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.