My internship is over now, I enjoyed a long and relaxing spring break, and now it is time for me to start working on finding a job! I have already applied to Pinellas and Alachua counties and I am very close to being done with Citrus county and will be applying to others in the next couple of weeks. I have applied to three specific jobs but have not heard back about any of them yet, so I guess as of this moment I am not an immediate candidate for any of those positions.
I went to Education Recruitment Day at UF yesterday. It was both depressing and hopeful at the same time. There were only about 15 booths of recruiters there when the Career Resource Center advertised upwards of 40 or 50. Regardless, I got to talk to some recruiters from Polk, Sumter, Orange, and Citrus counties who were generally encouraging. I even had a sit down screening/interview type thing with Alachua county. The most optimistic discussion I had was with Citrus County. It is a rural county about an hour from Gainesville, Tampa, and Orlando; which are my three target cities in terms of location. The people I talked to were great, and I even met a principal who is going to be having openings at his school. I never had thought about Citrus county before, because I honestly don't know much about it, but the people were friendly and enthusiastic and it was nice to meet them. They told me to come for a visit, so I already emailed someone about heading down there to look around. If I am able to visit before the job postings even go online, maybe that will give me an edge. I obviously have no experience in a rural county with only 4 middle schools and 3 high schools, but in terms of location and salary, Citrus county seems like a pretty ideal match for what I want.
Now I just need to keep working on applications and making contacts and praying that I am in tune to God's plan for me and my future!
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Day 40 - The end is really just the beginning.
The end! Today was our last official day at the internship! I really can not believe how quickly this time has gone by and I am so fortunate to have had this experience. Whenever our students complain about how they don't get paid to go to school (entitlement issues much?) we remind them that we paid UF $3,000 to let us get to teach them, but this internship was really worth every penny. I can't even begin to express how much I have learned- I have started a list of things to focus on in the first few weeks of school, I have a better idea of how teenagers think and act, and I know I will be more confident entering a job than I would be otherwise.
Today we talked about plagiarism, which is a tough and often confusing issue. We tried our best to let the students know that we were not yelling at them, criticizing them, or accusing them of plagiarism on their projects, but that we wanted to inform them, so that they could not use ignorance as an excuse for plagiarizing. Many of them seemed frustrated and confused at first, but I think everyone started to come around by the end of class. Several students asked us, "Why has no one ever told us this stuff before?" That made me feel good, knowing that we had correctly guessed that many students had little idea what constitutes plagiarism and how to avoid it. We may not have made expert researchers today, but we did teach our students something valuable that applies outside of the social studies bubble. Learning how to write and use citations properly is a skill that takes time and practice to master; I hope we began pushing our students in the right direction today.
During lunch and after school, Carrie and I administered some make-up work to the responsible students (if you can call taking a test 2 months late responsible) who came in to take care of things before we give the reigns back to our supervising teacher. We cleaned the dry erase boards, cleared out our supplies, and basically cleaned up after ourselves. It is going to be sad not going back to that classroom and seeing the students everyday, because as much as they aggravated me sometimes, there is a rewarding feeling of fulfillment and hidden within the challenge of teaching these hard-headed, opinionated, sometimes immature and irrational, but overall genuinely good-hearted students.
The ending of this internship experience is really just the beginning of the rest of my career- can you believe that?!? Now it is time to begin the job search. I have already nearly completed one application and will continue to do more in the next few weeks. I am going to try to utilize the few connections I have and make as many more as I can. Being a "grown up" is right around the corner. I have been thinking about and planning for this for probably the last 7 years or so and I can't believe it is finally here : )
Today we talked about plagiarism, which is a tough and often confusing issue. We tried our best to let the students know that we were not yelling at them, criticizing them, or accusing them of plagiarism on their projects, but that we wanted to inform them, so that they could not use ignorance as an excuse for plagiarizing. Many of them seemed frustrated and confused at first, but I think everyone started to come around by the end of class. Several students asked us, "Why has no one ever told us this stuff before?" That made me feel good, knowing that we had correctly guessed that many students had little idea what constitutes plagiarism and how to avoid it. We may not have made expert researchers today, but we did teach our students something valuable that applies outside of the social studies bubble. Learning how to write and use citations properly is a skill that takes time and practice to master; I hope we began pushing our students in the right direction today.
During lunch and after school, Carrie and I administered some make-up work to the responsible students (if you can call taking a test 2 months late responsible) who came in to take care of things before we give the reigns back to our supervising teacher. We cleaned the dry erase boards, cleared out our supplies, and basically cleaned up after ourselves. It is going to be sad not going back to that classroom and seeing the students everyday, because as much as they aggravated me sometimes, there is a rewarding feeling of fulfillment and hidden within the challenge of teaching these hard-headed, opinionated, sometimes immature and irrational, but overall genuinely good-hearted students.
The ending of this internship experience is really just the beginning of the rest of my career- can you believe that?!? Now it is time to begin the job search. I have already nearly completed one application and will continue to do more in the next few weeks. I am going to try to utilize the few connections I have and make as many more as I can. Being a "grown up" is right around the corner. I have been thinking about and planning for this for probably the last 7 years or so and I can't believe it is finally here : )
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Day 39 - Madness. March Madness.
Today we began 1st period with a very nice announcement about plagiarism. Surprisingly, the students seemed rather attentive. I guess that 8:30AM and plagiarism are a subduing combination. The students, or most of them anyway, spent the rest of the period working on their projects. I had a near heart attack when I heard my computer fall off a desk and onto the floor, but it's alright (or so I pray). With 10 minutes left in class we told the students that they had until Monday morning to get their projects completed and turned in. Hopefully they pull through.
For second period, we went to observe the intern for 11th grade English so we could see our students outside their history portable. They were a little confused to see us and it was interesting to watch them. The make-up of the class was not quite the same as in our classes so we got to see different cliques and behaviors. Maybe it was the shape/design of the different classroom, but the students seemed a little quieter than in our classroom. They had a pretty laid back day, so for about the last 30 minutes of class, several students (all boys, mind you) decided to give us advice on teaching. A little bit of it made sense, but I think they said a lot of things to see our reactions. They said they wanted to prepare us for the "real deal" when we have our own classrooms. Plus, and I really don't want to sound vain here, many of these teenage boys seem to enjoy talking to us lately. They have gotten comfortable having us around- time for us to get out! Haha. It is nice, though, to hear that many of the students (both boys and girls) don't want us to leave yet.
During our planning period and lunch we went with our teacher to a very important off campus meeting at a location where they serve food and have many televisions tuned into NCAA March Madness wonderfulness. Our students probably won't be pleased that we weren't there to answer questions immediately after school, but some of them need to make up quizzes/tests from over a month ago and our supervising teacher instructed us to not feel guilty at all. They will have tomorrow and Monday to talk to us and it will be all good.
TOMORROW IS MY LAST DAY TEACHING!!!!! While this makes me want to jump for joy, it also makes very real the fact that I need to find a job. I am starting to feel the stress of this and I am trying really hard to trust in God's plan for me and put in all the effort I can to meet him halfway here in this job search thing. The online portion of one of my applications will be ready to go tomorrow so that is a relief. Say some extra prayers for me if you can!
For second period, we went to observe the intern for 11th grade English so we could see our students outside their history portable. They were a little confused to see us and it was interesting to watch them. The make-up of the class was not quite the same as in our classes so we got to see different cliques and behaviors. Maybe it was the shape/design of the different classroom, but the students seemed a little quieter than in our classroom. They had a pretty laid back day, so for about the last 30 minutes of class, several students (all boys, mind you) decided to give us advice on teaching. A little bit of it made sense, but I think they said a lot of things to see our reactions. They said they wanted to prepare us for the "real deal" when we have our own classrooms. Plus, and I really don't want to sound vain here, many of these teenage boys seem to enjoy talking to us lately. They have gotten comfortable having us around- time for us to get out! Haha. It is nice, though, to hear that many of the students (both boys and girls) don't want us to leave yet.
During our planning period and lunch we went with our teacher to a very important off campus meeting at a location where they serve food and have many televisions tuned into NCAA March Madness wonderfulness. Our students probably won't be pleased that we weren't there to answer questions immediately after school, but some of them need to make up quizzes/tests from over a month ago and our supervising teacher instructed us to not feel guilty at all. They will have tomorrow and Monday to talk to us and it will be all good.
TOMORROW IS MY LAST DAY TEACHING!!!!! While this makes me want to jump for joy, it also makes very real the fact that I need to find a job. I am starting to feel the stress of this and I am trying really hard to trust in God's plan for me and put in all the effort I can to meet him halfway here in this job search thing. The online portion of one of my applications will be ready to go tomorrow so that is a relief. Say some extra prayers for me if you can!
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Day 38 - Final Projects and the "P" Word
Fortunately for Carrie and I, the 11th graders took the science FCAT yesterday, so our supervising teacher told us not to even bother showing up at school since we would be doing nothing productive with our time anyway. That certainly is making this week go by quickly.
Today in and of itself, though, felt like a lifetime. Both 4th and 5th periods had the whole 100 minutes to work on their projects. Our UF supervisor was there for about half of 4th period. I felt bad that she had to sit there while we basically ran around from student to student answering questions. On the up-side, she did get to see us in the midst of major classroom management and individual interaction with students. She left us a nice note and when she emailed us our observation forms, we had passed all the "benchmark" criteria : )
Now, for the "P" word part of the day . . . Let me preface this by saying that in our class at UF last night we discussed plagiarism (the "P" word) and what we would do to handle plagiarism in our classrooms someday. Carrie and I made eye contact during class and I know we were both wondering if we had set ourselves up for a disaster with the project we had assigned. Just you wait and see.
We began class with a few announcements/reminders about the requirements for the project, including a do-not-copy-someone-else's-work-and-cite-the-sources-you-reference caveat. Carrie and I felt pretty good about the students' projects . . . until we started grading them. Out of the four or five we have graded already, one or two would qualify as pretty well done. The others are examples of extreme plagiarism. We are talking like 90% of the work was copied directly from one or more sources and not cited properly. Even if it was cited properly, as was one that I began grading, it is unacceptable for your "work" to be only a shortened version of someone else's words.
Carrie and I reflected on our plagiarism discussions from class last night. We thought about what the students' prior knowledge on plagiarism might be and how we had prepared them to avoid doing it. We don't really know the answer to the first part, but we do know that we only briefly told them not to do it. You can not expect someone to do something when you haven't told them how to do it. Being the nice and inexperienced teachers that we are, we are taking the "we didn't prepare you well enough" approach and on Friday we will be doing a lesson on avoiding plagiarism followed by giving the students the opportunity to redo their work. Sounds like a fun way to spend our last day teaching, right? Not really, but we were wondering how we were going to fill that last day, and now we have a plan. Fortunately we caught this now, before we see 1st period tomorrow. We will give them the plagiarism crash course before they finish their projects. I would dread telling them that they had to rewrite their assignment.
This internship has truly been a learning experience and I am so glad to have had the chance to make these mistakes now, under the guidance of a mentor teacher, rather than later when I am on my own. Moral of the story- never assume that teenagers know anything.
Today in and of itself, though, felt like a lifetime. Both 4th and 5th periods had the whole 100 minutes to work on their projects. Our UF supervisor was there for about half of 4th period. I felt bad that she had to sit there while we basically ran around from student to student answering questions. On the up-side, she did get to see us in the midst of major classroom management and individual interaction with students. She left us a nice note and when she emailed us our observation forms, we had passed all the "benchmark" criteria : )
Now, for the "P" word part of the day . . . Let me preface this by saying that in our class at UF last night we discussed plagiarism (the "P" word) and what we would do to handle plagiarism in our classrooms someday. Carrie and I made eye contact during class and I know we were both wondering if we had set ourselves up for a disaster with the project we had assigned. Just you wait and see.
We began class with a few announcements/reminders about the requirements for the project, including a do-not-copy-someone-else's-work-and-cite-the-sources-you-reference caveat. Carrie and I felt pretty good about the students' projects . . . until we started grading them. Out of the four or five we have graded already, one or two would qualify as pretty well done. The others are examples of extreme plagiarism. We are talking like 90% of the work was copied directly from one or more sources and not cited properly. Even if it was cited properly, as was one that I began grading, it is unacceptable for your "work" to be only a shortened version of someone else's words.
Carrie and I reflected on our plagiarism discussions from class last night. We thought about what the students' prior knowledge on plagiarism might be and how we had prepared them to avoid doing it. We don't really know the answer to the first part, but we do know that we only briefly told them not to do it. You can not expect someone to do something when you haven't told them how to do it. Being the nice and inexperienced teachers that we are, we are taking the "we didn't prepare you well enough" approach and on Friday we will be doing a lesson on avoiding plagiarism followed by giving the students the opportunity to redo their work. Sounds like a fun way to spend our last day teaching, right? Not really, but we were wondering how we were going to fill that last day, and now we have a plan. Fortunately we caught this now, before we see 1st period tomorrow. We will give them the plagiarism crash course before they finish their projects. I would dread telling them that they had to rewrite their assignment.
This internship has truly been a learning experience and I am so glad to have had the chance to make these mistakes now, under the guidance of a mentor teacher, rather than later when I am on my own. Moral of the story- never assume that teenagers know anything.
Monday, March 15, 2010
Day 37 - LAST Monday!!
Today is the Ides of March. Et tu, Brute?
Also, more importantly, IT'S MY LAST MONDAY!!!! WOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!! Because, if you haven't figured it out already, I really don't like Mondays.
Today Carrie and I arrived at school expecting to have a mobile computer lab for our students to use to continue their research and work on their projects. However, it seems that some other teachers are hoarding the labs and so we couldn't get on a schedule to use one. It would be helpful if we just had one or two classroom computers, but we are not so fortunate out in portable land. So, we got to tell our students that we did not have the mobile lab, as promised, and they would have to make do with the resources we had printed, and their textbooks. Some students had laptops with them that they could use, I let students use my own laptop, and I let a student use his iPhone to look stuff up, too. Many students decided to use their time wisely by planning their article or designing their magazine cover. Well, they get 100 more in-class minutes to work on it and then it is due by the end of the class period, so hopefully they use the rest of their time wisely, or put in some good time at home. The day didn't go quite as planned, but we made it work as best we could. When life gives you lemons, make something tasty, right?
Also, more importantly, IT'S MY LAST MONDAY!!!! WOOOOOHOOOOOO!!!!! Because, if you haven't figured it out already, I really don't like Mondays.
Today Carrie and I arrived at school expecting to have a mobile computer lab for our students to use to continue their research and work on their projects. However, it seems that some other teachers are hoarding the labs and so we couldn't get on a schedule to use one. It would be helpful if we just had one or two classroom computers, but we are not so fortunate out in portable land. So, we got to tell our students that we did not have the mobile lab, as promised, and they would have to make do with the resources we had printed, and their textbooks. Some students had laptops with them that they could use, I let students use my own laptop, and I let a student use his iPhone to look stuff up, too. Many students decided to use their time wisely by planning their article or designing their magazine cover. Well, they get 100 more in-class minutes to work on it and then it is due by the end of the class period, so hopefully they use the rest of their time wisely, or put in some good time at home. The day didn't go quite as planned, but we made it work as best we could. When life gives you lemons, make something tasty, right?
Day 36 - Fridays are the best.
I love Fridays. Every week they seem like this new and special phenomenon, created just for me :)
I began class with my review of the "woman question" followed by the timeline challenge activity that I did with first period. 4th period handled the timeline just fine, but 5th period is just a little too goofy to do something like that. Oh well, we survived.
Today was the day we introduced the final project of our internship to 4th and 5th period. Carrie found a Roaring 1920s WebQuest (which is a internet based inquiry project) and we decided to adapt it for our students. The idea is that students pick one of seven themes from the 1920s (things like, fashion, sports, crime, business and technology, cars, etc.) and create a magazine cover and article related to their chosen theme. Their magazine cover needs to include at least 7 facts connected to their theme and their article is likely to be focused on a more specific aspect of that theme. The students really have a lot of freedom with this project because they get to pick a topic that interests them, and within each topic there are many different topics/issues they can choose to investigate. Knowing that we would not have computers for the students, Carrie and I printed out some information to get the students started. They could also find a lot of information in their textbooks. This counts as a test grade for them, but this is significantly easier than a test, so if they follow all the directions and do well, many grades will be helped by this project.
One cool moment of the day happened during 4th period. I was talking to some kids about cars or crime or something, and I told them that I saw the car that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was in when he was shot, as well as the uniform that he was wearing (his assassination was the event that triggered World War I) that day. As I was looking up the pictures of them on my computer I was telling the students about what it was like to see these things in person and they could tell I was getting really excited. When I found the picture I said, "When I saw his car and uniform I almost peed my pants." Some of the students just chuckled and I said, "I know, I know. I am giant nerd." But they got interested in the pictures because I was so excited about it, and then other students wanted to see what their classmates were looking at. It was really neat to see all of that happen. Plus, any time I get to talk about studying abroad I get really happy :)
I left school after 5th period to go take my Professional Education exam for Florida teacher certification and passed! Woohoo! So now once I officially graduate I can apply for my teaching certificate!! I can't believe it! Ahhh!
I began class with my review of the "woman question" followed by the timeline challenge activity that I did with first period. 4th period handled the timeline just fine, but 5th period is just a little too goofy to do something like that. Oh well, we survived.
Today was the day we introduced the final project of our internship to 4th and 5th period. Carrie found a Roaring 1920s WebQuest (which is a internet based inquiry project) and we decided to adapt it for our students. The idea is that students pick one of seven themes from the 1920s (things like, fashion, sports, crime, business and technology, cars, etc.) and create a magazine cover and article related to their chosen theme. Their magazine cover needs to include at least 7 facts connected to their theme and their article is likely to be focused on a more specific aspect of that theme. The students really have a lot of freedom with this project because they get to pick a topic that interests them, and within each topic there are many different topics/issues they can choose to investigate. Knowing that we would not have computers for the students, Carrie and I printed out some information to get the students started. They could also find a lot of information in their textbooks. This counts as a test grade for them, but this is significantly easier than a test, so if they follow all the directions and do well, many grades will be helped by this project.
One cool moment of the day happened during 4th period. I was talking to some kids about cars or crime or something, and I told them that I saw the car that Archduke Franz Ferdinand was in when he was shot, as well as the uniform that he was wearing (his assassination was the event that triggered World War I) that day. As I was looking up the pictures of them on my computer I was telling the students about what it was like to see these things in person and they could tell I was getting really excited. When I found the picture I said, "When I saw his car and uniform I almost peed my pants." Some of the students just chuckled and I said, "I know, I know. I am giant nerd." But they got interested in the pictures because I was so excited about it, and then other students wanted to see what their classmates were looking at. It was really neat to see all of that happen. Plus, any time I get to talk about studying abroad I get really happy :)
I left school after 5th period to go take my Professional Education exam for Florida teacher certification and passed! Woohoo! So now once I officially graduate I can apply for my teaching certificate!! I can't believe it! Ahhh!
Day 35 - The "Woman Question"
Today we hurried 1st period through women's suffrage with a lecture and a couple of activities. The lecture was an overview of three sections in the textbook that cover the women's rights movement, starting with the Seneca Falls Convention in 1848 and going through the 19th Amendment in 1920. It was a nice review for students who saw "Iron Jawed Angels" earlier this week and a very quick overview for everyone else. To see how well they were paying attention I created a "timeline challenge" activity. Ten volunteers each got a piece of paper with an event on it. The rest of the students in the class had to arrange the ten volunteers in chronological order. I don't know whether they actually learned anything from this, but it got some of the students out of their seats and moving around and gave others the chance to test how well they paid attention during the lecture, so I would consider doing something like it again in the future.
After this we spent the second half of class doing the For/Against chart activity followed by the "imagine" letter. It was a lot to pack into one day, but it kept the students busy, which is the most important thing as far as 1st period is concerned.
After this we spent the second half of class doing the For/Against chart activity followed by the "imagine" letter. It was a lot to pack into one day, but it kept the students busy, which is the most important thing as far as 1st period is concerned.
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