Week 12

        For this past week, our mentor teacher has had us teach a lot.  It has been great practice because she has had us teach every subject.  Although this week we have had some pretty bad behavioral problems with a couple of our students.  One of the students is supposed to be on medicine but has not been on it for the past few weeks which tends to cause a lot of issues in the classroom.  The other student we had a problem with this week just seemed to be extremely reluctant to following directions.
        On Thursday we had a substitute teacher come in and our mentor teacher just told us to teach all day and handle any issues that arose.  Not surprisingly, we had some pretty serious issues with both of those students previously stated.  I had to deal with one of the students while my co-teaching partner taught the rest of the class and then at the end of the day we both dealt with the other student during math while the substitute dealt with the first student.  It was a very stressful day and it got me wondering how you are supposed to deal with behavior like this when you are by yourself in the classroom.

Week 11

        This past week I have been trying to gather more data for my inquiry by observing and giving my teacher a survey to fill out.  I was able to observe one math lesson this week which involved a hands-on portion in the lesson.  The students had to figure out how to make certain shapes with smaller shapes.  So essentially they were working on parts of a whole.  They were able to figure out the problems a lot easier with the manipulatives because they could compare the shapes with the images in their books.
        Similar to my other observations, even though they were a little chatty they were focused on what they were doing and what they needed to complete.  I think it is important to get them interested in what they are about to do in a lesson so they will be more focused and understand better about what they are supposed to do when the time comes.
        I still have a little more research to do in journals and articles but I think it is very helpful to students when they are able to use manipulatives and interact with hands-on activities in a math lesson.  From my observations, it helps them focus on the topic and keeps them interested in it which makes learning and understanding a lot easier for them. 

Blog Revisit

        After rereading all of my blogs for this semester, the main topics that came up had to deal with traditional classrooms, individual work, behavior issues, and different grouping.  One of the reasons I think I mentioned these things the most was because they are something I am worried about in the future for when I teach my own classroom.  I also think these are things that could be worked on in this classroom as well.
        I am the type of person to stress about the future way in advance so I tend to worry about a lot of things.  Because I have been having trouble in this classroom now with behavior and different student groupings, I can't help but think I will have these same problems in the near future.  I think I am having these issues because I came halfway through the school year so the students do not really see me as a head authority figure in the classroom.  They are used to their teacher's voice already and quiets down when she speaks but they do not do the same for me and my co-teaching partner.  I have learned that it better to be strict in the beginning and then go easy on them than vize versa.  If you let them walk all over you in the beginning, then there is no turning back.
        I also mentioned traditional classrooms and individual work a lot and this is because that is what describes my mentor teacher's classroom.  It is one of the things that bother me the most, I think.  The majority of the day is the students sitting in their desks doing individual work.  Because they are always doing individual work, they never have the opportunity to learn how to work in a group.  This makes it difficult when my partner and I have to differentiate and group them because they always misbehave and act out when they are in groups.
        I think this just means that these issues will be addressed very early in my classroom so the students know where I stand on certain things including individual and group behavior.

Week 10

        My co-teaching partner and I finished our Social Studies Unit this week.  There were a couple of issues within the three lessons but overall, I think it was pretty successful.  We had to separate them into groups for the first lesson so they could go to different centers throughout the room.  The centers were about Native American shelters, clothing, and food.  Some of the problems that occurred was a lack of attention and getting distracted by their friends.  We also had to group them for the second lesson.  They did an archeological dig and had to mark off which things were used by Native Americans and which things are used by us.  There were also some behavior issues with this lesson but overall they did well.  For the third lesson, they did not have to be put in groups.  They all made their own Native American names and then they all made their own pottery bowls out of play-doh.  Surprisingly, there were not any serious behavior problems during the third lesson.
        Looking back on these lessons, I think the main reason for this class' misbehavior is the style of grouping.  The personalities of the students do not seem to work that well together and it definitely shows when they are working in cooperative groups.  I also think misbehavior occurs because these students have not yet learned how to work in groups so they do not know how to act with their peers in this setting.
        This kind of upsets me because I think children should learn at a young age how to interact with their peers in an academic setting.  It is very clear that the classroom I am in right now, rarely uses cooperative groups during the day.  It is mostly individual work while sitting at their desks.  I hope this can change over time and I know I will be using a good amount of cooperative groups in my future classroom.

Week 9

        This week has been fairly busy with different assignments and observations in the classroom.  I observed our fourth lesson study this week as well as completed 1 of 3 Social Studies Unit lessons.  The lesson study is always improving and I am getting great experience debriefing about it and learning how to make lessons more effective for the students.  The Social Studies Unit has been successful so far and our students have enjoyed learning about Native Americans.
        This week's reading was about Data Analysis.  One of the main ways I am getting my information is by observing and taking field notes during math class.  I have taken notes on about 3 or 4 math classes that have lined up with my inquiry project and have also taken notes on a non-example math class for my inquiry.  It has been very helpful to see how the students behave depending on how the lesson is presented.  There is a difference between their behaviors when they get to use manipulatives but it also depends if they are doing it in groups or individually.  From my observations so far, they seem to do a lot better in math when they are working individually with manipulatives.  It creates a competitive environment which they all seem to enjoy and keeps them more engaged in the lesson.  I want to interview or survey the students on how well they think they stay focused in math.  I think I might get more honest answers if I give them an anonymous survey to fill out though so I think I might do that.  Hopefully I can get even more information from obeserving and teaching them during math class.

Week 8

        Even though my class does not  show that much differentiation throughout the day, I can compare it to the reading we had to do - Ch.6 routines in a differentiated classroom: once the work starts.  A couple of things that caught my eye in this reading was when it mentioned working in groups, helping students with transitions, and managing time.  Two of these things, working in groups and managing time, seem to be a problem in my classroom.  After experiencing my pathwise lesson plan where we broke the students up into groups, it was easy to see that the students did not know how to work in groups.  It is important for the teacher to teach the students how to work in groups or they will never know what to do or what is appropriate.  It is also imperative that you give them expectations so they know what is expected of them throughout the lesson.  Managing time is also something that seems to be having some trouble in our classroom.  Some subjects run over the allotted time and some run short.  In some cases, if the whole group understands it or does not understand it, it might be okay to cut it short or run it long.  But in the case of our class, there is always at least one or two students that do not understand so it would not be good to cut the lesson short because you could use that time to help those specific children.  One thing that I think is going pretty well in my classroom is transitions within the classroom.  My mentor teacher has an assigned student to pass out books so it runs very smoothly and it does not get too crowded around the book shelf.  She also has a student who is assigned to pass out cubbies for everyone for when they are taking a test so they all do not race to go get them.  It seems like such a small thing but it helps a lot with many of the transitions in the classroom.
Wondering: what are some ways to help students work in groups?

Week 7

        One thing that stuck out to me in the reading this week in "Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom" were the descriptions of the different classroom types.  The reading mentioned dysfunctional, adequate, orderly/restrictive, and orderly/enabling.  Dysfunctional is described as chaotic, adequate was said to be at the basic level of order, restrictive is considered a tight-ship, and enabling is looser structure.  After looking at all of the types, I would have to say that the classroom I am in is a combination of a few of them.  The majority is an adequate classroom but there are also times when it is dysfunctional and sometimes restrictive.  There are moments when my mentor teacher mind of lets the students do what they want without really monitoring them but there other times where she is very strict and lays down the law for certain things.  In my opinion, I think this could be quite confusing for some of the students because they do not know how exactly the teacher wants them to act.  It would obviously be ideal if the classroom was orderly and enabling but this classroom is very traditional and strays away from that idea.  They do a lot of individual work, rarely work in groups, and they are fed the answers in a lot of assignments they do in class.  One thing that my mentor teacher does very though is getting to know her students, which was also mentioned in the reading.  She has told me many times that she likes to get to know her students and let them know that she cares about them.  This helps with building relationships with them in the classroom and it also helps with building up the community of the class.
        I have made my wondering a little more specific in the fact that it will be during math.  This will make it easier when I have to come up with manipulatives for them to use during class.
Wondering:  How will hands-on activities help misbehaving students to be more focused and have appropriate behavior during math lessons?

Week 6

        The reading this past week mentioned developing a research plan and differentiated classrooms.  Our field experience has had us do some similar things that would have to be done in developing a research plan.  I have taken field notes, taken up student work, interviewed students, reflected on my experience, taken surveys, and have seen quantitative measures of student achievement.  All of these different strategies have helped me gain more perspective on the classroom environment and the student interactions.
        I have always had a little trouble figuring out how I was going to differentiate my classroom and lessons without it being unfair.  The grade I am working with, 2nd grade, are very set on being fair and if it is not fair, they get extremely upset.  I'm worried that if they see I am changing the lesson for a particular student to make it less or more challenging, they will not understand.  And I do not want to explain to the entire class that I am doing that because this student cannot keep up as quickly as the rest of the class and this student is able to do more than normal.  But I guess over time, the students would get used to this and just let it be without arguing anymore.  We need to try and teach our students that fair does not mean identical treatment but instead means equity of opportunity to grow and succeed.  If we are able to convey that message to the students then they will better understand the concept of differentiated learning and the necessity of it.
        My wondering for my inquiry has been determined and ideally isolated to the subject of math to make data collection a little easier.  My wondering is: how can hands-on activities improve student behavior and learning?

Week 5

        This week has been quite eventful compared to the past few.  On Monday and Tuesday my partner and I had to deal with a lot of behavior problems.  The upside about that was that it gave us an insight on the "not so glorious side of teaching" which was good for us to experience.  It gave us the opportunities to figure out how to handle different situations and issues.
        After reading "Leading and Managing a Differentiated Classroom" on differentiated instruction, I was able to connect it with my classroom and students.  Differentiation is a classroom practice with a balanced emphasis on individual students and course content.  On Monday, they were learning about "double borrowing" in three digit subtraction.  For example, 403 - 159 = ? where the students have to borrow from the "4" and "turn the 0 into a 9" and then "turn the 3 into a 13".  The students were extremely confused and there was not enough time to truly explain what they are doing when they do that.  There was no time to differentiate the lesson so our mentor teacher just had us teach the students the "rules" which was, of course, still very confusing.
        Lindsey and I were able to teach our Pathwise lesson plan this week and it did not go that smoothly.  We eventually had to break the class into groups for an activity and we broke them up based on their reading levels and behavior.  The students' desks are set up to where there is rarely ever any group work being done so I do not think they were ever taught how to work in a group which our activity very difficult to get through.  One thing that our reading mentioned about differentiated instruction is that you have to be flexible and we definitely were flexible in this lesson.  We had to continue to scaffold certain students that were still having a difficult time and managing groups that did not seem to work well together.  Overall, I think this lesson provided us with a lot of information and insight on how our students work and what they need to work on socially.
        Weekly wondering:  When and how can I provide the knowledge and experience for my students so they will know how to be more successful in collaborative groups?

Week 4

        This week was similar to the other weeks that I have been to at this school.  My mentor teacher had me and my partner teach quite a few lessons while we were there.  Our teacher has had us take over Reading instruction whenever we are there and sometimes has us do math and science as well.  This has been great experience for both of us.
        The reading for our seminar  in "Better Learning" was able to connect with something I did during reading instruction last week.  The chapter about guided instruction was very relevant, I thought, with my teaching.  A major part of guided instruction is scaffolding and I did that for the class through my non-examples that I provided.  I was working on grammar with the class about irregular verbs and their past tenses.  The words we discussed were "go", "do", "see", and "say".  They have learned that if the verb is past tense then you add an "ed" to the end of it.  With the words previously stated, that is not the case.  Those words past tense are "went", "did", "saw", and "said".  I know they can hear what sounds correct but not necessarily notice it on paper so I verbally gave them a couple of non-examples to help them figure it out.  Some of the examples I gave them were "I goed to the market" and "I doed my homework".  The class automatically knew it was wrong and what needed to be changed.  After we filled in the correct answers, we chorally read each sentence together to make sure every one sounded right.
        After doing this, I realized that the students really enjoyed correcting my non-examples because they thought it was funny that a teacher said something incorrectly.
Wondering: By making the students become the teachers of the class sometimes, will it help them to understand and be more engaged in a lesson?

Week 3

        Week three of my pre-internship has been just as rewarding as week one and two.  Although we were only there for two days, our teacher still had plenty of things for us to do in the classroom.  One of the things that I decided to do this week was observe individual students to see if I could figure out their strengths and weaknesses.  There are several students who excel in certain subjects and others, of course, who work at a much slower pace.  This made me think of how the different learning levels would affect the lesson.  According to "Better Learning" there should be a focus lesson, guided instruction, collaborative work, and independent work in every lesson.  In my class right now there just seems to be the focus lesson, guided instruction, and individual work; there does not seem to be time for the collaborative work.  I think if we were able to fit the collaboration in though, it would be beneficial for all of the students.  The higher level students would be able to assist the students that are having trouble and they can discuss why it is supposed to be the way it is.  It also said in the reading that students should not be asked to do unfamiliar tasks independently and I think my mentor teacher does a good job of activating the students' background knowledge before beginning an activity or assignment.
        There was one student that caught my attention this week with a comment he had said aloud but not directed to anyone; he was just voicing a thought.  He said that school was boring and they just sit in their desks and write all day and that is all they ever do.  And after I thought about it, the majority of their day is sitting at their desks.  So this got me thinking of another wondering:  How can I make the classroom more active and engaging for the students while keeping an effective learning environment?

Week 1 & 2

        The past two weeks at my elementary school have been great!  I'm in a second grade classroom  with 19 students.  In my first week, my teacher had plugged me and my partner into teaching different subjects to the class.  I read stories and reviewed vocabulary words with the students throughout the readings.  This was a good way for the students to see that we are teachers, not just volunteers in their classroom.
        The second week of my pre-internship, our teacher had us co-teach an entire day while she did FAIR testing with individual students throughout the day.  She wrote down and planned the whole day for us because there was very little time for preparation and it was very helpful.  We had a few issues with getting the students settled down while teaching some lessons, especially after lunch and free play.  There were times where we actually had to get pretty stern with the students so they knew that we did not appreciate them being disrespectful while we were trying to teach.
        There are a couple of ways that our practicum has related to our reading.  Chapter 1 discussed teacher inquiry which can be used to our advantage.  Some essential points of teacher inquiry are teacher engagement, intentional reflections, and Professional Learning Communities.  We are always engaged with our students and the classroom and are continuously reflecting on our actions and the students' actions to help us be more effective with our teaching.  I also see our weekly seminar as a type of PLC for a group of us (student teachers) to discuss our experiences with our students and teachers with each other.
        Weekly wondering:  How can I present the material of the lesson to the class so they stay engaged?