I just finished a night of conferences with my two CT's and it was so interesting to see the disconnect between the students work ethic and how they are evaluated in school verses how their parents see them as workers. Parents defend to a fault and I saw so many defensive parents tonight. It was interesting to see how this was dealt with and how the CT's were able to work around that to be able to communicate concerns or give comments on what they see are the best possible options to support student needs and learning.

I just taught my first UbD lesson and I left overflowing with thoughts and reflections. There is so much wonder and excitement I have about the social studies content I'm teaching. I just wish I could transmit that to my students through osmosis. I wanted to incorporate student voice and boost status thorugh a jeopardy activity, and I think it was good. The group of students hasn't had activities like that ever before so, all things considered I think they did really well. They were responsive and provided measureable, appropriate feedback. With this activity though, I had one student in every group that was really engaged, the rest of the students were still getting over the novelty of being placed into groups for a "game" ( I didn't call it that, but that's what they were thinking.) How can I scaffold these activites appropriately if I want to start introducing them this late in the year? Do you just have to dive right in and begin by telling them your new expectations for experiences like this, or do you work up to them?

In the ELED 470 class we have been discussing the importance of using "student voice"to guide discussion, curriculum flow and unit transitions. The students voices need to be listened too not only for assessment and classroom management purposes, but also to help me as a future teacher. I need to be hearing what the students are saying, ( and not saying) and to be interpreting what they are saying to help me shape my lesson and provide the appropriate scaffolding. I need to have students lift up their voices to raise up my lesson plans, and allow time for them to be part of it. They have so much to teach me and I need to allow them to have that opportunity. One question I would like to raise, is when you have a rowdy group of students that when given opportunities to speak, it creates classroom management issues. How do you prevent holding them back from them a chance to discuss and use their voices appropriately?

I am feeling more comfortable with managing individual students and keeping them on task and focused. However, overall classroom management is something I'm working on. I am focusing on transitions and making my instructions and think-alouds more straightforward in hopes that this will tighten up the loose ends that perhaps are allowing me to lose control of the class.