Video from My Grammar Class...Downright Hilarious

Captain's Log 8

Captain's Log Week 8

This past week in the classroom students have started working on their Social Studies Curriculum Based Assessment essays. The challenge with this work is that students are at this point in the quarter- the last two weeks- where they have disengaged, mentally checked out and a good portion are completely resistant to participating in class. I can’t really blame them because I feel the same exact way with my own college courses.

            The challenge in my class is the learning gap. There is a defined group of students who excel and do well, but its marginal from the larger group that does not fully comprehend the objectives nor do they speak up when they need help until they are asked. With this range in the class, my coordinating teacher and I find ourselves spread thin, trying to re-explain how the lesson that had just been taught. Some students catch on to what were telling them, but a handful just brush us off and say “I have to go to summer school anyways!” and that fact can be discouraging not only to the students but to us, the teachers, as well because it feels fruitless- we want to see them succeed and its difficult to see them just give up!

            Another challenge is the lack of alignment between the CBA essay and the English class content. The ability to brainstorm, research, and write an essay is lacking so much so that I had to teach a lesson of formatting an essay in addition to previous lessons taught over the quarter. Its very redundant for students who get it and remember talking about it but news to those who don’t. The best alternative is to separate the class and develop depth to the essays of those who are at the finish line and aid those who need the basics discussed more.  Having the two learning groups together really prevents students from wanting to admit that they’re not part of that top group.

            I learned that unfortunately everyone, students and teachers, all feel that end of the school year drag and it is killer to trying to finish up leftover work and lessons. My greatest take away is making sure to lesson plan all first year of teaching because its important not just to stay on track but to know how to adjust to requirements like the CBA. Rushing the essays at the end is crippling for students who don’t finish and I don’t want to put my students or myself in that position. 

Captain Raschko, signing off. 

Captain's Log 5

Captain's Log 5

            Over the course of the past week not too many exciting things have happened in the classroom. I’m at the middle part of the quarter and my overall feelings are that I have far too much on my plate. If it wasn’t for the years I’ve spent procrastinating assignments from when I was a freshman in high school to present day, even as I write this, I wouldn’t be able to handle the stress and demand. I’m being pulled in different directions: college studies, middle school hours, my part-time job, running, family, friends and the extra stuff including graduation applications which have yet to be found. If my parents question my frequent trips to coffee shops I might just send them my course load in the mail as a response. Now days I don’t drink shots unless they’re espresso shots. I’m also confident I haven’t slept more than five hours since spring break- I miss those days. I also haven’t made a home cooked meal in weeks- unless a sandwich counts, in which case I cooked on Monday. I don’t even know if it’s about balancing everything anymore. I feel like I’m just struggling to stay on top of the water and whenever I make a gain somebody tosses me a brick: “don’t forget this!”

            In the classroom I’m trying to cope with the stress I have overall in my life by ignoring it. Ignorance is bliss, and I don’t want the stress to taint my enjoyment of time spent in the middle school. I’m trying hard to drop everything at the door and keep things separate. So far so good! I was having difficulty this morning with a bad start of spilling coffee and slow drivers that nearly made me late (thankfully I didn’t get a speeding ticked). I lucked out and my coordinating teacher gave me an organization task in which I got to just work on mindless items- exactly what I needed. I think the more this quarter goes on, the more I realize how important it is to focus on the task at hand. I can’t do everything, and some things have to just have to be let go. I know my coordinating teacher has said that a million times, but only now, when I am feeling spread thinly across my responsibilities, do I realize how important that advice is.

            In my first few years of teaching, especially in my student teaching quarter, I will be working to organize my own life in a manner that things stay separate. I don’t want stress or issues from other halves of my life to affect the other. My home life shouldn’t affect a child’s performance in school; they already have their home lives doing that for them. For myself, I don’t want school to follow me home or home to follow me to school. That will be the balance I’ll focus on most so I don’t end up feeling like I’m drowning, with too much to handle. 

This is Captain Danielle Raschko, signing off. 

Tea Time

A birthday gift I received: "I Only Date Super Heroes"

Introduction to Immigration in the PNW edTPA

TPA Lesson Plan

Teacher Candidate __      Danielle Raschko___                  _                 Grade(s)  _  7__          _   

Content Area ____Social Studies                                               Length of Lesson _51 minutes__

Unit/Subject    Pacific Northwest: Washington State History _________________________   __

Lesson Title/Focus        Introduction to Immigration __ _________________          _________

Academic and/or Content Standards

Literacy in History/Social Studies Common Core State Standards:

Key Ideas and Details

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.2 Determine the central ideas or information of a primary or secondary source; provide an accurate summary of the source distinct from prior knowledge or opinions

Craft and Structure

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases as they are used in a text, including vocabulary specific to domains related to history/social studies.

Integration of Knowledge and Ideas

• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.8 Distinguish among fact, opinion, and reasoned judgment in a text.

Content Objective

By the end of this lesson students will be able to identify groups of immigrants, providing reasons for why migration occurs in general as well as specific to the course content.

Academic Language Objective

Students will be able to identify the causes of migration for several immigrant groups including their reasons for migration, outcomes, impacts and prevalence in Pacific Northwest History overall.

Assessment Strategies

To assess and practice the concept, students will be assigned to groups and topics in which they will read the text, answer questions, create a physical model and present their knowledge of their assigned topics to the class. Students will be prompted to share their “essential” questions with their classmates. Worksheets from each individual student will be collected and assessed for completion. 

Lesson Rationale

This lesson will help students be exposed to various reasons for the occurrence of migration through the study of various immigrant groups. In addition, students will be asked to create their own physical representations of the immigrant groups they are assigned, allowing them to offer their own interpretation of the information provided by the text. 

Instructional Strategies and Learning Tasks to Support Learning

Direct Instruction/ Independent Work/ Whole Class Discussion (11 minutes): The instructor will welcome the class, direct students to the entry task and explain the days plan. One or two students will be selected to pass out textbooks. Students will be given time to read and respond to the entry task on the doc camera. Students will then be called on to share responses which will lead into the power point presentation.

Whole Class Reading (7 Minutes): The instructor will ask for volunteers to help read paragraphs from the introduction of the section. Students will follow along and write down three things they found to be important to the northwest from the section read. Students will be asked to share a few items and prompted again to relate back to the entry task question.

Group Work (15 minutes): The instructor will pass out worksheets, explain the instructions, clarify terms and answer questions pertaining to the task. Students will be grouped up, read together answer the questions on the work sheet and then create a model/representation to present.

Whole Class Discussion/Presentation(15 minutes): Volunteers from groups will be prompted to share their responses to the questions pertaining to immigration groups. Further students will show and explain their models. Students will have the opportunity to ask questions and share things they found particularly interesting.

Whole-Class Discussion (3 Minutes): The instructor will bring the class together, have them put materials away, turn in worksheets and close with an exit question. Students will be reminded of upcoming assignments and past due assignments.  

Differentiated Instruction

Being able to read along to a printed version of the text is appealing to visual learners. For kinesthetic learners the worksheet provides a more hands-on learning as well as the model activity in which students get to create a physical representation to show their understanding of the immigration group they were assigned. Auditory learners benefit from hearing the text read out loud as well as sharing their responses with one another.

Resources and Materials

This lesson used:

Green, M. K., Carlson, L. M., & Myers, S. A. (2008). Washington in the Pacific Northwest. Salt

Lake City: Gibbs Smith.

• Pen/Pencil
• Computer
• Microsoft Office Word
• Document Camera/Overhead Projector
• Worksheets- 110 Copies
• Colored Paper
• Markers
• Pipe cleaners
• Miscellaneous Craft Supplies

Management and Safety Issues

Not applicable.

Parent and Community Connections

Not applicable. 

Captain's Log 4

Captain's Log 4

            On Monday I had a break through moment with a female student in my class who in the past has been shy, reserved and resistant to completing class work or participating in discussions at all. I asked her how her day was to which she shook her head and just said “awful”. I asked her what was going on and she said her mom and her had a fight, and that it was a regular thing. We talked about her upcoming move to England to live with her father; our connections to the Air Force and at the end of the conversation she asked me, “Are you going to be here the rest of the year?” To which I answered “Yes, of course!” She smiled- I have never seen this girl smile-and said “Good”. During the conversation, however, she confessed (I’m paraphrasing for her own privacy) that the fights between her mother and her were moderately physical. I was shocked that she had decided to share this with me. I reported back to my coordinating instructor which he said he would document and report during his free period, and then we briefly discussed her past history. Apparently she had shared similar information with him, but left out the physical aspect of the fighting. It dawned on me that for this girl I had become someone she could trust with private and personal information.

While I know it is mandatory to report, and I fully believe in the idea, I am worried that our teacher-student relationship will lose trust to which I see as harmful to her. I see this as harmful because I see already see her disconnect in the classroom and I’m hoping this won’t add further to it. I also can tell that these fights DO affect her classroom performance and that it is absolutely necessary to report this- that this is quite possible her call for help.

            My experience from this incident serves to affirm, in my own beliefs, the importance of mandatory reporting as well as the weight of relationships between students and teachers. We need to be the person they can trust but also act as their safety line, especially when they can’t see the way out for themselves. In my own classroom in the future I want to establish trusting relationships with my students and maintain an open door policy so when things like this happen in their lives they can trust me to act in their best interest.

            A final thought: What do you say to a child who says something like that? I’m a little in despair about that conversation still. At that time I just sort of paused, and sort of re-directed the subject. I don’t know if it was the right thing to do, but she must not have thought anything poorly of it by the way the conversation ended. I mean how do you console someone who confesses something like that?

This is Captain Danielle Raschko, signing off.