A PBL experience al azar

Just when I had thought I had planned everything out so nicely, I was hit by a few curveballs in class today. Today I learned a lot about myself as an educator, as well as some of the thought processes of my students.

I started my unit today on Daily Routine and reflexive verbs. The bulk of the lesson today was dedicated to introducing the students to the concept of reflexive verbs. The last 30 minutes or so was dedicated to my PBL, which proved to be the greatest learning experience.

I had spent so much time brainstorming the three project ideas for my students before today. I thought I had everything nicely managed, what with an introductory list, a timeline, a calendar for students to keep track of dates, and even a little reflection piece that they are to add to at the end of each class period. Though I thought I was prepared, their questions threw me for a loop. Let me explain the project first...

In thinking about PBL, and how it would look in a foreign language classroom, I decided to ask the students what would interest them as a potential final project for a unit. In my current classroom students are used to doing somewhat straightforward oral assessments of the language; a simple paired interview-type activity that guides students to repeat certain memorized phrases. I decided to ask my students what they would be interested in doing as an oral assessment. Something alternative. I went through each row in each class and asked the students to think of some sort of project they would be interested in. I received a wealth of ideas, from video projects, narrated PowerPoints, to pantomime (not really a good way to assess oral proficiency, but I put it up there anyway). After this brainstorm, I took the students ideas and decided on three possibilities as a basis of design for the final project of my work sample:

 Video            PowerPoint      Show n' Tell

The last one would permit students to create a book, scrapbook, or poster of their daily routine. 

So, I spent all of this time creating the guidelines for this project.  But I failed to fully think about one essential element: group work.  In explaining the project options to students in the classes, I was frequently hit by the question: "Can we work in groups?" "How big of a group? I wanna work with like 4 other people." I was stumped at the moment, perhaps to the fact that I was so nervous, and had a packed lesson as is. I asked myself after school was over, "I want them to work in groups.  It's an integral part to PBL. But how will this work out for the PowerPoint project? Or the Show n' Tell project? The video?" 

After some intense contemplation, I realized that YES they can work in groups....for the video project.  That one is, by far, the most time consuming choice for a final project. But I must clarify to the students that they, as an individual, must meet the oral proficiency requirements that are set as the base of the whole entire project. Two people can talk on video, but each must meet the proficiency requirements. This needs some more contemplation, and luckily I have tomorrow off as far as teaching, so I will probably be adding another entry here tomorrow.

Time is of the essence

Keeping track of time is pretty difficult for me when I'm in the midst of conducting the class. Today was a perfect example of that. Class starts at 9:45, but things usually don't start going until 9:50, or even 10:00. What happened to those 15 minutes?! That's 15 minutes that could have been spent on learning. We take the time to stamp any homework that was due that day, and then on to the bellwork activity. In my lesson plan I always write down the amount of time I intend on spending on the activity. Though, I must admit that my presumtion of how much time the activity will take is usually off. Those 15 minutes were spent with students scrambling to finish whatever they had failed to finish in the three days between classes. The problem with it all is that I don't even look at the clock. I just go by the feel and flow of the class, rarely glancing up to see how many minutes have passed. This needs to be changed.

I really need to start keeping track of time. Someway, maybe using the timer on my phone, I need to keep to a set time for my activities. The transitions are great, but the time spent on the activities is not great. Pick a time and stick to it. I am going to have to take these students so far in my lessons that if I spend more time discussing their personal likes and dislikes, or engaging in side conversations, then I will not be able to take them to where I need to in the curriculum. Don't get me wrong, today was fantastic. We had ample time to discuss, when doing my comprehension check, for understanding of the material. I asked students to tell me personally what they like to eat for breakfast or lunch. I felt that putting in their own likes and disliikes far supercedes me forcing them to learn vocabulary that has nothing to do with their lives. Making learning personal. I asked follow-up questions, attempting to elicit more information from them. Many students were lost, confused, and didn't know what the heck I was talking about. Ah, language immersion. They aren't used to it at all. The words are there, on the board, on their lists, but the connections haven't been made yet. Practice, practice, practice.

So, all of this led to me spending a good 20 minutes on this entire oral activity. I feel like I am shorting these kids from their education when I just rush through activities and don't leave time for questions or discussions. I do need to find a healthy balance between the two. Next conversation activity I do will be timed and much shorter. I at least need to try it.

*Note: It wound up being the same time-frame for the next class. It was a bit harder though, as I don't know the students as well. This impedes on time, and getting to know the students. This is no bueno. I went through the activity much more smoothly this time, but the energy just wasn't there. How to fix that....

Watch your tongue!

Normally I spend the first two periods in the classroom as part of my student teaching requirements. Not that I wouldn't like to stay longer, but I do have a lot of other to-do's on my list. Friday turned out to be a bit different for this week.

Lately I have been creating and conducting the Bellwork activities and some sort of Oral Language Activity for our Spanish 2 class. These have been original creations that seek to target specific structures in the language. This week's topic is gustar sentences and food vocabulary. My CT asked me to stay for the period after lunch so I could try running those activities again with a different class. She promoted the idea because she felt I would gain a lot of insight as to how dynamics change from class to class. I've had experience with this particular period (Period 3), but only in subbing her class for a day and using her lesson plan. I readily agreed, and the class began.

Now, I don't want to go into too much detail for Period 3 at this point. I will say that they were a really fun group of kids, and I was surprised as to how on-task the majority of the students were. No side-talk, no interruptions. Everyone was engaged in the activities I had created, and for that I am fortunate. (We are just starting the "honeymoon" period for that particular class, so I'm assuming it won't be as easy in the future.) It was the next class that brought about a great learning experience for myself.

Period 4 is a really fun group of students. There is an intense amount of energy in the class, largely due to the fact that it's the last class of the school day. A lot of male energy in that class, which may contribute to the atmosphere as well. In a nutshell, those students are pretty laid back, very supportive of each other (even if the support is in the form of a sarcastic remark), and overall just a playful group of kids. After finding out that I was going to be taking over most of the class that day I was greeted with a large round of applause. I thought I was special, that my presence there was greatly appreciated. Though this is more or less true, I found out through the course of the period, that those students applaud just about everything. Haha!

In the midst of conducting my lesson, much like the previous two periods but with more finesse, I made a grave mistake. Let me set up the scene for you. I was going over a huge list of nouns, adjectives, and verbs that previous classes had helped develop. All of these words had something to do with food. I went through the nouns first, asking students to write down any words that thy felt they might use in the future when talking with someone about food. Also included were words that they may not know, or words that they absolutely knew what the word meant in Spanish. It was a fun review, and we touched upon some of the abstract/odd words that previous classes had added. (perro....really? Maybe to some that's a delicacy....) We moved through adjectives, and then on to verbs. It was at verbs that I made the slip. I was reviewing the verb odiar, which means "to hate" in Spanish. I was explaining to them my distaste for the word "hate", that it is a very strong word that should be reserved for something you really, really, really don't like. This is how it went, "I would save the word odiar for something that you really hate....for example, Odio a George Bu-." I caught myself mid-stream in the sentence. I thought, "You idiot! If there's one thing you DO NOT include in a lesson with students, it would be politics!" Luckily my CT was there to save my butt. She quickly got out of her seat and helped fill in the sentence, "He hates...uh...Curious George. Yea, that's it." Ooops!

That's not the end of it, though. Not only did I make a political slip, I also was saying "George" as a student who shares the same name was raising his hand! He reeled back, eyes wide open, mouth agape. "What?! You hate me?!" No, no, no I don't hate him, I hate....ah...now i've done it. My slip of the tongue was greeted by other students hissing. A couple of "oh snaps" were in there too. I covered myself pretty well, I think. I clarified that I did not hate that particular student, it was just bad timing. Most knew what the end of my sentence was. I offered them an alternative word detestar, which means "to detest", and we moved on with the lesson.

What did I learn in this experience? Watch your tongue! It is not my place, and I knew it at the time, to include politics as part of any discussion with high school students. Or adult students for that matter. It was a slip, and I think I handled it quite nicely. No feelings were hurt, so for that I am grateful. At least I can say I caught myself mid-sentence, and didn't wind up continuing my thoughts and making even more of an ass of myself.