Beginning Student Teaching Week 1

I would rate my experience for this week as a 3. The classroom full of kindergartners were not excited to get back to work after the long refreshing holiday. Many students had forgotten the classroom rules such as sit in your seat unless you have to go to the bathroom, raise your hand when you must ask a question, and when you need a pencil go take your pencil to the pencil box and change it for a sharpened pencil.

I cannot say it was a terrible week though because of the writing contest. All week I have been working with the students on their writing. We had a writing contest on Friday of who could write the neatest work on the line. I gave students a piece of paper with two sentences. They had to copy the exact sentence underneath the sentence I had written. Students had to make sure their words were on the line. The capital letters must reach from the top line to the bottom line, the sentence must have a period at the end, the words must be spelled correctly, and the lowercase letters should come from the middle dashed line to the bottom line with the acceptation of letters like l and k. The first three students who did the neatest work were given a prize. I was pleased that it was difficult to pick who the winners were. Most of the students tried hard to do a good job. My goal is that the writing practice will help them do neater work even when there is not a prize involved.

For lessons we are learning about math: more, same as, and fewer. Students have understood the concept of same as and more, but they are still struggling with the fewer aspect so we will be going over the concept again next week. For literacy, I am now working on assessments with the students. The assessments include how much of the alphabet letters both capital and lower case can the students identify, letter sounds, numbers 1 through 30, how they can hold a book, syllables, first sound in words, last sound in words, rhyming and phoneme segmentation (how they can slide the word). For the next week, I will continue to work on assessments. I will also be reviewing what the students will be assessed on so they will be prepared to take the assessment.

My short-term efforts are still aligned with the daily schedule. The first-grade team will try out the math and literacy work in the morning and the literacy groups in the afternoon. My long-term goals are aligned I plan to start teaching January 23 on Tuesday. I had originally planned to start teaching Jan. 22 but it is a workday. Feb 5 week will be my first week to take charge of the whole classroom.

I had a lot of trouble last week with too much talking for my kindergartners. I am developing a plan where there will be less talk from them and more teaching from me. One aspect which concerns me is the talk which goes on while they complete their worksheets. I have made a card for each student which has green on the front and red on the back. If the students need me they turn the card over from green to red. If they do not need me they keep their card on the green. I am hoping the plan will discourage interruptions. Also, I plan to enforce if anyone blurts out they will clip down. The clip chart is a school-wide established behavior plan which enforces rules in the classroom. If students meet expectations and exceed expectations of classroom rules, they clip up to a higher color. Each student starts out on the green. If students exhibit bad behavior they must clip down. Clipping down students in the middle of the lesson is poor classroom skills. I resolve to write their names down and clip them down after the lesson.

I would like to devote the last 30 minutes of the day to a science or social studies activity. Because I did not handle my time in math as well as I should have this week the lesson ended too late to be able to do any other subject. Math is after lunch toward the end of the day for the kindergarten classroom. Next week I will work on developing a time for students where we will talk about arctic animals such as polar bears, penguins, and arctic foxes. We will talk about how colder the climate is in the South Pole compared to North Carolina.

For data I looked at this week for students would be their assessment work. Most of the students are familiar with letter recognition and letter sounds. However, students have difficulty giving the end sound of a word and finding a word that rhymes with a word I give them. Next week I will review rhyming words and ending sounds. January for the school is mostly an assessment month. I cannot do MClass of course since I am not a certified teaching. However, I can give an assessment for the six-week report cards. Also, students are still struggling with numbers 20 through 30. I will be reviewing math numbers next week as well.

One piece of advice for this week though teaching can be a struggle it is worth it. Especially when one of the students comes up to you and tells you they love you.

Standard 1a: One thing which has been difficult for me in the kindergarten classroom is to tell someone else what to do. I do not mind telling children what to do, but I feel strange telling a teacher’s assistant who is three times older than me what to do. I want to use her as much as I can for instructional purposes. Despite my concerns, I ask my teachers assistant to rotate around the room with me whenever students are doing their work. Normally three students have a question at one time so we can get to the answer twice as fast with two people. Teachers lead in the classroom by following the schedule and telling others what to do.

Standard 2e: I was able to talk with a parent on Friday when he came down to the school to each lunch with his daughter. We talked briefly about his daughter and how she was progressing in school. I was careful to give him an accurate understanding of how his daughter is doing in class. I never would want to hide the truth from parents or make their academic studies seem better than what they are. His little girl is a Hispanic speaking student who struggles academically. I have been able to see an increase in her work from the last time she was assessed. Though she is still below the other students she is making a step by step progress which is what I told her father. My strategy in dealing with parents is to always tell it like it is. I will be diplomatic, but honest.

Standard 3a: I have been working on using several different types of manipulatives in the classroom. For math when teaching fewer than I added an extra feature to the MIF lesson plan. I gave students several colored plastic bears. I then went to the tables and started taking away bears. I would go up to a student and ask how many bears they have. I would take a few bears away and ask how many did they have then. Students enjoyed the game and they were also introduced to the concept of subtraction.

Standard 4d: I am working on establishing a technology in my CE's first-grade classroom called classroom dojo. This is a wonderful resource to be able to stay in contact with parents. I can upload pictures of their children and record any sort of announcements parents need to know. Students behavior for the day will also be given so parents can see the positive and negative feedback from their child that day.

Standard 5c I have reflected on what I can do for interruptions in a lesson. I usually walk around the room anyway while I am teaching so instead of calling out the student and interrupting the whole lesson. I am going to try walking over to the student and tap them on the shoulder (stop doing this). The student in question will focus back on the lesson without getting embarrassed in front of his peers. Also, the lesson will not be interrupted.

For my portfolio, I have been working on my philosophy of education. I was completely baffled that I ever proudly called this paper my work. My original philosophy was terrible. I am working on developing a sound document which utilizes the philosophy of constructivism.

My clinical educator does not need any support as of now. I will let you know if she has questions.

I have no questions ask of now. Thank you.

I hope each and everyone of you has a wonderful week.