HSRA

A lot of exciting things have happened at the High School for the Recording arts in St. Paul since my last entry. The students continually grow more and more comfortable with me and they open up more each visit. A few visits ago I worked one-on-one with students on how to interview people. We discussed how to come up with creative and original interview questions, and then I gave the students a few minutes to prepare questions that they could ask me for an interview. When they felt comfortable with the questions they prepared, the students completed mock-interviews with me, which we recorded so that they would be able to hear how they did afterwards. It was a great activity, that the students were really locked into and focused.

However, the thing I'm most excited about is a field trip that I have planned for this coming Monday night. Seven or eight students who are in the radio/broadcasting class are going to be coming to the Macalester Radio station during my show to observe. I got the idea for this field trip from a woman that we learned about in Ed. Psych last semester. I can't remember her name, but every year she would take children from her school, which was almost all African-American, on a tour of Historically Black Colleges. This was done in hopes of showing the students the real, tangible opportunities that they can take advantage of if they worked hard, set goals, etc. The students from HSRA are really excited for the visit and so am I. It will be very interesting for them because the radio show that they produce is all pre-recorded and edited before it airs, whereas my radio show is all live. This is a great opportunity for them to see another style of radio broadcasting. I'm going to give the students a tour of the whole studio before the show gets started, and then they'll be able to observe my whole show, from the sound-board mixing, to the live interviews, etc.

After the field trip, my plan is to have the students practice live interviews more, and plan out how they would conduct a 1-hour radio show. If everything works out, I'm going to give some of the students an hour of my 2-hour show to actually have to opportunity to host their own live-radio show. I think it will be awesome practice for them, and will continue to spark their interest in the radio and broadcasting industry.

I hope everyone else's placements are going well!

Week 2 - Life Skills in the Gym

My spring break plans changed so I decided to go in for my normal session on Tuesdays. That day Mr. Gunderson and the other Geography teacher were doing a joint lesson in the gym. The lesson was based on three different team building activities. The reason the two teachers decided to do the activities is that it was the beginning of a new quarter and students had just been shuffled around, so they did not all know their new classmates.

I had fun helping with the activities and most of the students seemed to have enjoyed themselves. I was impressed that when explaining the purpose of the lesson, Mr Gunderson chose to speak about the most valued skills in the Fortune 500 companies and that the activities would allow the students to develop such skills. He really treats them like mature people but withdraws this privilege or threatens to withdraw it when they misbehave. It is a unique method of class management.

I am going in again tomorrow. It's pretty tiring to go in for a straight 5 hours so I'll probably be a bit sleepy when I get to class. Oh and it was great that though I hadn't gone in for a week or two, the kids who I had worked with remembered me. I was a lot more comfortable but it could have been because we were playing games.

Not much new has happened over the past two weeks. Last week I was on spring break and this week the students at my site are on spring break. I did get a chance to come back to saint paul and visit the students on tuesday however, over my break. I felt pretty good about that visit because the students were writing, they always work on writing from 1-2 when I'm there, and they were getting used to me. So many of them flagged me down with spelling questions, I got to help Jeremy catch up with the class because he understand what the teacher was saying during group instructions (and she yelled alot, again), and I asked them about the fiction stories they were writing for fun. I was hoping that by asking them to share what their stories they would be excitied to talk to me and I could plant th idea that I was really interested in what they were doing and was impressed by it. I felt as thought that started to work, they would talk quickly and show me pictures, watch as I listened to their neighbors story to see if I would stop by them next. I felt as if I was finally building a relationship.

There is little guidance form Ms. Schwartz as to what I should be doing for the students during my time there. She made a comment about wishing I was there more often and I doubted my decision to split my weeks between two classrooms. I'd made that choice because the volunteer coordinator at the school told me both of the teachers I help were looking for extra afternoon volunteers so I thought it was a good thing. It's too late to back out now but maybe I am stunting my progress as a teacher's aid and student helper by only coming in once a week for two hours in both classrooms. Maybe I should have picked one.

Ms. Dahl is very great about answering my questions, explaining her procedures and tests, and even talking about how she deals with parents. She's much more open but there is time in the afternoon for just us two to talk after her student go to their daily elective (technology, gym, science, or music I believe). I feel a good deal of support for how I should help and which students I should pay attention to in Ms. Dahl's classroom, and I'm just following instinct in the Ms. Schwartz's. However, in Ms. Schwartz's classroom and para or perhaps teacher I'm not sure, comes in the same afternoons I do for an hour to help individual students with writing. I've taken to keeping an eye and ear on her table as she works while I walk around the classroom to see how she handles the students who struggle. She is much more patient and kind, offers more praise. And the students never seem reluctant to join her at the table in the back for individual help. They must like her. I try to pay attention to how often she offers help and how often she waits for students to ask her questions. How many leading questions does she ask? Does she spell out words completely or sound them out with students? I think I might ask if she minds me sitting at that table with her sometime and watching her work with students. She rarely takes disciplinary action so I wouldn't be distracted by what I find to be poor classroom management at times on Ms. Schwartz's part. I think I could learn a good deal about how best to help the students by watching her.

I have found that my role is mainly to answer simply questions, spell things, try to keep students following directions, and help kids read. Also, I do office assistant like things. I correct tests, do classroom cleanup things, I'm like an assistant. So I'm at the bottom rung but seeing a great deal.

Horace Mann Placement

I have been visiting a first grade classroom on Tuesday afternoons and a third grade classroom on Thursday afternoons. I'm doing my best to remain open minded, and to tell myself that I don't know anything about running an elementary school classroom and have forgotten pretty much everything about being a member of one, but there is such a shocking lack of student constructed learning. Everything so structured and discipline centered. Perhaps that's how students at that age need to learn? And in classrooms with 25 plus students, the kids who are above just following orders can be few and far betweens so perhaps they just have to put up with it?

The first grade classroom I have visited only twice, being sick last week and unable to go, so I met a substitute teacher on my first day and the regular teacher my second. Both asked students to be quiet about every four minutes and spoke loudly and often with an irritated tone to the students at large. Ms. Schwartz called a student annoying and warned the students against "making a big fat mess" of their writing projects. She just mean sometimes, I only truly heard her speak very gently when she was reading the students a story and asking them questions about it as she went.

In the first grade classroom students are asked to sit still, be quiet, raise their hands, and follow instructions. The only constructivism I saw was in students trying to spell out words correctly on their own by sounding it out or using their word board (an alphabet with what I assume are past spelling words listed under the letter they start with, it's on the wall in the back of the room) that I assume builds off of past knowledge or vocabulary. They aren't presented problems to solve on their own.

Neither is the third grade classroom, it's all instruction and I'm just set loose on both classrooms. I'm told to walk around, look over shoulders, offer help when needed, answer spelling questions, and I'm not told what not to do, how to speak, which students to push, which students to give extra help, and I feel like I'm going to do more damage than good. On tuesday this week the students were doing non-fiction books on sea turtles and apparently it was writing standard assessment and I wasn't sure how much help I could give or when to keep my mouth shut. In general they seem excited to see me, only one girl wouldn't look at me when I bent down to ehlp her with spelling. The rest are very chatty when I stop by their desks and are excited about a new face.

The third grade classroom I feel a little more at ease in because the students are more competent in helping one another and telling me what their teacher normally does when I help them. I worked with a group of four on a social studies story today and I quite enjoyed it. I even solved my first squabble and found a motivational tool. The little room we went to had one swivel chair and the rest were hard plastic desk chairs and they argued over who got to sit there, so I said we would switch chairs every time we turned a page, so they had to focus on getting through the material. We took turns reading aloud, went over vocab words, and talked about how we help our communities (the theme of the chapter). When Ms. Dahl, their teacher, announced a group would get to work out in the hall with me, the entire class raised their hands, hoping to be called on to come out. That was exciting. Still, everything is very methodical. This is how you study the vocab words, this is how you do your handwriting, this is how we share with the group, this is how we...at the very least they have art projects going on. Last week they decorated cups, and they do something new every week, that is creative though still not constructivst.

They wrote poems earlier in the day which I got to correct, and felt ill prepared to grade third grade poetry. I was to correct spelling and give suggestions, "use more describing words, use more beautiful language." I didn't know when to disapprove or be impressed, I have no idea what the average poetry skills are for this age. I felt very arbitrary when giving suggestions and comments. Ms. Dahl doesn't seem uncomfortable at all asking me to grade things which are subjective, however. I've also graded tests for her which had open ended answers and she'll give me examples of good ones and then just let me grade the tests on my own. It's good experience, and I understand she isn't my teacher. But I feel like it would be better for me and the students if someone was looking over my shoulder as I graded their tests. Oh well, I'll just do my best and ask frequent questions.

Ramsey Placement

After weeks of struggling to find a nearby service learning opportunity that related to the incorporation of civic engagement into higher education, I finally decided to resort to being in a classroom setting. As I explored classroom opportunities I became certain that I did not want to tutor, which left me with the option of serving as a teaching assistant. Tina kindly connected me with a Mr. Gunderson at Ramsey and literally, everything came together within a few minutes.

I am a teaching assistant in a World Geography class for 8th graders at Ramsey. I go in on Tuesdays for 5 hours and assist with 5 classes. I went in for the first time last week. I really did not know what to expect and before classes started Mr. Gunderson gave me a pep talk in which he advised me to be consistent with the kids, build a relationship with them, not to take any offensive comments made by the kids personally and to just respond with a sense of humor. He advised me to just observe for the first day.

The bell rang and the kids for the first class arrived. I was sitting nervously at the back of the classroom not really knowing what to do besides smile at each quizzical face that came with every new body that entered the classroom. Mr. Gunderson had warned me that the kids would likely compare me to the Mac student who had served as an assistant teacher last year, a person that really liked. (No pressure felt!)

Each of the five classes was a different size, had a different ethnic mix of kids and so required one to offer a different, tailored approach to interaction. It struck me that the classes that Mr. Gunderson struggled most to manage were the ones that have a larger percentage of African American children. These kids seemed to struggle to concentrate and thus, were constantly distracted and rambunctious. What impressed me about Mr. Gunderson's approach with each group, particularly the groups with rowdy kids was the consistency of his tone and the way in which he addressed the students as "ladies and gentlemen" even when they were misbehaving.

As for the teaching method, Mr. Gunderson presented a power-point and throughout asked students to relate ideas to their lives here in the Twin Cities. He also asked various students to read out aloud from the text book. Lastly, the element that most closely relates to constructivism is the worksheet that he gave the students, which required them to complete a "sandwich" exercise in which they used a map to find different features, in the middle of two cities or countries. It was at this point that I became of any use. Every time each class would start working on the "sandwich" exercise I would walk around and help different kids. It was awkward during the first class because I was just sitting down nervously wondering what to do then Mr. Gunderson came up to me and said "you can walk around and see what they're doing." Though I gained more confidence in myself, with each new class I did not know what to anticipate. In the end the kids weren't as bad as I thought they would be. There are some difficult kids though. This experience really made me admire teachers, particularly those who teach young children. It is absolutely draining especially when you have kids who are rumbunctuous. At some point there was a girl walking around the classroom, singing a hip-hop song while Mr. Gunderson was teaching. At that point my admiration for teachers rose to its peak.

Placement Update

The last two weeks at my placement have been great. I have finally gotten to meet and engage with the program participants and make more meaningful connections with the staff. My placement site is at a non-profit organization which focuses on exposing youth to the arts. Wednesday through Saturday of each week, youth are given the opportunity to participate in a variety of arts related activities. The program offers singing, fashion design, hip-hop, kickboxing and theatre classes. There is also a flower shop project called, “Petal Pushers,” which is a youth entrepreneurship venture started by four program participants.
The program works with inner-city youth, mainly girls, who live around Nicolette Avenue and its surrounding neighborhoods in Minneapolis. Most, if not all, program participants are from low-income or poor families and majority of the participants are students of color. Because there is a great age and cultural difference between the program participants and the program administrators, who are elder white women, the group has a youth advisory board set up so that participants can help direct the types of programs offered as well as keep communication between the two groups flowing.
Most of the time I spend at my placement site is spent doing administrative work like engaging in grant research and grant writing. While administrative activities take the bulk of my time, my favorite part of each day is spent sitting with the girls. Before each class, program participants spend sixty minutes sitting down to have a snack and talk about life. Over the last couple of weeks, these periods spent with the girls has managed to leave an impression on me. Without meaning to, the program participants have impacted me through their ability to be so painfully honest yet so completely free. Despite the various struggles these girls have face, they manage to retain the lightheartedness which allows them to whisper about boys and giggle about the funny things their classmates said at school. Each of these girls has big dreams, whether it is to become an international spy or a world famous fashion designer, and I just feel so lucky to be around such refreshing people.
I think that most of the programs offered at this site take a very constructivist approach to learning. While this is probably due to the nature of doing art programs, I can see that the group highlights the importance of experiential learning. The unstructured periods before official classes are kept organic so that participants can choose the topics to talk about and be able to learn from one another. The “Petal Pushers” project is also very constructivist as participants created their own business plan to start the idea and continue to learn through experience as they create flower arrangements and learn to run a business.

HSRA Update

My first few weeks at the St. Paul High School for the Recording Arts has gone great so far. I've been working one on one with students who produce a weekly hip-hop radio show for 96.3FM. It's on every Sunday morning at 8AM if anyone ever wants to listen in. So far I've been sharing with the students my background in radio and some of the things I try to do on my show. Also, we've been working on lots of grammatical and speaking errors that the students have been making. Their show isn't produced live, it is pre-recorded and mixed in advance so I have the opportunity to work with them on their language use, pronunciations, etc before the official show airs. Part of the show involves interviewing other people so I've also been working with students on coming up with interesting and diverse questions. After the prep work, I've been helping students one-on-one with the editing of the show on the computer. I'm also in the process of setting up a field-trip for the class so that they can come and tour the Macalester Radio station. One of my main concerns before starting was how to gain the respect of students who were sometimes only a year younger than me, but it hasn't proven to be a problem whatsoever so far. In fact, the relationships with the students I'm working with have formed and grown faster than I expected.

There's been plenty of example of constructivism at work at HSRA so far. The best example is the curriculum of the class. Students take their prior knowledge of english, speaking skills, and computer editing and apply it on their own through experimenting with the show and learning from their mistakes. My student, "Swerve," uses his prior knowledge of speaking skills, etc and conducts interviews all on his own, writing all of the questions and performing the interview as well. He has room to make mistakes, and make discoveries on his own. My other student, "Young Pain," uses his prior knowledge with computer editing, and he applies it in the classroom by editing and mixing the entire show by himself. The teacher is present if he ever needs help, but Young Pain generally works through the show without asking questions, and discovers new things along the way. Everything about the class is extremely hands on, the teacher is simply present to guide and keep the class on task.

I can't wait to keep working with this class, but I'm also hoping to start helping out with some more traditionally academic classes as well.

At the Lab

Despite minor confusions, I've successfully run two participants through the experiment at the U. The investigation itself is quite interesting, but I find it rather intriguing to observe how people act at the beginning of the experiment, how they respond to the trial runs, and how they react to the debriefing form. There's a wide variety of responses and, for the sake of keeping the experiment as uniform as possible, I can only investigate to a certain degree what those responses are reflecting about inner thoughts of the participant. I do, however, get the chance to analyze differences in participants in terms of their performance in the study.

Next week, Professor Varma will be talking to me, Ker, and Danielle (the other two student workers at the lab) about how to analyze the data from the experiments. This is thrilling for me. I’ll get to apply my love of finding patterns to an application that is both constructive and beneficial. In addition, I have the chance to contribute something potentially significant to the research itself. Granted, I’m working with two students, both of whom are seniors, so my expertise won’t match theirs. However, I may be able to spot something that they don’t. Equally, I’m sure, they’ll be able to teach me about the right, wrong, ineffective, effective ways to go about looking for meaningful patterns in this type of data. Overall, it’s very exciting to be in a situation where I have the opportunity to expand and deepen my knowledge of a certain topic.

Professor Varma, in his own way, is constructing a new experiment to expand his own knowledge of schemas and how they affect our understanding of the world. Already, Ker, Danielle and I have contributed to this new study by providing feedback and completing minor research assignments. It’s exciting to know that I’m contributing to the professor’s future work. Between this and running participants, it feels as thought I’m truly beginning to find my niche within this group. However, I still feel like something is missing.

By taking part in the lab at the U I’m definitely learning a lot about the research process; the frustrations of finding participants, the excitement of completing an experiment, etc. However, I don’t feel as though I’m applying my knowledge to other aspects of my life to the extent that I would like. In order to do this, I could to read more papers pertaining to the subject matter and relate that knowledge back to my classes here at Macalester.

I’d also like to apply that knowledge to working at the Laura Jeffrey Academy. I’m still awaiting a response about an interview, but I’m hoping to spend at least some time there. (I miss working with kids!!)

By allowing us to contribute to his research, Professor Varma is utilizing a constructivist approach. Rather than telling us exactly what’s going to happen, how it’s going to happen, and when it’s going to happen, he allows us to provide input and contribute ideas regarding the research. He takes these contributions seriously and actually applies them to his work. As a result, we are all more excited about, engaged with, and have a better understanding of the research.

Placement Update

In the last few weeks of my placement, I’ve gotten to see a lot of the ups and downs inherent in the day-to-day running of a 7^th grade English class. The teacher, Lisa, has an incredibly diverse group of students in terms of race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status and ability, which adds to the difficulty of keeping 30 middle school students engaged and focused on a lesson. She does her best to hold students to high expectations and check in with the students falling behind, but with so many students, I think it’s difficult for her to follow through all the time. For example, there are two students (a boy and a girl) in one of the classes I’m in that should not sit next to each other. They clearly like each other and spend the entire class talking and engaging in the middle school version of flirting (which is hilarious). Their constant chatter is disruptive to other students and to themselves—every time they receive instructions for something, both students miss what is going on, and then don’t do it. Lisa is frustrated by them and mentioned to me that she has spoken to them a few times and wants to move them, but when I was at Ramsey on Friday, the two were still next to each other. I guess figuring out how to move the two students without messing up the seating order for other students was a task that couldn’t be considered a priority with so much else to do.

The whole time I’ve been in the classroom, the students have been working on a poetry unit. While I know Lisa is trying to make it as engaging as possible, asking middle school students to write poetry seems to me like pulling teeth. Half the class will usually at least humor or her, but there are students in every class (I see three classes) who flat out refuse to write poetry because it’s “stupid.” Even when Lisa has a particularly fun and novel lesson planned, the students don’t take it seriously. She had the students do an activity with orange slices and saltine crackers to talk about “juicy words” (exciting, interesting words that you remember). First, the students crumbled the saltines onto paper plates. Lisa asked them what was left on their hands afterwards (the answer was, some cracker dust but not much else). The cracker represented “dusty” words. Then the students squeezed orange slices, which looked really fun to me. It was messy and sticky and they were supposed to squeeze as much juice out as they could. Lisa asked again what was left on their hands, and the students complained about how sticky their hands remained from the orange juice (I then gave them all wet wipes). The orange slices represented “juicy” words that (literally) stick with you and leave a lasting impression.

I thought this was such a cool way to talk about vocabulary with students but when the next part of the activity came, it was clear many of them had not been paying attention to anything but the act of smashing foods, and still did not understand what she meant by “juicy” words, which was unfortunate because those who had were doing the next part of the activity (a "Juicy Words" Taxonomy) really well and were not recognized for their efforts. I think this lesson was somewhat constructivist in that it was hands-on, involved natural curiosity and novelty, and a bit of social inquiry, though it was more guided by teacher then I think a true constructivist lesson would have been. I see though why it is so difficult to have lessons like that in a public school classroom with so many students, because often they detract from rather than enhance learning. I’m still pondering how that lesson could have been structured and/or executed so that it would have gone better, but I keep coming back to the problem of the over-crowded classroom and I’m not sure how to solve that.

Placement Recap

The past two week s of my placement at EXPO Elementary has gone smoothly and thus far been a good experience. I have worked with three different groups consisting of 3rd, 5th, and 6th graders. The older students mostly only need extra help when trying to spell complex words or when trying to comprehend new ideas form articles or books they are reading. I have been helping the younger students with phonics mostly.

The classroom that I have been placed in is very different from the one that I worked in last semester at Ramsey Junior High. In this classroom thee are a lot more objects and colors around the room. To me it seems like as a student it would seem like a setting where you would feel calm and secure, which we know to be very important for learning to take place.

I'm excited for next week because I get to follow some of the students around to the other classes they go to. This will be interesting since I will get to see the LD students interaction in their mainstream classrooms. So far I think I have had a fun time at my placement and look forward to it every week.