a few hours and she mapped out on my calendar exactly when and what we are teaching until I graduate ..basically. I don’t understand how she had time to do that but I am soooooooo thankful that she found the time.  After I was able to see everything on my calendar, and then on her calendar, it automatically made me feel a little bit better.  I don’t know why, but it did.  Then..we planned for stuff for the rest of the week.  I started taking over Math which was really funny because the kids did not understand at first.

I had responses such as, “So like are you our new Math teacher Ms. Travis?”, or  “Are you teaching Math forever!!?”, or…”But why are you just teaching Math Ms. Travis, I don’t get it?”…or, “WOW Ms. Travis must know a lot about fractions if she is going to be teaching instead of Ms. Hammond.” ! Haha the responses were really funny, and then I had to explain why I was teaching Math, and that I will slowly be teaching more and more things and that Mrs. Hammond will still be in our classroom..!  It was just really cute to say the least.  Anyways, I was able to teach the first 3 lessons last week because we had school W, Th, and Friday.  It was neat!  I really liked it, a lot!  I do not like teaching the topic openers because our program requires a lot of things that must be taught on that first day.  I just feel like there is so much and not enough time on each activity. Anyways, that’s just how I feel.  I am working to see what I can or cannot do differently for the topic opener of our measurement unit that will be coming up next.  Next week will be very busy because I have reading groups and Math! But I am looking forward to that!

EDUC 519-Weekly Post

This past week in second grade was a lot of fun.  I did not do a lot of teaching because I was preparing for my Unit, and getting lessons plans together to start phasing in for the week of Feb 1st, (this week).  I took the opportunity to simply teach a few lessons, really observe certain subjects I had not seen much fun because I was only at my placements on Wednesday’s before.  I am really glad I sort of took the time to just learn all the routines I will soon be taking over.  I feel so much better now because before I never understood basic routines that would switch on like a Friday.

Also, now I understand all of the centers and how they rotate through them, simple things you know?  I also was able to take some time and talk to a lot of different teachers at my school about various things.  The one thing I really enjoyed learning about was things that Christina, showed all of you.  We sat down and she showed me exactly how they make their assessments for math. I was able to look closely at the actual spreadsheet they use. I went to a lot of different meetings and the most interesting was an IEP meeting in Spanish.  I was able to watch the EC team teachers, a district translator and the parent.

To me, this was very difficult to watch because I tend to get really emotional, and it was so nice to see  a parent really want to help his child. Anyways, this past week was really a  lot of preparation and learning about report cards, and other paperwork that I had not really invested myself into before, because I didn’t really need to.  So, I look forwards to this coming week because I start teaching math, and I will continue with Math until at least after spring break. Wish me luck!!!!!!!!! OH, happy snow day y’all!!

EDUC 517-Classroom Management

Sunday January 31,

My cooperating teacher and I believe in the PBS (positive reinforcement system).  This is the system that our school follows, and I am pretty sure that it is common in most CH-Car City schools.  Anyways, this is mainly a system that allows students to understand that when they follow the classroom and school-wide rules, there are individual as well as group positives with some rewards set in place.

In my classroom I really like the way this is done because it really seems to work well.  The children know the classroom rules because on day one we all created them together. Secondly if they acting out during class against any of our classroom rules, or school rules step one is to simply go to the back of the classroom where there is a yellow sticky-note pad (post its) and the children are to place their initials or name-whichever they prefer.  It is supposed to be their initials but some choose to place their name. This serves as reminder number one.  Usually, by the end of the day this pad has at least six to seven names because the second graders are still young and they are learning to behave.

Many of them still need reminders as part of this process and most of them are okay with this.  For example: Say I am teaching a math lesson and a child speaks out once, I say “please remember to make good carpet choices”, if I have to remind that individual child again I either look at them, and say please go put your initials. Most of the time they know what comes next because they know what they have done wrong.  After that the next step is, to have the children change their color. So to recap, the students get one verbal warning which serves as a reminder, then the next thing is initials on the pad of paper. If they act out again, they go back to the same area where the pad is and there is a white binder. This white binder has each a number for each child. The students know their numbers and have memorized it.  This is for confidentiality and that way when students turn and open to the wrong page, they can’t see who it is because they only know their own number.  So on the 3^rd reminder they open to their number, on that page is a chart, and for that day they would color their box from green to yellow.  This just means, “oh, now I really need to stop and think about my choices and see if I can turn this day around”.  Many children who have to change their color end up earning back green by the end of the day. The reason this works is because at the end of each day the students are to color a circle in their everyday folder which match up with the colors in the white binders.  If they go home on yellow, it allows their parents to have a small talk reminding them to make better choices the next day.  Lastly, if the child makes another bad choice and instead of moving their color to green, they do something else that maybe was not a good choice they are to color their box red.  If you are on red, you may not go back to green.  When you are on red the students have to write a note to their parents reflecting on what happened. We hardly have days where children go home on red, but it does happen and they know that is okay.

I really like this system because it is very confidential and at the end of the day if any student leaves school on yellow or red the teacher pulls them aside and explains why they are going home on that color, and this is usually a quick conversation.  I have had practice doing this, and they really do listen and try hard the next day to turn things around!  I truly believe in my CT’s behavior management system, and she is amazing at controlling our class.  We also have a pretty challenging class with an EC cluster, and so her methods seem to really help our students.  This system works mostly for all students in our class however, one or two has their own behavior plans that work best for them.  I really cannot discuss this further due to confidentiality reasons, but when the regular behavior management may not be working well for a student I have learned that you can always change things up and make specific plans that suit each child.  I have seen my CT do this and I have watched her help make this child have a mor3 smooth day.  It seems to be working quite well, but it is all a learning process, and changes are made pretty often to this child’s own behavior management plans.  I really hope to use many of these same behavior plans in my classroom. I really like the discreteness in most of them, and I am interested to see how things go starting this week!  They have been pretty good while I have been teaching, I just model what my CT has done and the kids really have no other option but to listen to me while I practice the same rules and policies in the classroom.