Well, after the not-so-good Math lesson this morning, teaching this Reader's Workshop lesson was a much needed confidence booster! Today I taught a Reader's Workshop lesson entitled "What Would You Do?" that was about defending a characters point of view.
Wow! So today I taught my first lesson in Elementary School! Having only taught in Middle School before, this was quite a DIFFERENT experience! This was my 3rd visit to Mrs. G's 2nd grade classroom. Today I prepared and taught an Interactive Read Aloud Lesson to the class. The book was called "Sam and the Lucky Money" and it was very appropriate timing for the lesson, as Chinese New Year was just a few days ago and that is the topic of this book.
As I reflect on the past 10 weeks that I have observed the 7th & 8th grade science classes at SMS, I have to begin by saying what an incredible asset the service learning portion of this course is at RVCC. To be able to connect the content of what is being taught with a real-life, hands-on experience is invaluable. This has been an experience that has reinforced my goal and my passion to be an educator.
In my opinion, teaching is THE best career anyone could ever choose. This 10 weeks of observation has been like a tease...I can't wait to have my own classroom someday! Personally, this experience has motivated me to get more involved, both on campus and in community affairs. I realize how rewarding it can be to volunteer to be on a committee or a be scout troop leader, or spend a few Saturdays at a food bank. At the school where I did my observation, it is required that all students complete a certain amount of community service and I have noticed that most of the teachers get involved in the community service as well. I have volunteered my time to work on one of their projects over the summer as well. My cooperating teacher also involves herself in many committees and extra "tasks" at the school such as; organizing the 8th grade class trip and being in charge of ticket sales for the annual production. As a teacher, there is no extra pay that is attached to these tasks, only extra responsibility...but someone has to do it! All of these extra tasks benefit the children and since children are the reason one becomes a teacher to begin with, why not volunteer for the tasks that benefit them. Professionally, this experience has maximized my organization and time management skills. I juggle many hats on a daily basis. I go from mom to working professional to student and I thought that was a lot, until I saw how many things my cooperating teacher juggles! She inspired me to work harder on my time management skills and it's working! I have also learned how very important it is to be extremely organized. I thought I was pretty organized already, but after this semester I am super organized! You can't expect to be a good teacher without good organization and time management skills. Just thinking about how the students might act and behave in a classroom with an unorganized teacher or one who has poor time management skills, makes me cringe! I have always said that I wanted to teach Biology at the high school level, but after this experience, I would be open to teaching younger grades as well. This experience with 7th and 8th grade made me realize that the life science material which is being taught in the younger grades is laying the foundation for the courses the students will take in high school and therefore it's not that much different. Although I say that I would also consider teaching younger grades, I'm still pretty much still set on science as my subject area. I think that teaching something that you have a true passion for can be seen by your students. They WILL know if what your teaching interests you or not. I would also consider teaching at a catholic school, something I wasn't sure if I would be comfortable with in the past. Since I never attended catholic school, I had no idea what to expect and after experiencing this truly comfortable and inviting environment, I am completely open to it. If I had to pick my most memorable moment of this experience, it would have to be seeing their annual production. These students are SO well behaved and SO incredibly studious during school hours that it was just remarkable to see them in a different element. They were in costumes, but they were out of their uniforms. They were on stage, in the spotlight, showing off the other talents they possess and they were so proud of themselves. It was one of those moments when you realize that learning takes place in every setting and not just in the classroom. Always expect the unexpected and ALWAYS have a (flexible) back-up plan! That is the one understanding about the teaching profession that I didn't exactly have before the start of this semester. Blame it on the snow, snow, snow! With all of the school days that were missed this semester due to weather, so many changes had to happen to adapt lesson plans that it almost became near impossible. My cooperating teacher had to resort to using her website to assign work for her students while they were out of school for snow days because if she didn't, she would have fallen so far behind that it would have been impossible to catch up and finish all of the required material by the end of the school year. Not surprisingly, it was the same situation with my classes at RVCC and some of my professors are still struggling to cover all of the material by the end of the semester! It is so helpful that in today's world that we have this technology that allows us to be in touch when we otherwise would not be able to. So rather than just having a back-up plan, a teacher must also have some flexibility and be able to think fast in unusual situations. Who would have thought they would move Jersey to Siberia this semester? Oh, and one other thing I learned...whoever the teacher is that came up with the idea of putting tennis balls on the bottom of the legs of desk chairs is pure genius! The sound of chairs sliding all over the room is SO loud and distracting! If I could change one aspect of this experience, I guess I would have liked to witness two or three different teachers, just to get a feel for different teaching styles. Although I like the idea of building a rapport with the classroom teacher and students, I think it also would have been beneficial to see how a few different teachers handle a classroom. Up next: I am participating in a summer internship program with Choose2Matter and I couldn't be more excited! Next semester, I'm off to Rider to finish what I've started at RVCC. I am so grateful for all of the experiences I have had during my time at RVCC and extremely thankful to the amazing professors that have been a part of making my dreams a realization! This week during my observation, I examined the types of assessment that are infused into the lessons. I found that by watching specifically for this and asking the teacher, there are many more types of assessment going on then are noticeable if you're not specifically looking for it.
The teacher conducts informal assessments by asking the students questions to gauge their understanding throughout, and after, a lesson is being taught. She also does a closed book review of the material learned the day before prior to beginning new material. The teacher often asks the students questions that help them apply what they learned to reality. For example, when the students learned about how heart rate increases with exercise, she asked the students who they thought would have a more rapid heart rate; a class of students that just came from P.E. or a class that just came from library? The teacher uses formal assessments, such as; tests, quizzes, lab reports, and projects. I specifically like the types of projects the teacher assigns, as she assigns projects that help the students relate the learned material to everyday life. For example; when the students were learning about the periodic table, they were assigned a project to do in small groups in which they had to create their own periodic table consisting of whatever items they choose. Some of the tables created were; a periodic table of candy, of sports teams, of recording artists, of phone apps, and of countries. They had to be assigned a symbol and an atomic number. They also had to be arranged in a specific sequence and grouped into families. This is a project that I hope to incorporate into my curriculum someday, as I believe it gives the students a practical understanding of the structure of the periodic table of elements. The teacher assigns homework on an occasional basis. The students are always required to study daily or complete any class assignments that they did not complete in class, but specifically assigned homework is not given daily. When homework IS assigned, the homework is handed in, graded and averaged into their final grade. My cooperating teacher is very fair to her students, in my opinion. If she does not feel that the students have properly grasped the material, she will postpone a test until she feels the students are well prepared for it. In my opinion, she is a teacher who sets her students up for success and not for failure. She knows her students and she takes a vested interest in their learning and understanding...what a teacher SHOULD do! This week I paid special attention to the verbal and non-verbal communication techniques my cooperating teacher uses, as well communication techniques used throughout the school in general. Since I'm in a catholic school, the main overall message, both verbal and non-verbal, surrounding everything is religion (of course!).
Verbal messages throughout the school come in the form of things such as daily prayer, attending weekly mass, and daily religion classes. Every prayer over the loud speaker ends with some form of the phrase "go forth and be good Christians." I think this is pretty direct verbal communication. It's always said very "matter of factly," like there simply is no other choice but to always have the Christian faith on your mind in every part of your life and every decision you make. Non-verbal messages back up the verbal messages with things such as; crosses and portraits of Jesus throughout the entire school and mandatory uniforms. Boys must have short hair and girls are not permitted to wear make-up. I like the idea of wearing uniforms in schools. I think wearing uniforms sends the non-verbal message that the children are all the same within the school community and are unified to focus on one common goal, which is to learn. I also think it sends the message that people should be judged by who they are, rather than their appearance. I do believe that allowing children to dress any way they wish, wear make-up, have certain hairstyles, etc., promotes individuality, but if I had to choose, (in my opinion) uniforms ROCK! My cooperating teacher is always dressed very nicely and appropriately professional. She wears minimal make-up and is in good physical shape. This sends a message to the children because they look at their teacher as a role model, as do most children. The teacher's appearance sends the message that it is important to take care of yourself physically, as well as to keep a subtle "clean-cut" style concerning clothes, hair and make-up. It sends the message that she is definitely practicing what she is preaching to her students. My cooperating teacher sends many verbal messages to the students. For one thing, she teaches religion class and that is basically a straight forward, to the point, verbal message...the students MUST be good Christians! Aside from that obvious message, she does send many others. One thing that stood out to me, was her mentioning of "mom and dad." She would constantly say things like "what do your mom and dad think about that?" This statement verbally implies that everyone has a mom and a dad and that they all live together in a traditional setting, which is not always the case in this day and age. A conversation between the teacher and the students took place where they were talking about what time they do their homework and the teacher said, "I assume most of you do homework right after school/activities, when mom is cooking dinner and you're waiting for dad to get home from work." I don't think the teacher intends to send the message that anything less than the traditional american family is not ok, but to some (such as myself) who might be sensitive to that, we might hear the underlying message that, that is the way it SHOULD be. I think most of us (like myself) understand that this is not meant to deliberately attack any lifestyle, but some may take offense. Another similar example was when the teacher asked if I was a "Mrs. or a Miss." "Ms." didn't seem to be an option, so "Miss" was fine. No harm meant, no harm done. Another very apparent verbal message she sends to the students pertains to their success. She is always mentioning the "honors classes they will all be taking next year in high school," inferring that regular mainstream classes are not good enough and that they are capable of more. The teacher has a lot of non-verbal communication with the students as well. I would think that the most forefront non-verbal communication from a teacher to a student would be their grades, right? Giving the students grades is a non-verbal way of telling the student how they are progressing with their learning. She also has many posters hanging around the room with both inspirational and spiritual sayings on them, which is a non -verbal way of saying, "this is a good thing to do or a good way to be." The teacher and the school in general require that the students participate in some type of community service project, sending the non -verbal message that it's good to volunteer, help other people and help the community. The teacher has a class website which contains her schedule, lesson plans, extra credit activities and homework. Each student has their own email address as well, which the parents are also given access to. This is the main way that she corresponds with the parents. The teacher sends home a packet at the beginning of the year, which include a welcome letter, a parent/student/teacher contract, and an outline of all of the material she will be covering with the students that year, including projects and field trips. The contract is to be signed by the parents and the students and one copy is returned to school and kept on file, the other is kept at the student's home. She explained to me that most of the time the type of written correspondence she uses with the parents is beneficial in maintaining a rapport with the parents. This Thursday will be my last day of observation at the school and I have to say that it has been such a wonderful experience and I'm sad to see it coming to an end! As I have mentioned in my previous blog posts, I have been observing the 7th and 8th grade honor's classes. I didn't feel as if that class was giving me enough material to post about the resources used to meet the needs of challenged and gifted students, as all of the students in the class I am observing are gifted. I have been holding off on posting about the classroom instruction, until I had a chance to observe the regular 7th and 8th grade classes. On 3/25/2014 and 4/1/2014 I observed the 7th and 8th grade general education classes and I now feel like I have enough observation to comment on this topic.
There are only two classes per grade level in this school and the two classes are split into one general education class and one honor's class. I have observed both the general and the honor's classes and there are only slight differences in the instruction for the different levels. There are no additional teachers or aides in any classrooms, no students with language difficulties, no students with special needs or who are receiving special services, and all students use the same textbook, handouts, etc. If there were any students receiving special services, I don't think it would be obvious, however, I have witnessed the teacher comparing her honor's class to her general ed class on several occasions. The teacher has made comments such as; "Are you guys confusing yourselves with the afternoon class, because this is behavior I expect from them, not behavior I expect from you?" I have not witnessed any of these comments in the general ed class. So, from this, I think it's fair to say that the honor's classes know that they are honor's and the other class is not, but I have not seen any indication from the general ed class to say that they know they are at a lower level then the other class. It is very clear that the teacher expects WAY more from the honor's classes than the general ed classes and she seems to move through concepts at a faster pace with the honor's classes. She tends to give the honor's class more freedom than the general ed class as well, allowing them to go into another area of the school to work on a project or giving them more free time once they finish the planned lesson for the day. The general ed classes are given a bit more time to complete tests, quizzes, projects and in-class assignments than the honor's classes. I have also noticed that after the teacher explains a concept, she reviews a lot more with the general ed classes than with the honor's classes. She will specifically ask students to explain concepts so that she knows they understand what they have been taught. I often notice that she calls upon the students that she thinks may have a harder time understanding the concepts or may have been daydreaming or not paying attention. The teachers' expectations for the general ed students are still high by all means, but it seems they are given slight accommodations to ensure they are proceeding as well as the honor's classes. SIDENOTE: The 7th and 8th grade had their annual play production this past weekend and I took my mother and son to see it. I was VERY impressed, the show was VERY good! It was great to see the students out of uniform and out of their normal element. There are a lot of talented children in this school! Yes! This is the blog topic I have been waiting for! Discussing the availability and infusion of technology at the parochial school where I am doing my observation is my pleasure...and my envy! This school has smart boards (interactive whiteboards) in every classroom, an iPad for every student, a computer lab in the library, online grades that can be accessed by teachers, students and parents, and a software program that tracks and helps improve the students' reading and comprehension levels (which I had the pleasure of helping to implement during my Service Learning project last semester).
Every morning the students receive their iPad's in homeroom and they are returned to their homeroom at the end of the day. The students take their iPad's to every class and use them in all subjects throughout the day. The students also have a computer class twice a week, where they learn the functions of desktop computers,as well as their iPad's. During instructional time, the teacher uses the smart board to display PowerPoint presentations, play educational videos, and draw diagrams of the material being taught. During my last several visits, the students have been learning about the Cardiovascular system and I have witnessed them use every technological device during one class period. Using the smart board, the teacher showed a video about the function of the heart, then she displayed a PowerPoint presentation to highlight the major points in the video and allowed the students to take notes. The teacher then used the smart board to draw a diagram of the heart and had the students come up and label the major parts of the heart. After this, the teacher had the students use their iPad's to log onto www.heart.org (The National Heart Association website) and had them read about how to take a pulse correctly and how to decipher the systolic and diastolic readings of blood pressure. After pointing out to the students that cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in the U.S. (most student's thought it was cancer), she explained that the key to a healthy heart is a healthy diet and exercise. She assigned the students a project in which they were to use "Notes" on their iPad's to log everything they eat and all of the exercise they do for the next week. I am looking forward to seeing the students' logs on my next visit! I have witnessed many occasions where the students have used their iPad's to do research for projects or find answers to questions that are not addressed directly in their textbooks. I have even seen them use their iPad's to record their presentation of a live newscast that they presented for their Religion class project. This school really embraces modern technology and uses it to both the teachers' and the students' advantage. I wish that every school had the funding for such technology, as from my observations they are a valuable tool for the learning process! The one thing that I would like to point out is that, even though this school has the most modern technology, they do not have a gymnasium, nor an auditorium! P.E. classes are held outside (weather permitting) or in the cafeteria and the school play takes place in a theater in a nearby town. Wow! This week I paid special attention to the classroom management in my observation class. I have to preface my response by pointing out that I am currently observing the 7th and 8th grade honors classes in a catholic school. When forming my response to this post, I somewhat wished that I had more diverse circumstances to discuss, but that's not the case here.
The students' day begins at 8:00 a.m. The students enter their homerooms, put their things away, then quickly and quietly take their seats. At 8:05, the class stands to recite "Hail Mary" and "The Pledge of Allegiance, " after which is followed by watching the "Channel One News." When the news is over, the teacher and students discuss the current events introduced on the news. If there is still more homeroom time after the discussion, the students read quietly at their desks until it's time to move to first period. In the four weeks I have been there, I have not seen any display of the students not following this routine or the classroom rules thus far. On rare occasion, the students have gotten a bit chatty and had to be told to quiet down a bit, which they do immediately. The behavior patterns in the 7th and 8th grade science classes that come into the room for first and second period are no different. The students come into the classroom, get their books and notebooks out and sit quietly until class begins. The ONLY redirection I have seen thus far is a simple "quiet down" from the teacher and the students ALWAYS quiet down immediately. I have not witnessed any situations where disciplinary infractions were necessary, nor have I seen any rewards for good (or more like expected) behavior. I have noticed that the teacher DOES have very high expectations from these honors students. A discussion took place again today with the 8th graders about their transition to high school and the teacher asked each student if they had registered for their classes yet. She said that she expected all of them to be registering for honors courses, as that is most certainly the level they should be performing at. All of the students that had to take placement tests to register for honors courses indicated that they passed the tests and were placed into honors courses. I almost feel like it's a bit of a disservice to me as a future educator that I have not witnessed any disciplinary/reward worthy behavior. I think I would really benefit from seeing how a teacher deals with these behaviors. I have discussed this with my observation teacher and she has invited me to sit in on her afternoon 7th and 8th grade science classes, as they are not the honors students and although she admits that their behavior is not often punishable, they do have to be redirected more often and she does offer more rewards for positive behavior in those classrooms. I plan to attend the afternoon classes at least twice in the next several weeks to observe the difference from the morning classes and I will follow up this blog with my reaction to that observation. UPDATE 4/1/14: I had the opportunity to sit in on the 7th and 8th grade science classes in the afternoon on 3/25/14 and 4/1/14. As far as behavior is concerned, the afternoon classes are a bit more chatty and a bit louder than the honors classes in the morning and had to be redirected to quiet down more often. They were quite antsy and seemed to move around in their chairs a lot more than the morning classes, but still I saw nothing that required any major disciplinary infractions. I can't help but wonder if these afternoon students were acting this way because they are on a lower learning level or simply because it was later in the day and almost time to go home and that is what was making them more rowdy than the morning classes. Perhaps these students behave similar to the honors classes when they are in their 1st and 2nd period classes? I also wonder if my observations were swayed because I was precisely looking for the behavior. The teacher had already explained that the afternoon classes were more rowdy, so my opinion may have already been biased. Although there was a slight difference, in the behaviors of the afternoon and morning classes, it was nothing extreme by any means. The lesson that was presented today in my 7th grade observation classroom was a lab activity reinforcing the prior lesson on genetic probability. The first thing the teacher did, was hand out the lab worksheet and carefully go over the instructions. The students were to work in their lab groups and flip a coin 6 times for each set of 15 possibilities. If the coins landed on heads, it was a girl, if the coin landed on tails, it was a boy. This was a bit confusing for the students, so the teacher drew a diagram on the board.
Ex: Set 1) Boys: lll, Girls: lll Set 2) Boys: ll, Girls: llll, etc. So, 6 coin flips per set, for 15 sets, using tally mark to record the results. Every lab group understood the instructions completely, after the diagram was drawn. The teacher then reviewed the concept of the 50:50 probability of having a boy or a girl and asked each student how many siblings they had and how many boys versus girls. She threw in a trick question every now and then, such as; "Johnny has 4 brothers and no sisters, what is the probability that his parents next child will be a boy?" These students couldn't be fooled, they all answered "50:50!" Once the review was finished, the students started on the lab. The desks in the classroom are already arranged into groups of 5, so they did not have to move to get into lab groups. I walked around and watched as they flipped coins and asked a few questions to see if they understood what they were finding in their results of the coin flips. I asked them if any of them were part of a family with six or more children or if any of them knew a family with six or more children. None of them were part of a family with six or more children and in response to them knowing families of six or more, they answered "The Kardashians" and "19 Kids and Counting." Only reality show TV families...wow! It was interesting to see the diversity of behavior from group to group. Some groups were very serious and moving along quickly with the activity, other groups found the coin flipping quite fun & fooled around a bit, flipping the coin onto the floor or rolling it across the room. The teacher did other work at her desk while the students completed the activity and stopped to walk around and check their progress only once, without saying much. When the students finished recording the coin flips, there was a series of questions they had to answer to show what they had learned from the activity. Ex: "Why can you use coin flips to represent sex combinations that may occur in families?" All of the groups responded that the probability of male to female was the same 50:50 probability of heads to tails. This was a fun activity that seemed to reinforce the lesson very well. I very much enjoyed being part of it! Welcome to my first blog post! I am very excited about my placement in a 7th and 8th grade science class and would like to reflect on my initial observations about the school climate.
I have been placed in a catholic school which includes grades Pre-K through 8th grade. Since I have never had any experience with a catholic school before, I was a bit nervous, but that nervousness was short lived. On my first day, I was politely greeted at the main entrance and was escorted by another teacher to the classroom that I was to be observing. All of the staff were so friendly and helpful! My cooperating teacher was very welcoming and excited to have me in her classroom for the next 10 weeks. Immediately I noticed a strong sense of community in this school. There are only two classes (a maximum of 60 students) per grade level and most of the students have been attending the school since Pre-K. During religion class, discussing the 10 commandments, the teacher had a discussion with the 8th grade students to get an idea about how they were feeling about transitioning to high school, as many of them will be splitting apart and going to a variety of different high schools. Both the teacher and the students expressed concern about the transition, since their small community at SMS, and the same faces for 10 years, is all they have known thus far. The teacher explained that it is quite an adjustment to go from such a small, close community to a much larger and more diverse community outside the walls of catholic school. The students were able to share their open and honest concerns with the teacher, demonstrating the rapport of mutual respect between students and teachers. The students who were planning to attend a public high school had concerns about no longer wearing uniforms and how public school students dressed. They were also concerned that public school students may not respect the same values that had been instilled in them through catholic school. The teacher gave honest, supportive advice, explaining to them they there may be situations in which they are faced with students who do not have them same values and encouraged them to believe in themselves and trust the values they have been taught. During classroom instruction, the students took turns reading aloud from the text book, followed by discussion of what was read and, in most cases, the teacher would try to put the information into real life situations to help substantiate the understanding of the material. I was very impressed with the behavior of the students, as they were extremely attentive during the instructional time. They raised their hands quietly to comment or answer questions and did not speak while the teacher or another student was speaking. The teacher was sure to give everyone a chance to comment or contribute to the class discussion. This classroom has such a warm, inspiring environment. The teacher seems truly interested in teaching and in the well being of the students. In turn, the students all seem to have a thirst for knowledge and are sincerely dedicated to learning. The classroom is decorated with items related to science as well as posters with motivational sayings, such as "Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around." The desks in this classroom are grouped into circles of 5 or 6 students, encouraging small group discussion and group work for lab experiments. The students dress in variations of the same uniform. Khaki's and polo shirts for the boys and skirts, polo shirts, and sweaters for the girls. No sneakers are allowed to be worn, except during P.E. and outdoor recess. Almost all of the girls have long hair (I only saw one girl with short hair) and all of the boys have short hair. From my observation, I believe this school has good right to be quite proud of the environment they have created in this school. I have never before experienced such rapport and mutual respect among the staff and student body. Looking forward to next 9 weeks!!! |
AuthorRider University Elementary Ed/ISM/Middle School Science Ed student. Archives
April 2015
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