Week 7

This was was....well, Short! We did not have school on Monday for President's Day, and then Tuesday was a SIP day which I really enjoyed because I learned a lot more about PARCC and was able to get familiar with the test layout, the accessibility features available in it as well as take some practice test. I do not feel like my students will do well on the PARCC test because I do not think that the curriculum has prepared them for a lot of things they are being required to do. Even though it is based on the CCSS, I do not think that the students have been prepared enough with what they are expected to do. I am disappointed because I know my students are smart and will work hard, but their scores may not best reflect their intelligence or intentions.

Wednesday we did have school and it went well. Thursday we did not have school because of the extremely cold weather, and then Friday we had school once more for the week. I have learned to become very flexible in my planning as well as learning to pick out the essentials and what my students really must master to succeed in 6th grade vs. everything I WANT to get through.

This week we spent a lot of time trying to wrap up their informational writings as well as their SS iMovies. I am so excited to read and grade their papers and to watch their trailers. The students were working together a lot these 2 days and I was able to praise them for their group work and for pushing themselves to finish up some lengthy projects. We all applauded one another as they turned in their assignments because it was a BIG accomplishment. I had the students print 2 copies of their papers so that I could hang one copy in the hall on display and the other set I took home to grade. I can tell the students feel proud when they see their work displayed outside of the classroom.

In math, we started learning about decimals. I was told that the students should have a lot of background in this subject because they did decimals in 4th graded in relation to money, but surprisingly, the students did not remember much. I spent these first 2 days doing a lot of review and a lot of small group instruction going over the basics of decimals- i.e. place value, how to read decimals, that .1 is the same as .10, etc. I am excited to push them further and to record my edTPA lessons this upcoming week. Introducing decimals has really pushed me to grow in the professional teaching standard of 2G in which the competent teacher understands the theory behind providing support to promote learning when concepts and skills are first being introduced.
 
Classroom Confidential:

Chapters 8 and 9 of “Classroom Confidential” focus on teaching Social Studies and the Arts. Most of my students LOVE art and HATE history. "History is so boring." is something I frequently hear. I had hoped that the movie project in SS was something that would bring history alive for my students so I am eager to see how they turn out and hear their responses. Schmidt gives many more ideas for how to engage students more in history. Immersion is the approach to teaching history that I have experienced as being the most effective and the way in which I hope to teach SS in the future. The immersion method that Schmidt talks about means bringing history to life by actually having the students experience it for themselves. This could include but is not limited to going on field trips, bringing outside experts, cooking the cultural or time period's food and studying and making their clothing or other real-life products used by who you are studying.

I recently took an entire class on integrating the arts into the classroom. I specifically studied how to integrate drama into the classroom and I think that Schmidt is onto something big when he suggests the use of movement into the classroom. As I have mentioned in other blog posts, my students LOVE stations and they always express their love of moving around the classroom. They abhor being stationary for too long and I am constantly trying to get them up and moving in the classroom to continue their engagement in lessons. Another art that is fun to incorporate into the classroom is music. During a POV lesson, I played a point of view rap and the students loved it! Not only that, but they were able to memorize the lyrics to the song which also in turn helped them to memorize the points of view.
 

Week 6

This week went by so quickly! In fact, all of student teaching seems to be flying by. This week we finally wrapped up fractions. I think my students were as ready for that as I was. We did lots of review in preparation for their fraction test on Friday. On Monday we just did a general review of multiplying, dividing, adding, and subtracting fractions and then finished up some word problems I had had them paste into their word problem spirals. Then, on Tuesday we played the fly swatter game. The math specialist brought in giant fly swatters and I posted possible answers on the board. I split the class into two teams, posed division problems to them and their team representative had to hit the correct answer on the board once they saw everyone on their team had the correct answer. If they got it correct, the representative had to teach the class how their group got their answer. It was a fun game and the beset part was seeing each student be able to defend how they got their answers at the end of the game. On Wednesday and Thursday we played a Jeopardy game that I made on a website. The game included multiplication and division problems as well as one simplifying final question. Their test was on Friday and I was for the most part pleasantly surprised by their grades. I gave many meets for the standards included.

A link to the jeopardy game I made: https://www.superteachertools.net/jeopardyx/jeopardy-review-game.php?gamefile=1423449463#.VNgjP2M5BMs

This week I started teaching Science. I started the pulley system unit. It was not as difficult as I thought it might be. I follow a set curriculum for this so it is not too hard to figure out what to say for my explanations and I follow the investigation packet guide to instruct them in their investigations. This week they learned how to set up a single fixed and a single moveable pulley. I think they are really loving how hands on science is. We started to really get far in the Social Studies projects. I cannot wait to see their final trailers for their colonies. They are really getting into making catchy slogans to convince me to time travel to their colony. My favorite so far is "Stop, Drop, Plant Crops!"

For Literacy, they are finishing up their research/informational papers. I cannot wait to read these! I think the best part about that assignment is that they wrote about things they love so I am learning a lot about them through my conferences with them about their writing. We also read William Joyce's Autobiography in their Harcourt text and I have been reading supplemental texts by William Joyce that my cooperating teacher rented from her library. I think that the students really enjoy him as an author and are inspired by him for their young author writings. One thing that really excited them about William Joyce is that he wrote Rolie Polie Olie- which was on the Disney Chanel- so they were already familiar with his work.

We also had a fire drill this week, yearbook pictures, and a Valentine's Day party (which included a blow up obstacle course in the gym) so this week was a little crazy, but a whole lot of fun! I do have 2 students who are really annoying each other and starting to bully one another and then tattling immediately after so I did have to have some stern conversations with them. These two boys give me a run for my money sometimes. One of them lies to me constantly and I have to balance giving him trust and pushing him to tell me things honestly. The other cries easily so I have to balance being stern and yet comforting all at once. They both use inappropriate language quite frequently and I have a hard time disciplining for that when I know the sort of environments they grow up in and how they have that modeled to them on a regular basis. A lot of times I struggle with discipline because I don't always feel like it is my place. Yet, I know they are not getting it at home and I must be that loving disciplinary figure in their lives. It is a battle for me, but I am getting lots of practice!

Next week is a short week because of President's Day and a SIP day, so I do not have a lot to plan, but I am excited to start the decimals unit in math (although nervous because it is a tough area of math for me). I plan on making standard 2I my goal. I don't have a text to follow for decimals and they can be confusing to me so I need to really take time in evaluating teaching resources and materials for appropriateness as related to curricular content and the student's needs. I cannot be comfortable teaching something until I am comfortable with the material. I am fortunate to have an awesome cooperating teacher who took extra time on Friday to help me with some of my explanations of decimals. It is a tricky concept to explain and I am glad I have her years of experience in explaining them to support me as I try it out for the first time!
 

Week 5

This 5th week of student teaching was my first week being the full-time teacher in the classroom. I think it went well! There was one student who had some argumentative behaviors with me on Wednesday but he was fine the rest of the week. I had this big speech prepared for him on Thursday but I could tell he was in a much better mood and I realized that he really just had one bad day so I did not want to bring it up until it happens again. If it does happen again though, I will address it immediately because he needs to respect me the way he would any other full time teacher in the classroom. One other issue was a particular student who was not focusing during instructions. He would immediately raise his hand confused about what was going on and was talking a lot when I was giving directions. I had a talk with him about it and how he needs to listen for directions because he is taking away from his classmates work time when I have to repeat everything multiple times for him. Also, this is a newish behavior I've noticed so I am not sure what is causing it. He decided to make it his goal for next week to pay attention to directions and try to ask a neighbor before disrupting the class and asking me. I am really hopeful that these two students will have an awesome week this upcoming week.

Other than those two behavior problems, I thought that the week went smoothly. We had Monday off due to the snow so I did need to adjust a lot of my lessons and the schedule so that I could fit everything I needed to in and I ended up moving some things to next week. This was good practice for me in adjusting schedules and determining the important materials that need to be covered verses the things that can be put off. Speaking of determining importance, we worked on this a lot during literacy and will be throughout the month. I did a few fun activities with the students in which I read passages from trade books and they had to determine the important parts of what they read. I also brought in a "magic bag" which had about 6 or 7 items in it and the students had to decide which were most important to bring if I were going to the gym after work. For example, I would need the water bottle but not the nail polish. They also had to support their decisions by explaining why or why not it was important to bring. My students are writing research papers and this idea of determining the important things has been helpful in their research and deciding what they need to include in their papers.

In Math we have been continuing our work with fractions. The final standard dealing with fractions is being able to divide a unit fraction and a whole number. It has been going really well. My RtI students have been excelling with multiplying and dividing fractions and I can tell their attitudes about math are up this week based on their performance. I plan on testing them next week on multiplying and dividing fractions before moving onto decimals. In Social Studies we are doing a "Top Secret Mission" in which an agency has discovered time travel and the students have been put into research groups in which they must make a trailer on IMovie to convince the agency to time travel back to their colony. The students are really into it and I think they really enjoy using technology- it makes Social Studies less "boring" to them. In Science we are about to begin a unit on pulleys. I have never taught Science to them yet, so I am eager to see how it goes! The curriculum really spells out everything I need to do and the students love the investigations so I am excited.

The highlight of my week was when the students voted on their top three moments of 5th grade in room 127 to put into the year book and "Miss Bordenaro coming to our class" was one of the winning moments. I was so touched. I can't believe I have only 5 weeks left! I am half way done!

Schmidt Chapter 11

Chapter 11 of Schmidt is all about communication. Cross cultural communication is something that can potentially play a huge role in communicating with parents if they are from an unfamiliar culture than you. Even paraprofessionals or other coworkers that you work with may be of a different culture than you. Communication is an area that I feel teachers can always be improving in.

Thankfully, at Trinity I have had a lot of instruction on communication. We have had many discussions and role play opportunities for how to communicate best with those of other cultures than our own. What I have learned about this is that getting a good background knowledge and doing your research is key to cross cultural communication. Another experience I had at Trinity was being able to design a communication plan for communicating with parents and paraprofessionals. What I have learned concerning that is that being proactive is key. Always try to start off on a positive note and do so early on.

The reason that Schmidt talks about for communication being so important is that it is key to getting everyone on the same page and if everyone is on the same page, the child will be benefitted. It is also good to have a positive and comfortable relationship with those connections so that if any problems ever arise, you have already made contact and have built an open line for communication. One tip that I really enjoyed was offering visuals to parents for communication and having the visuals be brief and concise. Bullets, Summaries, Examples, etc.

Week 4

My fourth week of student teaching went wonderfully. I really enjoyed it. I was really proud of the progress I saw my students making this week. I gave assessments in Math and Literacy this week and I was so pleased with the scores. My three lowest performing students received meets with minimal accommodations. There was only one approaching for each test and they were both because of a lot of simple mistakes. We did a lot of work with multiplying fractions and I was happy to see some of my students choosing methods that I taught that worked best for them. I think they are really starting to understand their learning styles and that you can do something in more than one way and still get a correct answer.

This week I was able to sit down with the 2 5th grade teachers and the math specialist to start planning out the next unit- dividing fractions. I really like the way that this school schedules a time each week for math planning with the specialist. I think that she is a wonderful resource and that it is great that everyone is on the same page. I am really looking forward to starting a new project with my students that the other 5th grade teacher planned as part of her masters class. She made a webquest in which the students become experts on a colony in one of the three regions of the 13 original colonies. I worked really hard this week to set up their groups and organize them so that I have fairly mixed ability groups. I also planned so that the people in the groups will mesh well as well as assigning the individuals a role that suits them best. I am really looking forward to seeing how this webquest plays out and how using game based learning effects their retention of the materials.

This week was filled with 5th grade drama. From rumors, to cheating on assignments, to anxiety, to inappropriate language, and name calling...it is easy to say we had a student in tears every day this week. I really learned a lot about how to handle certain situations and how to respond to parents as well as students and administration when sticky and uncomfortable situations arise. Even though it was a stressful week, it was a great one. I learned a lot about standard 4L which states: the competent classroom teacher analyzes the classroom environment and makes decision to enhance mutual respect and positive social relationships.
 
The highlight of my week was intervention time on Thursday during afternoon literacy. I take two tier 2 and one special education student aside and do some extra minutes with them. In these minutes, I monitor the rest of the class to make sure they are working on their reading contracts and then I read an additional story, review vocab, and prompt the students with comprehension questions. During this particular intervention time, I realized that the 3 students could not remember any of their vocabulary words for the test on Friday. I decided to spend most of the intervention time on a study strategy for vocab. I had them each make a flip chart with notebook paper and they wrote the word on one side and drew a picture, wrote a short definition, and a "memory" word on the other to help them study. Each of those students aced their vocab test the next day! WOOHOO! They also were able to draw many connections between the stories we read in class this week. I see these students making leaps and bounds of progress.

Next week, I start teaching the full load!

Schmidt Chapter 2

1. From Schmidt chapter 2 I have learned that eptness means combining capacities and meaningful activity (pg. 24). A classroom with a community of eptness would involve students and teachers working together by learning together. Everyone in the classroom has value and it is important to share ideas with one another and challenge one another to go beyond their current level. Everyone in the class is both a teacher and learner. The teacher is not the only one who brings learning to the table, the students are also more than capable of teaching one another.

Schmidt also refers to behaviors in this chapter. The three behaviors that I can use in my placement are: model being a learner, never too late, and feedback. I would say that modeling is one of my strengths. Sometimes I plan to model in a lesson, but more than not it just happens. I naturally model everything I teach. Something I wish I saw more of is my students modeling learning to one another. I want to see them helping each other out more and much more less of students just copying down something during group times. I want each and every student to understand, not just copy. I understand that sometimes students might learn more and better from a peer than they would from me and I encourage that. I know that I do not know everything and if a peer can explain something better than I can, I am all for it.

Secondly, the behavior "never too late" is a behavior I want to utilize more in my classroom. It is never too late to learn something new or to master a standard. I am so proud of my students when they persevere and rise above a challenge. Lastly, feedback. You can never give too much feedback.  Although, you can give too much vague feedback or useless feedback. This semester I learned that I am queen of "good work" and "great job" feedback on journal responses. I have been pushing myself much harder to have more meaningful and specific feedback in order to help my students continue to learn.