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.

Week 5

This week to me was all about changing my mindset around student teaching. I went into student teaching thinking this would be my time to shine and break out into my creativeness. I am not giving up on that creativeness. However, I have changed my mindset to understand that this experience is more for me working with the district and my teacher, and work with their more rigous and strict guidelines. I was able to work with my teacher for guided reading, and having so much support helps me really connect with the students. During guided reading this week, I could feel myself relax and just connect with the students and related the topics to their interest. I also really felt confident with explicitly explaining the focus concept, this week is concept was wrapping up main idea. I really liked that feeling of knowing I was doing a good job.

This week was my first professional development with the whole school, Every Student Needs a Champion. We have talked about this process in some of our classes during our program at Trinity.. However, I have never participated in one. To recap, every students name is put down. Hale had three categories, know students by face and name, knowing the students by academic levels, and knowing students personally. Each teacher when to each grade level and initial how they knew each student and wrote a personal note for 1-2 students per grade level. It was a great way to see what students needed a champion and help plan for connection for these students. It was a great insight as a new teacher. I was able to visit with the other second grade classes and got introduced to our friends who needed a little more attention.

Last week, I set the goal of having more lessons done. I have not gotten to get a significant amount of lessons done. However, I have had great conversation and plans with my cooperating teacher about lesson plans and my takeover. I am really happy to have a reset on my perceptive and to have more lessons down the road. This week is my EdTPA filming and that will be my big focus this week. I am doing my lesson on Shared Reading and I am hoping that I am well prepared for this task.

From the reading this week, Eptness is having a rich, intense existence, inside and out of their classroom.
The three behaviors that I will use are approximations, modeling being a learner, and  work on do nothing for doer students. I plan to use approximations, this a big deal for me. Most teachers, myself included focus on the negative. I believe in focusing on the positive and celebrating those small positive actions, however it doesn't always work that way. Making a conscious effort for positive praise is hard. However, I can do this by creating a checklist to make sure each student is getting great positive feedback, that I can make sure I am looking for positives. Next I will work on modeling a learner. I think this is something I do naturally, I am good at pointed out what I do wrong. However, it is not embarrassing for me. Being humble, and admitting my mistakes for the whole class is great for their confidence, and that is needed for friends with language needs. Lastly, I need to work on doing nothing for students who can do. I so often want to be helpful, I take away from the experience of having the student figure it out. I often see myself doing this for my lower students as well. I think addressing that issue will help.

Week 4

This week I continued with shared reading. I was able to take over a guided reading group this week as well. The district spends a lot of time on grouping. So this week was one of the first weeks with the full schedule in full motion. The rotations worked really well this week. I was able to have one group to myself, and that was really cool. Toni was able to come and observe this during my second time getting the group. This week, I also introduced call outs into the class, the students are frequently off task. I believed a good step would to cover expectations and take the time to cover what call outs purpose was and how I want the students to check themselves after a call out. The students were really into the call outs and had a couple favorites.

During guided reading and throughout this week, one of the main themes that I have learned and struggled with, is how your teaching is directly effected by the district. One of my struggles has been taking over, and what I am allowed to take over is very limited in what I can do. The district is strict with the literature that can be used for shared reading and guided reading. I really enjoy the shared reading and I love being able to have open dialogue with the students. However, with how regimented the schedule is, I only get 30 mins for the lesson, which each student doesn't get a chance to participate, I do use call out popsicle sticks to try to let everyone speak. However Guided reading is only 15 minutes and is supposed to be able the students reading, and only talking about the focus topic.  This is the reality of some district and principals, and that challenges my teaching style. I am still not sure how I would react or adapt if I worked within this district.

This week I hope to gain more and more lessons. I hope to be able to balance between taking over lessons and working with my teacher as well. Last week I set the goal of talking to the Principal, however I have not been able to do that. He did observes some of my guided reading goals, as I conducted them in the hallway due to space. He seemed pleased. This week I hope to take over social studies and science this week if I can too.

Week 3

This week in my student teaching, I was able to experience a lot of exposure to planning. The district that I work in does a lot of planning and structure for Math and Reading times. The curriculum is set and there isn't much room for new content. However, the district provides a half hour of Literacy Acceleration and Math acceleration. Even guided reading has more room for creativity. This is exciting, yet very overwhelming, a lot of the time we have spent into planning the first two weeks was devoted to set curriculum, and these open spaces to create your own content requires more time and planning to find resources. The text are given, concepts are open to be taught in a variety of ways. I really liked to see my teacher prioritizing the things she needs to do, over what things she wanted to do. For example we spent a lot of time covering guided reading groups and rotation, and let added effects to something we could do at home or cut completely. Also I really like how we collaborated together to find ways to calm the class, and support modifications to student who need sentences frames. This really made me realize I had so much to plan, and honestly I was discourage for a minute that I would be overwhelmed within the next couple weeks.

After talking to a few classmates and my CP, I felt better know that as I get through the program, planning becomes second nature. I was able to dig around with teacher pay teacher, and resources from the school to see that I love learning new ways to teach concepts, and that planning will be really fun. One of the new techniques that my CP teacher has been instilling into me, is that we are teaching strategies not stories. This was something that will stick with me for my teaching career. I, myself focus on a good story. I have to make sure to balance and emphasis main idea, and the concepts we will teach going forward without getting lost in the story which is also not necessarily a bad thing. This balance is what takes a good teacher to a great teacher in my opinion and I am hoping to master.

Last week I set the goal was to have 4-5 lesson plans done. This week I did have 4 lesson plans for my shared reading, I also wanted to open up to my teaching staff. I think that has definitely gone well. This week I hope to create fun and engaging guided reading groups. I have been able to connect with the students more as well. I think this week I hope to make sure I am connected with the principal, I want to carve out a time that he can come observe my teaching and get feedback on it as well.

In chapter 3, Schmidt talks about finding ways to identify camouflage and seeing the real student underneath. I think this is very true for my student in class. In my class we have many different languages and 6-8 ELL student with varied skill level and in their native language. One of our ELL students in the class clown that she describes on page 53. During group discussion or direct instruction, he is constantly finding things to laugh at or have other students laugh at. He avoids reading aloud in small groups, and blatantly says he "can't" read when he is capable, but reads below grade level. Breaking down these false statements and encouraging his positive interactions during these times are important for me to maintain with him.

Week 2

This week was in the introduction to curriculum at Hale Elementary. Students learned main idea throughout the week, and studied math concepts like place value and reviewed concepts from the first grade. This week I assisted in small group instructions during our math time. Ms. Krebs implements the districts mandated teaching strategy of TQE. The students are introduced to a math problem where they use their previous knowledge to try understand the given task or question. The group discussion is mainly turn and talk, or students are given a white board at their sit spots to individually explore the concept. Then the student will work through a set of problems as a group. Finally the class will work independently on their work. The math groups rotate daily, as the students finish their independant work, Mrs. Krebs and I observe and coach as needed. Each student is given a set of "beyond" problems to finish working on if they finish early, each tailored to the lesson. Finally if the students finish their problems, they choose between a math bin with preselected math games, and deep dive activities to work with independently or with a partner. Math has stuck out to me this week, because it is a well oiled machine. The students are familiar with the routines that in place and they students are seen in small groups for extra instructions. This is important for me to see so I can see how to tailor to my student that need addition supports in these areas.

In terms of new techniques that I learned, the school separates shared reading time and guided reading time. It is very beneficial. I am learning to take over for shared reading for next week. The way the district mandates shared reading is very cool. The teacher models the focused task, and engages the students in think aloud's and turn and talk. There are some ways that I would like to incorporate movement into these lesson, and will definitely work with my CT to plan ahead this week as we go.  The dynamic that Mrs. Krebs and I have is a learning process. She is very "by the book", and seems to really like to do things the same way every time. I am learning to be patient and work with her in a way that I did not see as challenging.  We are working well to attack many classroom issues, with student behavior and grouping, and I believe I have a great grasp on the students academic levels and personalities.

The teaching goals that I set for the week are going well. I was able to observing a lot of reading strategies, and Mrs. Krebs and I are working well to plan ahead to what and where I will be teaching. I hope that within the next week I have completed 4-5 lessons and that I have continued to support and build a good relationship with my students and CT. One other issue that came up is that I am a lot more shy around teachers and staff than I expected. I do feel as involved or part of the team yet, and I would like to work on build that relationship this week as well.

In chapter 3, Schmidt talks about finding ways to identify camouflage and seeing the real student underneath. I think this is very true for my student in class. In my class we have many different languages and 6-8 ELL student with varied skill level and in their native language. One of our ELL students in the class clown that she describes on page 53. During group discussion or direct instruction, he is constantly finding things to laugh at or have other students laugh at. He avoids reading aloud in small groups, and blatantly says he "can't" read when he is capable, but reads below grade level. Breaking down these false statements and encouraging his positive interactions during these times are important for me to maintain with him.

Blog Week 1

Today this week started the my journey to becoming a teacher. It was amazing and more than I could have imagined. This week I observed the start of 2nd grade for the class of Mrs. Krebs. The class spend the week going over expectation and establishing routines. While there was not one particular event that occurred, I observed a lot of great techniques that the helped with classroom management.
The teacher used visuals to remind students, in partner sharing the student closest to the door is mac and the student closest to the wall with the teacher's desk is mac. The student take turn sharing and use the walls to remind themselves whose turn it is to talk. This was important to me because she takes the time to think of small visuals that will help the students and make them fun. One major difference that I noticed this week is the change from my previous experiences. The school is that I have previously worked in focused on SEL. However, it was a hard transition from addressing negative behavior to redirecting with positive behavior expectations. However, Mrs. Krebs does a great job with asking students to follow directions or celebrating student who are on task. This is a habit that I would like to create as well. I also see that the school performs very high, and their low students receive many resources, this will be a change from my previous school as well that was understaff for their resources needs.

One of the best practices that I saw this week was the use of Google Slides. The second grade team really utilizes their team time. They use the time to create and cover the slides for each day. The whole grade uses the same set of slides and modifies the slides so that every student in 2nd grade is on the same page, and has covered the exact same materials and lessons each day. This is a great way to be consistent. It is really awesome for me to have access to these slides to follow along with the lessons and prep with them for assisting for future small groups or discussions. I realized that I need to get a lot more organized with my work if I want to be that prepared. It is something that I want to get better at doing. The work load can get overwhelming, however getting ahead of my lessons is something that I plan to do. I took a math book home over the weekend to study the lessons and make sure I am very familiar with the curriculum. At first I started the week, as just an observer of the class. I spend the beginning of the week talking to the kids and getting to know each other. AS the days went on, I went around the room to spend time with each student, and help with classroom management. The teachers use key cards to give "keys" for good behavior. I have been able to help with that as I walked around the room. This helped the students understand that I am there to help with educating them and also to help with classroom management.

This being the first week, my goal was to try to sit back, observe, and help when the teacher asked me. I believe this was extremely difficult to not jump in and take over. However, it is important for me to balance student TEACHING with STUDENT teaching. I want to learn from my teacher, and being patient while I wait for curriculum to begin so I can truly learn her teaching style. I hope to see a style of teaching, prep or actual teaching, that inspires ideas for my future classroom. I also am excited to see how the passion and ideas are fully put into action. This week my goal is to observe reading groups and hold 2-3 guided reading groups. This week I am hoping to observe the groups and run them by the end of the week.

In Chapter 1, Schmidt talks about multiple intelligences. He also talks about the fact it is problematic for students to get up and move around the class. This to me is also a common misconception. I want to make sure that students get movement breaks at appropriate times in appropriate ways. I hope to be able to make lessons that students can get up and move about the room in ways that can still stay on task. This ties into the next point of the chapter that full learning should go on. Incorporating movement in ways that the brain is still engaged is a vital part of the lessons. One of my goals is to observe this in the classroom over the next couple of weeks, and find great lessons that can do this.