Blog 8 what i learned

I learned so much through this course. It's been very eye opening. Teaching has so many more responsibilities than I previously thought. It takes dedicated, patient, hard working individuals to teach in an elementary school. The teacher I worked with was wonderful. She used so many successful tactics and strategies, but I could tell her job wasn't easy. Sharing attention with not only those who require a bit more but with those who don't seem to need it at all is very demanding and takes a lot of energy. The teacher never stopped talking! Even if the students had been instructed that they were to be quiet in doing their task, the teacher was talking to students one-on-one that she had pulled aside to asses. I can imagine being exhausted at the end of a successful teaching day.

I was fascinated learning about the segregation act and how that came about. It opened my eyes to how stubborn society can be to make changes. I believe society will always change and evolve and that we as citizens must be willing to accept that and incorporate it to be successful. What it reminds me of specifically is non-English speaking students. When I was young, product labels were listed primarily in English. Now most  foods, clothing, furnishings, and products with direction manuals are marked in multiple languages. This is a wonderful example of incorporating change into our society. I would love to see the school system teach multiple languages to students, making a second language mandatory.

I loved to module on the different jobs and responsibilities of a teacher. Its similar to how I often feel as a mother. I'm not just a mother, I am a house-keeper, a chef, a book-keeper, a story-teller, a groomer, etc. Teaching is the same way. The word "teacher" actually incorporates many job titles. Additionally, students are so varied and each has such different needs. The teacher must play different roles and be able to alter them for each student's need.

This was an excellent course to help me learn the profession of teaching. Honestly it has made me rethink becoming an educator. It's overwhelming and a bit intimidating working in a classroom as the person responsible for the success of others. Though I love to plan lessons and I love kids, I'm not sure I'm the right person for the demands of teaching.

Blog 7 Classroom management

The rules in the second grade classroom that I help in are:
1. Respect yourself
2. Respect others
3. Respect the school
These are very generalized but have rough guidelines within each one. Respecting yourself encourages the kids to get the most out of school for themselves, to try hard and not belittle themselves, and to not allow others to belittle them as well. Respecting others encourages the kids to use team work and keep from making fun or thinking poorly of other students. Respecting the school teaches the students to treat property with care and pay attention to what they are doing and how they are using resources provided to them.

These rules apply to classroom management in a broad spectrum. Such simple rules make a big impact.on the expectations and attitudes of the students. When the students act in a way that needs correcting, the teacher will call them aside and remind them of the rule and what it means and how they can make better use of it. Further offenses lead to the student's name on the board, missing a portion of recess, and finally a phone call home to parents. The rules create a base for the teacher to ground her teaching. Everything falls on the expectation of respect and guides the learning process in a constructive way.

I have one specific example where the classroom rules enhanced the learning process. The teacher was guiding the students to the rug after completing centers. 'Centers' is mobile and energetic and usually gets the kids energy up. So to calm them back down is often a tricky task for the teacher. The other day was especially difficult with a group of three boys who didn't want to finish what they were doing and join the rest of the class at the carpet. The teacher used a technique where she counts down from five to get everyone's attention and then reminded the class of rule #2, respect others. She briefly discussed that holding up the other students and teacher's time was not adhering to rule #2. The boys understood and took their seats. I think keeping the rules fair and adhering to them is structural and necessary for a working classroom environment.

Post # 6
11/01/2013


I watched Mrs Shaw use most of the teaching strategies in preparing the students for a math test the last time I was volunteering with the class. I was afraid that with so many strategies it would be difficult for me to witness them in just one hour, however the teacher used many of them frequently.

In regard to Mrs. Shaw's questioning frequency, I estimated that she asked at least two questions every five minutes. The classroom is always ablaze with discussion. Also to cover equitable distribution, the teacher has a jar with popsicle sticks on which the students names are written. I am seeing and hearing about this more frequently and assume it's an easy and effective way of keeping everyone involved equally.

Mrs. Shaw displays withitness the entire time she is working with her class. She is aware of the students who are paying attention as well as the ones who's eyes and voices start to wander. She kept the students actively involved in the math test review by having them gather whiteboards and work with a partner to answer the questions which they would write on the white boards and hold up to compare answers with the other students. The wait time between questions and answers was between twenty to thirty seconds. This also allowed the students to write and check their answers. When a pair of students had the wrong answer written down, then teacher used prompting to help them check their answer. Usually they had simply misplaced the decimal point. but rather than just pointing that out, Mrs. Shaw had them "check their answer" or "look again at the decimals". The teacher gave feedback in a broad spectrum rather than singling out any of the students, and she closed up with a brief review of how to count and place the decimal.

I was glad to have been in the class for the test review and to watch the students take the test. It was a wonderful and perfect scenario for me to see so many teaching strategies  used together.

blog 3 10/05/2013

This week I helped with a second grade classroom during their rotations. Although all of the kids are at different academic and developmental levels, none of the students were special needs. As a result I wasn't able to witness the ways in which the teacher dealt with a special needs student, but i did take note of the way the classroom was set up for the different abilities of the students. I helped with what the class called "reader's workshop" which encourages the kids to read and take an interest in books. The children had been assigned an alphabet letter according to how well their current reading level is. Every Wednesday morning the students select five books from the shelf with their assigned letter and put them in a book bag that they keep on the back of their chair. During reader's workshop the students read these books. While I read with them and kept an eye on the class the teacher called several students to her desk to help them with the things they are currently struggling with. In asking the teacher about students who might have needs beyond what she can fulfill and she told me about a program the school has implemented called "star students". Basically students with emotional, physical, or mental needs are removed from the classroom by specialized teachers who work one on one with them in a separate classroom. In this way the students receive help that is tailored to them and can more quickly progress. I loved working with the second graders! Their little personalities are still so fresh and unique. At this point they teach me so much more than I teach them.

9/27/2013 Blog entry 2

I had the opportunity to help fifth grade students one-on-one with their spelling words this morning. My job was to correct their vocabulary tests and then assist the students who had scores under fifty percent with the words they missed. I was surprised at how many actually scored that low. But in helping them to learn the words they struggled with I saw that many of them weren't taking it seriously. I don't remember being in fifth grade, but from what I have seen of the students in the class they are torn between putting time into their work and putting a million staples in their papers so that I could not separate them. I've been an adult for long enough to have forgotten the short attention spans and silly behaviors of ten year olds. It's been good for me to work with them. The personalities of each of the students differs so greatly from their peers. One boy I quizzed was quiet and spelled the words slowly while avoiding my eyes. Another one wiggled and belched when I asked him to spell 'faucet'. The teacher was great at keeping the class on track however. I noticed that she used several tactics combined to keep the attention of the group. I am learning a lot through this experience and look forward to the time I get to spend with the class. Mrs. Shaw is a great teacher and role model and I have already seen in such a short time some of the things that can be expected of a room full of fifth graders.

September 13, 2013 Developmental differences between children in the classroom

I worked with fifth graders today assisting them in an activity to help them strengthen their teamwork skills. The class consisted of roughly thirty students split into two groups so that each group had 14 - 15 kids. It amazed me how different they all were in size and personality as well as development and social abilities. In the activity I asked the students to stand on the curb of the playground in a line. They then had to arrange themselves from tallest to shortest without talking to one another or stepping off the curb. Immediately I had problems! Those who didn't listen to the instructions stepped down and started measuring themselves against the other students. Others were talking with their neighbor or began hollering instructions to the others in the group. And some just stood still looking at me, waiting for me to stop the chaos. It took several tries, and eventually the teacher's intervention, for me to gather the attention of all of the students and give them the instructions again in a way that they all heard and understood. The timed activity began. It was immediately apparent who the outgoing students were, though they weren't necessarily the ones to come up with the best solution for shuffling past their peers without falling off the curb. Some had good use of their bodily intelligence, that is to say good balance and coordination, as we learned in the multiple intelligences theory. Others were calculating and sat back observing the problems the group was having. And some didn't seem interested at all in the activity, they only wanted to move on to the next thing and hence be that much closer to the ringing of the final school bell. This was a very good experience for me to see the different ways that the students learn and observe and develop. Even though they were all old enough to understand the basics of the activity, each of them played it out at their own level of understanding and coordination. I was curious to know whether they would have been more successful if they had been allowed to speak or if they had taken turns with a leadership role in the activity. We didn't have enough time to experiment with different tactics that would help the group as a whole, but all in all it was a good activity to help them help each other and also to give me an idea of how different the students can be from one another.