Welcome to Graduation

Well, I made it.

In the morning, I walk to campus as I've done so many times this year, but this time I'll keep walking to Franklin Field. Then I'll wait for a long time. Then I'll walk a tiny bit more, and for some reason that time I'll get to hear lots of cheers and applause.

I guess if people clapped every time I walked, it would lose its meaning. So that's why graduation is special.

Also this: come tomorrow, I won't just be "Jesse Gottschalk;" I'll be "Jesse Gottschalk, M.S.Ed.," or as I'll demand people refer to me, "Jesse Gottschalk, Master of Science."

And yeah, I'll be done with grad school, although as I've said before, I've basically been done for weeks now. My last day of student teaching was three weeks ago; my final portfolio was done a couple days later. We had one final seminar ten days ago, which was actually pretty nice: our professor brought in cookies for us, and gave us pretty much the entire time to share our portfolios and classroom takeover experiences with one another. That was pretty awesome -- I have a lot of respect for my classmates, so I was excited to hear more about what they had done.

The real conclusion of our program was on Monday, when they threw us a nice dinner together with some of our faculty and all of our Penn Mentors.

My final portfolio

Curious what a Master's Portfolio for the Teacher Ed Program could look like? I've decided to go ahead and post mine here, to give an example. Note that we get a lot of flexibility and leeway, so I know for a fact that others' portfolios looked totally different. But here's my example.

The assignment, basically is: take an inquiry question (some fundamental question about the practice of teaching), and apply as much evidence as possible from your year of student teaching/grad school to construct a response.

Here's what I came up with: http://teacherjg.weebly.com/final-portfolio-differentiation.html

As a bonus, you can click around and see my Term III and Term IV assignments, which I blogged about previously:

Term III
Term IV

What does the future hold, Mr. Gottschalk?

As of my second-to-last day of blogging, 5/16, I can officially say...well, I still don't know what I'm doing next year. That's not really unusual or surprising, lots of schools are just getting their hiring processes going. I do have one job prospect that I'm really crossing my fingers for -- it's a school I'd love to work at, and I've had two interviews and a demo lesson, as well as a number of email exchanges. I hope to hear back in the next week, maybe I'll tack on an extra blog post to celebrate if I get that job.

That's assuming I can still edit this blog after I graduate -- though, since it's run through my Google Account, I don't see how they could stop me. I could go on posting forever, and they probably couldn't do anything about it if they wanted to (the sinister "they," in this case, applying to the Admissions Department, a group with whom I have nothing but positive relationships, but that's beside the point).

In any event, that's where I stand on the big question -- Where will I teach next year? -- to which I sadly must respond with uncertainty. In no particular order, here are some answers to other questions that no one in particular is asking:


What will I teach next year?

My certification is in PreK-4. My student teaching was in Kindergarten and 3rd grade, and I'd be really happy with either of those or anything in between. To be completely honest, however, I'd have to say that at the moment I'm more excited about Kindergarten.

A word to prospective and future members of the elementary program: consider Kindergarten.

Endgame

Aftermath. Graduation is Saturday, but really it's all over except the formalities.

Not even a lot of those, really. On Monday, our program has its farewell dinner, some sort of heartwarming affair where we eat with our faculty and our mentors all say nice things about us. On Friday there's another optional dinner, where our program celebrates alumni who have finished five years of teaching. I'm still awaiting feedback on my final portfolio, though I know it was "accepted" without need for revision. My certification paperwork is pending.

On the "completed" list, alongside my portfolio you can add student teaching, classes, and fixing my flat tire which apparently had a nail in it.

So am I celebrating yet? I guess you could call it that. I went for a hike in the Wissahickon (one of my favorite parts of Philly, a pretty massive forested area, with plenty of paths, that's big and secluded enough that you can actually forget that you're still well inside the city limits), along with some classmates. I've had nights of porches and parties, I'm reading and cooking more, and I'm doing my laundry before I run out of clean clothes.

At the same time...I don't exactly feel like I'm out of the woods yet. Three significant obligations remain, regardless of the TEP-sized hole in my schedule.

So, Jesse, what DID you teach?

My last blog post was on the extensive, thorough, and thoughtful curricular plans which I then completely disregarded.

But what did I teach instead?

Poetry. And Weather. Yes.

As I mentioned in the previous post, I changed my plans in response to what the rest of the Kindergarten grade group was planning at the time I would be teaching. And frankly, I got really excited about a unit on weather and poetry (I was also doing shapes for math, but that was less exciting to me). My first idea, upon considering the topics, was to focus on observation -- leading up to spending time outside, "observing like a scientist" and "observing like a poet."

And, because I was the teacher, I went ahead and did it.

Along the way, we did lots of other things. We made wind gauges, and a cloud in a jar, and a big phony thermometer. We wrote poems about nature, emotions, and ourselves. We read lots of poems and books, we made cotton ball clouds and cut paper collages, and we got to spend time outside on several days. It was pretty great.

So about that Term IV...

Term IV was a strange beast. Basically covering the first two months of the spring semester, the Term IV assignment was about creating a multidisciplinary two-week lesson plan. The assignment was due in early March, not long before members of my class began taking over their classes for two weeks at a time. Not a coincidence, to be sure, and a great opportunity to really put a lot of focused effort into planning for our takeovers.

So why did I end up setting aside my Term IV curriculum from the moment I turned it in, and writing an entirely new plan?

Some honest talk, pros and cons, about Term IV below.

Beginning the recap...

Well, I'm actually reaching the point where some things are wrapping up. I'm finishing work on my portfolio, which means I'm nearly done with grad school. I'm finished with my full takeover weeks in my student teaching classroom, so that's another huge project off my shoulders. The job search is...still ongoing, and probably will be for a while. Still, of the three biggest things I've been working on, having two out of three basically done is a petty big deal.

So, over the remaining couple weeks of the program, while I might have some new developments come up to write about, it's time to flip the switch and begin the recaps. That's especially necessary now since I haven't blogged in a couple weeks, so you readers don't know much, for instance, about my Term IV assignment, or about my student teaching takeover, or about what it's like applying for jobs in Philly (though it would be nice to be able to hold off on that one until I, you know, get one...).

I'm officially signing off on May 16th, which means I have just a little over three weeks left here. Got questions you want me to answer online, or topics you'd like me to cover in that time? Email me at gojesse@gse.upenn.edu.

Oh, and happy Earth Day!

Mathematical Modelling and Adventures in Blogging

Back in February, I blogged about iTAGs, the meet-up groups that aim to help teachers "build community, develop as activists, and link social justice issues with classroom practice." I've joined two of them: "Social Justice Educators on the Path to Cultural Relevancy" and "Locally Relevant Mathematics with the Community Based Mathematics Project."

For the latter, I was invited to blog about one of our recent sessions, where we discussed practices for "modelling" in mathematics classrooms. I am re-posting my entry below, or you can view it in its original post on the Community Based Mathematics Project website.

[Note, since I'm a proofreader by trade and a bit of a perfectionist in my own work: I stuck with the double-L spelling of "modelling" rather than "modeling," even though I like the latter more, because the former was used more consistently in the literature we were drawing upon. However, whoever posted the entry used the single-L version in the title. Please forgive the inconsistency. And please forgive this ridiculous apology.]

--

The Locally Relevant Mathematics iTAG is a place where we discuss ways to make mathematics lessons personally meaningful and culturally responsive -- but we also keep a focus on the way that these responsive practices can help promote particular forms of inquiry and mathematical understanding. For the latest session, we looked at modelling as a great classroom practice to support all of these goals.

But what actually is modelling?

Admittedly, it's not something I could clearly explain before, and even now it's still a bit tricky to define. As we discussed it, modelling is different from traditional problem-solving in that the "problem" is inextricably tied to the context, and students have to engage with a given scenario in order to figure out best how to approach it with mathematics.

Because that seems abstract and not very descriptive (it did to me!), we spent much of our meeting doing an example of a modelling task. We were given a scenario: given a particular set of Philadelphia neighborhoods, we were tasked with determining how many basketball courts would be an ideal number to build in each. Rather than provide us with a particular approach to take, or data to support us, our instructor instead asked us to brainstorm what kinds of data would be most important to help us make that decision. With a whiteboard full of potential data sources, we then discussed and narrowed down the list of desired data. Our instructor then let us know which data he had available for us. Working in small groups, we were free to request data and develop our own approaches and answers. Finally, we shared out with the class, explaining the various methods and responses we had developed.

While modelling tasks don't have to be this abstract, what mattered about this task was that there was no way for us to strip away the context and say, "oh, this is the formula the teacher wants us to use." We had to deal with the scenario as a real-world challenge, grapple with the data, and determine the approach that would most allow us to be successful.

While it might be hard to explain exactly what modelling is, it's easier to see how this kind of exercise fits the mission of our iTAG. First, the scenarios and contexts can be carefully chosen to be engagingly relevant to students' lives and experiences. Second, it uses that connection to challenge students to apply their understandings of mathematics in a way that can promote higher-level thinking and deeper understandings. This sort of task is more of a challenge to create, and it requires a lot of trust in one's students to provide them this sort of relatively open exploration; however, I remain convinced that the potential rewards make it entirely worthwhile.

After our modelling activity, one of the ITAG members shared valuable ideas from an article on "launching complex tasks" in the classroom. The article spelled out ways to get a complex problem started, like 1) Discuss key features of the context, 2) Discuss key mathematical ideas, 3) Use students' ideas to develop common language for the features of the problem, and 4) Avoid giving students a particular solution method. Using these strategies when launching a modelling problem, she said, made the process go smoother.

The article is "Launching Complex Tasks" by Kara Jackson, Emily Shahan, Lynsey Gibbons, and Paul Cobb. It was published in Mathematics Teaching in the Middle School (Volume 18, No. 1, August 2012).

Let's talk about silly things

Okay. Had a frustrating afternoon, and am feeling unmotivated by blogging at the moment. Some things I just really don't feel like writing about at this particular moment:

• Job hunting
• Philadelphia schools policy
• Things that I really need to get done right now (taxes, lesson planning, my final portfolio, etc.)
• The weather
• The Philadelphia Phillies

I'll get back to writing about some of those things soon. In the meantime, there's still plenty of things that can cheer me up. For instance, I just stumbled upon a keyboard shortcut that changed my font to red. Didn't know I could do that, doubt I'll ever do it again, but for the moment it's magical.

Some nerdy things can cheer me up too; for instance, earlier this month, I held my annual Pi(e) day celebration (naturally on March 14th - AKA 3.14), where a bunch of my friends, including a sizeable number from my TEP cohort, came together and baked a LOT of pies. I'm also enthusiastic at the moment about some events (okay, why is it doing it NOW???) about some events coming up, like Gloria Ladson-Billings coming to speak here next week, or trying out for this the following weekend. 

And then, of course, there's the thing that constantly lifts my spirits: the ridiculous, ridiculous, tiny human beings I'm surrounded by each day as I student teach.

Some of the strangest highlights:

• There's some questions you don't really want to answer as a Kindergarten teacher...so it's nice when kids have their own answers:
• Student A: (Reading a book about pandas) Mr. Gottschalk, what does "mating" mean?
• Me: ...
• A: Does it mean, making really good friends with someone?
• Me: ...
• Me: ...Kinda!

...And then there was only Term V

To recap, for those of you just joining us:

Although we're studying a lot of different things at once in the Teacher Education Program, our year is generally divided into five thematic terms.

• Term I was the summer. It focused on the context for teaching. We studied "School and Society," among other things, and our final product was a study of the neighborhood where we would be student teaching. 
• Term II was the first half of the fall. It focused on getting to know students as individual learners, as well as theoretical approaches to teaching and basic assessment & instructional strategies. Our Term II assignment was a study of a specific student from our classroom.
• Term III was the remainder of the fall. We focused on lesson planning, ultimately developing and teaching small-group lessons in each of the major subjects.
• Term IV is the beginning of the spring semester, and focuses on curriculum planning and working towards enduring understandings. Over the course of Term IV, we develop a full, cross-curricular lesson plan for a two-week full takeover.

And those are all now officially DONE! I'll write a recap about Term IV soon, but for now, I just wanted to report that I have finally reached...

• Term V: Praxis. Term V is different from the other terms -- we're only taking one class a week (one session of seminar, rather than two), but we're student teaching full-time now, ultimately building up to a two-week full-responsibility teaching takeover. There's not technically a "Term V assignment" -- but instead, we're working on finalizing our Master's Portfolios. We'll be going over more of the details tomorrow, but the TEP website describes this assignment as a "web-based portfolio addressing a critical issue that rises from their teaching and supporting their arguments with artifacts from their teaching experience." 

And that's really it. At this point in the year, "Classwork" has frankly subsided to Priority #3 -- behind "Student Teaching" and "Finding a Job," but still ahead of "Cleaning My Kitchen" and "Updating My Blog."

100th Day of School!

I don't recall the 100th day of school being a big deal. I vaguely remember one of my classrooms having a 180-day timeline around the top of the walls, but otherwise I don't have any memory of knowing, or caring about, what day it was. It was early in the year, and a lot of school remained. It was late in the year, and summer was approaching. I liked school a lot, but come on - summer vacation! The calendar was all about counting down, not counting up.

Well, I don't know if times have changed, if Philadelphia is different from Charlottesville, or what, but the 100th Day seems to be a big deal in a lot of schools here. I'd been hearing about the 100th day since the beginning of the school year - watching teachers counting on days, telling students excitedly that they would have a big celebration when they counted up to 100 - but I didn't really know what to expect.

Well, today was the 100th Day, and it was a Big Deal.

My classroom teacher went all out, as you can begin to see by the streamers, signs, and table decorations. At each student's seat was a $100 bill with their own face printed on it, and a colorful pencil. Students came dressed in 100-related clothing (one kid had a shirt that said in huge letters: "100th day!!! and Mom's birthday"). And yes, I got in on the action:

iTAGs

Something I haven't written much about in this blog, but which has been a big part of driving my interest in teaching in Philly, is the city's wealth of activism and advocacy around school reform. Community organizing in the city involves student groups, parent groups, religious and ethnic groups, unions, and coalitions that bring them all together. And that's on top of some really amazing school-focused journalism, research, legal, and other advocacy groups.

(I may or may not have thrown a wildcard somewhere into that list, just to see if anyone paying attention.)

I'm bringing this up not just because it's awesome and important -- it's also because, if I am able to get hired in the city after leaving this program, then there's definitely some awesome organizations out there that I'll want to be connected with, not to mention some great resources to take advantage of.

Last night, I took a step in that direction, going to an event hosted by the Teacher Action Group (TAG), a coalition of educators in the city who do advocacy, teacher education, and more.

Field placement: Kindergarten

I wrote a bit in the fall about my student teaching placement experience, but I haven't yet written about my placement for the spring. Short version: I'm working in kindergarten, with an amazing teacher, at a very privileged school. Long version: let's dissect!

1. I'm working in kindergarten...

Going into student teaching, I was pretty clear about my preferred age range for teaching: mostly interested in 3rd grade, still very interested in 2nd or 4th, open to 1st grade, and probably not so much in kindergarten. So why did I accept a placement in kindergarten - and my spring placement, the one where I'm teaching five days a week and doing my full-responsibility two-week takeover?

First, a reminder of how the placement process works. Under new PA regulations, people getting elementary or middle grades certification must do multiple fieldwork placements, to ensure that they are getting broad experience within their certification range. So, in the elementary program, we had a pre-K placement in the summer, and then one semester in K-2 and one semester in 2-4. Since I did my fall in 3rd grade, I was supposed to do my spring in K-2.

We got a lot of input into our spring placements, and while I didn't rule out kindergarten, I wasn't exactly communicating enthusiasm. Over the course of multiple meetings with NancyLee, our program coordinator, though, we ran in what felt like circles discussing my general preferences, and it wasn't until fairly late in the process that I saw a lightbulb illuminate over NancyLee's head. It was a kindergarten classroom, she explained, but if I was open to that, she thought it would be a great match for me. An opportunity to see in practice many of the methods we'd studied, particularly for literacy instruction. To watch an extremely experienced and respected teacher manage a classroom. To work as part of a relatively collaborative team of teachers. I was sold. I was going to kindergarten.

And, to my (partial) surprise - I've loved it.

Trolley Tour

This weekend was PhD Weekend - which meant it was all hands on deck in the Admissions department, from arrival to departure. Some of that time I was legitimately helpful - I handed out at least a dozen name tags! - and some of that time I was basically getting to take part in the events of the prospective PhD students, and/or do homework.

And on Sunday, that put me on a trolley for a tour of the city.

Pictured with fellow GSE student bloggers Rebecca and Andrea 

Weird week, good week

Let's recap what a normal week is supposed to look like for a TEP - Elementary student in January:

• Monday: Student teaching
• Tuesday: Student teaching, evening Seminar
• Wednesday: Student teaching
• Thursday: Student teaching
• Friday: Morning Seminar, afternoon Teaching Diverse Learners (every other week)

Now let's look at what this week has looked like:

• Monday: MLK Day 
• Tuesday: Early dismissal (due to snow), Seminar cancelled
• Wednesday: Snow day 
• Thursday: Student teaching
• Friday: Student teaching (field trip!)

Sliiiiiiiiiiiightly different. But not really complaining!

First, about MLK Day. In Philadelphia, it's a pretty big deal -- it's the MLK Day of Service, something that's catching on nationally but which I had never heard of before I moved to Philadelphia. Then again, I grew up in Virginia, a state whose relationship with the holiday has been, shall we say, troubled. I live with an organizer who was recruiting volunteers to help out at Jackson Elementary in South Philly, so I joined in to help with a massive library inventory project. It was great to work with so many people in helping with such an important project -- but I can't help but feel morally conflicted about volunteering to do work that I unequivocally believe should be funded by the state. Schools need libraries; how is that even a question? And yet, in Philadelphia, many schools lack functioning libraries, and many of those that operate libraries part-time (like Lea, where I taught in the fall) do so with volunteers (something plenty of schools don't have access to). Also -- there were SO many volunteers at Jackson (from some VERY highly connected organizations, in areas of the city nowhere near Jackson) that I could only wonder how many schools could have better used some of them. Not to knock volunteerism, but in the spirit of a day celebrating Dr. King, let's remember that we should be conscious of, and fighting against, structural injustice.

Anyway.

I wrote a book!

A little while ago, I cryptically mentioned a project I was working on - well here's the big reveal:

I've always had a dream of someday writing a book of some sort. When my Literacy Methods class made an assignment of it (specifically: "write a children's book"), I decided to take it really, really seriously. In spite of the demands of the semester, I ended up investing probably 50 hours on this. And I'm actually really proud of it.

(Note to prospective TEP students - this was NOT necessary. We were basically graded on completion rather than quality, so most people didn't put nearly as much time into it as I did. That's not to say that there weren't some spectacular books in there - I actually really, really loved some of the books made by my classmates. It was a great assignment. We ended our semester with a book-sharing party, with our Penn Mentors and professors invited as well!)

Welcome back, me!

Well, after a nice long blog vacation (I seriously considered writing "blog-cation," but wouldn't have been able to forgive myself), I'm back in action for 2014!

My actual vacation, of course, wasn't quite so long. But I managed to do a lot - both of the "lots of fun" and the "this is a vacation" variety?

The timeline: 
My Term III assignment was due on December 13th; my first day back in the classroom was January 2nd. That gave me just under three weeks - much better than the absurd 8 days (12/24-1/1) that the public schools had off, but much less than my grad school colleagues who are just returning to class today.

So what did I do with that time?

And the results of the poll say...

...That nobody responds to survey responses. Or, perhaps, visits this blog. But traffic stats claim otherwise!

Well, in case you are reading this, and you are a real person, and you'd like to influence the content of this blog, please fill out this survey:

Or email me with questions or thoughts: gojesse@gse.upenn.edu

Or just read and do nothing, and I'll keep writing anyway, because I'll love you anyway, and also I get paid by the hour.

Happy New Year!