wmcoggins
|
Provide rich teaching for students ...
Star this Commitment
Week 6 of 6
wmcoggins commits to:
Completing weekly entries with all required components.
0
6
No more reports due
|
My Commitment Journal
 wmcoggins
November 20, 2020, 1:07 PM
|
|
|
Graduation Mindset: To confess-- this isn't something that is on my radar of goals for my students-- at least not in a confirmed, spoken-out-loud sort of way. As I think about why, I initially find two reasons: 1. My Gifted/ Talented students won't have any problems with graduating. Privilege, support, and motivation will carry almost all of them as far as they choose to go academically. 2. For the other folks (and I really don't teach any in-between, almost-there, bubble kids), graduation will practically be handed to them by my district. Virtually nobody fails (which is the failure). The grading floor for middle schools is 50. If students do well on one o two minor assignments each quarter and then just pass a major assessment each semester, they're golden. Some even choose not to do any additional work beyond that because they've figured it out. This changes at the high school where ZEROS are real and students are often referred to admin for refusal to do work, but the consequences just fuel the school-to-prison pipeline. I feel that my efforts are pointless on both ends in some ways-- the rich kids are guaranteed to get there. The poor kids are guaranteed to fail when they get to high school. I guess that I do some things to motivate students to think in the direction of graduation. We talk often about how performance in 7th grade ELA determines the 8th-9th grade IGP (individual graduation plan)-- that they're attitudes now set the path for the next 5 years to come. We explore realistic, blue-collar career paths. I'm always amazed at how students are excited about the amount of money that some jobs earn-- especially wastewater treatment operators-- they like that one. We discuss the privilege gap, opportunity gap, achievement gap, and look at how "ownership" in America dictates rules that favor the owners/ ruling party. I realize that this should be a bigger part of how I function as a teacher. I can really only say that I need to work on it. |
|
|
wmcoggins
November 18, 2020, 4:01 PM
|
|
|
Engagement-- In a diverse classroom, it can sometimes be difficult to pull everyone into the same cognitive realm. There's always the kid with bigger problems than ELA, the kid who already has it figured out, the kid who is more concerned with what the referral to admin will say (because he/she is definitely getting a write-up for throwing lotion across the class in a vulgar way (happened three times this year for some reason)). I know that students have to be able to access the content, context, and skills involved with any topic in class. In the past, I've taught in convergent ways-- coaxing students to think like me. I'm learning this year that my teaching has to make many doorways and pathways available to the same central idea. When I include student choice, easy ways to connect personally, give students time to validate their own thinking and then confirm it with peers, there seems to be more grip on the path for engagement. Kids are interested when they're naturally involved because the lesson fits them. They're not so willing to file their own keys to fit the lock. Engagement is a way of unlocking the door in the first place. |
|
|
wmcoggins
November 18, 2020, 3:55 PM
|
|
|
Enrichment (Disclaimer: I keep submitting these things and they're not posting and then I get emails that say I didn't meet my goal.) Here's another that isn't really on my professional radar this year. At least in the academic sense. This year has really been about scaffolding, simplifying, supporting, and encouraging. By encouraging, I mean begging students to turn in work. I've been pretty bored intellectually and I was able to remind myself that sometimes boredom feeds creativity. My ELA classroom has become something that one would be hard pressed to identify some days. We've done some crazy on-the-spot "enrichment" activities. Partially because this is the year I'll get away with it. Most of my students couldn't identify a pomegranate, so we learned how to slice one and they tasted it for the first time. We learned how to read a bank statement and researched ow banks make money (as a business). We've used Google Street View for inspiration in poetry writing (so fun). We explored how Asimov's three laws of robotics could be too perfect and lead to unexpected consequences. Some weird stuff. The result is that students both love and hate my class. They love the spur-of-the moment, "let's forget Google Classroom exists for a minute" activities. They hate when we have to get back to slogging through whatever we're in at the time. I always thought of enrichment as the stuff I keep on reserve for early finishers and high flyers. I've learned that it's much more and is really a tool for cultural adaptation. |
|
|
wmcoggins
October 30, 2020, 10:38 PM
|
|
|
Rich Classroom Climate: This has been a tough one this year. In fact, I'm doing everything I can to escape the classroom itself. Students are burned out with Chromebooks and I'm sure they'd bleed hand sanitizer at this point. I typically have flexible seating, hot water for hot tea (I create a coffee house environment), an the ability to move around when needed. All of that has flown right out the pandemic-framed window for now. These days, I spend more time than usual just talking and sharing stories with my students (nothing to do with ELA besides story-telling/ speaking and listening). I try to get them outside to read and work together in the fresh air (I get some raised eyebrows for this from admin and I don't care). The climate in my "classroom" is more colloquial than ever before. I want students to feel welcome and safe. I want them to understand that I'm learning with them instead of just teaching at them. I want the to realize that we're in this odd season together. I still do one thing that I don't think my admin would smile about-- I maintain a snack cabinet for bus riders who might not get dinner. It's open to anyone and always full since everything is donated by a salvage grocery in Marietta, SC. I show up there once a week and the owner just hands me several bags of individually packaged snacks. Well, I guess I do two things-- the other is that I maintain a relationship with a local optometrist and Zenni.com. The doc does eye exams/ prescriptions for free and Zenni.com makes free glasses for all of my students in need. |
|
This Commitment has no photos.
Displaying 1-4 of 6 results.
November 17 to November 24
Not Successful
No report submitted
No report submitted
November 10 to November 17
Not Successful
No report submitted
No report submitted
November 3 to November 10
Not Successful
No report submitted
No report submitted
October 28 to November 3
Not Successful
No report submitted
No report submitted
.
