Week 15

·         Rate your overall experience of the week: 1-Very difficult | 5 – Great week

Hello Everyone,

I would give my week a 5. This is my last week full time with my students. Though I am happy at the prospect of soon graduating, I am not looking forward to saying goodbye to my children. The consolation is that I will be teaching Kindergarten a few doors down from my CE’s class.

·         Seven questions to end your week:

How do you insert music on to your video portfolio?

What kind of music are you going to put on your video portfolio?

What grade are you interested in teaching when you get out of college?

How are you going to decorate your own classroom?

What will be your classroom theme?

How do you handle transitions in your classroom?

How do you handle a student who refuses to do work?

·         Observe: My EC student completed his spelling test on Monday since he had received his spelling words in the middle of last week. He scored a hundred percent on the words which was a major accomplishment for him. I have been working with his mom by circling the spelling words for him to study. She, in turn, will practice the words with him until he can flawlessly spell them.

·         Reflect: This week the students learned all about China so they could understand the culture behind the Chinese Cinderella story called Yeh-Shen. We read the book on Wednesday since it was so long. The students were confused about some of the vocabulary words in the story even when I tried to explain some of the words. When our field trip day came (Thursday), I had students watch an animated video of the story. They loved the movie. The movie helped connect what they had learned from the story. We worked on how Cinderella and Yeh Shen compare and contrast. Next week we will work on questions about Yeh-Shen.

·         Focus: My short-term goal is to finish all my written portfolio this weekend. My long-term goal is to complete my video.

·         Be Productive: Next week, my plan is to write up each observation I observe every single day so that all the observations will be ready to submit on Friday.

·         Have Courage:  Many of my students were so confused with the geometry test. They had forgotten what the names of the shapes looked like. I had done a small review before the test, however, the students were still very confused when taking the test. I made the decision to stop the test and do a more through review on shapes, fractions, and times. The students did much better. They knew the information; however, they had needed a refresher on the material.

·         Begin Anew:  I need to be careful in how much time I spend in literacy. I only have thirty minutes to teach the core math lessons, however, I have trouble getting all the students to complete their work.

·         What were some data you analyzed this week and how did it help inform your instructional decisions?

I was disappointed in a few of my students spelling scores this week. Though most of the students did well, a few of my students were really confused on the ew, ui, and ue words. Also, students are getting confused with the previous sounds of the rules such as igh and oa. My plan next week is to review the sounds every single day so that students will be familiar with them before test time.

What is one piece of advice you can share with other student teachers?

“Finish Strong! We have almost made it.”

·         NC Teacher Candidate Standards (be sure to reference activities from your lesson plans to solidify your answer)

·         Pick an element from standard one 1a: Be a leader in your classroom. I lead the class this week by deciding on a new activity to add on to the LIF lesson.  The students practiced beginning, middle, and ending by writing about the story of Yeh-Shen. They need as much writing as possible especially since assessments will be coming up.

·         Pick an element from standard two 2b: We learned about the Chinese culture. The students enjoyed learning about China and how the county has an impact on the world.

·         Pick an element from standard three 3a: For this week, I connected the standard of reuse, recycle, and reduce to the upcoming Earth Day. The students made the earth out of a piece of paper. We also discussed how it is important to recycle paper, cans, and bottles to be used again, reduce electricity and water by turning it off when we do not use it, and reuse clothing and lunch boxes to save on waste.

·         Pick an element from standard four 4d: I created a Padlet on the internet for the children. Padlet is a technology for students to add comments on a safe website using the internet. I made the website private for our class. Students could see their peers’ responses. My question was for them to tell me the most important thing they learned about China. For students to get on Padlet they scanned a up bar code which downloaded onto their iPad.

·         Pick an element from standard five 5a: I reflected on their spelling and math test they completed today. I will still refer to geometry shapes next week as we begin another unit in Math. The students were mostly confused with how a square is a type of rectangle and a rhombus is a type of square. Some students were also having trouble identifying a hexagon.

·         What components of your portfolio have you started to complete?

I am almost finished with my portfolio. All I need to do is tweak and edit my work for my live binder. For my video, I have the footage, but I need to work on condensing the time. I also need to put music into my iMovie.

·         What support does your clinical educator need from your university supervisor?

·         What support do you need from your university supervisor?

·                     My CE and I do not need any support right now. I will email if we do. Thank you.