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Reflective BlogSemester 1 20143/02/2014First day of Uni. Anticipating this year to be challenging but I’m up for it. I’m unsure of how these placements will go and where they’ll send me for the country prac. Still it’s exciting either way. 29/04/2014I am still awaiting news on my country placement. I have opted to go to Mt. Gambier, Renmark, Mildura or Victor Harbour but am yet to receive a confirmation.8/05/2014I have finally been assigned a placement at a metropolitan school in Adelaide’s North-east. I’m to take Stage 1 English, Year 8 English, Year 10 English and Year 10 PLP. Although it a little extra than what I expected my two mentors seem supportive and extremely willing to help. I have a good feeling about this. For now I have two weeks to prepare for these classes as I will start a week later than the rest of my uni peers. Time to get busy.13/05/2014I have designed a year 8 poetry unit based around The Lorax by Dr Seuss. The text was selected because it is brief and accessible by most students. It contains many poetic techniques and is a good way to teach poetry without the students feeling as if they are being ‘subjected’ to what they tend to see as a boing writing style. I have used backwards design to ensure that each lesson will provide a stepping stone towards the summative task. An anthology that will be complied at the end will include all the different types of poems that will be taught throughout my lessons. I think the students will enjoy creatively designing their anthologies digitally and it will be a good way to incorporate ICT into the unit.19/05/2014I have finally had my first day on prac! Students are nice but have many behavioural and learning issues. The staff here are friendly, warm and I have been made to feel comfortable. Many of my worries are gone. I feel this is going to be a good 5 weeks. 22/05/2014Happy to report that the majority of year 8 students were confident with similes and metaphors and jumped into work with very few issues. This gave me further time to work one on one with those students that were struggling. I have modified the workload for NEP and ESL & EAL/D students within my 8 year class. I required multiple poems to be created within each type of poem. For example, 2 Haikus or 3 poems using alliteration. I have modified their assessment so it requires them only to produce one of each. This way I can ensure that they understand and develop their writing skills without the pressure of falling behind their classmate or feeling the weight of the assignments size. I have also told the entire class that any poems they create in class may be used in their anthology. This will relieve stress off the struggling students as they are able to simply compile everything they have done into their anthology.26/05/2014The year 11s have been steadily working through persuasive language techniques. I have selected 5 tecnqiues that will hopefully be learnt, mastered and then employed within a persuasive writing essay. So far the students have not encountered too much trouble with the tasks although they are disengaged from school and work very slowly. 26/05/2014The lesson on hiakus did not go as well as planned. After a brief rundown of syllables including a demonstration of how to identify syllables and a class effort of creating a haiku on the board students insisted that they had understood the concept. However, as I floated around the room it was evident that most had not understood. As this was vital to the writing hiakus and limericks this will need to be explicitly taught until it was understood. I halted the lesson and spent more time going through examples as a class until I was confident that they understood it. Hopefully the lesson on limericks will go smoother. 29/05/2014The school offers TAFE courses on campus and all year 10 students must select on for the following year. It has been difficult planning for the PLP as I have had to come up to speed with the various course on offer in order to be able to give valuable advice to the students.I expect lessons on resumes to be much easier. I have already made templates for the students to use. Those lessons should run smoothly.30/05/2014Having joined my mentor teacher midway through her year 10 unit on The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas the students were still in the reading stage. Under the unique circumstance of this class I couldn’t set homework and the teacher had informed me that the majority of students either could not or would not read the book by themselves. I realized that I would be doing the reading myself. Initially thinking the book would take the class 1 week to read (as they had already been reading in class for a week) I soon found that the book would run into well the following week. My units had to change to accommodate this. The response I had planned was altered into a structured creative piece that would take place within a single double less. When setting texts in my own classes I will assess the students’ reading ability and allocate adequate time to meet this level.2/06/2014I have been beginning my lessons with the year 8s with a short YouTube video. The short clips have been used to settle and then engage the students as well as introduce them to a topic or technique. I then provide examples and further guidance through a short talk. I find that the combination of the two is working well and is more effective than if I were to only speak. 3/06/2014Midway through the book the male year 10 students have displayed an obsession with Hitler and are eagerly awaiting his appearance. I am going to capitalise on this by showing the class short documentary films on Hitler and Nazi Germany (5-10mins) in order to stimulate their interest and given them a deeper understanding of the context of the book. I will use documentaries and a powerpoint to break up these 3 weeks of reading as that can become very monotonous for students and may lead to disengagement. Additionally in the next double lesson I will give the students a multimodal PowerPoint presentation on the Rise and Reign of Hitler and the Nazi Party. I will briefly start at the end of WW1 and explore in detail the rise and reign of the Nazis during the lead up to WW2. The WW2 years will focus predominately on the treatment of “undesirables”, concentration camps and the human cost of the war in general.4/06/2014I just gave my presentation. I am so proud of the end result of my own work and I am stoked that the students engaged with the PowerPoint. I made sure I made heavy use of images, simplistic language and real world comparisons to make it real for the students. The kids loved AFL and were particularly taken back when I described how many deaths occurred in camps using ‘Adelaide Oval’s capacity’ as a unit of measurement. This was a good way to incorporate the new oval with their understanding of historical events. What took me back was how desensitised the male students are to death and violence. I gave a disclaimer at the beginning of the presentation and gave any student the option to leave the class for a moment if the presentation became too graphic. I only included graphic imagery where necessary and did not included it for the sake of shock value. Although the girls were genuinely distressed by the images they were far to enthralled to leave the room even for a moment. The boys on the other hand showed little to no reaction to the images. I was shocked at how little empathy they displayed. I after discussing with my teacher she said that “either they can conceptualise death on that scale or else they have watched one too many zombie films or played one too many video games to really be shocked by the image of a dead body”. This is a crazy thought to me.5/06/2014Finally, we’ve finished the text. The book is complete and we have watched the film. The mentor suggested that we play the movie up to the chapter we are currently reading and then watch the rest once we have completed the novel. I happy to say I have finally gotten through to that troublesome group of lads. The book’s ending clearly suggests the death of Shumle but as it deals with it at a distance and in retrospect, the boys did not react. It was only at the end of the movie that the boys in my class finally showed some empathy. Not a single student liked the ending of either book or film, although all agreed that the film did a better job of dealing with Shmule’s death. Many were outraged at the ending, telling me they hated it and that the book is pointless. A few of the higher achieving girls understood the implications of such an ending and shared their understanding with the rest of the class. I was happy that some understood the theme even if all did not agree with the author’s decision. 6/06/2014After finding several more videos on YouTube I have decided to use them as an incentive for the students. At the end of a group of chapters I will show them a video provided that we get through the assigned classwork. This seems to work well in motivating the boys and disruptions have been reduced (although not eliminated). Strangely though I thought he combination of my PowerPoint and the videos would put the horrors of the holocaust in perspective, it only lead to further idolisation of Hitler. This was the most distressing thing to me. The male students still chose to idolise him.6/06/2014I have noticed that discriminatory language is used within everyday classroom conversations even when not intended to be derogatory. I have made it explicitly clear that any use of discriminatory language within the classroom will not be tolerated and will be met with expulsion from the room for 10 minutes. Before being allowed back into the classroom the student will be informed of the implications associated with such words and they will be asked to come up with alternative ways to express themselves.7/06/2014My year 10 student has been truant for the majority of her lessons and I’m lucky to see her once a week. During this period she is unresponsive, disruptive and refuses to do work. I have decided to not simply send her from the room. If I were to do so she would attend zero classes per week. No, instead I will persist with her within the classroom. I contacted her mother today to inform her that she is always absent, that her behaviour is inappropriate and that she is failing English as she has failed to hand anything up all semester. I was extremely nervous to call and wrote notes to myself before doing so. Initially the conversation was awkward and rushed but as I became more comfortable and realised that the woman was very reasonable the conversation went well. She will be speaking with her daughter tonight and ensuring that the most recent assessment piece is handed up by the end of the week.10/06/2014A fight broke out in class today. The two male students have had an ongoing feud for a while. A disagreement at lunch spilled into the classroom. The students were sent to different sides of the room and the school’s roving teacher came to remove them. I was not expecting to have to deal with such behaviour during my first prac. I was a little unprepared. Next time I will react faster.10/6/2014We read through The Lorax again today. I’m pleased to say that the year 8s were identifying techniques within the text without being prompted by me. I presented them with a selection of pages and a list of things to identify in a coloured booklet. They loved the task and engaged with it immediately. I’m glad I printed them in colour, they would’ve looked so bland in greyscale. I think that make a difference.17/06/2014The students have all created wonderful anthologies and are very proud of their work. They really enjoyed the time spent working in the computer labs but it was enjoyed most by the NEP and ESL & EAL/D students. Most students had completed all the poems by this point so it was simply a matter of creating a digital version and including relevant images and colour. The use of a deadline meant that the students all completed their work by the end of the lesson. I was very pleased with everyone work. Moving swiftly around the classroom meant that any off task behaviour was quickly corrected and minimal time was lost. I don’t think I’ve sat down for a moment in any lesson since ive been here and so far that is working really well. 20/06/2014I have received farewell cards from students and staff and my mentors surprised me with a cake and a speech in the staff room. Such a bittersweet feeling to know that it’s all over. Semester 2 201414/09/2014I have been placed at my old high school! Very excited to see how much it has changed since I was last there and if any of the old teachers are still there.24/08/2014My second prac begins tomorrow. I am excited to have another chance to be in front a class. This time around I feel I’m really going to come into my own.25/08/2014The students are so well behaved. I can’t believe it. One class was so well behaved I had to encourage them to work and talk quietly and they looked shocked that I was going to allow them to do both. Much of the work I have planned can be completed collaboratively so I need to encourage them to work effectively in small groups which I sense has not been utilised much with these students. Unlike my last prac I have a feeling that more time will be spent on teaching rather than managing behaviour. I’m looking forward to getting through a decent amount of content.The year 10 class are streamed. I am confident that they will fly through content and so I’m am creating lessons that will engage them for the entire lesson.26/08/2014I have set dates to allow the students a chance to hand up a detailed plan with resources, then a draft before the final copy.29/08/2014Over half the students did not hand up plans. It such a shame because having read the ones that were handed up, it is evident that the students all required a lot of scaffolding to get this task done well. I have complied a page of errors that are common to all students and I will go through them next lesson as a class. I will also spend the next lesson going through a detailed essay writing plan detailing all the various stages and how to structure the essay. It is my hope that many of these simple errors can be eliminated.1/09/2014After spending the weekend making drafts I am happy to say that all many of the common errors have been resolved and now the main errors are those concerning confusions with content and issues with analysis of facts. I will structure my lessons this week around resolving these issues.5/09/2014I am happy to say that after a week of revisiting the facts surrounding the causes of WW2 I saw quite a few ‘light bulb moments’. I’m confident that these essays will be of a good standard. 16/09/2014Results are in. every single student pass with many achieving A’s for their efforts. Many who scored lower grades did so because they did not present a plan or a draft or didn’t work through my feedback within their essay. In future I will enforce the plan and draft deadline much more heavily than I did this time around. 25/09/2014I stayed up til 2 last night finding and watching documentaries on life in Nazi Germany in the lead up to WW2. I found an amazing film that narrates using primary sources such as dairies, legal documents, letters and home video and is segmented into chapters. The film is accessible and presents the content in such an stimulating way. I was hooked and ended up watching the whole thing then and there. It is freakishly close to the PowerPoint that I created and if I was a third party comparing the two I would say the PowerPoint author copied the documentary! It is just a shame I found this film at the end of the course rather than at the start otherwise I could have used it to introduce each topic is 10 minute segments at the start of each lesson as it pairs so well with the course and my PowerPoint. 26/09/2014The students loved the film. Normally it is hard to get them on board but the easy to understand nature of the film couple with dramatic storytelling by real people and voice over engaged them immediately. I’m happy that it was enjoyed by most although a few students did need to be reminded to put their phones away several times. ................
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