This week I was assigned to Mr. Larry Ferlazzo's blog. Mr. Ferlazzo teaches English at, Luther Burbank High School, in Sacramento, California.
In Mr. Ferlazzo's post, Students really Do "Get It" He writes about a professional development effort in which teachers, are being recorded while teaching their lessons and then are critiqued and evaluated by others.
He previously wrote an article written about his view on video taping teacher's lessons in, The Washington Post. In this article Mr. Ferlazzo shares his experience about when he was recorded while teaching a lesson to his students. He involved his students in his critique along with Kelly Young, an instructional strategies consultant. Mr. Ferlazzo did this because he wanted his students to understand that he wanted to be a better teacher and instructor and to show them that being accepting of criticism can be helpful in fulfilling the goal of being a better teacher.
Mr. Ferlazzo explained that this experience proved to him that getting feedback from students each day, is a sure way to improve his teaching skills.
In this article Mr. Young gave, Mr. Ferlazzo's students some key points to keep in mind as they watched the teaching video. I thought they were great points and could be beneficial for all of us. So, I copied and pasted them and added my thoughts on each one. I wanted to share them, just in case some of you didn't get to read the article.
Mr. Kelly Young's points to keep in mind:
"•Leaning In—When we are engaged, we are learning forward, not slouching back.
I have actually experienced this myself, especially during Geography class. It really does help to keep your attention on the speaker.
•Who’s Doing the Work?—Students are working and learning, not sitting back listening to the teacher.
I think this is best achieved by actively taking part in the learning process by listening and paying attention instead of talking with others, texting, etc.
•Everybody Has a Job—All students are working all the time, listening and taking notes/annotating; asking questions; reading, etc.
To me taking notes are very important! It can refresh your mind when you get home.
•Tools of the Scholar—Pen, pencil, highlighter… The vast majority of the time, students have a writing tool in hand.
This really should be a no brainer! Being prepared in class important.
•Multiple Touches on Text—No "light" touches—we read the same text multiple times in different ways to deepen our understanding.
I like this too. In the elementary school where I am doing my field experience, the teachers tell the students to read their material at least 3 times. That way they really have an understanding of what they read. This is true for me as well. I try to read everything a few times.
Mr. Ferlazzo also wrote about a lesson his students were working on. He included this video in which a couple of his students did a rap about his bald head. I thought it was funny!
My Response to Mr. Ferlazzo's post.
Mr. Ferlazzo,
My name is, Kelly Evans. I am a student at, The University of South Alabama. I am an Elementary Education major and was assigned to your blog by my EDM 310 professor, Dr. Strange. I will be summarizing my thoughts on your posts on my blog. You can visit my blog
HERE as well as our class blog HERE.
I like the idea of video taping teaching lessons, it gives you a chance to look over it and see what you could do different the next time. I have done a few projects for school in which I videotaped myself “teaching” a lesson and found it to be beneficial in helping me improve my skills. I read the article in, The Washington Post and loved all the points that Mr. Kelly gave to your students and posted them on my blog for my fellow EDM classmates to read. I am sure they will be helpful even to us college students. Thank you for sharing your experience it was insightful and educational.
By the way, the video that your students made was hilarious!
Kelly Evans
___________________________________________________________________________________
Comment # 2
In a previous post Mr. Ferlazzo talks about ways of dealing with stress. In his previous post, he shares an excerpt from an article published in, The New Yorker Magazine, titled,The Poverty Clinic which provides information about measuring childhood stress using an Adverse Childhood Experience (ACE) Test, which are 9 questions used to rate the severity of childhood stress and how childhood stress is a contributor to adult health problems.
In addition, the article also discussed, cognitive-behavioral therapy, which has been proven to reduce childhood stress. In his post Mr. Ferlazzo puts this into action by using, cognitive-behavioral therapy on one of his "troubled" students which has a positive affect on the student.
In collaboration with a colleague, Mr. Ferlazzo is creating a life skill lesson on stress management for students. The lesson will introduce ways of coping with stress, as well as finding ways to reduce stress, including, more sleep, eating healthy and positive self talk just to name a few.
In his post, "How we can help our students deal with stress"
Mr. Ferlazzo mentions the previous post, which I have summarized for you above. This post is a follow up of that previous post. Mr. Ferlazzo asked his vice-principle, Jim Peterson for some additional ways that teachers could help students reduce their stress levels. In addition to being a school vice-principal,Mr. Peterson, is also a behavioral therapist and Hypnotherapist (which to me, makes him highly qualified to aid Mr. Ferlazzo).
His suggestions were; Breath work and writing things down, as well as, mediation. Breath work is a series of deep breathing exercises which make the students focus and take part in their "de-stressing" ( is that a word?). Writing things down is a very effective way to reduce stress. I have been doing this myself for the past month or so and I find that it does reduce my stress level. It also provides me with a detailed list of goals in which I number them in order of priority (who knew I having a self therapy kind of moment?) and meditation, I think speaks for itself. I can't say that I have personally done this but, If it can help, I think it is worth a shot.
Mr. Ferlazzo plans on implementing some of, Mr.Peterson's ideas into his classroom. I think that they are great ideas and will probably use them myself in my future classroom.
My response:
Mr. Ferlazzo,
I have enjoyed reading your blog the past week and a half. This post especially offered some great advice for anyone dealing with stress, not just classroom students. I started writing things down in list style a month or so ago to help me prioritize my homework. I was pleased to learn that it was a suggestion given by Mr. Peterson. So, at least I am doing something to reduce the stress in my life.
I also, read your previous post that was mentioned in this follow-up and found it to be interesting as well. I was wondering why you will not use the ACE test with your students?
Thank you for all the great information and will be certainly adding you to my reading list.
Kelly Evans
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