2.24.17

Week of Reflection: 2.24.17

  

• Rate your overall experience of the week: 4
• Seven questions to end your week:
• • Observe
    I was pleasantly surprised at the results that my behavior survey had been building. As I used the survey to not only create and implement plans for several students, I was able to see a more clear picture of what drives my students. I initially thought I knew everything about my students since I had been with them since day one, but I came out knowing even more than I do now.
    
    
  • Reflect
    I have learned that using the right kind of hooks really can have a positive impact on your lessons. I had tried some hook methods previously that just did not positively impact my lessons, so that had put me in the wrong kind of mindset. That's why I have made it one of my PDP goals this semester to develop hooks.
    
    
  • Focus
    As I have now completed half of my student teaching experience, I realize that I will not be with my students forever. As stressful as they can be, I will definitely miss them and want the very best for them!! So, I am making short term efforts while I still can to give them the tools. Since my last day being their "full time teacher" is March 31st, I want to give them everything I have got in me to prepare them and teach them the NC Standard Course of Study. Of course, I am doing this by being more meaningful in my research for materials and resources. I also note many of the mental and emotional needs my students have, and I want to be able to accommodate them while I still can.
    
    
  • Be Productive
    While I am please in the progress I am making with staying on top of things and getting things in place for my students, I think I could focus more time on edTPA. I've got my components written, and they're ready to teach, but I want to take more time to cross my t's and dot my i's before I begin teaching it.
    
    
  • Have Courage
    This week, I was nervous to give my students their division test on Friday because, as a grade level, we had been trying to play catch up with the math plans. I have noted the rearrangements in my lesson reflections, but I still was apprehensive as to whether or not my students were ready. I will definitely want to go back and reteach where I can, just to be sure they have a firm foundation.
    
    
  • Begin Anew: What is the first logical step(s) for next week? What mental clutter can I clear?
    Once I completely finish teaching my edTPA lessons, I feel like I will have a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders! I am excited for edTPA because I feel like it's a great process for teachers to go through, but it is also a huge thing at the same time.

• What were some data you analyzed this week and how did it help inform your instructional decisions?
  I had a Tier 3 meeting this week and was fortunate enough to look at the student's growth data. The student is currently reading at 88 words per minute, and our end of year goal for her is 103 words
  
  
• What is one piece of advice you can share with other student teachers?

Most of us are officially halfway through our student teaching experience! Don't get slack and count the days. Make the days count!

• NC Teacher Candidate Standards (be sure to reference activities from your lesson plans to solidify your answer)
• • Standard One
    There have been several incidents this week which concerned the safety of a student and I had act and share information with administration/guidance staff. It was a somewhat sad situation that I had to take charge of because of the information I had.
    
    
  • Standard Two
    This week, I used freerice.org as an incentive time activity for students to not only practice vocabulary and math, but also to discuss other cultures and how there is a lack of food in many countries around the world. We discussed how families have to pull together in those cultures, as well as how they handle food and shelter. 
    
    
  • Standard Three
    I used a teacher versus student competition during second special this week. We were practicing standard algorithm division, and if students could solve a problem before me, they got a point as a team. This allowed me to practice my content knowledge, as well as show my students that I am just as competent as any teacher should be.
    
    
  • Standard Four
    Using hooks has made such a difference in my instruction, and students especially liked the Context Clues "mystery bag". They liked that they got to manipulate what was in the bag, which I want to start to incorporate more.
    
    
  • Standard Five
    I have made it a PDP goal of mine to attend professional development opportunities. These opportunities include topics of formative assessment, digital learning, and how to be a more engaging teacher. I am excited for these opportunities and how they can impact my classroom.
    
    
• Other:
• What components of your portfolio have you started to complete?
  My website is being updated, as well as starting to complete the edTPA process.
  
  
• What support does your clinical educator need from your university supervisor?
  None at this time
• What support do you need from your university supervisor?
• None at this time

2.17.17

Week of Reflection: 2-13-17

  

• Rate your overall experience of the week: 3
• Seven questions to end your week:
• • Observe: What pleasant surprises / accomplishments did I achieve this week?
    I have been pleased at my class' scores on their Partial Quotients Quiz. Not that the other classes performed poorly, but my class had some of the highest scores in the grade level. Division was something that I was particularly apprehensive about, but I also have enjoyed getting to teach.
    
    
  • Reflect: What lessons did my work/experiences teach me that I will build upon next week?
    I have learned this week that your hooks can make or break your lesson, especially in subjects that are not so much fun to teach. If you hook your students correctly, you will see behavior issues go away. Of course, I've learned a lot this week about how untrue that can be if your students are facing issues that may cause them to deem their education less important.
    
    
  • Focus:  How are my short-term efforts and my long-term goals still aligned?
    I think that this far into the experience, I want to add a new long-term goal of just being an effective AND affective teacher. That can be done in many ways, but one way in particular that I am working on it is to not try to micromanage my class/lesson. I feel that they might hear too much of me, so I'm going to make it a short term effort to be more meaningful in the things I direct my students to do.
    
    
  • Be Productive: What could I have spent more or less time doing?
    I could have spent more time working on hooks and transitions and less time on classroom management. While I'm excited about Class Madness, I want students to be able to be self-sustained by using it. That is a goal for next week.
    
    
  • Have Courage:  How did apprehension and indecision impact what I did and didn’t do?
    This week, I was very unsure of how to approach being slightly behind in regards to our division unit. This is partly because the master plan for 4th grade had us teaching a normal on the 4th grade planning day, and I planned for what the sub plan had to offer. This was to keep the grade level on a consistent level. Well, now we are all in similar but different places. I knew that that would present challenges coming into this week, so it has been somewhat of a snarl trying to play catch up while teaching a division, which is somewhat foreign to students. So having that experience has been nice but I was definitely apprehensive about how it would all get done.
    
    
  • Begin Anew: What is the first logical step(s) for next week? What mental clutter can I clear?
    Next week, I want to start on a refreshed note. I am going into week five and have been working really hard on planning lessons and edTPA. As I begin the process of edTPA, I feel like it would be really beneficial to take the weekend to get ahead, but I also want to take this weekend and use it to relax in order to prevent getting burned out. Either way, I want to use my time this weekend strategically.

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

This week, I decided to revisit our school improvement plan and take a look at what I wrote about last semester in EDUC 435. Math was a need that was to be addressed, and I'm glad to say that I'm honing in on that as an educator. I have learned so much about teaching, and specifically about teaching what needed to be addressed on the SIP. Looking at that SIP reiterated the importance of getting NCSCOS Math concepts through to my students.

• What is one piece of advice you can share with other student teachers?
• It's never too early to start working ahead. Life happens, and you want to make sure you give yourself enough leeway to do what you need to do. That is what you should expect from your students, is to be human. The best way to do that is to allow plenty of time to complete tasks.

• NC Teacher Candidate Standards (be sure to reference activities from your lesson plans to solidify your answer)
• • Pick an element from standard one of the evaluation tool and explain some activities/strategies you implemented this week to increase your rating for the element.
    This week, I used a lot of "real world examples" for students because I feel that it is really important for them to understand the importance of getting the education they are getting.
    
    
  • Pick an element from standard two of the evaluation tool and explain some activities/strategies you implemented this week to increase your rating for the element.
    We had a particular incident occur in our classroom that was totally unrelated to instruction. This incident was related to the health of a student, and I had to think quickly on my feet to make accommodations for the student because it impacted her learning (environment), so I wanted to make the best choice possible for her. If I have learned anything from being in the school for over half a year now, I have learned that diversity is much more than race or gender.
    
    
  • Pick an element from standard three of the evaluation tool and explain some activities/strategies you implemented this week to increase your rating for the element.
    I feel that I've gotten really comfortable with the content that I am teaching, and I actually have grown more fond of teaching mathematics. That may be because there are definitive answers, reasoning and logic involved in mathematics, but I also enjoy the challenge that teaching mathematics presents to me. I feel that this initial uncertainty in mathematics has definitely been an experience.
    
    
  • Pick an element from standard four of the evaluation tool and explain some activities/strategies you implemented this week to increase your rating for the element.
    I've definitely learned how to gauge a students understanding by visual cues this week. This week has been pretty hectic as Valentine's Day was on Tuesday. For some reason, they all got very excited, we shall put it, and we also had "Books and Blankets" on Thursday. So I've had to pick up some strategies to ensure they are focused on learning, not just the fun things.
    
    
  • Pick an element from standard five of the evaluation tool and explain some activities/strategies you implemented this week to increase your rating for the element.
    I have learned to be more meaningful in my reflections, and begun to even do revisions or "pre-reflections" as plans change. I've learned that there is nothing wrong with a plan being changed, but rather the importance to document it.
• Other:
• • What components of your portfolio have you started to complete?
    Continued to collect data on focus student(s), outline what my portfolio is going to look like, align edTPA with portfolio requirements
    
    
  • What support does your clinical educator need from your university supervisor?
    None at the moment
    
    
  • What support do you need from your university supervisor?
  • We can discuss it at the seminar, but I would love to talk more about hook strategies.

2.10.17

Week of Reflection: February 10th, 2017

  

• Rate your overall experience of the week: 4
• Seven questions to end your week:
• Observe: What pleasant surprises / accomplishments did I achieve this week?
• This week, I piloted a completely new approach to classroom management. I designed it myself so that it correlated with the feedback I had received from my university supervisor in my first observation. I am really glad to have received that feedback because I've been able to catch mannerisms and things about my teaching practices that I can make even better! I dubbed this classroom management tool "Class Madness". Using a bracket similar to a sports championship bracket, I set it up to where each of my 6 tables in the classroom have to collaborate to earn team tallies. When I catch a table doing what they need to be doing (as a whole), I am able to positively praise them without having to stop my instruction for anything other than to congratulate them and ask their table leader to put a tally under their team. They have gotten so into it, and we even created table team names and mascots. I am currently working on a permanent bracket for the classroom, so I was really surprised and happy that something I created has been working so well, and that it addressed feedback from my observation so directly.
• Reflect: What lessons did my work/experiences teach me that I will build upon next week?
• I taught text features and was able to integrate science and social studies into the lesson series we went through. We completed a "Moon Book", which is a packet type book that we use to go page by page and create text features. The book had passages and photographs of the Moon, since that was our subject of the book. I want to try to deeply integrate more science and social studies more next week.

  
  
• Focus:  How are my short-term efforts and my long-term goals still aligned?
  Short term, I am wanting to find more engaging ways to hook my students for lessons that are not necessarily compatible with hooks, such as lessons that do not have a teacher input or anything like that. Being able to effectively hook my students goes along with my long term goal of successfully completing 10 weeks of effective teaching.
  
  
• Be Productive: What could I have spent more or less time doing?
  I could have definitely spent more time working on my reflections but I am working on getting into a routine of reflecting before I go home. That way, everything that happened during the lesson is still fresh on my mind. However, with some of my objectives, I won't know if they were met or not until later because I am relying on assessment data (quizzes, tests, etc.).
  
  
• Have Courage:  How did apprehension and indecision impact what I did and didn’t do?
  I was nervous to begin this week just because last week was not the greatest week in terms of behavior, but I'm so glad to say that this week has been great. We did not have any major behavior issues and I really feel like I was able to built a lot of relationships with my students. That allowed us to be a a more productive classroom.
  
  
• Begin Anew: What is the first logical step(s) for next week? What mental clutter can I clear?
  Next week, I am coming in with some fresh hooks and different ways to keep students engaged. I've also spent more time studying my division, which is good because I am teaching it way differently than how I was taught, even in college.
  
  

Adapted from: Cernoff, M. (2013, August 7). 7 Questions to End Your Week With. . Retrieved July 21, 2014, from http://www.marcandangel.com/2013/08/08/7-questions-to-end-your-week-with/

• What were some data you analyzed this week and how did it help inform your instructional decisions?
  This week, I took a look at our DIBELS data from last quarter because we began the process of reassessing the small group needs of our students. Some students ended up leaving their groups, while others stayed or were relocated to accommodate a new need.
  
  
• What is one piece of advice you can share with other student teachers?

Don't be afraid to rely on your CE, or your whole grade level for that matter. Something I have to remind myself of every day is that every single teacher and principal got their start doing what I am doing now. Granted, most of them did not have to do 1/5 of what I am doing as part of my student teaching experience, but they've been in my shoes regardless. Sometimes I'm hesitant to ask my grade level for help, but they reminded me this week that we work together as a unit for a greater good. So don't be afraid to lean on them when you're out of ideas or need motivation to get through something.

• NC Teacher Candidate Standards (be sure to reference activities from your lesson plans to solidify your answer)
• • Pick an element from standard one of the evaluation tool and explain some activities/strategies you implemented this week to increase your rating for the element.
    I've been working with my CE to ensure that the students understand that I am the standing teacher in the room. It is a transition that is going, maybe not as fast as I would like but progress is progress nonetheless.
    
    
  • Pick an element from standard two of the evaluation tool and explain some activities/strategies you implemented this week to increase your rating for the element.
    This week I have put a heavy emphasis on having compassion and empathy for our peers. I talked a lot with my students throughout the week about the fact of if they want respect, they must give respect. So on and so forth. I am excited to touch more on that this coming week.
    
    
  • Pick an element from standard three of the evaluation tool and explain some activities/strategies you implemented this week to increase your rating for the element.
    I was pleasantly surprised by how quickly students were picking up division since they had not learned any division prior to me teaching it. I have had to pick up some of the different methods we teach to the students to solve it, but I definitely have a handle on things at the moment.
    
    
  • Pick an element from standard four of the evaluation tool and explain some activities/strategies you implemented this week to increase your rating for the element.
    I tried to use different activities to keep students engaged and on task during my lessons this week. In particular, I used Go Noodle during second special to allow my students to finish the day strong. I found that it gave them a needed boost of energy, or in some cases, an effective way to get the jitters out and focus better. I also found that one of the best ways to help students learn is to make it relevant to them. With division, I used examples to help them see the need to learn division. In ELA, I've been referencing fake books, and using student's names as the author of the book to make them want to learn about text features.
    
    
  • Pick an element from standard five of the evaluation tool and explain some activities/strategies you implemented this week to increase your rating for the element.
    I was observed by my principal this week during ELA, and even though it was the first time, I was not nervous. I think that is because I felt that I was confident in what I was teaching (Moon Book) and students were actively engaged and wanting to learn about the moon. I used her feedback slip to tweak my instruction, but more than anything I appreciate being observed by a principal who has many other things she could have been doing. I definitely used her feedback to drive instruction and take a look at what I'm doing.
    
    
• Other:
• • What components of your portfolio have you started to complete?
    Finalizing edTPA plans, assessing my focus students, recording lessons
    
    
  • What support does your clinical educator need from your university supervisor?
    None at this time
    
    
  • What support do you need from your university supervisor?
  • None at this time