Week Ten

This week I began my seven week placement in a Transition classroom working with adults with disabilities. I spent my first days of the week in training learning all about the history of the school, how to transport students in wheelchairs, how to aide students that use communication devices, and so much. It was so exciting to learn all about how this incredible school services their diverse students.

On Wednesday, I got to meet my classroom. My class consists of 17 students all with a variety of disabilities. Students in the transition program have jobs that they spend half of the day at. Some students work in the community and some work at the school. Half of the students in my classroom work in the morning and the other half work in the afternoon. All seventeen students are together for morning meetings, lunch, and dismissal. Many of my students can read, write, and compute basic math. The majority of the class falls between the third and fourth grade range of academic ability. All of my students self-feed and dress. My students do not need assistance in the bathroom, but they need to be monitored for safety. All seventeen of my students have communication deficits but are verbal. At the beginning of every school day one student is picked to pray over the upcoming day. Students pray again prior to lunch and before dismissal. It has been beautiful hearing my student’s voices as they pray.

My students are not necessarily aggressive, however, many of them have defiant or aggressive behaviors. Many of the student’s behaviors are far worse at home then at school. One student threatens to become aggressive often throughout the day and tell his parents he wants to hurt his 

teacher.

In this transition classroom, students are taught social skills, problem solving, vocational skills, daily living skills, and other essential life skills. Every Friday, students are taken out into the community to practice a variety of social skills. Students participate in adaptive Physical Education once a week. All of my students are ambulatory, however, some of them have physical needs. Along with Physical Education, students also swim in the school’s swimming pool every other week.

I have learned so much about teaching special education in the three days I’ve been in the classroom. Because it is only my first week, I only observed and read through the paperwork of my students. I’ve gotten to know each of my students.

The school I am in now is a whole different world than that of my fifth grade classroom. Even though I have not begun to teach my adults, I can already see that I will have a lot of valuable experience working with diverse students. Illinois Professional Teaching standard number 1 states, “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.” My previous placement taught me all about teaching students with diverse social, economic, and academic experiences. Knowledge indicator 1A states that the competent teacher, “understands the spectrum of student diversity (e.g., race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, special education, gifted, English language learners (ELL), sexual orientation, gender, gender identity) and the assets that each student brings to learning across the curriculum.” I’m excited to learn more about special education, how to teach students with disabilities in a self-contained classroom, and what my students have to offer the classroom.

Classroom Confidential

In my previous placement students wrote in their journals every day after lunch. The students had 15 minutes to write in their journals. Once a week, they had free journal writing where they could write about whatever they want. Every other day, they were given a simple prompt that they could do whatever they want with. Grammar and spelling don’t count. As long as the students are writing they receive full credit for their writing. In chapter six, Schmidt writes about warm ups as an effective strategy for writing instruction. When I was reading this I was reminded of my fifth grade class and their journal time. I think warm ups are a great way for students to get their brains churning whether they are preparing for more writing or other instructional time. Warm ups, I think, is a great strategy that all teachers can use with their students.

Week Nine

This week came like a flood of emotions as I concluded my time at my fifth grade placement. It’s unbelievable how fast the time flew and how much I have grown in that time. While learning and growing with my fifth graders, my philosophy was put to the test along with my classroom management and my patience.

Teaching in a Title 1 school has taught me so much more about teaching than I think I could’ve learned at any other school. Each of my students were incredibly different. Each had different interests, families, income, cultures, and abilities. Every day I had to seek out ways to connect the content to each student and make it meaningful. Although it was a lot of planning and intentional inclusion of culture, interests, and content, I loved every minute because every day I saw a light bulb go off or a spark be ignited. My students are so unique and deserved to be taught in a way that serviced each of them individually.

In the process of differentiating on many levels I learned about teaching styles. Coming into this placement I knew that group work was important, however, I didn’t see how important it really is. I knew that research supports cooperative learning, but I hadn’t seen its benefits until teaching my fifth graders. Allowing students to work in groups help them gain independence and enhances their learning because they get to take charge. I am convinced that teaching using a stations model where students rotate between several stations is a very effective way for students practice and apply skills while also learning crucial independence skills. This method of teaching also allows for small group teaching where a teacher can work with a small group of 3 or 4 students. Research shows that many students learn best in a small group setting.

Illinois Professional Teaching Standard 4 Performance Indicator K states that the competent teacher, “uses strategies to create a smoothly functioning learning community in which students assume responsibility for themselves and one another, participate in decision-making, work collaboratively and independently, use appropriate technology, and engage in purposeful learning activities.” Using station teaching allows for students to be independent and take control of their own learning and be a apart of a team. I have learned how to implement stations in a meaningful and engaging way.

I continue this wonderful journey of becoming a teacher by beginning my placement in a Special Education classroom with students ages 18-21. While I am aware that the students I will be teaching are vastly different from my fifth graders, I am ready to learn and grow in a new environment with my new students.

Week Eight

This week felt a bit chaotic to me. I’m learning more and more each day about how demanding and overwhelming teaching can be. There were several times where it seemed that what I had planned either went half right or didn’t happen. Although it was overwhelming I simply improvised and went with what happened. All in all the students and I had a great week. I just had to practice my improvising skills.

This week, I wrapped up my EdTPA lessons. I was really unsure about what I had chosen to teach for the learning segment. The comprehension skill for the story the students were working on was inferencing so that is what I chose to teach. I was concerned about whether I would teach it well enough to the students, however, I knew that I loved doing it so I gave it my best shot. In the end, I was very proud of my students. They were superstars at inferences and they really enjoyed it! I loved getting to see that strategies they created for themselves to help them. Many of my students used highlighters to highlight clues in the text or listed clues as they read them. I was so proud of them.

I am feeling confident about my EdTPA. I am excited to see how it turns out.

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During one of my math lessons, this week, the district’s Math Instructional Coach came to observe. I definitely was not expecting her to walk in. I don’t think my cooperating teacher knew she was coming in either. What made it worse was that she came in while I was teaching prime factorization which I was not one hundred percent sure on. While I’m not bad at it, I get nervous whenever I teach it because it is my weakest subject.

Thankfully, although I wasn’t doing poorly, the instructional coach was willing to give me pointers on ways that I can improve. I learned about how helpful content area coaches are. While she made me so nervous when she got there I was so thankful for her help in the end!

Illinois Professional Teaching Standard 8 says, “The competent teacher builds and maintains collaborative relationships to foster cognitive, linguistic, physical, and social and emotional development. This teacher works as a team member with professional colleagues, students, parents or guardians, and community members.”

Performance indicator 8L says that the competent teacher, “initiates collaboration with others to create opportunities that enhance student learning.”

This week, I began to learn about the importance of collaboration. It’s unbelievable how much support I received from the instructional coach. She didn’t judge me or make me feel like I wasn’t a good teacher. She built me up and gave me some really good pointers.

While this week felt so chaotic and wonderful at the same time, I am quickly approaching the end of my time at my fifth grade placement. My next blog will be my final blog about my fifth grade classroom. I will beginning my seven week placement in a Special Education Transition classroom with adults ages 18-21.

Week Seven

I am learning more and more every day as I teach. This week, as I do every week, I found myself putting my philosophy of education into practice.

This week, I gave my very first after school detention. During the week, I had a student that requested help from the LDR teacher while she was in the room. Our LDR teacher has push in minutes every morning and afternoon for about an hour each time. In our classroom we have four students that receive LDR minutes. The student that received a detention from me is not one of them, however, our LDR teacher is always willing to help all of our students. This student was struggling with some independent work. The LDR teacher told him that she would be right with him after working with a student on her caseload. Her time with her student took up the remainder of her minutes in our classroom and she had to go to her next classroom. On her way out, she forgot to let myself or my cooperating teacher know that there was a student waiting for her.

I noticed that the student was moping in his desk shortly after the LDR teacher left the room. I didn’t that he had asked her for help. I approached the student and simply asked what he was doing. The student mumbled under his breath so I bent down to his level and asked him again. This time I could hear him saying something about the LDR teacher. After I figured out that he was upset because she hadn’t helped I brightened up and reminded that he has myself and cooperating teacher to help him as well. Next time, the LDR leaves the room he can simply just ask one of us instead. While I had hoped that this would alieve some of the student’s anger, the student simply rolled his eyes at me and told me he wanted the LDR teacher’s help not mine. I calmly explained to him that she had to be in another classroom and couldn’t stay but that I was happy to help him with his question. Before I could even finish my sentence the student yelled at me saying that he didn’t want my help and he wasn’t going to work unless the LDR teacher came back to answer his question. I was embarrassed. A student had just yelled at me in front of the entire class. Because I knew that I had to make sure I was calm before I addressed the situation I simply asked the student to wait in the hallway for me. After a few deep breaths, I met the student in the hallway to discuss the situation.

I tried to approach the topic gently. I started by asking the student if he knew why I asked him to meet in the hallway. I explained that I did not think it would be appropriate or fair to discuss his behavior in front of his peers. I asked him if he thought that he did that for me when he chose to respond to me the way he did. The student continued to be defiant and defended his behavior by saying that all he wanted the LDR teacher. I knew that I could not indulge the student by arguing so I simply stated that the way the student reacted to me was disrespectful and inappropriate. I asked him how he thought I should handle the situation. The student said he didn’t know. He didn’t think he did anything punishable. So I sent him back to his seat and was stuck with a hard decision to make. The student had disrespected me in front of all of the students and refused to cooperate with me when I tried to diffuse the situation. I chose to give him an after school detention. I didn’t want to, but I knew that I had to do something.

I stayed after school with the student while he served his detention the following day. I got a chance to discuss with him what had happened during that time and he understood that his behavior was inappropriate. Together we developed a better way to respond when we are angry. We decided that when we are angry and a teacher approaches us to help us we may simply say, “I am upset and need a minute to calm down. May I please get a drink of water?” He hasn’t needed to try this strategy out, yet.

Illinois Professional Teaching Standard Number 2: The competent teacher has in-depth understanding of content area knowledge that includes central concepts, methods of inquiry, structures of the disciplines, and content area literacy. The teacher creates meaningful learning experiences for each student based upon interactions among content area and pedagogical knowledge, and evidence-based practice.

2N) The competent teacher facilitates learning experiences that make connections to other content areas and to life experiences;

This week, I was more intentional about building connections between lessons and subject areas. I started out simply by incorporating vocabulary and spelling words into other subjects and allowing opportunity for students to practice using them. For example, we were practicing inferencing in reading this past week. The student read a passage about a boy at a funeral. When I asked the students what they could inference about what the student was feeling many students decribed him as mournful which is one of their vocabulary words. I led the students to say the word mournful when one student described the boy as being sad. I responded with saying, “Yes, he is sad, but he may be more than that; he may be full of sadness.” Which is the definition to mournful.  

Classroom Confidential: 

1. Too many social studies classrooms use a lecture and note taking model of teaching. Schmidt urges teacher to break away from the textbooks and PowerPoints and give students more tangible ways to study to history. She gives suggestions like primary source documents, visual images, artifacts, literature, and architecture. Using these kinds of artifacts to teach give the students a more authentic learning experience with social studies. 

2. I believe that authentic assessment comes in many different forms. Teacher can authentically assess their students is many different ways. Students can be assessed through application of their skills in a real world environment. I believe that students can also be assessed authentically by giving students options to demonstrate their skills.

Week Six

As I continued to take on responsibility as the full-time teacher, I found myself feeling the weight of handling all the subjects, behaviors, schedules, conflicts, and various tough decisions. While it’s very challenging, every day I love teaching more and more.

This week, I had a student transfer out of our school. I was so sad to see her go. It was very disappointing because we had no warning she was going to go. On Tuesday, she came to school to pick up her stuff and leave. I wish I could’ve given her something or done something to honor her before she left. Her leaving made me realize how attached to my students I have really become. They are my students and each one them hold a piece of heart.

In science, we have spent the past several weeks learning about the Scientific Method. On Monday, I modelled collecting data for the students. I wrote four different chocolates on the board: Hershey, Twix, Snickers, and M&Ms. I had the students pick which of the four they preferred. I placed a tally under each chocolate as the students voted. Once I collected all of the votes I wrote the frequency of each set of tallies beneath it. After modelling collecting data for the students, I split them into four groups. I sent each group to one of the other fifth grade classes to collect data the exact same way I had. We spent Monday collecting data and documenting it on a shared table.

On Wednesday, after reviewing how to read a graph, we started graphing our data. Once again, I modeled how to graph the data I had collected using bar graph. After modelling, I split the students into groups to work on graphing their data. The students did very well working collaboratively on their graphs. They received a guide sheet that had discussion questions for the groups to talk about before working such as: How will the work be divided? What will you name your graph? The guide sheet also had a list of qualities that their graphs needed to have. I was very intentional about walking around the room and checking in on the groups.

One group was working very well together. They spent most of the time hunched over their poster working on their graph. The few times I had walked past they seemed to be doing great. By the end of class they were the furthest group. While most group had only just made their graphs but had not graphed their data yet, this group had already begun graphing their data. 

When the students left for specials I decided to take pictures of their graphs to document to progress. As I was taking the photo of the furthest along group’s poster, I realized they did not understand the directions I had given them. They started graphing favorite shoes using the data they collected about chocolates.

I felt so bad. I had let them create their graph all wrong. I didn’t even notice that they had written shoes instead of chocolates, and because they used markers to trace their work already they had to start all over again. Thankfully, the group worked hard to make sure their graph was perfect before turning it in. Their graphs turned out very beautiful even with the set back.











Goal four in the Illinois Professional Teaching Standards talks about a healthy learning environment. I was upset when I saw that the students had used data about chocolates to graph about shoes. I was disappointed in myself and in my students. However, although the lesson took an extra day because they had to start all over again, I knew that I couldn’t treat my students differently because they had made a mistakes. I approached the topic with sensitivity and encouragement. Performance Indicator 4I says that the competent teacher, “creates a safe and healthy environment that maximizes student learning.” I worked hard to remind the students that it was okay and reminded them that the classroom is a safe place to make mistakes.

Classroom Confidential

1.  Chapter 11 in Classroom Confidential dealt with communication particularly with parents. The book claims that there are ten qualities our communication with parents should have:  proactive, positive, frequent, clear, basic, attention grabbing, appealing, inclusive, timely and error-free. This chapter reminded me how important it is for us to communicate with parents regularly. If we only communicate with parents over negative things it does not build a positive collaborative relationship with that parents.
2.  When I read what Schmidt wrote about inviting students to be active members of a parent teacher conference, I started cheering. The conference is all about the students so of course they should be present. Classroom Confidential never ceases to remind me of my philosophy of teaching. Parent teacher conferences should not be the first time a parent hears from me. I should enter every conference with data I’ve collected and an agenda for that conference.