Week 6

2/12-2/16

What Happened

This week was a busy one. I did my EdTPA taping this week. I was originally supposed to finish this week. However, I assessed how my class was doing and decided to shift the learning segment from 4 days to 5 days. Due to an institute day on Friday, I will teach the 5th lesson this coming Tuesday. I did order of operations for my EdTPA lessons. Throughout the segment, students were at varying levels of understanding. Therefore, I determined that it would be most beneficial for the class to be split into small groups. I chose to do this because I had a mix of students who understood and were bored, but I also had students who were unsure of what was going on. I found that things went much better once we split into small groups. I was able to guide more practice with those who needed extra support and those who were understanding were able to have further independent practice. The lessons definitely didn't go as planned. However, I definitely think it was for the best because the lessons really became tailored to my students and what they specifically needed. I incorporated several aspects into the lessons to support my students acquisition of vocabulary, strategies, and the order of operations. I created a word wall for the students, had them glue a handout of the order in their math notebooks as well as posting it on the board, and modeled problem-solving for them. I think that all of these things were beneficial for my class' learning needs. 

For Literacy this week we were working on the comprehension skill of determining importance. I did a 4 day practice with the students. On the first day we read a text together and filled out the questions as a class. On the second day we did one together and the second one they did with their tables. On the third day they did one on their own and we checked it over as a class. On the fourth day I had students do the last page on independently and hand it in for me to assess their learning. Despite the students success on the whole class, small group, and first independent practice, the students didn't do as well as hoped on the final page. I am planning on passing back the page to the students and discuss common areas and misconceptions. 

On Wednesday we had a Valentine's day party. The day was pretty productive prior to the party, which was nice. The activities that the room moms planned for the party were fun and engaging for the students. It is fun to get to see the students in a different environment than when we are always focused on academics. Events like this help me get to know the students better and socialize with them. It was really interesting the day after the party. The class was extremely wound up and many behavioral issues occurred. This seemed like a common theme throughout the school. I think this showed me that it can be hard for students to transition from a fun special event to going back to their normal daily routines. I wasn't quite sure how to handle this extra excitement. However, in the future I would probably try to incorporate some more hands-on and active activities in order to use that energy and excitement instead of bottling it up by making them sit. 

On Friday it was an institute day. My cooperating teacher and I attended four different sessions led by other teachers and staff within the district. The first session I went to was on motivation, the second was on conferring with students, the third was on formative assessments, and the final session was on student-led conferences. I not only learned many things from what the presenters taught us, but I was intrigued by how each of them presented the material to us. Many of the teachers had large paper around the room with questions and had us go around in groups or partners and answer the questions. They also had a generate our own examples of what we are already doing in the classroom. For the student-led conferences, the presenters actually had a student come in a demonstrate how he led his conference with his teacher and mother. I really enjoyed how the presenters made an effort to make their presentations engaging and meaningful. Rather than just spitting information out to us, they used a variety of strategies to give us information. Many of them conveyed that they are not experts in their topics and wanted to learn from us as well. I found each of the sessions to be authentic and a positive environment because of that. 

What I learned

This week I learned a lot about pacing while recording for the EdTPA. I thought that in my planning I had planning out the pacing pretty well and thought it would work out well. However, I learned that no matter how confident I feel about a lesson and how the students will understand, I can truly never know how things will turn out. Using my formative assessments in place, I was able to adjust the pacing of the lessons to what the class needed. 

My EdTPA learning segment has also taught me about differentiation as well. Differentiation is talked about so often and how much it is needed. However, it becomes much more meaningful when I am able to actually see it's power in action. The first lesson or two was more challenging because I was working whole class with a variety of learners at different levels. I provided certain supports in the lessons to give students extra support who needed it. However, sometimes I think the students who are understanding and need more challenge can sometimes be overlooked and end up bored and spacing out. I noticed a drastic difference in the lessons when I differentiated through small groups. 

I learned so many things about myself as teacher, about strategies, and about students at the teacher institute day. First, I learned about the topic of motivation at my first session. The presenter started by having us write out ways that we are already motivating our students.  I really liked this because instead of just throwing a ton of information at us, he took what we are already doing and built off of that. It wasn't him just presenting information at us, but instead he participated in discussion with us and challenged us through targeted questions. Some of the areas that I learned that students can be motivated is through using their interests, helping them set goals, communicating with their parents, incorporating appropriate incentives, making real world connections to their learning, and creating engaging lesson plans.  

In my second session, the focus was on conferring with students, especially with reading. I have not experienced this extensively so far in my placement. However, it is going to be a goal of ours for the third trimester. I learned of two different types of conferences that you can have with a student. A full-teaching conference involves doing research on the specific student as a reader, deciding what to compliment them on, and then teaching them a reading strategy. The other type of conference was a compliment conference, which where you research specific students as readers, and then compliment them on something specific on their reading. They also talked about timing and how to fit conferences in. The presenter recommended writing in students on a calendar to hold yourself accountable. She also gave many useful resources for conferences. She mentioned that students who are struggling more with reading are going to need more conferencing than those who are not, which enforces the idea that fair is not always equal. I have always wondered how to conference with a student about a book I haven't read and some of the other teachers and the presenters gave some good suggestions for questions, but also admitted that it can be a challenge or more surface level questions. Working on conferring addresses IPTS 9, which states, "The teacher uses knowledge of effective written, verbal, nonverbal, and visual communication techniques to foster active inquiry, collaboration, and supportive interaction in the classroom."

My third session focused on formative assessments. I particularly enjoyed this session because many of the educational technology tools we discussed in Ed209 were discussed in the session. We discussed the purpose of formative assessments, how to use the data, and paper based and technology formative assessments. Some of the technology tools discussed were verso, go formative, prodigy, quizzilize, plickers, schoolog and peardeck. Some paper based strategies mentioned were fist to five, hand signals, and sticky notes. My cooperating teacher uses some of schoology's features to help transition students into the middle school where they will be using it frequently. A middle school teacher was teaching us different features of schoology and the discussion boards, which we plan on utilizing in the future. It was nice to be able to discuss with a middle school teacher and learn how they are using schoology in their school. 

The final session I went to was on student-led conferences. The presenters told us that this process was a long one. A few of the middle school's teachers were selected to pilot student-led conferences with their advisories. The presenters gave us the various materials and resources they used throughout the process. They showed us the agenda that they have for each student to discuss during the conferences and had some examples of students binders. I really enjoyed how they had a student come in and go through his conference. He and his mom talked about their opinions of the student-led conference, which was really interesting to hear. I think it is cool to see the students taking on the responsibility to share with their parents about how they are doing. It helps them take more ownership of their own learning and better assess themselves. The presenters also mentioned how parent attendance for conferences was a 100%, which it has never been. 

Goals

I have noticed that in the midst of teaching the different subjects that I sometimes forget to do some of the daily tasks, such as checking assignment notebooks. I don't want students to have to remind me to do these tasks and think I am unorganized. It can often be hard to remember everything without writing it down as a reminder. Therefore, it is a goal of mine to write a sticky note with a checklist of the daily tasks I need to do to help me remember. In order to stay on top of my EdTPA commentary I am making it a goal of mine to work on my commentary at least 30 mins each night. This plan will help me to chip away a little bit at a time.