Reflection:
The AR experience is both extremely personal and extraordinarily transparent. Participating in an Action Research project while still getting a bearing on what it means to be a teacher, is scary and immensely rewarding. We are still learning how to be teachers and while we try to navigate the challenges of our immediate situation of taking the full time reigns, we find ourselves thrust into examining our students strengths and weaknesses in order to improve their learning. We look in stark focus for an action research project as we are still learning the ropes ourselves.
That is fantastic. The idea behind an AR is that a teacher in a classroom is the best suited to learn how to figure out how a teacher in a classroom can better help students. As new students, this process also encourages, pushes, maybe even requires, us to intellectually join a community of people that occupy a space between the traditional roles of scholars and laymen. We take our first steps at becoming teacher who are also scholars.
Throughout the sections of the written AR have tried to reflect on ideas that I have included the various sections. As I have progressed in both the project and the writing, I have commented on how the work has been transformative.
I have learned that one of the best things I can do is to step back and let students learn.
I believe that as new teachers, we are conditioned to constantly step in and try to continually guide and modify what our students are doing so that they don't make mistakes and can achieve a completion of their work. In my own early classes, I thought I needed to be constantly guiding students. I would give brief power points, individually sit down and work with students, or make constant rounds to assess, redirect, and ensure work was getting accomplished on schedule. My schedule. Because of my AR plans I was forced to look deeply at my teaching practices and weigh them with what I thought a successful classroom looked like. I worked hard to create projects that would collaboratively engage my students in a way that directed them towards their taking leadership roles in their learning. As I have mentioned, the theoretical knowledge I have learned in graduate school came face to face with my concern at keeping control in the classroom. I don't mean in terms of behavior, I have been mostly fortunate there so far. I mean in terms of wanting them to learn the content, increase their skills and grow as citizens and people. Early on this can make for a new teacher that talks a good deal. My AR direction required me to create something for my students and then step back and let them join in their effort to work with and through all the different facets of the project. And in doing so, I gained one of the greatest insights. Providing an environment that allows students to take an active role in how they learn results in the students rising to the occasion to accomplish amazing things. Previously, I have mentioned how as a team, as I saw us, the students joined with me to see how far they could go in a project rather than how quickly they could get it done and talk. I witnessed first hand that students can very often work down to the low levels a teacher sets for them. I have done many classroom observations and attended conferences often and heard teachers talk about how their students couldn't do this work, or read that material, or simply weren't skilled enough to even attempt something, but I went through a paradigm shift during this process and over this semester. It is very possible that many of us hold our students back by offering them situations where don't feel like they are a part of their own education. Situations that have no relavance, context, and interest for them or to them. Pushing myself to step back, let up on the reins, and watch the students work was eye-opening. What they didn't immediately know, they learned. If they were missing a skill, they worked together to overcome it. I realized that I might have often been, unknowingly, causing a part of the issues with differentiation that I was concerned about. Giving students the information in the way that I felt was needed, and at a certain pace, caused my students to give minimal effort while only the top few, personally motivated, were putting in that extra effort we teachers love so much. In the meantime, I was keeping an eye on their limitations instead of their strengths.
Just because I am a teacher doesn't mean I stop being a student.
One of the great things about this whole project is that it constantly reminded me that I wasn't just a teacher. The whole idea of the action research project is how we as teachers learn from our students to make us better teachers and them in turn better students. It sounds like a quote from the department of redundancy department but the fact is that becoming a teacher is the first step in being able to learn more about our subject, our pedagogy, and, most importantly, our students. This process has helped me understand the nature of being a real teacher. One who not only teaches a subject or group of subject, but engages in the pursuit of increasing the ability for all of my students to learn while, hopefully, possibly, helping others in the profession it the ultimate goal. I have always wanted to be a teacher, and the subject mattered less to me than the profession but where I once saw subject matter content knowledge as the key to success in the classroom, I know see it as possibly one of the smallest influences. I don't mean that content is unimportant. I mean that a good English teacher is also likely to be a good History, Science, and maybe even, Math teacher because it is what the teacher learns in the context of their profession and about their students that makes the biggest difference.
A positive collaborative environment can make students surprise themselves.
Literally some of the best moments I have had as a teacher, thus far, took place at the conclusion of this AR. One example, which is unique, but not alone in having students surprise themselves, is this. I put one of my students, who had been able to get his work done, but seemed to just barely do what was, on the whole slightly average work, in a leadership editorial position. He was initially a bit embarrassed and shy, telling me he didn't think he could do it, but I told him that I believed he could do this well. I did believe it. I told him that I was asking him to take hold of his group and do something awesome. He, and they did. I had put him with another boy who was high functioning, but lazy, one average student that was struggling and a stuggling but motivated student. I constantly monitored his group and he was an amazing leader. Under his leadership, the students engaged and took hold of their project. I situated them up front and on a daily basis could see him encouraging or correcting his group. I saw them get into full debates, which I have mentioned, about concepts of the content, presentation ideas, and even how to do extra work to make it authentic. They knew I was a fan of using technology in interesting ways. They did an amazing job and ended up submitting a project that mimicked an old time newspaper with every article fully done, fully researched, and that was compelling, accurate and interesting.
At the conclusion of the project this group, among others, came to me and wanted to show their work to the class. I have said this already elsewhere but my students weren't volunteering often to show work. I usually offered an extra credit point. I am moved thinking back to when I put their project on the Promethean board three of the boys were hooping and hawing while my editor sat staring at his desk with a grin spread from ear to ear. This wasn't the only incident of that but I mention it because of what came later.
That week I was emailed about an IEP for the student I had made an editor. They were asking for his teachers to come and discuss his progress so I arranged to shift a class so I could go (I don't understand why they make these meetings during the school day) and talk to his parents. His mother was there and the counselor was talking about his progress and setbacks before they asked me for any input. He had been having a rough last year and this one was improving but not by much. I was the only teacher there and brought out his project to show his mother and tell her just how much of a leader he had been and how his group had gotten a perfect score. She started to cry. She then told me that he had been talking about the project a lot and how excited he was about what they were doing. That she knew he could be a better student. She told me that he was now very excited about history. I had a little bit of difficulty keeping composed myself. The next week, I pulled him aside before class and told him what I said to his mom and what I thought. He was beaming with pride. This student took a position of leadership and he and his group flourished. Now, weeks later, I well up with pride for him and the other students as well.
In my mind, his and the other students who took off because of the change in practice and methods, their movement towards improving for their group, the class and themselves gave me a lesson, about the kind of teacher I want to keep improving be, that I will not forget.
The AR experience is both extremely personal and extraordinarily transparent. Participating in an Action Research project while still getting a bearing on what it means to be a teacher, is scary and immensely rewarding. We are still learning how to be teachers and while we try to navigate the challenges of our immediate situation of taking the full time reigns, we find ourselves thrust into examining our students strengths and weaknesses in order to improve their learning. We look in stark focus for an action research project as we are still learning the ropes ourselves.
That is fantastic. The idea behind an AR is that a teacher in a classroom is the best suited to learn how to figure out how a teacher in a classroom can better help students. As new students, this process also encourages, pushes, maybe even requires, us to intellectually join a community of people that occupy a space between the traditional roles of scholars and laymen. We take our first steps at becoming teacher who are also scholars.
Throughout the sections of the written AR have tried to reflect on ideas that I have included the various sections. As I have progressed in both the project and the writing, I have commented on how the work has been transformative.
I have learned that one of the best things I can do is to step back and let students learn.
I believe that as new teachers, we are conditioned to constantly step in and try to continually guide and modify what our students are doing so that they don't make mistakes and can achieve a completion of their work. In my own early classes, I thought I needed to be constantly guiding students. I would give brief power points, individually sit down and work with students, or make constant rounds to assess, redirect, and ensure work was getting accomplished on schedule. My schedule. Because of my AR plans I was forced to look deeply at my teaching practices and weigh them with what I thought a successful classroom looked like. I worked hard to create projects that would collaboratively engage my students in a way that directed them towards their taking leadership roles in their learning. As I have mentioned, the theoretical knowledge I have learned in graduate school came face to face with my concern at keeping control in the classroom. I don't mean in terms of behavior, I have been mostly fortunate there so far. I mean in terms of wanting them to learn the content, increase their skills and grow as citizens and people. Early on this can make for a new teacher that talks a good deal. My AR direction required me to create something for my students and then step back and let them join in their effort to work with and through all the different facets of the project. And in doing so, I gained one of the greatest insights. Providing an environment that allows students to take an active role in how they learn results in the students rising to the occasion to accomplish amazing things. Previously, I have mentioned how as a team, as I saw us, the students joined with me to see how far they could go in a project rather than how quickly they could get it done and talk. I witnessed first hand that students can very often work down to the low levels a teacher sets for them. I have done many classroom observations and attended conferences often and heard teachers talk about how their students couldn't do this work, or read that material, or simply weren't skilled enough to even attempt something, but I went through a paradigm shift during this process and over this semester. It is very possible that many of us hold our students back by offering them situations where don't feel like they are a part of their own education. Situations that have no relavance, context, and interest for them or to them. Pushing myself to step back, let up on the reins, and watch the students work was eye-opening. What they didn't immediately know, they learned. If they were missing a skill, they worked together to overcome it. I realized that I might have often been, unknowingly, causing a part of the issues with differentiation that I was concerned about. Giving students the information in the way that I felt was needed, and at a certain pace, caused my students to give minimal effort while only the top few, personally motivated, were putting in that extra effort we teachers love so much. In the meantime, I was keeping an eye on their limitations instead of their strengths.
Just because I am a teacher doesn't mean I stop being a student.
One of the great things about this whole project is that it constantly reminded me that I wasn't just a teacher. The whole idea of the action research project is how we as teachers learn from our students to make us better teachers and them in turn better students. It sounds like a quote from the department of redundancy department but the fact is that becoming a teacher is the first step in being able to learn more about our subject, our pedagogy, and, most importantly, our students. This process has helped me understand the nature of being a real teacher. One who not only teaches a subject or group of subject, but engages in the pursuit of increasing the ability for all of my students to learn while, hopefully, possibly, helping others in the profession it the ultimate goal. I have always wanted to be a teacher, and the subject mattered less to me than the profession but where I once saw subject matter content knowledge as the key to success in the classroom, I know see it as possibly one of the smallest influences. I don't mean that content is unimportant. I mean that a good English teacher is also likely to be a good History, Science, and maybe even, Math teacher because it is what the teacher learns in the context of their profession and about their students that makes the biggest difference.
A positive collaborative environment can make students surprise themselves.
Literally some of the best moments I have had as a teacher, thus far, took place at the conclusion of this AR. One example, which is unique, but not alone in having students surprise themselves, is this. I put one of my students, who had been able to get his work done, but seemed to just barely do what was, on the whole slightly average work, in a leadership editorial position. He was initially a bit embarrassed and shy, telling me he didn't think he could do it, but I told him that I believed he could do this well. I did believe it. I told him that I was asking him to take hold of his group and do something awesome. He, and they did. I had put him with another boy who was high functioning, but lazy, one average student that was struggling and a stuggling but motivated student. I constantly monitored his group and he was an amazing leader. Under his leadership, the students engaged and took hold of their project. I situated them up front and on a daily basis could see him encouraging or correcting his group. I saw them get into full debates, which I have mentioned, about concepts of the content, presentation ideas, and even how to do extra work to make it authentic. They knew I was a fan of using technology in interesting ways. They did an amazing job and ended up submitting a project that mimicked an old time newspaper with every article fully done, fully researched, and that was compelling, accurate and interesting.
At the conclusion of the project this group, among others, came to me and wanted to show their work to the class. I have said this already elsewhere but my students weren't volunteering often to show work. I usually offered an extra credit point. I am moved thinking back to when I put their project on the Promethean board three of the boys were hooping and hawing while my editor sat staring at his desk with a grin spread from ear to ear. This wasn't the only incident of that but I mention it because of what came later.
That week I was emailed about an IEP for the student I had made an editor. They were asking for his teachers to come and discuss his progress so I arranged to shift a class so I could go (I don't understand why they make these meetings during the school day) and talk to his parents. His mother was there and the counselor was talking about his progress and setbacks before they asked me for any input. He had been having a rough last year and this one was improving but not by much. I was the only teacher there and brought out his project to show his mother and tell her just how much of a leader he had been and how his group had gotten a perfect score. She started to cry. She then told me that he had been talking about the project a lot and how excited he was about what they were doing. That she knew he could be a better student. She told me that he was now very excited about history. I had a little bit of difficulty keeping composed myself. The next week, I pulled him aside before class and told him what I said to his mom and what I thought. He was beaming with pride. This student took a position of leadership and he and his group flourished. Now, weeks later, I well up with pride for him and the other students as well.
In my mind, his and the other students who took off because of the change in practice and methods, their movement towards improving for their group, the class and themselves gave me a lesson, about the kind of teacher I want to keep improving be, that I will not forget.