Flex PD Evidence of Learning 2: Book Study DRTA

When you choose your weekly professional learning to be focused on the book study of Todd
Whitaker’s book, Your First Year: How to Survive and Thrive as a New Teacher, complete a section
per time.

Label each assignment as PD: Book Study Section (#) and post to D2L by 11:59 pm, the Friday of each
completed week.

Section II: The Students Are Here… Now What? (chapters 7-8)

Before Reading:
1. What will it take for your vision of structure to become part of the classroom routine or
culture?

I think that inorder to get my vision of structure to become part of the classroom
routine and culture I will need to set clear and high expectations at the beginning of the school
year. I think by doing this then they will know what they need to do from the start. If I let
them do what they want to do or get away with things that are not acceptable, then they will
continue to do them throughout the year. So by having those high expectations, it leads them
to having those expectations for themselves. I also think that it is going to take practice. When I
student taught, we practiced every routine or procedure the first week of school. This allowed
the students to see how it was done the correct way so they know the expectation for when
they did it. We even made an anchor chart with the routines and placed a check mark next to
them everytime we practiced. I think by doing this it set them up for success and we kept the
anchor chart up as a reminder of the expectations and rules.

2. Consider the teachers you had growing up. Did any of them seem unpredictable, tell you about
their bad moods, or act like students themselves? How do your emotions as a teacher impact
the classroom?

I clearly remember the teachers were unpredictable. My fifth grade teacher was one
who you never knew what her mood was going to be. There were days she would tell us to get
our reading books out and then scream at us because she wanted us to have our math books
out. This caused a lot of us to be scared of her and not really have a relationship with her.
Then when I got to high school my Spanish teacher laid on the couch in the front of the
room and sobbed because she and her boyfriend had broken up. So as her students it was a
 little awkward for us to try and console her when she should be teaching us. While I think
that it is good to some extent for teachers to show emotion because it shows the students that
we are human just like they are. It is important I believe to humanize ourselves to our
students. However, I also believe that students feed off of teachers' behaviors. Say a teacher is
in a bad mood one day, students will feed off of that and their behavior may reflect that as
well.

During Reading:
1. What steps do the authors give for implementing structures in your classroom? How
does this compare or contrast with your thinking before reading? Where have you
seen evidence of this working (or not working) in classrooms you have been in?

The author stated 5 steps for implementing structures in the classroom. The
first step is explaining the task we want students to complete. This is important because
it gives students an understanding of the task and its importance . The second step is to
model how you want it completed. This I think is the part that is crucial. We saw how
modeling can be make or break in previous chapters. You need to clearly show what you
expect so the students clearly understand. The third step is to have a few students model
or explain how the task should be completed. This puts it in their own words and shows
you if they understand what your expectation is. Then moving to step four, completing
the task in small groups. This step can be skipped depending on the level of
independence or the grade. Then the fifth and final step is to complete the task as a
whole class. This has to be successful. If certain steps of the tasks are not completed
successfully, they must repeat the task. When I was reading this part of the book, it was
interesting how close my mentor teacher and I were to this when implementing things
at the beginning of the year. I think that having them practice in small groups is a great
way to monitor closely and to see if they are completing the task to the fullest.
Moreover, I have seen where some teachers are very diligent with high expectations at
the beginning of the year but then get more lenient as the year goes on. I think that the
expectations need to be consistent throughout the entire year. It is also very interesting
being a sub and seeing how students follow the expectations and structures even when
their normal teacher is not there.

After Reading:
1. How are you prepared for “what-if” situations? What does this make you want to
know as you teach in multiple buildings? As a guest teacher, what information will
you want to seek out before students come in for the day?

One thing that really stuck out to me about this is when it said “ the number one
rule for handling any and every behavior situation is managing yourself”. I think this is
something that I will always need to remember because how I react and handle a
situation will either escalate the situation or help get it resolved. After being in EBD for
three consecutive days it is evident how you respond to a situation will affect the student
in either a positive or negative way. When reading about the subtle steering, I find myself
doing that all the time. I will usually just walk over by the student who may not be
following the expectation and they usually fix it pretty quickly. I think this is way better
than to call them out in front of the class. I think this makes me want to know what
works best in certain classrooms and what should be avoided. Each teacher has their own
way of handling “what-if'' situations. I think that goes along with what I would want to
know before starting the day. What works best in classrooms and what the schools plan is
for certain situations. I think knowing this information will set me up for