Parent Teacher Conferences

Dear CU Readers,
 Parent teacher conferences are something you have yet to experience as a student at CU.  I just had my first official parent teacher conferences Monday evening.  Our first quarter ended Friday, grades were due Monday morning and we had parent teacher conferences Monday afternoon.  Monday was a teacher work day.  We had from 9-12pm to work on grades or anything else in our classrooms and then from 1-7pm we had our conferences.  I think the way our school set them up was a bit crazy, but that's just my opinion.  We did not have scheduled meeting times--the parents could just come and go as they pleased during those 6 hours.  It was INSANE.  I literally did not have a free minute to myself.  Parents came out of the woodwork!  I was so exhausted when we were finally done.

I made notes on each student and had it all ready to go so that when the parents came in I would be ready to discuss their child's behavior in my class.  This was really helpful, especially since I had no time in between each set of parents.  I also had their grades printed and ready for the parents to look over as well.  I began each conference in prayer and then started with the positive comments.  I talked about the personalities of my students and how I enjoyed having them in my classes.  I talked about their classroom behavior.  I talked about their work ethic and their ability to turn things in complete and on time.  I talked about their respectful attitudes toward their peers and their teacher.  ...You get the idea.  Any comments I had that were negative, I approached cautiously.  I honestly was expecting some parents to be rude and nasty or to completely disregard my opinions and observations of their children, but I had absolutely no issues.  Praise God!  All of my parents were kind and complimentary of my teaching and what I have helped their children with so far this year.  Anytime I mentioned something their child needs to work on they agreed with me and we discussed how we were going to help them improve in the future.  All in all it was a great time for me to connect with the parents and team up with them to help their children improve.  I loved meeting all the parents and hearing their opinions of how my classroom structure is helping or not helping their children.

One set of parents almost made me cry (in a good way).  About a month ago I led their son to Christ.  He had been asking questions in Bible class and demonstrating an interest in Christianity.  I knew he was new to the faith because on the first day of school he did not have a Bible for class.  I was so thrilled when he approached me after class one day and asked me to pray with him.  After we prayed, he expressed concerns about his parents salvation.  He wasn't sure if they were saved and he was really worried about them.  I challenged him to go home and talk to them about it.  He came to me the next day thrilled to report that his whole family was composed of born again Christians.  During the conference with his parents, they explained to me that the lines of communication have been opened in their family and they are all pursuing Christ more and more every day.  They told me that I have had a huge part in this and they are so blessed to have their son in my class.  This is why I almost cried.  It was such a special thing for me to hear and I praise God that he lets me be a vessel for His work. 

You can now understand a bit about conferences.  They can be a great time for you to connect with parents and team up with them to help the student.  They can also be a time where you address any issues and hopefully take care of those issues completely.  In my case, the conferences were also a time where I was encouraged and inspired to keep doing what I'm doing. 
I am truly blessed that God provided this job for me and has equipped me do serve Him as a teacher.  I pray that God leads all of you to the perfect job and that you can carry all your knowledge from CU to your area of work.  Colossians 3:23 "Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men."
 

Observations

We all love being observed as we teach...right?  ha! We might like getting the positive comments back about our teaching but do we really like to hear about the things we are bad at?  Do we really want to hear about what we need to improve on?  I've been through the student teaching observations and a few job interview teaching observations so I thought I was done being observed.  I was wrong.

Today my principal is coming by to observe one of my science classes.  To be honest, I'm not too nervous because I'm just going to continue with my plan and teach as I normally would, but there is one part of me that worries.  I did not get a degree in science.  In fact, the science classes I took at CU were among my worst grades in college.  Earth science, Anatomy, Biology, you get the idea.  I hated those classes and look what I'm doing now...teaching about those things.  Funny the way God works.  :)  I plan to teach from a power point today to continue on with my weeks lessons.  I thought about switching my days around this week so the principal could see me doing a lab with the students, but I think its best that he sees me in my true teaching environment.  I do look forward to a few positive comments and I will actually be happy to hear a few words of critique so I can continue to improve as a teacher outside of my field.  Its good to be observed because it can break us of our lazy habits.  For example, I don't really like to move around the room as I teach.  I like to stay at the front of the room and interact with the students in that way.  Your observer will be all over you if you do that.  They want to see that you move around preventing problems from happening and keeping all students on track and focused.  This is something I will change today as I am observed.  If I am constantly evaluating myself, then I would have fixed this problem on my own.  I would have recognized my lazy teaching patterns and I would have fixed it before my observation day. 

Luckily I will only be observed twice a year by my principal.  We had to fill out a self evaluation form at the beginning of the year and the principal will go over that form with us after we are observed the first time.  We will fill the form out again at the end of the year and see if we have grown as a teacher.

I actually get informally observed at least 3 times a week by the principal, headmaster, and athletic director in my PE class.  They have meetings together in the gym as my first period 8th grade PE class is going on so they get to see what I'm doing and hear what I am teaching my students.  Pretty awesome isn't it?  haha  It definitely keeps me on my toes as I'm teaching that's for sure.

The point of this blog is to encourage you to take your observations seriously.  Use them to improve and use them to practice for your real job where you will continue to be observed every now and again.  Be able to evaluate yourself.  Think critically about your teaching style and your teaching methods.  If you can critique yourself every now and again you will push yourself to be a better teacher.  

Grading in PE

Grading in PE can be a controversial subject.  Some PE teachers grade solely based on participation.  Others document all their grades and make sure what they are scoring is factual.  I do a combination of the two.  I grade in four different categories: Participation, Attitude, Sportsmanship, and Skills Improvement. When it comes to the first three categories I grade based on my observations.  They get 10 points in each of the first three categories every week.  If I observe a girl off to the side in a game not trying very hard, she might get a 8 out of 10 on the week.  She may also lose points in the attitude category for this.  Sportsmanship is different than attitude.  Sportsmanship counts for encouragement, working well with your team for whatever game we are playing, not complaining about the performance of at teammate, etc.  When it comes to skills improvement I can actually document the students grades.  I do pre and post testing for skills and give them a grade based on the improvement between the tests.  For example, we just finished a volleyball unit in PE.  The students were pre and post tested on passing, setting, and serving.  If I saw improvement in their scores and in my observations of them during the games I would give them a good score.  If the improvement was minimal, they would get a lower grade, and if there was no improvement at all they would get a low grade.

When it comes to dressing out for class I do not grade for this.  As long as the students are wearing appropriate shoes they can still participate and earn their participation points.  I keep track of how many times they don't dress out and after 5 they receive a detention.

Currently all of my PE students have an A in my class except for one student.  This student has a hard time respecting my authority.  He is always complaining about teams I create or talking back to me when I ask him to do something.  I have given demerits and detentions to try to rectify this behavior and we have had numerous conversations about this.  He knows it is affecting his grade and he seems to care about it, and yet the behavior continues.  He loses points in each category because his poor attitude and demeanor affect his participation and sportsmanship.  Pray that God will change his attitude!

Although its easy to earn an A in my class, you still have to earn it.  I wouldn't say my class is hard by any means, but you do have to learn the skills and prove to me that you are trying to improve.  Enjoy my thoughts on grading!