Week 14

This week I worked with my student on writing. One of the really cool things we did as a team was allow the students to research on their own. The student were given a fact card for four animals, each day last week and this week we had them copy facts they felt answered the question about the animal's habitat, diet, adaptations, and fun facts. Then the students will were able to go onto San Diego Zoo and find their own research to add to make sure the student had more than one fact for each category. The end task was to transfer one animal to a self-written book. To begin, the students were able see the rubric we would be grading and work to get the grade they wanted to achieve. The students were independant and worked hard to get facts. Students at all levels, from my struggling students to the excelling students, were so successful. It made me really proud to see each of the student work hard for to accomplish the best book they could create. It was really helpful to have the students work toward a goal. The students were able to self edit and recheck their work with the rubric provided. We kept it simple, a 4 for 4 details, 3 for 3 details, etc. and points for full sentences, spacing, and capitals.

This week is one of the last full weeks that I have the students. It has really made me aware of the connections that I want to build with them. I can see the bond that I have with the students. I also see the example of a love of learning that I have modeled for the students as well. The impact that I have, whether the lesson was successful or not, is not the what the students cared about. The students noticed the attitude that I had toward learning and toward the other students. They encouraged each other as I have in class. I also noticed that if I lost patience or let things get me frazzled the students noticed. One day after a long personal night, I came in feeling drained and unmotivated. Within minutes, one of my quieter student came up to me, and asked me why I was sad. I had to check my approach for the day, and tell her I wasn't said I just need a warm up, we did a stretch as a class, and I told that they brightened my day and now I was ready to get going with reading. It is important to leave my personal things at the door, so that the students are not affected negatively.

This week I want to focus on making meaningful connection with the students as I start to transition my CT back in charge. As emotional as I will be during this time, the students do not want to lose me either. I want to make sure that every student feels like the CT is their champion as I am. I also want them to know they will be successful in their future. I want to make sure that I transition smoothly out of the classroom, even though I don't want to go.

In chapter seven, Schmitt talks about eight reasons why community-based learning is essential. Number two says community based projects are academically and socially rigorous. One of the things I really liked that we did; was a community based research project on the Schaumburg Library. The students are able to engage in the online library and this really encouraged to students to go to library outside of school time. After doing researching the library and writing about it, The students made a brochure for the library with all information they learned.Weeks after the brochure was finished students were still talking about the Schaumburg Library and all of its activities. It was very cool to see second graders so engaged in their community.

Week 11

This week was a good week. We had a lot of Halloween activities planned. Despite all the fun the students were still really focused. It was really fun to hear the students talk about how they have fun all day and didn't do any learning. While we are doing the same lesson just tailored to a fun way. This was encouraging that if I can have more lessons that are "not learning" but just fun. I graded my first set of papers this week. It was good to see how other teacher grade. One of the things that I wanted to make sure I do in my own classroom is having the students come up with a rubric on their own. One challenged that I face is grading for parents. There was a student that did not fit the criteria for meeting grade level expectations. He is a student that scored the highest reading and writing scores in our class. He gives about 75% effort throughout the day. When he flunks a test because he did not try, he is allowed to retake the test. For our writing assignment this week. I would have given any other student a 2 (below grade level) for the work he submitted. However, my teacher said that he worked independently so he earned a 3. If I gave my students, who were supported, a 3 for meeting all the correct aspects, I should give him a 3 as well. She mentioned that the parents would be upset.  This is something that I did not anticipate. I have always thought of keeping myself unbiased by grading. However I do have to reflect on how I will use this input going forward.

In Chapter 11, Schmidt talks about the importance of communication. I agree that the frequent and positive interaction is key. I would like to send home weekly how I did this weeks home for the students and give credit for when they return them on Monday. I also think it is important to understand the cultural background of the families. While I was observing our parent teacher conferences, I witnessed multiple things I took away. First, it needs to be communication, not a monologue. Listening and taking the parents part of the conversation, and having the student be a big part of the conversation. I also want to make sure that if I have a translator working with the translator to make sure that all the information is being received. I want to make sure that I make it a warm and welcoming to input.

Lastly, science was great this week. The students were engaged in our experiments and they are really engaged and their assessments show that the students are learning and growing. It is important for me because of the lack of engage on the team side for science. This engagement is really encouraging for me and the class and my CT is really impressed as well.

Week 10

This week was the start of my full week of takeover. Over all it was very successful, I did have to do some readjusting since I was out Monday and the plan were changed a bit. I really enjoy having the full days to myself. I would say that the only thing I wish I had done is make backup plans for science and social studies both of these content areas in my district seem to be less organized. The social studies curriculum is phasing out next year so it’s a little bit more laid-back in what needs to be done. With team planning, seems to be thrown off quite a bit. I would say I think that I should be more flexible in being open to changing my lesson plans. This week one of my students is moving to Poland his last day was Friday and this really opened up my eyes to classroom expectations and setting expectations early on. It was a very hard last day for him and his behavior was, rightfully so, very erratic. I wish I had more support for him on his last day.

Building off this idea, this really got me thinking about what type of behavior system I have set up in place and what type of reflection system I would have in my classroom. About halfway through the day my student who is leaving and the student who is his best friend but also the worst behaved student in class really had a hard day. At the peak of their disruptive behavior I did pull them to the side to tell them that if their behavior did not stop that we would be having a reflection time before lunch. I found a reflection sheet that I think works really well, but it was on the fly. I would’ve loved to have that reflection be something that was in instituted idea before an instant occurred. I think the reflection sheet was really amazing and easy adaptable to the lower level students. However could work as well for my higher readung and writing students. I would like for student to have access to this if they were having a moment where they need to reflect on their behavior good or bad. I’ve seen this work very successful in classrooms, I just wish I had it in place earlier and now that the students have worked on one with me they may be able to do it independently if they need just a moment or a couple minutes to reflect in a isolated area.

This week my focus is really building a solid science curriculum, the curriculum that is currently in place can definitely be utilized to be more engaging. I really leaned on the information I learned from our methods of science teaching. I referred back to the website that I’m included the five E’s of him a successful science lessons; Engage, explore, Explain, extend, and evaluate. Within this week I hope to come up with lessons and experiments that the students can really get excited about science. I have a couple ideas about two specific lesson plans I’d like to incorporate into the pacing schedule that science has already been set to. And I found it really helpful website that will help with planning.

Week 9

This week was a short week with the holiday. I have a really good grip on science and was able to get a lot of work done with planning. Tuesday starts my first day with a full take over. I am very excited about it. One of the things I was nervous about was planning for the entire take over. This week I was able to plan out next week fully by Thursday and was able to talk to my teacher for feedback and approval. I really liked having it all organized prior to the week beginning like the previous weeks have been. In planning I feel like I got that confidence I was looking for. I was able to see what areas I would need to really dive into and focus on. The challenge this week was VR googles. We had a lesson this week, were we able to use Virtual Reality googles. I would say this was a challenge to put together while leaning so heavily on technology for the success of a lesson. I was able to get it up and running, but after a 1/2 of setup and a lot of hiccups. My biggest takeaway with this is that I will insist on a trial run the day before to ensure I could figure it out.

In terms of new ideas I would say that I learned a new strategy for comparing and contrasting within this district. I know that the school limit the ability for the students to get involved in shared reading. However, I think a good idea would be that I team the students up to compare setting, characters, text features, problem/solution and instead of a turn and talk the students had a team time to come up with the answers they felt were important. This gets them more involved while still maintaining a modeling support for the students who require it.

Lastly I was working on getting a handle on science. I came up with stations for a leaf lesson. It worked really well for the students, and they LOVED it. It was fun for the students to complete the task quickly and have their full attention for each activity. In reflection, I would have had a small checklist or worksheet for the reading group, but they really enjoyed partner reading. I had paired up the strong readers with the students who needed more support. I hope to continue this success for next week and really be successful with taking on all the lessons for the week.

Week 8

 This week was a good week for me. I felt really comfortable in my teaching this week. One day in particular was great. I was able to take over the whole class, my cooperating teacher went for a training and directed me to stay and teach the class. It was a great way for me to experience having the classroom fully engaged with me. The substitute was a really nice and helpful aid for classroom management. And wanted to take a small group so that worked out well. I do feel like I am excited to fully take over next week!

I also had parent teacher conference as well this week. There was a lot of insight shown for preparing for conferences. One of my big takeaways from the conference was to be organized in my setting up for it. One big stressed seemed to come from not having everything the way my cooperating teacher want it to be in. During conferences, it was good to see how repetitive each one was. And how to stay consistent with each student and the benefit of being prepared. I also go to see that I would try to make the students more the center of the conference, however it is so difficult to maintain focus throughout the conference.

Last week I set the goals to feel more comfortable in my content areas. And I would say that I have done a great job in teaching shared reading. We took out common assessment in shared reading which is the one area I have been teaching consistent since I arrived at the school. Almost every student did well on the assessment, and showed growth in the comparing and contrasting portion from the first common assessment. I can not help but feel some success from that. I hope to find some more ways to have a better control of carp yet behavior

Week 7

This week I was able to take over math on Friday. This is exciting for me, I really like Math. It was a good lesson but again I felt nervous. Partially because I was being observed by a District representative, who wanted to see how the students from our ASD program were included. The lesson went well. I felt confident in the lesson, if I could have retaught it, I would have used base ten blocks to show the partner groups, and had the children come up with doubles facts they knew, so our friends with IEP, ELL, and ASD program could have a couple reminders. The students this week have become very comfortable with me. I love seeing my guided reading groups. They put in a lot of good work with their task, and are excited to learn and read which is awesome.

This week I was able to observe my teaching calling home for students. She let me know to always have a solution in mind, and a way to help the student with whatever issue we are calling home for. This was a helpful advice that I will definitely take into consideration for when I call home. I think it is important the parent knows that you are push for the success of the student. Some teachers in the school have shared experiences where the parents believe the do not like the student or do not have good intentions. With the solution in mind, it will hopefully tell the parents that you have hope things will get better and you want to help the student with achieving success.

Last week I took over Science which was fun. I hope to get into the pace of taking over more and more. I still have to have the principal come to my class to observe next week,  which is scary but he came in with the Superintendent, for a couple minutes and that was successful. This week I hope to have more meaningful connection and build my confidence in my new content areas.

Week 6

This week was and steady week. I was able to do a lot of my EdTPA stuff. I was way more nervous than I thought I would be. I also tried to pay attention to the students activities more, but I feel like there is just carpet behavior that you can't control. You just do your best to stay focused and engage the students. The first couple lessons that I recorded. I was way too focus on recording and doing what I was supposed to do for the lesson that I feel that I took away from the actual learning. I felt rushed and self conscious. The next lessons, I just rolled with what I had. I knew that I was prepared and that I was passionate, and I hoped that came through. I also thought whatever I don't catch I will add captions to or I will explain in my commentary. I think the students are getting more and more comfortable with me. I was able to really connect with my student who are struggling readers or mathematicians. They are engaged more with learning and more excited to answer even if they are wrong. That is really rewarding to watch.

This week my CP and I have sat down and planned out my full take over. I am excited to get these things started and to really own the whole class. One thing that I learned for best practices, if that when team planning. Each teacher having one subject they are responsible for works. THis can be getting the major ideas for, discussing with the team, and they getting all the required handouts, slides, and materials for the whole grade. This best practice really helps the week to be planned out in advance and less last minute addition or planning to be done. I really think it is something I am excited to do in the next coming weeks, it helps with my confidence knowing things are planned out and ready to go.

Last week I set the goal for my EdTPA and for my guided reading. This week I think I accomplished my goals. I talked to my principal and I will be observed next week or the following based on his availability. I will be working toward taking over Science this week.