Week One

On Monday, I met 23 amazing fifth graders and one awesome cooperating teacher. I knew immediately that my cooperating teacher would be excellent. She was very inviting and welcomed me into her classroom right away. She is very open to my ideas and respects as a co-educator. She introduced to the classroom as a teacher in training. She has said refers to me as the second teacher in the room. I’m so glad to know that I am working with a cooperating teacher that values me.

My cooperating teacher has been teaching for ten years and does an excellent job at controlling the classroom. In the past week, I've seen her transition between subjects and classes with ease. On Tuesday, I witnessed her lining up all 23 students for a bathroom break. She lined them up, brought them to the bathroom, and returned to the classroom without any of the students having said a word. She does this by setting clear expectations before cueing them to line up. She also tells the students to either bring their library book or homework to work on while they wait for their turn. This method of taking a bathroom break eliminates idle time which leads to chatter and makes for a quick, easy bathroom break.

I have a lot of respect for my cooperating teacher. Her classroom management is exceptional. She and I do differ, however, on our teaching styles. She uses a lot of worksheets and presents information in lecture format. While I do not think that her way of teaching is wrong it is very different than the way I prefer to teach. I love to used hands on activities and small group work in my lessons.

While I plan to teach my students with diverse hands on activities it may be hard to execute small group work in my classroom. My students can be very chatty. While many of them are extremely bright sometimes their behavior gets in the way of their academic performance. My teacher and I are concerned that they may not know how to work in groups and that their behavior may get in the way of effective group collaboration. We plan to ease them into group work by incorporating it into lessons just a little bit at a time.

This week my teachers introduced a new strategy to the students the strategy is called “Word Squares.” The students draw a line horizontally across the middle of the page and vertically down the middle of the page. In the first box students write the word they are learning about. In the second box, students write the definition (in their own words.) In the third box they use it in a sentence or find the synonym and antonym. In the fourth box, they draw a picture. The “Word Square” would like this:

Word: Homework	Definition: The act of practicing skills learned at school at home.
Sentence/Synonym or Antonym: In fifth grade, students are assigned homework every night.	Picture:

I like this strategy a lot because it teaches the word but also requires the students to understand it. It uses the word three different ways so that students can visualize it, use it, and learn its meaning.

I have learned so much during my first week at in my fifth grade classroom. I can’t wait to start teaching and further develop as an educator.

Two Goals:

1.      To collect data on student behavior and overall attention.

2.      To further understand each learner as individuals with preferences, abilities, and unique personalities.

Classroom Confidential:

1.      I have studied Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences many times during my time in college. The more I read and learn about the theory the more I see where it fits into education. In my classroom, we have many students that respond well to visual representations. Because of this, many of my lessons will consist of visual representations and examples before practice or application of a skill. Personally, I like to use hands on activities that get students moving. I believe movement and activity are strong motivators to young learners. I will most likely use both the Visual/Spatial Intelligence and the Body/Kinesthetic Intelligence in my lessons.

2.      Absolutely! As I read this first chapter of Classroom Confidential I kept “Amening” to many of the things Schmidt said. As I stated in the previous question I believe that activity is a motivator. I also believe that application is the best way for students to learn and retain skills, concepts, and knowledge. However, stacking hands on activities into a lesson without any background knowledge or understanding of the skill the students are being taught doesn’t really allow for much growth at all.