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?