Week 1

1/9/18-1/12/18

Classroom Confidential- Chapter 1

I hope to incorporate each of the intelligences in the classroom because there is a variety of learners in the class. Not every students’ strong suit is Math or Literacy, and they should not suffer because of that. Lisa Bartoli discusses how she gives children the opportunities to explore the eight multiple intelligences in order to reveal their strengths and interests. I want my classroom to be a place where students feel challenged but also encouraged to think and learn in a way that best fits them. 

I plan on using a similar strategy as Bartoli to help students think about their own learning by considering their strengths, weaknesses, goals, and how they can improve in the areas they are less comfortable in. I believe by having discussions about their learning I am encouraging them to have a growth mindset and realize that their abilities are not fixed. By incorporating all the intelligences in my classroom I believe it will create a strong community within the classroom. Students will be able to see their own strengths and the strengths of their classmates in order to work together instead of seeing everything as a competition. Using all of the multiple intelligences will work to make every student feel valuable and a well-rounded person instead of school being a place they dread. 

I thought that Schmidt offered up some great ideas for using full-brain learning in the classroom. One idea I can see myself incorporating in my own teaching is urging students to think about how much they learn outside of school. I might accomplish this by having students brainstorm one thing they learned over the weekend and share it with the class. This way students are hearing about a variety of different things that they may not have learned otherwise. I also would like to encourage social communication between the class. Each student brings so much knowledge and unique talents to the table. When all that knowledge and skills are pooled together it is amazing what can be accomplished. Trying to incorporate full-brain learning with help me to steer away from getting bored looks, unengaged students, and to instead challenge their brains to reach their potential.

What Happened This Week

This week I came in on Tuesday after Student Teaching orientation on Monday to see my fifth grade class at Fulton Elementary school. I was with this class last semester during Novice Teaching. Therefore, it was wonderful to be reunited with them after quite some time. Before the class went on Christmas break, my cooperating teacher and I met to discuss a plan for when I came back in January. This week I was getting settled back in and preparing to take on my first subject next week. Therefore, this week I just jumped in and led activities here and there. 

The first thing that I took on was the morning work of this week-a cursive alliteration packet. The class is working with figurative language during their Literacy block. I think that this morning work is effective because it allows for students to be exposed to examples of alliterations for each letter of the alphabet while practicing their cursive. 

My cooperating teacher and I had been discussing dividing the class into two groups during math in order to differentiate. This week we got the chance to try this out with adding fractions after finding a common denominator. I took the half of the class that was ready to move on to putting their answer into simplest form and my cooperating teacher took the rest of the students who needed some extra support. I found that these small groups were effective but could also be improved. Each group benefited from the small group attention. However, we found that we probably need to experiment with classroom set up in order to make sure one group is not distracting the other. This experience showed me the importance of classroom arrangement in classroom management like we have discussed in many of my courses. 

My cooperating teacher led a fun experiment in science this week. The experiment was called "dancing raisins. The students completed a sheet that allowed them to practice using the scientific method. To conduct the experiment my cooperating teacher gathered two containers, two boxes of small raisins, and two cans of clear pop. As I observed, I thoroughly enjoyed see the intelligent hypothesis’ the students were able to come up with. During this experiment I noticed the importance of wait time within a lesson. Especially with experiments, it is key to allow students time to come up with their own thoughts and ideas. The students were able to come up on their own that the bubbles from the pop carry the raisins to the top and then are lowered when the bubble pops. If the teacher would have interjected and told them the answer before they brainstormed, the experiment would not have been as meaningful and beneficial. I also learned that the class is extremely interested in science and I saw a high level engagement from them.

This class is very artistic and my teacher incorporated this in the figurative language unit. For each type of figurative language (hyperbole, onomatopoeia, alliteration, etc.,) she had the students write a sentence and then illustrate it above. Once they were completed, they were hung on their lockers for all to see. I thought these activities were a great integration of the class’ interests into the content area. Many of my courses have discussed incorporating students’ interest to increase interest in the content. 

One specific event challenged my beliefs about group work. In math one day this week the class was working on a worksheet with two other people and were to check their answers with their group members. When I was checking the assignment after they completed it, many students who generally do very well got quite a few wrong. These results caused me to wonder how to make group activities most effective?

What I Learned

This week on Friday I got the opportunity to see how my cooperating teacher plans. Every Friday we will be planning for each subject for the next week together. This process was really helpful to be apart of so that I can better understand the schedule and the decisions made. 

I also learned how effective it is to differentiate in Math by dividing the class by who needs extra support and who needs to be challenged more. This strategy is more effective than staying in a whole class setting because it is less likely to have students that feel extremely lost or bored. 

During science this week I was able to see how beneficial it is to use repetition when teaching a concept. The class was learning about the differences between a liquid, gas, and solid. To practice the concept, the class sorted several items as a class into the correct category. Then, they split into groups and cut out objects and glued them under the right category. Lastly, the students created cootie catchers that had the definitions of solid, liquid and, gas. Another thing these activities taught me was to integrate the use of fine motor skills and allowing the students to move. 

Another technique that I caught on to was the incorporation of typing throughout lessons. The standardized tests have become more and more computer based. Therefore, typing is an essential skill students should acquire in order to be as successful as they can be. For example, this week my cooperating teacher had students type up an opinion essay on their Chromebooks. The students read Shiloh and then watched the movie before break. They were asked to argue for either the book or movie being better and support their argument. This was a simple task that students could use to connect content they learned while working on their typing skills. 

I was able to really notice this week that the ELMO in the classroom is extremely helpful when it comes to modeling for students. The teacher was able to use the ELMO while preforming the science experiment. The ELMO made it possible for all students to see what was happening. Without the ELMO, some students in the back may not have been able to see.

My cooperating teacher helped me to get set up with an Ipad and Chromebook. Along with this, she introduced me to the common applications and resources that students use. For example, I can now access the Schoology page that students can check to see any posts my cooperating teacher has made about assignments, news, or surveys. She also introduced me to another program the school uses- Newsela (https://newsela.com). Newsela features many articles that students read and then take a quiz on. Each article has a variety of lexile levels as well, which makes it great for differentiation. The site is categorized into many different subjects, which I can see myself utilizing in the future to incorporate Literacy into another content area. 

Throughout the week I was able to see that I need to get more familiar with the schedule and more aware of timing as I am teaching. For example, I was reviewing the problems of the day for math with the class. I had someone come up one by one to put up their answer. However, two at a time would have been more time effective as we were running out of time before lunch. 

I would say that I did see a change in my perspective of student learning this week. As I watched the students in my small group in math help one another and explain the concept, I realized that my cooperating teacher and I truly are not their only source of learning. I continue to be amazed how much the students learn outside of school that they bring into the classroom and how willing they are to help their peers. This realization helped me to see that it is are job as teachers to create a positive learning environment for students to feel encouraged and safe.

Goals

One of my goals for the next week to gain a better understanding of the ways my students learn and their interests. I know the class pretty well from the past semester but I can never learn too much. Therefore, I hope to give them a survey this coming week to get to know them better. 

This upcoming week I would also love to experiment more with the small groups in math and how to improve that time to be most effective. Last week in my math small group I could tell that some of the students were seeing the practice problems as a competition. This upcoming week I plan to improve that group time by being more clear that we are all trying to improve by doing our best and that it is not a competition. 

Illinois Professional Teaching Standard 9 states, “The teacher understands the role of the community in education and develops and maintains collaborative relationships with colleagues… to support student learning and well-being.” As I continue on to my second week of student teaching I am eager to work with my cooperating teacher and bounce ideas off one another. I am excited to see how we can work together to differentiate in math together and make the most of that time. My hope for this process is to help me to progress in learning outcome of the education program, which is to cultivate educational equity. I believe I am growing in this area by working with my cooperating teacher to analyze how we can differentiate to best meet the needs of each and every student.