Orientation

Orientation was a wonderful opportunity to meet education majors of all types and learn

about what was to come this semester. The table I sat at housed an art major, a library sciences

major, a secondary major, and myself. It was very interesting to discuss with them all of the

opportunities that they have had to work with students in their different tracks and compare

where students are, not only at different ages but in different subjects as well. The suicide

prevention training we received was very heavy but vital to our future careers. As someone who

has had suicide affect their life, I found it interesting to see how training is being developed to

not only offer aid to the students who are directly thinking about suicide but those who are also

being affected by it secondhand. I also appreciated the presentations from the Allentown

administration members and the Career Development Center. I feel as though they gave us a

better understanding of what schools will be looking for from us and what resources we have

through the university to find jobs after graduation. Orientation made me feel more comfortable

with the semester ahead and I found myself much less stressed on the first day of my placement.

ALICE Training

Hamburg Middle School required its staff to attend an ALICE training session after

school on 9/12/22. The training was very informative and made me feel more prepared in the

event of an emergency. It taught us about the importance of making informed decisions to keep

our students and ourselves safe in the event of a lockdown emergency. I had this training from

the student’s perspective in high school so it was very interesting to me to see what our teachers

were being taught to keep us safe. The training began with a drill in which we all simply lay on

the ground as our only means of protection. This showed us that the old way of thinking, in

which you simply hide under your desk or simply try to hide, is ineffective and unsafe. We then
went through three different scenarios in which we practiced barricading, defending, and making

informed decisions based on the location of the incidents. This training was so immersive that at

points my heart was pounding and my true fight-or-flight response kicked in. I found myself

defending my classroom with whatever means necessary even when there was no warning about

what was about to happen. I also got to practice various methods of barricading my room and I

thought it was interesting to learn that studies have found that in active shooter situations they

have never gotten through a locked door. In all scenarios, the casualties were found in the room

that did not barricade their doors effectively or at all. I also was fascinated by the accounts of my

colleagues who acted as the shooter in our scenarios. They talked about their mindset and how

the locked doors and proper barricades actually deterred them from certain rooms. While the

training was very heavy on the heart, it made me feel much more prepared and confident in my

abilities to defend my classroom in the event of an active shooter emergency.

Half Day 10/7/22

On October 7th, Hamburg Middle School had a half-day in-service. After the students

left, we began to go through our materials and plan for the week ahead. Over lunch, the sixth-

grade teams discussed what the upcoming weeks would look like in their classrooms. Our math

teachers have been struggling with our new math curriculum due to the prerequisites required for

the lessons. A lot of our students do not have the required skills to tackle the lessons in the new

curriculum, so we have been discussing ways to work those prerequisite lessons into class, while

still moving along with the new curriculum. We talked about the benefits and drawbacks that we

have been seeing with working in small groups. After lunch, we had a two-hour training on the

new curriculum. The materials that come with the curriculum are very jumbled and some very

interesting and helpful features are hidden within the virtual materials. This training was meant
to demonstrate how to navigate the hard copy and virtual materials so that the teachers were able

to use the curriculum in the most effective ways. The training was sort of frustrating as it seemed

that many of the questions that the teachers asked weren’t truly answered, especially when it

came to questions regarding how this program can be differentiated for our lower students. I

think we gained some knowledge of the materials that will allow us to piece together ways to

best teach all of our students, but it was certainly frustrating to learn that this curriculum is not

necessarily built with students and teachers in mind.

In Service 10/10/22

We had a full in-service day on October 10th. The morning started with a faculty

meeting. At the meeting, I got to see the new teacher appreciation program that the middle

school is testing out. When teachers are seen going above and beyond they receive a gold star.

Then at the faculty meetings, they write their names on their stars and place them in a box for a

raffle-type drawing. At this meeting, the staff won gift cards to a local restaurant and a pass to

leave 20 minutes early one day. The raffle brought some fun to the faculty meeting, but it was

also interesting to hear the teacher’s responses to this new program. While they agreed it brought

some fun into the meeting, they felt that the program was somewhat demeaning and could cause

tension amongst the staff. They feel as though the program is a replacement for actual praise and

feedback, which they would much rather receive if they have been going above and beyond. It

was interesting to hear the teachers talk about it this way and get to understand how much it

would mean to them to simply get verbal affirmation rather than some chance at a silly prize. At

this meeting, they also discussed the program through which disciplinary referrals must go

through. I thought this program was interesting, as it connects all the teachers into one place to
see which students have had infractions resulting in some sort of disciplinary action. This

program also notifies parents which I thought was important as it cuts out the ability for students

to get out of their consequences. After the faculty meeting, we as a special education department

had a meeting to discuss progress monitoring and FBAs. We discussed the different tools that

our I-Ready program offers to do benchmark testing and progress monitoring. I-Ready had the

reading and math skills broken down into systemic levels that you could then click on and get all

the materials you could need to do the benchmark testing. We were also shown how to see each

student's progress through different graphs and charts that are provided by the program. Then we

discussed when it is appropriate to conduct an FBA and what level of FBA requires there to be

official documentation and other staff involved. After that, the rest of the day was simply getting

work done and copying lots of materials for the upcoming weeks.

Ted Talk- https://youtu.be/81Ub0SMxZQo

I found this TED Talk by Bill Gates very interesting. Obviously, Bill Gates is not a

teacher and likely does not know much about pedagogy and classroom management techniques.

However, in this talk, he made some very interesting points about the importance of feedback.

He talked about how the most successful people in the world have a team of people to provide

them feedback and help them to develop their billion-dollar ideas. Yet, the people who are

building the minds of the future receive minimal specific feedback. Teachers too often are not

provided proper feedback, even with the development of different evaluation methods. They are

often given bland, generic feedback that doesn’t help them to propel themselves forward. The

research that he has conducted through a network of 3,000 teachers suggested one very

interesting thing that teachers could do to get great feedback, record themselves teaching. While
I have seen this done, I have never really thought about the benefits that come along with it.

Being able to watch videos of your own teaching allows you to reflect on even the smallest

details that you may not think about while driving home at the end of the day. I liked the idea of

recording some lessons to use as my own feedback. Even when you think you are doing

amazing, you can always strive to improve. I don’t think anyone is ever at a point where they

shouldn’t be continuing to improve themselves. I believe that is just the simple key to life and as

teachers, we need to feel this way about our teaching.