Managing a Classroom as a Substitute Teacher

        As my education comes to a close I know that I will be entering the Education workforce in the foreseeable future. I also know that I probably won't get a permanent contract right away and that I will need to substitute part-time or full-time if it's available. Something I need to consider, however, is that I don't know very much about how to manage a classroom as a substitute teacher. This consideration brought me to the article “A Sequential and Comprehensive Method for Effective Substitute Teaching,” by Dr. John L. Byer. In his article, Byer recognizes classroom management as one of the greatest obstacles to substitute teaching. By reviewing literature and using personal experience, Byer outlines a step-by-step plan for substitute teachers to implement which promotes and maintains effective classroom management. His main idea is that useful methods for effective substitute teaching are especially important in today's school environments where improving academic achievement is top priority. Previously in my practical semester II experience I had the opportunity to discuss with a substitute teacher some effective methods for both substitutes and classroom teachers to implement to make classroom management for the substitute easy and maintainable. I found that in this article some of those same methods explained and well developed as well as expanded within a nine step framework. I found this article to be very effective in explaining appropriate classroom management strategies for effective substitute teachers. There are, however, a few things that I believe this article is lacking.

        The first thing Byer does in this article is review the existing literature on effective classroom management for substitute teachers. From this review he describes how substitute teachers often have poor classroom management skills and that there is often no classroom discipline in effect for substitute teachers. He does, however, identify several factors which improve substitute classroom management: teachers preparing students in advance for having a substitute in class, teachers making substitutes feel welcome in the school environment, and substitutes arriving early and being prepared for class. Byers continutes his article by explaining two obstacles to effective substitute teaching. The first is that substitutes need to know how to effectively manage a classroom by setting a basis for classroom management by establishing authority. This is accomplished by promptly and efficiently taking attendance, stating the rules, listing planned activities, and being assertive. The second obstacle for effective substitute teaching is that there is a need to promote substitute teachers abilities to use instructional strategies. This can be accomplished when substitutes use opportunities to observe effective classroom instruction, by using effective questioning, material distribution, and by clearing successful presentation of a lesson.

        The main part of Byers article is his step-by-step method for effective Substitute teaching. What he did was integrate high-quality authors recommendations for effective substitute teaching with personal experience to create a detailed method to ensure that each day with a substitute provides effective education. Step one is preparing for the day. This includes being aware of the school, arriving early, coming prepared, and dressing as a professional. Step two is signing in at the office and wearing the appropriate school identification if necessary. Step three includes organizing classroom materials. I found this step to be particularly important because it involves finding and organizing lesson plans, classroom materials, and student assignments. Also, writing your name and the date on the board as well as the schedule for the class helps to keep the students organized and helps to establish the substitutes authority. Step four is orienting students to the classroom expectations for class work and behaviour. This involves introducing yourself to the students and outline any rules and regulations you expect them to adhere to as the teacher. Step five is keeping students involved in learning the lesson. This step is where the substitute is expected to maintain a high level of “with-it-ness”. Step six is concluding the class effectively. This includes thanking students for on-task behaviour and taking in any student work that is due. Step seven is getting the necessary materials and the classroom ready for the next class. Step eight is concluding the school day effectively. This includes leaving the classroom clean, having any classroom materials and assignments well organized and ready for the teachers return, and leaving a detailed note concerning student behaviour and content covered in class. Step nine concludes the school day with a personal reflection on how things went and how the substitute can build upon their experiences.

        The last thing Byers wants to communicate is four comprehensive approaches to improve the effectiveness of substitute teaching because not everything can be placed within a step-by-step framework. The four approaches are: diligence, flexibility, respect, and continued reflection. Diligence includes putting a positive and diligent work effort into all substitute work by being prompt and efficient, well organized, and professional and enthusiastic. Flexibility means being able to adapt to any substituting assignment by being effective and motivating and being able to assess and implement the different teaching approaches and classroom behaviours at the school. Byers believes that substitutes need to earn respect by being diligent and flexible. Also, respect needs to be encouraged for substitutes by administrators making substitutes feel welcome and respected, teachers encouraging respect from students, and by the substitute working as a professional. Finally, substitutes need to continually reflect on past and present experiences to improve their substitute teaching skills which will benefit school and most importantly, students.

        I believe this article to contain valuable information and strategies for substitute teachers. His methods are very proactive and can help to prepare students for accepting a substitute into the classroom. However, there are a few things it is lacking. This article is very technical. Byers claims that he developed his strategies based upon personal experience and I don't know what personal experience he is building upon. In Karen Zak's article “Making the Grade” she uses the personal experience of two substitutes teachers to outline the advantages and disadvantages to being a substitute teaching. These include: choice in jobs and control of schedule, as well as opportunities to learn from others as advantages; and lack of respect from students and teachers, lack of work, no prep time, and last minute calls as disadvantages. Another issue with this article is that while he developed some ideas very well, he leaves some issues severely underdeveloped. An example is in his explaination of why substitutes need respect and how they foster that respect. In the article “How to Manage Subs – Without Getting Sunk”, Armenta and Darwin give an excellent explanation of how (from an administrators standpoint) a substitute can earn and foster respect for themselves.

        The reason for my interest in effective classroom management is that I know I will be substitute teaching in the near future and I also know that schools want to keep effective substitutes. There will be many challenges to being a substitute teacher, including: not knowing school rules or student names, not having a personal space, entering into someone elses teaching space, dealing with cryptic lesson plans, and dealing with students who have no respect for a substitute teacher. In my opionion, if preparing effective classroom management strategies can make my time as a substitute teacher any easier then it will be time well spent. I found Byer's article to be particularly helpful and instructive, no matter that I found that it could have expanded upon a few points and included a little more personal experience. I appreciated how he provided detailed recommendations so substitutes teach effectively while remaining flexible, earning respect, and working professionally. Lastly, I wholeheartedly agree that it is extremely important for all teachers to continually reflect on past experiences to improve classroom management and instructional skills, which will in the long term benefit the school, the students, and the teacher.

References

Byer, J. L. (2008). A Sequential and Comprehensive Method for Effective Substitute Teaching. Online Submission, Retrieved May 14, 2011 from EBSCOhost.

Tony Armenta, & Elly V Darwin. (2007, April). How to Manage Subs-Without Getting Sunk! Principal Leadership, 7(8), 8-10. Retrieved May 16, 2011, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID: 1283041061).

Zak, Karen. (1999, November). Making the grade: how substitute teachers strive for respect, stability and fulfilment. Teach,23. Retrieved May 16, 2011, from ProQuest Education Journals. (Document ID:385239781).

Students' Perception of Portfolio Assessment

                   

     I choose to read an article about portfolio assessment called “Physics Students' Perceptions on their Journey through Portfolio Assessment”. This article is about portfolio assessment but focuses on the perspective of 9 out of 30 physics students experiences. Of the 9 students (3 female and 6 male), 3 did poorly, 3 did moderately well, and 3 did exceptionally. The reoccurring positive opinions of the students were that the portfolio allowed them to learn new things on their own, gave them a better understanding of what they were learning, helped them develop better writing skills, they enjoyed participating in lessons, and they made relationships between physics concepts and daily life events. Some of the negatives include having difficulty: accessing research material, writing ideas, some of the tasks were too ambiguous, and the most common was that students did not like the amount of time they were required to put into the portfolio. Overall the student reaction to the portfolio project was positive.

     I chose to read this article because I have no previous experience with portfolios other than a brief video we watched in PSI. I understand how they work, how to assess them, but I had no idea how students feel about them. This article was particularly interesting because it focuses so much on student perceptions into the learning process, participation, time management, and real world application. I found it particularly interesting that these students appreciated the fact that they enjoyed research and experimentation as well as improving their writing skills. I was not surprised, however, that the one reoccurring negative remark from almost all the students was that working on their portfolio took excessive amounts of time. I found this to be a weakness of the article because it doesn't tell us how much time is really expected to go into the portfolio. I can understand that a portfolio gives students a chance to excel by doing a number of different tasks and presenting them with evidence of learning and personal growth. I do not agree with large amounts of take-home work and feel that for the purposes of this physics portfolio it sounded like a lot of homework and personal research and experimentation. For student who have time and access to research materials this project would be a success. Not all students have lots of free time, however, and I believe that if a portfolio requires time, then the teacher should be scheduling class time. I know that I would use portfolios as an assessment tool, but I will always take in to consideration time, access to resources, writing skill, and assignment clarity.

Resource:

Ogan-Bekiroglu, F., & Gunay, A. (2008). Physics Students' Perceptions on Their Journey through Portfolio Assessment. Online Submission, Retrieved from EBSCOhost January 25, 2011. http://0-web.ebscohost.com.darius.uleth.ca/ehost/detail?hid=11&sid=a1bfac16-56a7-43c7-aabf-811bcd13bb26%40sessionmgr10&vid=5&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZSZzY29wZT1zaXRl#db=eric&AN=ED500926

Web Awareness Mind Map

Wild Weather Adventure!

Title of Activity: Wild Weather!

Reference Section: Fisher, D.(2006) NASA: National Astronautics and Space Administration. Retrieved Oct 10, 2010, from http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/goes/wwa/game.shtml

Grade Level: 5

Subject: Science

Brief Description of Activity:

     Students, in pairs, will go to the website and play the Wild Weather Adventure found at http://spaceplace.nasa.gov/en/kids/goes/wwa/game.shtml. The game plays like an interactive board game which challenges students to choose easy, medium, and hard questions. Students will use knowledge gained from studying different kinds of weather to answer questions. Working in pairs enable students to help each other out while still participating in a competitive activity. Students will play until there is a winner. If any pairs finish early they will just start the game over again in hopes they will choose more difficult questions.

General Learner Outcome:

• 5–8 Observe, describe and interpret weather phenomena; and relate weather to the heating and cooling of Earth’s surface.

Specific Learner Outcome:

• Describe evidence that air contains moisture and that dew and other forms of precipitation come from moisture in the air.

ICT Outcomes:

F.1 - Students will demonstrate an understanding of the nature of technology.

          - 1.3 demonstrate an understanding that the user manages and controls the outcomes of technology

F.3 - Students will demonstrate a moral and ethical approach to the use of technology.

          - 1.2 work collaboratively to share limited resources

P.4 – Students will integrate various applications.

          - 1.2 balance text and graphics for visual effect

Rationale for Computer Integration: This online activity allows students to utilize knowledge gained during a school unit working with different kinds of weather. Students will have to work in pairs to test their knowledge and even learn new things about weather not covered in the unit. This online activity is interactive and will motivate students to use knowledge gained in the classroom.

Effective Presentations

     It is becoming increasingly common to view a computer presentation in buisiness meetings, social programs, and in the classroom. Microsoft powerpoint is one of the most widely used formats for computer presentations, however, there are several online presentation sites such as prezi.com and Google Presentations. There is an endless amount of ways that a presentation can be designed and one of the biggest flaws is that it is too easy to over design a presentation. What I mean is that there can be too many pictures, or the color scheme is over or under contrasted. Perhaps there are distracting animations or the font is too small to read. One of the easiest ways to make a successful presentation is to simplify, simplify, simplify! As an example I will use the prezi presentation I created called "What is Effective Technology Integration for 21st Century Learners?".

https://prezi.com/secure/3876c89009fbd7355eae69ed69a9b9784ce51ffa/

    In my presentation I do several things to keep things simple and effective. One thing we cannot forget that this is just a visual for an actual oral presentation that would be given in front of an audience. The audience must not be distracted by:

     DON'T
                       - use complicated images and graphs
                       - too many images,
                       - too much text
                       - a wide variety of slide backgrounds and colors
                       - distracting animations.

There are many different things that can be done to simplify a presentation. Including:

     DO
                      - Use large font
                      - Choose an easy to read font
                      - Keep visuals simple and easy to interpret
                      - Use minimal visuals
                      - Keep colors consistent (Backgrounds and fonts)
                      - Use logical transitions from topic to topic and from slide to slide
                      - Limit the text to the bare necessities.

In my presentation I attempt to utilize many of these techniques. I kept the images and text to a minimum. I attempted to have my topic flow from one point to another in a logical way. I made the font large and easy to read. And finally I kept the colors consistent in text and backgrounds. I believe my presentation is interesting without being too distracting. As a presenter I would be able to discuss my topic without loosing the audience in what was going on behind me in the presentation.

What does a blog do anyways?

     In my mind blogs are very personal and we can put as much or as little effort into them as we want. Do I really believe that blogs are a valuable tool in the teachers little bag of teaching tricks and materieals? Not really. For elementary students the idea of creating a blog is out of the question mostly because they don't have the technology skills to build one in a reasonable amount of time. Also, their computer time at home and in the classroom would be very limited. Blogs are more plausible for the junior high and high school grades mostly because by then they will likly have extensive experience with computers and perhaps even with blogs. I think my biggest issues with blogs as a teaching resource is that students would have to have both the time and computer access both in class and at home, and even today there will be some students without computer or internet access.  

    On the other hand, for the purpose of this blog post, I have recently looked at a website which lists several ways in which blogs can be utilized in the classroom. Some of the more interesting ideas for using blogs in the classroom include: keeping an online journal, continueing class disscusions, creating a class archive, writing book reports, and collaborating on projects with other classes. I found these suggestions interesting because I don't know if I would ever have thought of them based apon my disbelief in blogs as a viable teaching resource. I think that setting up one blog would be more plausible, however, for the secondary grades it would be more valuable for the student to set up their own blog. I just don't know if it would be an efficient and beneficial use of time.

Let me introduce myself...

     My name is Melissa Mueller, I am 25 years old and I currently live in Lethbridge Alberta. I was born and raised in Swift Current Saskatchewan, where I graduated from Swift Current Comprehensive High School in 2003. Some of my hobbies include reading, watching movies, playing squash at the YMCA, and making jewellery. I have two sisters, Marissa my twin, and Krisite two years younger than myself. My parents, Joy and Lindsay, have been married for 27 years and still live in my hometown. I moved to Lethbridge in 2005 to attend the University of Lethbridge in the combined degree Bachelor of Arts, Bachelor of Education program. I met my boyfriend Lyle in 2007 and we have been dating for over three years now. Recently I have been accepted into the Faculty of Education where I plan to complete a two year after degree program. My future plans are to become a teacher, purchase my first home, and start a family with my wonderful boyfriend.

   

     My first experience with technology began in Grade 5, it involved one computer, 30 students, and a very slow internet connection. Since then I've personally owned one desktop computer and two laptops. I probably spend roughly two hours on the computer everyday; checking email, updating my status on facebook, watching videos on youtube, online shopping, and researching for school or for personal interests. I personally believe that technology is a valuable tool for learning in and outside the classroom. In particular for checking up on current events online, this is something I did in the classroom in high school and  it taught me another use for the internet other than checking up on friends and playing games. I also started to learn how to properly research subjects online. Such as how to know whether a website will be a viable resource in essays and for projects.