Please respond by Feb 9th
Hi everybody,
I will try to give you four or five prompts this semester so that we are all posting to this site but you also have to check it and respond.
Please type the date you post and your name so it appears at the beginning.I have all the postings from previous semesters on this site. They are archived so you can see them but they aren't in the way. We did get one LONG random message but otherwise everything is from student teachers.
For the first posting, please share with us a bit about your base, and what you have learned from completing the Classroom and Student Characteristics.
If you want to ask for problem solving and input from your peers, here is the place to do it!
Warm wishes,
Chris
posted by Chris @ 8:21 AM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Hi everyone!
I am living with Katrina at Patrick Henry Village in Heidelberg, and am teaching at Mark Twain Elementary School. It has been wonderful having Katrina here with me because I am able to work out my issues as I am faced with them. We are working at a school where many of our students are well off and the parents are all involved and supportive of the teachers. It is a dream school to do my student teaching at.
Completing my classroom assesment has helped me create more meaningful lessons for my students, understand their weaknesses and strengths, and find creative ways to help my class learn. The most difficult (I say this lightly) challenge that I have is that 5 of my students are only in the class for 2 hours a day. That leaves me with 12 students for most of the day. I have been working closely with the specialists in the building, creating lessons with them that align with the subjects that they miss while they are in the specialists' classrooms.
-Christina
Hello! I am in Vilseck, Germany. We have a small base with a small PX and a small commisary. Right after payday they are out of everything. If you see something you like at the px you better buy it right then, because otherwise it is gone. They don't necesarily reorder things regularly. There is a small movie theater which I have not been to yet. There is not a high school on Graf, a base about 30 minutes away. Some students have to take the bus in from that far. The middle school students are in Graf, and so they are bussed out there from Vilseck. My students range from 9-12 and also in abilities and drive. Some students could care less. Some could care less on some days, but really try on others. The classroom assessment has helped me to find creative ways to reach all of the students. Finding ways to inspire them to want to learn may be my hardest task while I am here. If anyone wants to respond to this, it would really help if they are having similar problems. The base is small, and I have been told by my mentor teacher that there is a problem with the young girls sleeping with the soldiers. Since prostitution is legal over here, there is a problem with std's going around. With it being a small school, everyone knows everyone's business.
I'm living on the section of base with the commisary across the street, which is very convenient. Christina and I are living together and working at the same school, which is nice because we can talk about our questions and have gotten to know each others' teachers.
After completing the classroom characteristics for this classroom, I have been able to adjust my lessons to the needs of the students. One of my greatest challenges has been working around the schedules of the specialists and resource classroom. I've been focusing on timing my lessons to make sure that the maximum number of students are in the classroom for important information. Although, with only sixteen students in the class, I'm not complaining.=)
-Katrina
Hi everyone! My name is Sarah Mellgren and I am currently living on Feltwell Air force base in the UK. So far, things have been going really well for me here. All the teachers here have been really friendly and given me some get insight/advice about the student that I will be teaching for the next few weeks. Right now, I am teaching English Language/Literature to 7th graders over at Lakenheath Middle School (which, lucky for me, is right across the street). The school, containing around 800 students from 6th to 8th grade, is very new and have lots of great new technology for me to experiment with (Are any of you working with Smartboard?). My classes are very diverse (culturally speaking) and the students range from IEP students (with ADD, etc.) to the extremely gifted. While the socioeconomic status on base ranges from middle to upper class living/family lifestyle. (While the community outside of Feltwell/ Lakenheath is very rural and quiet (many elderly people actually move up here to retire). However, in regards to the parents on base, most seem to be very involved in their students academics and really try to support the teachers and programs LMS provides to their son or daughter.
As for the students, the classroom and student characteristic worksheet really helped me to outline the different students in my classroom and begin to think of ways, when teaching, to make sure that they can all access the materials being presented to them. Before doing this worksheet, I worried about the content that I was teacher (Is this lesson to simple? Am I dumb-ing it do too much for them? Etc.) Though the students are fairly well behaved and the parents are really involved in their behavior, discipline, and academics; there are still some areas that I am sure I am going to struggle with. Right now, one of my biggest struggles is making sure that I stay in control of the class (classroom management). The students in my house are really chatty, so you have to be stern with them (something I am not always very good at). But, this house is giving me a great opportunity to use my teacher voice and to flex some authority. As I mentioned earlier, the students abilities also range from Special Education (or students on IEPs) to extremely gifted. So I also have to find a way to present material to all my students in a way that they will all comprehend.
PS. Sorry that this is a little late Chris and Heidi. Though I have been attending school, I have caught a really bad head cold and fell asleep early. But see, I didn’t forget! Sorry!
Hi Everyone,
Wiesbaden is great! I'm really enjoying the school and everyone here is really nice and helpful. The school is huge...about 815 kids just in grades k-5. My second graders are high maintenance and needy. Most of them come from families where at least one parent is an enlisted solider and as been to Iraq within the past year. I feel like they are constantly vying for my attention and testing my patience. I have started teaching full time, which is exhausting...I spend alot more time doing crowd control than actually teaching. I would say that this is my biggest challenge thus far. I can't get my kids to stop talking for longer than about thrity seconds! Does anyone have any suggestions? On the other hand my kiddos are NEVER boring and for the most part I'm not dealing with major behavior problems. They are also very nice kids; they are willing to help and I get hugs everyday.
While the classroom characteristics form was helpful in helping me to get to know my students I am finding that I'm not using it very often. I am finding that my lesson plans are based more on what fits the kids and my needs for the individual day. I am also finding that alot of times its easier to just view the students as kids and teach to their personalities and their interests more than to their ethinicity, SES, or IEP. So far, its been much more helpful to listen and observe my students and plan from there than it was to complete the form.
I hope everyone else is enjoying their time in Europe and getting to travel!
Susan
From: Robert Moritz
I am in Naples Italy teaching Biology to 9th and 10th grade students. I live about 200 meters from where I work; I am on what the Navy refers to as a support site, which means we have base housing, the school, a hospital and some shops. As convenient as the services are on base, the base is quite remote from anything else and I rarely cross to the other side of the fence.
I teach 5 classes of Biology and I have 107 students (48 male, 59 female.) One of my students has an IEP and 3 of my students would be regarded as ESL students. My ESL students are actually doing quite well (upper 50%) so I have not felt the need to make any significant accommodations for them. All of my students are from middle class families and in general I consider myself fortunate to teach students that come from different ethnicities but share a common culture. However, it is not without its problems and I have to teach in an education culture that believes it is acceptable to have students constantly missing weeks on end for vacations, or sports events. Students who are close to leaving get to the point where they do not care anymore and the can sometimes be disruptive to the rest of the class.
For me student teaching has not been easy, it is quite challenging managing lesson plans, grades and anything my cooperating teacher throws at me.
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