Week Five

I felt amazing this week! While I faced the same struggles, I am learning more and more about how to teach my students. I’m learning more about how to engage and connect the content in an authentic way with the students.

My students are each so very different, but as I spend more time with them and learn from my mistakes, I am beginning to learn the ways in which each student learns best. One top of that, I have been challenging myself to be more observant of each student during my lessons. I am learning to gauge their understanding not only through formative assessments, but also through their non-verbal communication. I am finding myself practicing Illinois Professional Teaching Standard 1. This standard says that the competent teacher, “understands the diverse characteristics and abilities of each student and how individuals develop and learn within the context of their social, economic, cultural, linguistic, and academic experiences. The teacher uses these experiences to create instructional opportunities that maximize student learning.” As I grow to understand my students as individuals I am learning how to connect the content to them.

For instance, I gave a lesson on how to write an excellent hypothesis prior to conducting an experiment. For this lesson I had a voting activity where I showed the students a hypothesis and they had to use their notes from the lesson to check if it was a good hypothesis. Rather than showing several hypothesis that meant nothing to the students I chose to tap into their favorite things. One of my hypothesis said, “If I took a poll then I would find that most students in my class love YouTube.” The students were engaged just because I mentioned one of their favorite things during the lesson. Performance indicator 1L states that the competent teacher, “uses information about students’ individual experiences, families, cultures, and communities to create meaningful learning opportunities and enrich instruction for all students.” I know my students and use that knowledge to engage and connect with them.

This week I was also stretched and challenged in a different way. My cooperating teacher was sick on Tuesday and Wednesday. While there was a substitute in the room, my cooperating teacher left me to run the classroom for two days.

I loved it.

While it was challenging, I loved getting to put my philosophy to practice. The students responded well to me being in charge for two days.

I also learned about how exhausting it is to be the classroom teacher. Between checking in and grading homework, teaching, dealing with behaviors, and scheduling I was beat every single day. But I was so happy. It was a joyous exhaustion. I could do it for the rest of my life.

Classroom Confidential

1.  According to Schmidt, eptness is when teachers allow students to play an active role in the classroom culture and environment. For example, the reading says that a culture of eptness would make students feeling like thei have a responsibility to the welfare of the community. A teacher that practices eptness in their classroom makes students feel like valuable, active members of a community not soldiers.
2.  This chapter hit me hard. I felt as though Schmidt was talking directly to me. I have learned so much about myself that this chapter helped me recognize the areas in which I am not practicing eptness. Three behaviors I will work very hard to use are expectations, encouragement, and never too late.
1. My placement is incredibly diverse. Our students come from all different kinds of homes, cultures, and families. I chose expectations because it is so easy for me to find myself assuming that I know my students just by their surface level. The last kind of classroom I want to run is one where students conform to my presumptions of them.
2. My philosophy of teaching revolves hugely around a positive environment. I believe that part of what makes an environment positive is when everyone feels valuable and like they have something to contribute. When a teacher offers encouragement to his students are reminded that they are valuable and have something to contribute.
3. It’s difficult to hand out second chances to students that choose to pass up first chances. This chapter convicted me as I read about the never too late behavior. Even though my students aggravate me when they don’t put their effort in the first time I need to practice giving second chances to my students.

Week Four

I faced a lot of discouragement this week. While I have a very supportive cooperating teacher I struggled with the students. Some days are really good and the students are ready to learn and other days I cannot engage them.

On Monday, we reviewed complete and incomplete sentences. While this may sound like something that need not be reviewed in fifth grade, my cooperating teacher and I noticed that the students were not writing in complete sentences. We both figured that maybe they just needed a reminder that they were expected to write in complete sentences so we decided to have a short, fun lesson just to remind the students what a complete sentence looked like.

What I decided to do was quickly review what made a sentence a complete sentence. After that each student received a sticky note with either a complete or incomplete sentence. I drew a horizontal line down the middle of the board and labeled one side complete and the other incomplete. Their job was to read their sticky note and determine whether they thought it was a complete or incomplete sentence. One at a time, the students placed their sticky note on the side of the board they thought it belonged on. I thought this was a fun way to informally assess how well the students could differentiate between complete or incomplete sentences.

I was at a loss for words by the end of the lesson. Not only did I receive blank stares during our activity, many of the students didn’t put their sentences in the right column. At the end of the sentence, I reviewed the difference between a complete and incomplete sentence. It seemed like the students understood it but when I looked back at the board the sentences were all in the wrong place. I couldn’t figure out if the problem was the lesson or the content. It was incredibly discouraging. I felt like the students didn’t care to pay attention. During the activity I could tell that many of the students were spacing out.

On Friday, progress reports went out. The majority of our class had failing grades in more than one subject. When we looked back at our data, it was discouraging to see that the students completed class work fine, but were failing their homework assignments. I addressed this concern by returning a homework assignment that most of the class failed. I asked the students to explain why they thought their score was low. Many of the students admitted to rushing through the assignment, not listening during class, or choosing not to complete the assigned reading that came with the assignment. I gently, but firmly explained to the students that the grade they see before them will go in the gradebook and their parents will see it. I asked the students how they think they could make sure they get higher scores next time. I was glad to hear them say that they should take their time, complete the reading, listen in class, stay on task, and other really good work habits to practice. Since then, there scores have been a little bit better. I am hopeful that I will see improvements from my students.

I really care about my students. I believe in them. I want to see them grow and I will them my very best every single day.

Classroom Confidential

Establishing a classroom culture is critical in having a healthy, positive classroom. I’ve encountered the importance of classroom culture several times during my studies at Trinity; I’ve also dealt strongly with this at my school. My school is in a very diverse neighborhood. My students are global and come from all over the world. My classroom represents dozens of cultures and ethnicities. Being at this school has shown me how important establishing a strong classroom culture. This chapter was so relevant to me because of my placement. I needed this chapter to remind of how important it is to be intentional about how I am representing my students. I serve and teach a diverse group of students and it’s my job to be sensitive and accepting of each religion and culture represented.

Week Three

This week was a roller coaster of emotions for me. Between preparing for the edTPA, lessons, failures, and successes, I found myself feeling a variety of emotions every day. I’m learning more and more everyday about my students, their level, their personalities, and how to teach them. Many of the students in the class are very low and require more intensive lessons and extended time on content.

Because we are still early in the year the majority of our lessons consist of reviews from the fourth grade. This week, I struggled to review with the students how to use quotations. Although my students should’ve already known how to use quotation marks they struggled with how to use them in direct quotations.

I approached the content in several ways to try to help the students understand where quotation marks went. We talked about scripts and how they are written. We talked about comic strips and quote bubbles. While the students understood what a direct quote was they struggled with the placement of the quotation marks. I, then, instructed them to underline the direct quote. I told them to pretend they were putting the speaker in a comic. What would the quote bubble say? I explained that the quotation marks go at the beginning of what they underline and at the end. While some of the students understood it after I asked them to underline the quote, some of the students still did not. I found myself at a loss. I had worked so hard and tried to teach them in so many different ways and some of the students were still lost. I had spent three days reviewing with the students and several of them were still lost.

After three days of being discouraged and feeling completely helpless I had to come to the realization that I could not take the blame. I gave the students my absolute best. This week I learned a very valuable lesson. No lesson will ever go perfectly. I cannot expect my students to understand everything I teach. When my students don’t understand how to use a new skill that I have taught them it is not my fault nor is it theirs. I simply must gather data, give second chances, and reteach.

On Friday, I had the opportunity to call six parents regarding permission slips I had sent home. While I was nervous to contact parents for the very first time I felt confident because I contacted parents daily during my time as an Administrative Coordinator at a daycare in Berwyn, Illinois. I had to leave one voicemail where I stumbled on my words a little bit. Many of the parents I did speak to were very kind and were happy to talk to me and treat me like their student’s teacher. I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to contact parents.

My best lesson this week was the review of common and proper nouns on Friday. Because I was pretty confident that my students knew what common and proper nouns are I decided to play Proper Noun BINGO. I used myfreebingocards.com to create our BINGO cards.

I had a list of common nouns in a baggy. When I called out a common noun, the students had to check their BINGO card to see if they had that common noun. If they did, they had to write a corresponding proper noun for that common noun. For example, if I called out, “website” they had to write a proper noun for “website.” The students could’ve written anything like, “Google,” “Facebook,” “YouTube,” or other websites. The kids played to win Panther Paws, which are a currency for the whole school. The students loved it! They were really excited to play and win Panther Paws. My favorite part was when one person would win a BINGO the whole class would clap for them.

After a long, discouraging week, Friday reminded me that my job isn’t to just give students knowledge, but to give them hope, love, and most importantly an appreciation for learning. 

Week Two

           

As I began to ease my way into my role as student teacher I began teaching this week. In one week, I have learned so much about myself and teaching. Along with learning so much about myself, I’ve also been affirmed of my love for teaching. This week has come with lots of bumps, but all the hurdles have taught me that this is where I belong.

            

Starting Monday, I took over morning work. The students start file in one by one at 8:15. Before walking into the classroom, the students are greeted by a teacher (myself) and asked about their breakfast and where lunch is coming from. My school offers breakfast and lunch to all of their students. Every morning, I have to ask each student if they ate a school breakfast and are planning to eat a school lunch.

           

Once the students come in the classroom they put away their supplies and begin their morning work which is on their desks. Every morning they do about five math problems, two or three geography questions, a Daily Language Review, and a cursive worksheet. The students have until 9:00 AM to complete all of the problems except the cursive sheet. At 9:00, we correct the work together.

            

As I worked with the students everyday correcting their morning work, I learned that I do well on my feet. When reviewing the answers, all I have is an answer key. Several times this week, the student didn’t understand one of the answers and I had to explain it. While it is small, I learned that teaching is made up of a lot of teachable moments and answer keys aren’t enough.

           

I also began teaching on Monday. I started by teaching a review on commas. Many of my students, in my fifth grade class, are very behind academically. A lesson that was supposed to last for three days lasted all week. Between confused students and behaviors we spent a lot of time reviewing commas. It was stressful. I found it very discouraging that my students were not understanding what I was teaching and were often off task. Thankfully, my teacher was very encouraging and supported me through it. She was always willing to jump in and save me when I made mistakes.

            

While the week may have had some bumps, I am incredibly thankful for my teacher, my school, and my students. I feel very supported.