AuburnChick's Adventures

I am down to three weeks left until I finish my certification classes.

I am starting to get antsy.

Last week, I had to complete two rubrics for my problem-based learning lesson plan.

If you are a not a teacher, you might think that a rubric is easy to create.

Think again.

Rubrics have to be aligned to the standards and objectives that are being taught.  Group projects (which is what problem-based activities are) must be assessed individually, so teachers have to make sure that the rubrics are geared for students as individuals.  No group project grades should be given (shame on me for doing this, by mistake, in my classroom a few months ago).

I got my rubrics finished early, and I’ve already received feedback on them.  I received all but two points, so I will be tweaking them just to get full points.

I am anal, oh yes I am.

Meanwhile, I worked very hard on my remaining two Classroom Management assignments.

For one of them, I had to create a cooperative learning lesson plan.

It was a humdinger.

I took my problem-based learning plan and adapted it for my Classroom Management assignment.

I.

Was.

Smart.

Of course, there was stuff I had to add in because the rubric for this assignment was different, but it sure was easier since I already had a lot of it figured out.

Yay, me!

My other assignment involved dealing with classroom discipline issues and planning for a successful parent conference.

I had some fun with this and got creative.

Read on and see if you catch my humor…

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Student’s Name:  Stephen King                                                                                                                              

Parent’s Name:  Mrs. King                                                                                                                                     

Date of Conference: October 12, 2011                                                                                                                   

Statement of Concern:

Teacher:          “Mrs. King, I am concerned about Stephen’s ability to use his own words when completing research projects for my class.”

Description of Problem:

Teacher:       “When Stephen turned in his essay this week, I checked it for plagiarism, as I do for all of my students’ written assignments.  My plagiarism checker confirmed that Stephen’s essay was copied from the website GetAnAOnYourEssay.com.  Here is a copy of the essay from the website.  As you can see, Stephen’s essay matches it, word-for-word.”                                                                                                                                               

Teacher’s Report of Actions Taken to Alleviate Problem:

Teacher:          “I have reminded Stephen that the definition of plagiarism is, ‘the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.’  I also explained that plagiarism is a form of cheating, and I gave Stephen a copy of the school’s policy about cheating.  I explained to Stephen that he received a zero on this assignment because I had explained what plagiarism was when we began working on the assignment, so he, along with all of the students in my class, were familiar with the concept.”   

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For the third part of my assignment, I had even more fun when creating a scenario of a potentially difficult situation of my choosing (student gets a poor grade on the final exam, resulting in a poor grade for the term).  Read about how I empathize with the parent and see if you can catch my ever impressive humor…

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Teacher:          “Mrs. King, I understand that you are very busy with your husband deployed to Iraq and four young children at home.  I remember that you had an incident with your dog, Cujo, and that your little daughter, Carrie, was very sick on Parent Night, so you could not come to my classroom that evening.  On that night, I showed parents how to use the website I created for my classroom.  I apologize for not getting back with you regarding this tool.  That was an oversight on my part.  I would like to show it to you now, if you have a few minutes.  First, you will need to navigate to MrsAuburnChicksAwesomeEnglishClasses.org, where you will find a list of assignments and instructions for the assignments.  I update this site daily, so I encourage you to check it as often as possible.  This will be a great way for you to keep up with Stephen’s assignments.  I always upload the rubrics for the assignments, so students can print them out.  You might find this helpful too.  The neat thing about the website is that your husband will be able to see it as well, so he will know what Stephen is expected to do in my classroom and provide some support that way.”

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Knowing my luck, I’ll have to resubmit these assignments. I am keeping my fingers crossed.

Thus ended my week.  As of this moment, I have three tough assignments left and three itsy-bitsy assignments, and then I will be finished.

That light at the end of the tunnel is getting a little bit brighter.

Filed under: Teaching | Tagged: EPI classes, teaching |