The sixth week (03/29 Monday - 04/01 Thursday)

Hooray! My student teaching is officially ended on April 1st, and this is NOT APRIL FOOL!

2/22 -2/26 (15 hours)
3/1 - 3/5 (15 hours)
3/8 - 3/11R (12 hours)
3/15 - 3/19 (15 hours)
3/22 - 3/26 (15 hours)
3/29 - 4/1 R (12 hours)---84 hours total

Connection with Marzano

This week I would like to talk about Lesson 4 of Marzano, Reinforcing effort and proving recognition.

The sixth week was only four days (Monday - Thursday) since no school for students on Friday.
Since last Friday (3/26), the students were assigned to prepare a skit to present as a performance assessment (see my precious blog on HW). They have been creating their dialogue, and during the class, I tried to correct their mistakes in dialogue so that they will not memorize incorrect lines. Most of them took seriously and started to work, and only handful of students who usually do not work at all were pushed to do so because this assessment requires a team effort. The eager peers were pushing those unable students to participate in the practice, because on Monday I gave them a rubic (below) chart that I am going to grade while they perform to the class.

Grading Rubrics

	Task completion (25) Written dialogue	Communication Pronunciation (20)	Vocabulary (30) Lesson 3 vocabulary and grammar use	Language control (25) Without the notes, paper.	Others: (volume, eye contact , confidence, gestures, etc.) Extra points(10)
Does not meet expectations 54%-73%	Minimal completion the task and/or responses frequently inappropriate	Frequently interferes with communication.	Inadequate and/or inaccurate use of vocabulary	Inadequate and/or inaccurate use of basic language structures.	Does not speak for the audience.
Almost meets expectations 74 % - 83%	Partial completion of the task, responses mostly appropriate yet undeveloped	Occasionally interferes with communication.	Somewhat inadequate and/or inaccurate use of vocabulary	Emerging use of basic language structures.	Partially speak for the audience.
Meets expectations 84 % - 93%	Completion of the task, responses appropriate and adequately developed.	Does not interfere with communication.	Adequate and accurate use of vocabulary.	Emerging control of basic language structures.	Adequately speak for the audience.
Exceeds expectations 93.5 % - 100 %	Superior completion of the task, responses appropriate and with elaboration	Enhances communication.	Rich use of vocabulary.	Control of basic language structures.	Superiorly speak for the audience.

There are many students who openly says that he/she does not want to study Spanish. They are put in the class so that they will meet the graduate requirement. They show me absolutely no motivation to learn. I had two boys who are baseball players and they cheat on the quizzes, sleep in class, and absolutely do nothing in Spanish class.
As Marzano's book says to teach about effort using well-known athletes (p51), so I used the example of Ichiro (a Japanese Mejor Leaguer in Seattle Mariners). Before Ichiro bats in the batting box, he always images himself that he can hit home run, almost hypnotyzing himself to do so. Image training for Ichiro worked so well, making him one of the best batters. Ichiro says when he images, he feels the gush of adrenaline which makes him feel good, and this is his technique to get through the difficult time (he says).

Did this story of Ichiro make them participate in class?
The answer is no.
But they were listening to Ichiro story with interest, and if they try Ichiro's technique in their baseball game or the difficult time other than Spanish, I believe they will remember about the learning in Spanish class, and eventually they will participate in Spanish class.

During my student teaching, I tried to use different ways to grade them, including daily oral participation, workbook assignment, 2 project assignments mid-term exam, vocabulary quizzes, and comprehensive performance presentation.
Of these above, I think the last one , the comprehensive performance presentation was new to the students, and I received very interesting performance results. Those students I expected the least did really well in this performance exam, and A students who do really well with pen-pencil exams have moderately struggled. That was a very interesting outcome.
In the rubric, I not only circled the appropriate boxes with their performance, I commented on the deducted points so that they can fix next time. Also I added some quick feedback about how their overall performance went throughout this project.

They really liked the immediate feedback, because I tried to write something good about them with lots of rooms to fix such as pronunciations. Verbal rewards seem to work. I particularly praised aloud to the baseball players who performed in front, take 2, take 3, and take 4. (four redos!!!:-) I think I did not embarrass them to have done so, because all the classmates know they do not participate.
" I loved you both tried, participated, performed and did really well."

Other students were also paying attention during classmates' performance with great interest, because I asked them what they were talking about to the class after each performance. It was a great way to assess them other than pen-pencil exams that will tend to favor the visual learners.

On the last day, however, I gave them my homemade cream puffs (thing to reward) to each student as a thank-you. They know how time-comsuming to make 60 cream puffs a night before after Dr. Huhn's class at Marshall, so I hope I showed them the EFFORT.
With cream puffs, cookies, chips, and salsas, etc, we had a small fiesta. I have them write one thing they liked about my teaching, and what they did not like about my class. Many students did not like the fact I gave them vocabulary quiz too soon after introducing, or too many assignments and strict participation requirement. Their feedback were very precious and I sure want to reflect to next Clinical III.