Mr. Shannon, you need to be an old teacher. Cell Phone Snatcher.

Great news,

The phones have started to disappear from sight, and by sight I mean period. As I am a younger teacher I am hip to the crotch texting skills that kids think I feel off the truck yesterday
"Mr. shannon, you should be old. then we can text and talk about you behind your back and you can't hear us." I take that a compliment. Please, send more my way guys. Bring it on!

After one week of the "house of cell," (A box that is used to collect phones that are out during lecture of off task during co=operative learning). I have seen such a drop in the number of phones that are out and being a distraction in my class. Kids rather have their phones put up in their bag than into my box. If it is in the box they will not have a chance to listen to music during group working or individual works as well. this has also helped in note taking. I think it has increased the engagement with my students.

I can relate with the kids, just six months ago I was in class texting about how dumb my class was to typically to classmates. However, I was paying for my degree and I was able to put the device down and do work in class as well. 1 have only had to take about one or two phones from the "high profile" students before the whole class has straightened up pretty quickly. It is becoming almost a game of mine to find them as well which really stinks because I have great eyes.

I feel that this recently work requires me to continue into another area of management. I am going to work on making sure that transitions into new topics are far more smooth and that I allow kids the time to get into gear. this will help by starting on time better with a warm up exercise that gets the kids working at the bell and that I make new statements in the same place of the room every time. I think that the understanding of direction will place the students onto the same plane and learning atmosphere as myself and we will think as a unit to increase the learning community. I think this will also establish more terms of understanding that this is my classroom that they are learning in, not a fun zone that happens to have math in it.

Things have been continuing to get better as the year is going on. I am so happy that I get chances to see my co-workers and I am really starting to enjoy this place. I have been thinking of transitioning back to Georgia but like any great movie the 3/4 part always makes things sappy so that the end will be tear jerker. My company here increasingly gets cooler and more fun. I really feel myself around this crew with no judgement and just chilling with good smart people that make me laugh so much. Life here is great and things are going well. We are freezing our tails off and into our heads in snow but the company we have here will surpass any crazy weather the coast of Maine will throw at us.

I'm hoping for an interest soon as well. :)

Also, I love my best friend in the world so much, I can't wait to see her in a month and talk more about living together!

Weekly Skills- Management

Weekly Skills 1

I have decided that I am going to start weekly to focus more on how I can tackle to enrich my classroom. I hope that slowly I can continue to create a better learning environment. I think that my first assignment will be a running one as many have told me via coworkers and literature that it will take years to find my flow and my style that is best of me to produce my best teaching works. I think that this task will start to produce a better demeanor for myself which will in turn, help to foster better learning in my classroom. 

I have started with a box from cell. This is a nice cardboard box with a visual linning and bubble wrap. This creates a beautiful nesting ground for cell phones that will provide me that ability to not "take" a phone but instead move it's location. The physique here is less confrontational with students. 

I have started to retain focus when conducting lecture within the class. I have an innate ability to digress from topic frequently and I reflection shows that this needs to be corrected if I am going to ask the same to be done of my students. I have seen success in the box from cell. I am going to focus in the later part of the week on keeping tasks with my students. Off-color comments that change the dynamic structure and flow of the course are making the other students both annoyed and off task as well. This is lessening my strength as the leader and overtone of the course. 

Next week we are working on questioning, and classroom banter. How I can transition questions back within the classroom exchange and encourage students to answer verbally in front of their peers. 

Personal Bit:

Recently I have applied for a couple of jobs out of the state back to where I graduated college. Here I am loving the beautiful life, family, school, friends, and of course school. However, I am missing a large part which is my best friend and a partner. I am missing cheerleading that is placed as a priority. My niece have all had birthdays and their a bit older which means days of lap sitting and bath time are ending. I love the time I have with them, I wish for more and this move would do the opposite. School has been going and I have taken upon myself to become a better teacher by observation and reflection. I do not want to settle for being a good teacher but a great teacher.