This week was a hectic but short one. We had TWO snow days! Monday and Tuesday I spent as half-days in the classroom because of student teaching orientation. These days were great for getting back into the swing of things in the classroom. I was proud of myself that I remembered everyone's names since I had been gone for a whole month! It was encouraging to me how excited my 5th graders were to see me again. The days were filled with questions like, "Are you going to be here forever now?" "Can you finally stay a full day and be my real teacher?" Then, there ended up being 2 snow days-- which were quite beneificial to me since I was already asked to teach 2 social studies lessons (which means I have to write two lesson plans).
On Friday, I spent my first full day in the classroom. I was put right to work. I led a math small group, did some individual reading conferences, lots of grading and photocopying, and giving spelling tests and pre-tests. I wish every classroom could have two teachers all the time! I loved handing off the teaching and responsibilities back and forth between my cooperating teacher and myself. Co-teaching is something I am very open to and excited about. On Friday afternoon, my cooperating teacher asked me to take over mathematics full time! This is a huge deal because they don't really have a set math curriculum. There are many resources to pull from, but you kind of have to plan a unit from scratch and play it by ear according to the standard (which is very vague). So, this weekend I planned 2 lessons of many more to come on multiplying fractions. I plan on teaching these first two and seeing how the students are grasping the material before planning any more. I know that this class' pacing can be slow for certain concepts so I do not want to rush it. I really see myself growing in Standard 3** of the IPTS.
**Standard 3 - Planning for Differentiated Instruction – The competent teacher plans and designs instruction based on content area knowledge.
Next week I am looking forward to teaching math and social studies full time and learning more about teacher responsibilities and how to juggle all that they must take care of throughout a week. I am also looking forward to helping at homework help on Tuesday's until 4:45. I think that will be a neat opportunity for me to experience working with a wider range of students and grade levels.
Classroom Confidential-- Schmidt
In Classroom Confidential, Schmidt refers to Gardner's multiple intelligences. The two that really struck me were Naturalistic Intelligence and Kinesthetic Intelligence. Naturalistic struck me because while I was reading the description, I was able to picture a few of my students. My class seems to have a love for science, animals, and nature. Anytime we are doing a science experiment or research project, student interest seems to sky rockets. Any writing assignment in which students can pick a topic, 15 out of 23 most likely will choose an animal or nature related topic. Noticing this has encouraged me to incorporate more naturalistic topics and examples into my teaching.
Kinesthetic Intelligence struck me because I do notice that my students are stationary for large portions of the day and I know I have a lot of football players and athletic people in my class. We do move around during math and reading for different small groups and conference groups, but there is no real active movements except for every other day in gym class and at recess (which has been indoors lately due to the weather). I have been learning a lot about brain breaks and the importance of movement in the classroom. It might even be beneficial for me to allow students to move around the classroom as I teach. There are plenty of table seats and floor seats for students to move around to that wouldn't be distracting.
All of the different intelligences that students have can come together in order to make a "full brain learning" experience for the class. If I am engaging all my different types of learners throughout the day, I am much more likely to fully engage each of their brains, bodies, emotions, etc. I love how Schmidt talks about teaching your learners how to learn. We must discover their learning styles and strengths, play off of those and encourage the whole class to learn in many ways in order to engage the "whole" child and not just the "copy the board and follow directions" child. This isn't easy to accomplish at first, but by teaching them how to learn, life long learners are created and their bull brain learning is fostered throughout the year and hopefully beyond.
I think you are very fortunate to have been is this placement already for months. It's great that you can dive right in and begin doing the work of the teacher. Can you imagine starting fresh here with orientation and 2 snow days in your very first week?
ReplyDeleteI can identify with your having to create your own math lessons. I also had to do this for essentially my first 5 years of teaching since there really wasn't a curriculum at that time that my hearing impaired students would be able to understand. I found that making things very relevant and hands-on not only worked well, but made teaching math a lot more fun for me too.
Jessica,
ReplyDeleteWelcome to a NORMAL week of teaching! Just kidding....although sometimes it will seem like it is never normal. Be flexible is probably the best advice I can give you and be willing to adjust your well laid plans. Plan more than you think you will need and have a backup plan in case a lesson does not go as well as you would have liked.
I am curious if the 5th grade teachers plan their Math lessons together, that would certainly be helpful to you. The benefit of creating your lessons is you are not locked into a particular textbook method of teaching the different skills.All students do not learn in the same way, so many different problem solving strategies can be taught by you.