my first week with a substitute

So this week has been a little wild because I've had a substitute the whole week. It's been really interesting to see how the students behave when their main teacher isn't present. For the most part the students behave just the same, but of course there are a few kids that try to take advantage of the fact that it's only me and a substitute watching them. I've been very fortunate to have my school's principal check up on me frequently throughout my day to make sure that things are going to plan.
Luckily we had Tuesday off due to snow so that was a great chance to catch up on all of my UPenn work due for the end of the semester. For the first few days of the week we continued working on our projects, but starting today we had a review session and set goals that we'd like to achieve by the end of the week. I've noticed that every so often having a day where students set goals is extremely beneficial. At the beginning of class I have the students think of a personal and professional (school-related) goal they'd like to accomplish by the end of the week then I have them share it with a buddy sitting next to them. Finally we all come back together as a class and I normally share mine first. It seems to be a more productive day if I am able to model my goal-sharing first and encourage student participation. For about the first 10 minutes of class we do this and then get into working to actually achieve our goals. With approx. 10 minutes left in class we come back as a group and I ask students to share if they were able to succeed in completing their goal, or need to take extra steps tomorrow. Unbeknownst to the students, by setting goals they're essentially outlining an agenda to complete in order to finish their work. This strategy has worked well in the past for me and I plan to continue using it in the future...I'd also encourage all future teachers to give it a shot someday. Hopefully tomorrow goes just as smoothly as the past few days! Ta-ta for now!!

coming back from thanksgiving

So this is been the first week back from Thanksgiving and boy am I tired. It was great to get back home for break and enjoy seeing the family and all, but it's been tough to get back into the jive of things. On a positive note the Philly School District has parent teacher conferences this week so they've included two half days for the students. The students have been a bit riled up but all and all it's a pleasure to be back.
 
Anyway, check this out!

We are planning to have Holiday Reception/Meet the Dean events in both Chicago and NYC.  It will be a great opportunity to meet leaders from GSE, find out more about our degrees and programs, network, and enjoy some delicious food. You can register/RSVP for these events by visiting our events page: 

http://www.gse.upenn.edu/admissions_financial/events#off_campus

Also this Saturday we have an open house for the Teacher Education Program. This is especially meaningful for me because it's the program that I am a part of!! If you come be sure to say hello and I'd be glad to answer any and all of your questions.

There's only 3 more weeks until Christmas break so I'm hoping we can end this month strongly and then get a nice extended break to again relax with our families. Teachers will have off from the 23rd until the 2nd of January, but on a super positive note Penn doesn't start classes until the 13th....wohoooo! Okay take care for now, talk to you all again soon.

Teacher Education Program On-Campus Visit

After working as a member of AmeriCorps I realized I wanted to be involved in urban education. I searched for programs throughout the nation and the combination of a top-tier staff/student body, length of the program (10 months), and promotion of social justice for all I decided I wanted to be a part of UPenn's Teacher Education Program. It's a certification program that works for pre-college ages.

Whether you want to teach pre-kindergarteners or 12th graders, our Teacher Education Program (TEP) can get you on track to certification. 

Through a commitment to social justice and urban education, TEP prepares prospective teachers to transform students and schools. You can read more about the program on their extensive website: http://www2.gse.upenn.edu/tep/.

Read through the website and want to learn more in-person?

Join the Urban Teacher Education program for an on-campus information session on Saturday, December 7 from 10am-noon ET. RSVP here. (Please note only the Teacher Education program will be represented and discussed at this event.)

I highly suggest the coming to campus for this visit. It's the selling point for nearly all of my cohort that attended. Not only do they provide valuable information about the Penn campus and program, but you also get a chance to mosey around the city and see if "the feel" of the city is good for you! Hopefully you're able to attend and I'll see you there! Take care for now.

Constitution High School Election

Today was a special day for Constitution High School, the school that I do my fieldwork at. It's the 50th anniversary of JFK being shot and we had a very special tribute to him. On top of the tribute we had the first stage of our schools student government elections. A few people were running for president, vice president, treasurer, and secretary. Each student was allowed to create a 3 minute speech along with a minute or two campaign video. The students that weren't running for office had spent all week creating signs and helping in the preparation for the school-wide debates that took place today. It was a heck of a presentation by all the candidates and the student body that was watching all seemed thoroughly entertained throughout the whole day. We were lucky enough to have a shortened day schedule and then each class commuted to the Drexel (hmmm) campus for the debate. Surprisingly all the students showed up on time and were on the edge of their seats ready to hear what each candidate had to say. We had an imposter president acting and actually sounding just like the real Obama! It was a great show. This Tuesday we plan on having our school-wide elections to see who will run the student government for the rest of this year. I have never been a part of a school that's been so invested into everything they do. I was shocked to see the amount of enthusiasm and effort put forth to make today go as smoothly as it did. Our principal surprised us all by signing off on a student produced bill that allows all Freshman...yeah, FRESHMAN to go out to lunch. This is the most progressive and forward thinking school I have ever been a part of. It's still fascinating to me to see what can get done when High Schoolers come together in order to fight for a common cause. Props to you Constitution High!!

november weather

It's been freeeezing outside the past couple days. For those of you who plan on coming to Penn next year and are moving from warmer areas I'd recommend bringing plenty of layers to bundle up! I moved here to Philly from Los Angeles about 5 months ago and I still don't think my body has gotten use to the cold weather. BURRR!
Luckily there has been a little bit of a break in the amount of work due for classes and I've finally had a chance to have a social life again and see some friends. In 10 days we'll have Thanksgiving break and a lot of assignments are going to be due then so I can imagine I'll be having a bunch of work to do next week. After Thanksgiving there is only a month until Winter Break which is the end of the first semester. This is when all of our final papers are due so that's definitely going to be a bit crazy and hectic but it should all work out.
It snowed here to other day which was neat to see and there's nothing really like spending Christmas time in the northeast. Stores and dorm windows are already "decked" out with Christmas lights and the "holiday cheer" is beginning to float throughout the city. I don't know if it's just me but everyone also seems a little happier. Who knows? For now though I have no complaints and I'm really excited to get this little Thanksgiving break before the end of the semester. It'll be nice to go home for a bit and then only have another month left before our school has a larger break for the holiday season. Hope you're all staying warm wherever you are. Take care for now!

REMINDER!

The deadline to apply for all Ph.D. programs for Fall 2014 enrollment is SUNDAY, DECEMBER 15, 2013!

This means ALL materials must be received by the admissions office by that date.

All applications received by that date are guaranteed a faculty review of all materials.

If you have not yet taken the GRE, you must do so no later than NOVEMBER 22, 2013 or your test scores will not make it to us in time.

We always recommend that you submit your application and materials earlier rather than waiting until the absolute last day!

Any questions? Please email admissions@gse.upenn.eduor give us a call at (215)898-6415.

week 8 professional development

Things have been going well and I've been consistently lesson planning but it was nice this week to have a couple days without students for professional development. It's always a pleasure to share common practices with teachers who also work with the same students as you. I still don't have much of a presence with the rest of the faculty, but I enjoyed listening to the things they had to say to try to understand what I'll be dealing with next year when I'm a full time teacher. We mainly discussed a new rating system for the teachers. Some teachers voiced an initial disapproval and others didn't look like they wanted to learn something new, but ultimately all the teachers agreed on the best way they could implement new teaching strategies to fit in line with the new teacher-rating system.
One of the neat things I took away from the workshop was a new creative way to write objectives. I was familiar with SWBAT (Students Will Be Able To) but in addition to that the "Danielson Model" encourages us to include IOT (In Order To). An example would be...Student will be able identify the major characteristics necessary for a civilization to survive in order to better understand the fall of Rome. I think this is a useful (IOT) because if it's projected or written on the board it will remind students of their overall goal AND how they are going to apply this new learned material.
It's been a shortened week so tomorrow is only my 3rd day with the students but I'm excited to get back in the classroom with them and try to implement these new strategies. We'll see how it goes but I'll be sure to keep you posted!

week 7

This past week was Halloween and the students were definitely wound up a little extra. Instead of doing too much class work, my high school was able to attend a play at the Wilma Theater and have the actors come to class to speak with them. It was really neat week and the students remained engaged in discussion for the whole week.
We learned about Great Zimbabwe as well as European colonization in Africa, and then saw the play The Convert. It was a story of a African tribal woman and her self-removal from her family and culture in order to be a Christian. When the actors came in to speak with our class they were able to have the students share stories of immigration or anytime they felt out of place. It was amazing the see students fully involved in discussion and learning the material very well.
My teacher told me of a teaching strategy/style called foxfire where students relate what they learn in class to out of class experiences. Us being allowed to attend a play, only a few blocks from our school was inline with this new teaching method. I was impressed with its success.
I've been really lucky being in the Philadelphia area and being able to see all of the history around me every day. Not every school gets to pick up and go on a class trip to famous playhouses so I must say I'm really enjoying my time here at the University of Pennsylvania AND in Philadelphia.

week 6

The weeks are starting to fly by and I'm getting more and more involved at my school. For the last 2 weeks I've had some practice writing lesson plans at Penn GSE and then have been allowed to teach them at my high school. My classroom teacher and I co-teach so the lessons I've taught have only been about minutes each. I really like how I'm being utilized though because it seems day by day I'm getting a little bit larger or a roll. 

I'm still trying to develop relationships with the students too. I went to my high school's football game this past weekend and had a really good time. Upon arriving at school on Monday I was able to share stories about the game and have a pretty detailed conversation with a few students who played in it. My school also has their first playoff volleyball match on Friday so I'm hoping I can make it to that too!

week 4 (protest)

This week at school I arrived to see half of my school, about 200 students, sitting down blocking the entrance. The school's student government organized a protest to the latest Philadelphia budget cut. I think it's called "leveling" but we've been told that our school needs to decrease it's budget by $91k which will likely result in a another teacher getting fired. I spoke with the students and they said they already lost 4 teachers this summer, only have art three out of five days a week, have never had a librarian, see a nurse once a week, and a guidance counselor one out of every two weeks.
Luckily the students let me inside but they made their voices loud and clear chanting throughout the first two periods and even inviting news crews to come by. Hopefully the students can continue to stick together in these tough times and show that they're willing to fight for a fair education and fair treatment of their wonderful teachers! Who knows if immediate change is going to take place, but the current seniors barely have any help with getting ready for college. Normally a guidance counselor would assist them, but now (the ones who have extra time) have the stay after school and hope that a teacher is willing to help. It's a really tough situation these kids are in, but at least they're sticking together and showing they won't go down without having their voices heard. 

week 3

It's the middle of week 3 at school and I'm beginning to miss my social life. I stayed in this whole weekend catching up and finishing up on work I needed to do for class this week, but managed to finish by mid-day Sunday (I got to watch some football games!). The TEP 10 month program is definitely an accelerated one, but it's manageable. I still haven't really felt too "stressed" about completing all my work, but I have been doing work every single day. The majority of the work is reading, which I struggle with, and reflecting how you can/will apply what you read to your fieldwork. It's pretty simple stuff but it's constant. It feels like I just started and I think I only have 7-8 months left. The time is flying by, but as long as you have good time management skills there is nothing to worry about.
From what my friends in the program have been telling me it is best to live near campus. Living near campus ensures the commute to my high school, as well as UPenn is not going to be long at all. I currently live in grad housing (Sansom) which is definitely the most convenient spot for education majors. If you can't tell from my writing I am very excited to be in this program as well as very scatter-brained with what I should share with you all. Hopefully what I am including has calmed some peoples nerves down! Thanks for reading and talk to you again soon.

Democratic School

So I've been going to my field placement as well as UPenn classes for about two weeks now. It sure is a grind, but it's been fun to keep busy so far. I'm going to my high school from 8-12 each day and then I have one 2-3 hour class each day of the week...it's not too bad. My first couple weeks at high school I have just been going class to class seeing how each teacher sets up their room. Some teachers have rules posted and in other classes they are just understood. Some teachers have individual gridded seating, but others have group seating. It's fascinating to see the different amount of successful teaching strategies that can be completely opposite of one another.
I've just been taking a lot of notes while at high school so far and haven't been planning any teaching yet. Again, the workload isn't too much (yet), but I've heard it gets more in tense....we'll see.

The school that I work at has a really neat set up. The school is ran like the US Government and the principal heads the executive branch, the students make up the House, there is a teacher Senate, and students and teachers make up the judicial branch. Most of the policies that occur in and outside the school are sponsored by bills that the someone in the school created. Some of the new policies that are taking place this year are longer lunch for sophomore/juniors/seniors, more time in between periods, and reduction of the old uniform policy. If students are able to democratically create a "legal" bill and pass it through Congress it will make its way to the principals desk to be viewed. It's a really neat concept they've got going on that allows for some student autonomy. I'll be sure to keep you all posted on the new bills that will be created this year. Take care for now!

Beginning of Fall Semester

This is my first ever blog…here we go! So first a little background on me personally is that my name is Joe and I was born in New Jersey. I went to Rutgers University and got my B.A. in History. I then joined City Year AmeriCorps and moved to Los Angeles to work in their school district. After working in LA schools for two years I applied to The University of Pennsylvania’s Teacher Education Program (Secondary) and came back across the country to pursue a master’s degree in Secondary History Education.

The 10 month accelerated program that the Teacher Education Program provides started on July 1^st. We took two classes and had a field workshop or “internship” a couple times a week. Summer classes finished up a few weeks ago and the break between the Summer and Fall semesters felt great! Now that the school year has started I have been going to my placement high school each of the last few days. As a member of the Teacher Education Program in the Fall semester I am taking four Penn classes and co-teaching each morning at a local high school from 8-12. I haven’t even been at my high school for a week yet but I think things are going very well so far and I’m hoping for a great year. Penn gave us more than enough time to familiarize ourselves with our partner teacher, high school environment, and staff so the only thing that’s different now from last week is that there are kids in the school. That’s all for now, but I’ll be sure to keep everyone updated as my year continues. Bye!