Mail merge...

Sometimes the curriculum in the business education realm can be a bit dry if you let it be. Teaching students how to complete a mail merge using Microsoft Excel and Word can be a little boring. So, I decided to have my students use the letterhead that they previously created in my class and write a letter about their community. They had to include what there is to do in the community, local events, recommend the events or activities they like, and overall invite people to come visit Joseph. Then, I had the students create a brochure about their community. When it comes time for the mail merge (I had them create a list of 20 people with names and addresses), we will pretend that they work for the local Chamber of Commerce and are sending letters to people inviting them to visit Wallowa County. So, we'll have letters to insert addresses into, and we'll format address labels for the brochures. So far, the students are responding well to the project, and they are enjoying learning more about where they live. Of course, they really like talking about what they like to do as well! But, the bottom line is that they will learn how to complete a mail merge....learning can be fun!

More Wiki Ideas....

After thinking more about wiki opportunitites...I had one hit me today. I decided that I would have the students in my Computer Applications class design a wiki about what they learned in class this year. So, they would have a page for each software program that we have worked with, as well as a page about what they learned about careers (since I incorporated a careers unit into the curriculum). The students will have to have at least five different tools listed for each software program (Word, Excel, and Publisher). I was also thinking that it would be a group project, similar to that of our own wiki project. My cooerating teacher was all for it, so I'll be designing this assignment over my upcoming spring break. Yay!

I think I'll use the wiki...

After completing my wiki project this term, I definitely feel like it would fit in perfectly with the business education curriculum. I think I am going to design a project where the students create their own wiki. I think it would be a fun project for them because most of my students love the internet, and it would give them ownership of something on the web (besides MySpace!).

I have been approached by a teacher at my placement school about such a project. The students will be learning about the history of Wallowa County, and then I will teach them how to use a wiki to publish their information to the web. I am excited about it! It will take a lot of cooperation and communication between myself and the other teacher, but I think it will be worth it for the students. Is anybody else going to use the wiki or blogging in their curriculum?

Discipline models???

I just finished having coffee with one of the teachers at my placement school. She is about my age, and also went through the EOU MTE program. We often get together to chat about school, and she mentioned that next year my placement school may be trying out a new discipline model. As it stands now, it feels like the students are not held accountable for their actions.

Because I don't feel like the students will be truly punished, or held accountable for their actions if I do send them to the office, I never send students there. Instead, I deal with most interruptions on my own. I usually simply have students stay after class, and I haven't had a lot of major conflicts thus far. But, I was wondering, what are some ways that other schools deal with students who are unruly? What happens if they are sent to the office? Am I the only one who deals with problems this way? I would be interested to hear about some other successful or not so successful discipline models in schools....

Questioning...

Questions, questions, questions...I have questions about questioning...

In my classes, I typically start the class with a series of questions related to the topic. Sometimes I will simply have the students recall what we talked about last class, while other times I will give the students a scenario and they have to answer how they would react in a given situation. During my lectures, the most common questions I use are, "Are you getting this? Does this make sense?" Most often, the students nod their heads and I simply keep going. What are some other ways that I can gauge student comprehension, besides an obvious look of confusion? Or, what are some other ways I can ask the students if they are really "getting" the material? Help!

Simulations....

While doing the teaching strategies matrix, the simulation example I came up with was having the students play the stock market game for a grading period. This would show them why and how the stock market works, and give them a fun activity. What are some other simulations that you may have tried in your classroom?

Prize drawings for good behavior...a PBS strategy.

Near the beginning of this school year, my placement school had an inservice workshop about Positive Behavior Systems (PBS). In the workshop we learned about what PBS is and isn't, as well as what it takes to implement PBS. They showed us some great examples of what other schools have done, and different activities to improve overall student behavior.

After listening to it all, I thought that I could implement at least one of the strategies that they mentioned. The strategy involved giving more attention to those students who exhibit positive and acceptable behavior in the classroom. In doing so, you can emphasize recognizing the students who do act appropriately, and minimize the attention that you may normally give the students who act inappropriately. I know that I was definitely giving too much attention and spending too much time on those students who did not follow the rules. So, what I decided to do was reward the students who did act appropriately each day. In one particular class, we give daily points for being on time to class, prepared, on task, and respectful of the teacher and other students. If the students earned their full amount of daily points each day, I put their name in to a drawing. At the end of the unit, I decided to hold a drawing and the students could win a variety of prizes. So, the incentive was to earn the full amount of points each day to get more chances at winning, and anyone who got their full daily points everyday would automatically win a prize.

I let the students know the parameters, and had a nicely decorated jar for all of the names to go in to. At first, some of the students that that it was stupid (did I mention that these students are freshman), but quite a few were very excited about winning a prize. This class is very competitive, so I figured that they would like doing something like this. It did end up helping their behavior in this class, and they enjoyed the activity. It was something different and gave some of the students something to look forward to. Anyone else tried something like this?

When feeling down...try this...

This Monday I woke with with a pretty severe sore throat. I had some tea with breakfast, and figured that I could make it through the day. I didn't want to call in sick because I was responsible for 3 of the 4 classes that day.

My first class of the day is typically a little rowdy and I often have to get after some of the students for excessive talking or getting off task. As the students were working on their brain teaser for the day, I told them that today I wasn't going to talk over them because I simply couldn't. Normally my voice is pretty loud and carries very easily. But, that day I could barely get a sentence out. I also told the students that if I had to talk with them more than once about being loud or off task that I would keep them for their morning break.

As we got the first few things out of the way that morning and the students began working on their projects, I was amazed at their behavior. The classroom was the most quiet it's been all year long. None of the students were chatting with each other or getting off task. Because we have block schedule, and that first class is nearly two hours long because of silent reading time added on to the end of that period, I praised the students about halfway through and let them take a break. I have given the students breaks before in that class if they are exhibiting good behavior, and after their break they normally get a little rowdy and off-task. But, after their break this time, the students came right back in to the classroom and worked hard the rest of the period.

I was very proud and relieved that the students acted the way they did. I have never asked the students to do something like that for me before, and I wasn't sure if it would work. I do know that this is something I can use in class when I do become a teacher, but I will have to use it sparingly. If the students constantly heard me saying I didn't feel good and asked them to be good that day, I am sure they would finally just ignore my pleas. This was a great learning experience, and I am still very proud and appreciative of my students!

KWL Update

In my last entry, I talked about using the KWL activity and how great I thought that it worked with my personal finance class. I just wanted to expand a little more on that because this last weekend I actually changed my lecture and focused it in more on what the students wanted to know. I had already given the students handouts of the PowerPoint presentation about the stock market (and their copy had information missing so that they had to pay attention to find the missing info). Since I did change the PowerPoint and felt it wasteful to make more copies of the presentation, I simply put the changed slide headings in red. This would alert the students that this was new information and that they would need to take notes on each slide with a red heading. Not only did the activity help me focus the lecture, but I think that it showed the students that I do value what they have to say and what they want to learn. Anyway, I just wanted to expand a little more on my KWL process.

KWL...I love it!

Yesterday in my Personal Finance class I started a lecture on investing and the stock market. Before I began though, I had the students do a KWL activity. I had them write down what they already know about the stock market, as well as what they want to know about the stock market. I collected these worksheets at the end of class, and will return the worksheets at the end of the stock market unit so that the students will tell me what they learned. It was a very useful tool because I could see that the students really don't know much at all about the stock market. I also found that the majority of them want to learn the same types of things. This will focus my lectures and activities. This was the first time that I used the KWL activity and I am very glad that I did. Because the amount of information I could teach the students about investing and the stock market is so vast, it really helped me to narrow my teaching of the subject. Anybody else used the KWL before, and how so???

Competition

Well, thus far in teaching this year, I have learned that competition really gets the students going. This is especially helpful in my classes right before lunch. If we do a review activity and the winner gets to go to lunch early, I have a lot of buy-in and the students strive to do well. Not only that, I have used Jeopardy! (of course!) to review and a modified style of Family Fued. It really gets the students involved and they enjoy the activities and the prizes. Any other game or competition ideas?

Openers

In two of the classes that I am responsible for teaching, I have been using brain teaser openers for the students. When they come into the classroom, they are to get to work on the brain teasers on the board. So far, it has worked pretty well and the students are enjoying them, while I am enjoying them being busy while I can get role and wait for the morning announcements. But, the brain teasers really aren't related to business or keyboarding, which are the topics of the two classes. Does anyone have any ideas of things I can do at the beginning of class that are related to business and keyboarding???

Parents....

Well, today, I had to meet with a parent about one of my students. It was not a fun experience. I know this is supposed to be about teaching strategies but I really can't help but vent just a little. I just couldn't believe that the parent refused to have her student take responsibility for his behavior. I know that the student is capable of doing the work, but he refuses to do so. I have tried everything I can think of to get him involved with his studies, and yet it is his choice not to do the work! Aaaaaahhhhhh! But then again, "Teacher's are never wrong." That one is a direct quote! Well, I think I got it all out, and I hope that the student will be able to take responsibility for his behavior in the future!

First Timer

Well, this is my first blogging experience, so I will have to get used to doing this! Basically this blog will be about my successes, failures, and aspirations in using new teaching strategies.

Just a little about me:
I am a Master's in Teacher Education student at Eastern Oregon University. I am currently student teaching at Joseph Middle/High School in Joseph, OR. I have been placed there since the beginning of the school year, and will stay there until school is out this spring.

The town of Joseph has a population of about 1,100. Currently, there are about 90 students that attend Joseph High School and the population of the junior high (grades 5-8) is 68 students. I actually graduated from Joseph High School in 2002, and had many of the teachers that I teach with now as teachers myself. I am enjoying my experience at JHS tremendously, and hope to eventually get a job in this district.