October 5, 2015
Today is Monday. On Thursday I will be teaching my first lesson. Over the weekend I finalized my lesson plan and the specifics for the lesson. Today I reviewed my plan with the classroom teacher. She showed me some additional things to include and some ways to cut down on time in the lesson. Part of the lesson includes using technology. I tested out how this part of the lesson worked and luckily there were no issues. I'm so excited to begin teaching actual lessons on a regular basis. I am starting with Social Studies.
Without warning today I began doing the math warm up with the class today. My co-op told me right as it was time to begin but luckily I have observed this enough times that I knew exactly what to do. Even though it was a basic task, and not a lesson I created, it was still a great feeling being in front of the class. I really got the feeling today that I'm so close to being an actual teacher.
Monday, October 5, 2015
Day 15: Books Books Books
September 29, 2015
Today the students' first Scholastic book order arrived. Only 2 students ordered books this month. This made me sad actually. When I was in elementary school my parents always had me pick out one book per month ($5 limit). This made me excited about reading, especially since I got to pick out the books. The students that had not ordered were noticeably upset that they weren't receiving something. I'm hoping that because of this next month students will be able to talk to their parents about ordering books.
My co-op showed me the special teacher book order form that came. The books are at such great prices and I even picked some out to order myself. I learned that depending on how many books your students purchase the teacher receives free book vouchers. I think this a great incentive for teachers to motivate their classroom parents to order books.
In October, students will begin the BOOKIT! program. This is through a partnership with Pizza Hut. Students had a reading goal each night (Monday-Friday). If they complete their goal their record it on a log. If students complete their goal everyday for an entire month they receive a voucher for a free personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. I was not overly familiar with this program. I have heard of it before but I have never seen it in action. I'm curious to see how it works out.
Today the students' first Scholastic book order arrived. Only 2 students ordered books this month. This made me sad actually. When I was in elementary school my parents always had me pick out one book per month ($5 limit). This made me excited about reading, especially since I got to pick out the books. The students that had not ordered were noticeably upset that they weren't receiving something. I'm hoping that because of this next month students will be able to talk to their parents about ordering books.
My co-op showed me the special teacher book order form that came. The books are at such great prices and I even picked some out to order myself. I learned that depending on how many books your students purchase the teacher receives free book vouchers. I think this a great incentive for teachers to motivate their classroom parents to order books.
In October, students will begin the BOOKIT! program. This is through a partnership with Pizza Hut. Students had a reading goal each night (Monday-Friday). If they complete their goal their record it on a log. If students complete their goal everyday for an entire month they receive a voucher for a free personal pan pizza from Pizza Hut. I was not overly familiar with this program. I have heard of it before but I have never seen it in action. I'm curious to see how it works out.
Monday, September 28, 2015
Day 14: Differentiation
September 28, 2015
In just about every single one of my college classes related to my major we have learned over and over about differentiation. We've read about it, watched videos on it, and developed hypothetical scenarios of how we would differentiate. Well, I've finally been able to witness real life differentiation for the last few weeks. For this post I am going to limit the discussion to reading groups.
There are 8 students in my class, they are broken into 4 groups of 2 based on their reading level. The students range from the lowest group struggling to decode CVC words to the highest group breezing through Magic Tree House and Junie B. Jones chapter books. The students have a reading textbook series, leveled readers, sight word lists and vocabulary words that are all differentiated for their level. Some students start right at the beginning of the reading textbook series, while others skip ahead many stories. Although that the text may be a lower level for the higher groups, there are important comprehension skills and strategies that need to be taught. The students have a hard time understanding that and just want to read more challenging books. The leveled readers are assigned to the students based on the "level" they are on. There are different assessments used to determine the level such as DIBELS and DRA's.
The vocabulary words are assigned by story. So naturally whichever textbook story the students are on determines their vocabulary words for the week. Lastly, their sight words come from the Dolch list. The lists are numbered and each contain ten of the 220 words. List one contains 10 words from the pre-primer list, while list 22 contains words from the third grade list. Students are given a sight word assessment to determine which list they will begin on.
Have students on so many different levels could definitely get confusing. My co-op however does an excellent job at keeping everything organized in binders, folders and plastic bin organizers. I definitely wouldn't categorize differentiation as an easy task yet but I feel much more confident about doing so in my own classroom after seeing it work so well in real life.
In just about every single one of my college classes related to my major we have learned over and over about differentiation. We've read about it, watched videos on it, and developed hypothetical scenarios of how we would differentiate. Well, I've finally been able to witness real life differentiation for the last few weeks. For this post I am going to limit the discussion to reading groups.
There are 8 students in my class, they are broken into 4 groups of 2 based on their reading level. The students range from the lowest group struggling to decode CVC words to the highest group breezing through Magic Tree House and Junie B. Jones chapter books. The students have a reading textbook series, leveled readers, sight word lists and vocabulary words that are all differentiated for their level. Some students start right at the beginning of the reading textbook series, while others skip ahead many stories. Although that the text may be a lower level for the higher groups, there are important comprehension skills and strategies that need to be taught. The students have a hard time understanding that and just want to read more challenging books. The leveled readers are assigned to the students based on the "level" they are on. There are different assessments used to determine the level such as DIBELS and DRA's.
The vocabulary words are assigned by story. So naturally whichever textbook story the students are on determines their vocabulary words for the week. Lastly, their sight words come from the Dolch list. The lists are numbered and each contain ten of the 220 words. List one contains 10 words from the pre-primer list, while list 22 contains words from the third grade list. Students are given a sight word assessment to determine which list they will begin on.
Have students on so many different levels could definitely get confusing. My co-op however does an excellent job at keeping everything organized in binders, folders and plastic bin organizers. I definitely wouldn't categorize differentiation as an easy task yet but I feel much more confident about doing so in my own classroom after seeing it work so well in real life.
Day 13: DRA's
September 24, 2015
Today we started DRA testing. DRA stands for Developmental Reading Assessment. DRA's assess three different things; Reading Engagement, Oral Reading Fluency. The student gets a score in each category. The goal is to have the students score on an independent level. We have students on all different ranges; from a 4 to a 30. This is what drives the need for differentiation.
The DRA began by asking the student reading engagement questions. Some of these include, who reads with you at home, do you prefer listening to a story being read or reading a story yourself, what is your favorite book and why, etc. Then my teacher handed the student their book and told them to look at the pictures and predict what the book was going to be about. After this she preformed a timed running record of them reading the book. The concluded with a retell of the story and some opinion based questions like, what was your favorite part of the book?
You may need to complete a few DRA's on a student until you find the correct level for them. For 2 students the first level we tried was the one that was right for them. Other students we had to re-assess a few times.
I found DRA's to be fairly subjective. One teacher could score a student pretty differently than another teacher. We saw this when comparing the DRA scores the reading specialist had of our students from the week prior. She tested 4 of our students to see if they qualified for reading support.
Lastly: I attached a picture of my fall bulletin board that I mentioned in an earlier post. Two of the students have been absent so their writing pieces are yet to be added. Overall, I was pleased with my first classroom bulletin
board and I have already been looking for some future ideas.
Tuesday, September 22, 2015
Day 12: Technology
September, 22 2015
Today is all about technology!! (My favorite!)
As I may have mentioned previously I have a minor in Educational Technology. I am a firm believer in students reaping the benefits of such a tool. There are so many different ways to incorporate technology into the classroom. In the first grade classroom I am currently in there is a set of iPads. I was excited when I found this out and I began looking into 'apps' to use with the class. When I began showing them to my co-op she told me that they haven't been able to download any apps onto the iPads and only use the internet browser and websites. This puzzled me. She told me that she didn't have access to the password necessary to complete the downloads. Today I decided to talk to the principal about it and asked him if he would be willing to enter the required username and password when apps needed downloaded. Through this conversation we discovered that there was never an account set up on the iPads. He asked me if I would take care of this. I spent some of the afternoon then creating an e-mail for the iPad account and setting up an account on all of the iPads. I began to search for some apps that could be used throughout the year. After talking with my co-op we decided that I would generate a list of apps for students to use. This is something I will be working on throughout my internship and I will share it to my blog when it is completed. I even set up the entire set of iPads to automatically download the app on all of the devices once it is added to one. I'm so excited that the students will be able to take their learning to a new level using these tablets now.
Today is all about technology!! (My favorite!)
As I may have mentioned previously I have a minor in Educational Technology. I am a firm believer in students reaping the benefits of such a tool. There are so many different ways to incorporate technology into the classroom. In the first grade classroom I am currently in there is a set of iPads. I was excited when I found this out and I began looking into 'apps' to use with the class. When I began showing them to my co-op she told me that they haven't been able to download any apps onto the iPads and only use the internet browser and websites. This puzzled me. She told me that she didn't have access to the password necessary to complete the downloads. Today I decided to talk to the principal about it and asked him if he would be willing to enter the required username and password when apps needed downloaded. Through this conversation we discovered that there was never an account set up on the iPads. He asked me if I would take care of this. I spent some of the afternoon then creating an e-mail for the iPad account and setting up an account on all of the iPads. I began to search for some apps that could be used throughout the year. After talking with my co-op we decided that I would generate a list of apps for students to use. This is something I will be working on throughout my internship and I will share it to my blog when it is completed. I even set up the entire set of iPads to automatically download the app on all of the devices once it is added to one. I'm so excited that the students will be able to take their learning to a new level using these tablets now.
Monday, September 21, 2015
Day 11: Reachable
September 22, 2015
Previously in Day 8's post I talked about my Monday one-on-one time with Tyler*; the seventh grade learning support student. Last week he was very shy and I had time getting more than a word or two from him. Today it was like I was with a whole new student. He was much more engaged in the material we were working on and he also shared a lot more about himself with me. One task we completed was a practice spelling test. He took the test on the wall mounted white board. This definitely gave him a better attitude towards the activity. There were only 4 words out of his 26 that he misspelled. I talked to him about spelling always being a challenge for me. He asked me what I do to improve my spelling. I showed him a few strategies, an example of one is below.
I read the word "reachable".
Tyler spelled the word "recheable"
Strategy (I told this verbally to Tyler): Break the word into two parts reach-able. Look at the first part, "reach". What words do you know that sound like reach?
Tyler replied: Teach
I told him to write "teach" on the board. As soon as he wrote "teach" he realized "reach" was spelled r-e-a-c-h. He wrote that and added the suffix -able.
I felt like I could see the light bulb go off for Tyler when this strategy clicked.
Later in the day my first grade class worked in their "Kidwriting" notebooks. Students draw a picture and write a story to pair with it. Once they finish either myself or the classroom teacher do adult writing in the notebook and set a goal for the student for the next story. The students vary drastically for each student. Some students are already to the point where we want them to work on extending their stories by adding more detail. Other students have goals that are much more basic, like using punctuation and capital letters. I flipped back in the notebooks to the student's first story and it is remarkable how much improvement has already been made. I can't imagine the difference there will be by the end of the year.
*Name changed
Previously in Day 8's post I talked about my Monday one-on-one time with Tyler*; the seventh grade learning support student. Last week he was very shy and I had time getting more than a word or two from him. Today it was like I was with a whole new student. He was much more engaged in the material we were working on and he also shared a lot more about himself with me. One task we completed was a practice spelling test. He took the test on the wall mounted white board. This definitely gave him a better attitude towards the activity. There were only 4 words out of his 26 that he misspelled. I talked to him about spelling always being a challenge for me. He asked me what I do to improve my spelling. I showed him a few strategies, an example of one is below.
I read the word "reachable".
Tyler spelled the word "recheable"
Strategy (I told this verbally to Tyler): Break the word into two parts reach-able. Look at the first part, "reach". What words do you know that sound like reach?
Tyler replied: Teach
I told him to write "teach" on the board. As soon as he wrote "teach" he realized "reach" was spelled r-e-a-c-h. He wrote that and added the suffix -able.
I felt like I could see the light bulb go off for Tyler when this strategy clicked.
Later in the day my first grade class worked in their "Kidwriting" notebooks. Students draw a picture and write a story to pair with it. Once they finish either myself or the classroom teacher do adult writing in the notebook and set a goal for the student for the next story. The students vary drastically for each student. Some students are already to the point where we want them to work on extending their stories by adding more detail. Other students have goals that are much more basic, like using punctuation and capital letters. I flipped back in the notebooks to the student's first story and it is remarkable how much improvement has already been made. I can't imagine the difference there will be by the end of the year.
*Name changed
Friday, September 18, 2015
Day 10: Teacher jobs
September 17, 2015
I didn't spend a ton of time in the classroom with the students today, but I did get a look at some of the other "jobs" teachers have to do.
I took down and re-did 2 bulletin boards in the hallway. I was very happy with the end result and got many compliments. I also spent most of the morning copying, cutting and laminating math and phonics games for the class to play next week. Although I was doing these things during "class time" I kept thinking how a teachers job truly does not begin at 7:30 and end at 3:00. There are so many additional tasks that need to be done and they can't all possibly be completed in a prep period. It took me nearly all day to get the games prepared and the bulletin boards done. I also stuffed folders that go home weekly with the students and prepared reminders that had to go in the homework folders. The reminders were easy to make and I think they can really help some parents/students. The ones I made were to remember to bring back library books tomorrow and one to remind parents that students need to be memorizing their computer log-in information.
Today my co-op and I found out that we may be getting another student. This was exciting! I think if this happens this would be a great learning experience for me. I would love to see how the teacher works in a new student after the school year has already begun.
I didn't spend a ton of time in the classroom with the students today, but I did get a look at some of the other "jobs" teachers have to do.
I took down and re-did 2 bulletin boards in the hallway. I was very happy with the end result and got many compliments. I also spent most of the morning copying, cutting and laminating math and phonics games for the class to play next week. Although I was doing these things during "class time" I kept thinking how a teachers job truly does not begin at 7:30 and end at 3:00. There are so many additional tasks that need to be done and they can't all possibly be completed in a prep period. It took me nearly all day to get the games prepared and the bulletin boards done. I also stuffed folders that go home weekly with the students and prepared reminders that had to go in the homework folders. The reminders were easy to make and I think they can really help some parents/students. The ones I made were to remember to bring back library books tomorrow and one to remind parents that students need to be memorizing their computer log-in information.
Today my co-op and I found out that we may be getting another student. This was exciting! I think if this happens this would be a great learning experience for me. I would love to see how the teacher works in a new student after the school year has already begun.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)