Week in Review 1/18-1/22
Hi Beth and Julie,
Here is your prompt for this week. Please give us a snap shot of your past week, if you went anywhere exciting over the holiday weekend, and how this week has gone in your classrooms.
By now you should have completed the classroom and student characteristics for the classrooms that you are in, and be making notes about how to accomodate all of your learners. Please give us a run-down of your learners, which will obviously take you a bit longer Beth, but we know you are up to the challenge!
Both of your teachers say you are doing well and they are enjoying your presence in their rooms.
We look forward to your posts by Tuesday next week! :-)
Heidi and Chris
posted by Heidi @ 4:51 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Things in class are going great. I am getting to know the students more. I slightly feel like I am in a holding pattern, waiting to get started, but that is because the students are preparing for their exams. I am now responsible for entering grades, taking attendance, and checking homework. My mentor and I have also been doing some co-planning. I am making the most out my time while I have it. My mentor began a website, but hasn’t used it. I have been working on that to get it ready for the new semester. The website will be a way to interact with parents, and it will be a resource for students to find assignments, syllabi, and important documents. I have also been doing some lesson planning for far out in advance, so I will have my unit plans ready ahead of time when it is my time to be responsible for all of the teaching and planning. This way I will have plenty of time to perfect them and ask for advice from my mentor. Over the weekend, Julie, Harmony (another student teacher), and I went to Nurnberg. I wrote about that on my personal blog. Chris, if you need the web address, Heidi has it.
The students in classes are very diverse in some ways, but very homogeneous in other ways. Obviously, the biggest similarity between the students is that they are all in some way affiliated with the military. Due to this, most of the students are relatively similar in regards to their SES. The students mostly come from lower middle class to upper middle class families. Despite this similarity, there is a lot of diversity in regards to the racial/ethnic composition of my classes. About half of my students are Caucasian. About 30-40% of my students are African American. The demographics that surprised this Washingtonian are that only 5 of my students in all of my classes put together are of Asian descent, and only about 5-10% of my students are Latinos.
The most surprising thing of all about the characteristics of the students in my classes is that only one student has an IEP. His IEP is for visual impairment. My mentor teacher accommodates the student by giving the student a printed version of anything she displays on the smart board or document camera. In my algebra 2 course, there are two students that are in a program called AVID. I do not know what the acronym stands for, but the program is for students that score well on aptitude tests, but who do not achieve highly in school. Students that fit the criteria can chose to become part of this program, if they agree to its conditions. The students enroll in a study skills course that teaches students note taking strategies, studying methods, and ways to utilize the resources available to them at the school. Then, the students are required to sign up for AP courses after a year of the study skills course. I believe the students continue to have a support class in the following years, but that is not very clear to me yet.
Generally speaking, the students in the algebra course are highly motivated. This makes since considering the course is a college-track course. Currently, the class is very small with only 11 students. This may change at the semester to even out the class sizes with the other sections. However, the small class size is wonderful. The students are genuinely engaged in their learning, they have good discourse about the topic, and they work well together. For this class, I plan to use as much discussion as possible. The students seem to work well when creating ideas together, and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”
The discrete math classes are a very different story. The guidance counselor encouraged many students that have failed math before to enroll in discrete math. Therefore, a majority of the students in these classes have little belief in their ability to do mathematics. The astonishing thing is that, generally speaking, the topics they cover are not taught in high school, but rather in college. They constantly demonstrate their understanding of these fairly advanced topics, but they undermine themselves even when they are doing well by doubting their own work. They frequently attempt to ask questions to avoid thinking. They want to go beyond scaffolding; they want to be given the answer. I think the biggest thing I will need to do in this class is to be careful about answering questions. It is my inclination to want to answer questions (note that I want to be a teacher), but I will need to make sure I am not lowering the cognitive demand required of my students by answering their questions. Another large problem in these classes is motivations. Many students show little interest in class, rarely turn in homework, and frequently miss class. I plan to try some new strategies to encourage these students to become more engaged. I want to incorporate more discovery learning and group work. I think this might get more students involved.
I have really been enjoying my time here, and for the most part all of the other student teachers. Beth, Harmony, and I have been getting along great, and we’ve like having the apartment to ourselves. I can’t imagine what it is going to be like when the other 3 or 4 student teachers move it. It has been very interesting to hear about what the other student teachers have experienced and how their university programs differ from mine.
Over the long weekend, Beth, Harmony, and myself traveled to Nurnberg. I had heard about this place only in reference to Nazis, so I was very curious about what I was going to find there. We arrived late on Friday and walked straight to our hostel where we settled in and planned what we were going to see the following day. Hostels are always interesting because you meet people from all around the world and you get to hear about their travel experiences. On Saturday we did a lot of walking and saw some wonderful things. I was surprised at how many cathedrals and churches there were; we of course visited most of them because they were all free to explore. We were even fortunate enough to catch an organ being played. It was so beautiful how the churched filled with it’s sound.
We also went to the Documentation Center and Nazi rally grounds. We spent about 3-4 hours exploring this historical site. The museum was inside a Nazi building where Hitler and Nazis would gather. It was so amazing to be in such an old building, all I could think was only if these walls could talk. It was very interesting to learn about how the Nazis came to power. It was also weird to hear about the Nazis from a different perspective. The museum was loaded with information, which was a little over whelming. After learning all about Hitler and how he came into power and took over Germany, we went out to the Nazi rally grounds.
The rally grounds were fenced off and only had two entrances, the seating area was heavily over grown and for the most part it was very poorly taken care of. We hiked up the stairs threw the snow to Hitler’s podium. Some of it had been destroyed from American soldiers, but it was still so unreal to be standing in the same spot that Hitler and thousands of Nazi troops had rallied.
On Sunday we ventured to Wurzburg. We only stayed here for a couple of hour before heading back to Heidelberg. In Wurzburg we visited the Residence. At his Residence there was a history of Dukes who had lived there, and there were still people living there. At the Residence there is the largest fresco in the world. It was shocking to think that the largest fresco was in Germany and not in Italy. It was an amazing sight! I haven’t gone on any other trip, but we have been planning and I know we have much more to see before we go home.
As far as teaching goes, I have been having an incredible time and I have been learning so much. It has been so much fun to apply all of the things I have learned through my college career. Last week I taught a few math lessons and started the mornings off with the calendar. This week I have taken on more responsibilities and lessons. I have found classroom management, transitions, and timing to be the most challenging. Next week I will begin planning and taking on even more teaching responsibilities. My mentor teacher, Carlen has been so amazing. She takes very detailed notes about my teaching. She doesn’t interfere or step in unless it is necessary. Carlen discusses all of the good and challenging things she observes, and then we go over ways to improve and what works well.
The learners in my class are very unique and interesting. One thing that amazes me is how diverse the class is. There are Korean, Irish, African American, Caucasian, and Italian children that make up the class. There is one student with a deployed mother, which I find to be very interesting and something that I can take a lot from. There are also a lot of twins in the class including, a set of triplets, a set of twins, and two other students that are twins, but their twin is the other second grade class.
There are no students on IEPs and 504 plans. One student was previously on an IEP and by the time he was entering second grade he was suppose to be on a 504 plan, but he fell threw the cracks, and even though Carlen has done all she can, he still has received no help. There is another student in the class who needs to be on an IEP. Carlen went through all of the paper work and intervention process, including having a psychiatrist document observations of this students behavior, but similarly, nothing has been done. Carlen believes him to be emotionally impaired and she wants him to receive the help he needs and deserves. Carlen is an amazing teacher so these students have been successful in her class. Both of these students need extra assistance and reminders to stay on task.
There is a set of twins that are Italian and primarily speak Italian at home. The interesting part about these twins is that on of them is in the gifted program, and the other, thought not in the program, seems to be an ESL student. She isn’t cognitively or academically behind, though she struggles with understanding English.
The classroom is set up in a way that allows students to work together and gather in a whole group setting. There is a rug with colorful squares on it, by the SmartBoard where we do a lot of our whole group lessons. There is a library where students can find a wide range of reading abilities and interest. There are circle tables where about four students can sit. The seating arrangement is assigned seating and is flexible to move if needed. There is not a lot of seatwork and for the first two and half ours of the day, the students work on something called the Daily 5. This is where students choose to work on read to self, read to someone, listen to reading, work on writing, and WebQuest. The students choose the order they want to complete the tasks in and every 20-30 minutes the bell rings and the students have to stop and move onto the next activity. This is also when guided reading occurs.
I have been having an amazing time, I have been enjoying being with my students and getting to know each one of them. I have learned a lot from Carlen’s modeling and the feedback she gives after each lesson I teach. I am really enjoying the integration of technology, including the SmartBoard, the four computers in the classroom, and the laptops the students get to work on to complete their WebQuests.
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