Week 7

2/20-2/23

What Happened 

This week was a little more back to routine than previous weeks. In phonics we were working with the final schwa + r words. This set of phonics words helped me to build of students answers and have peers build on one another responses. Some students were able to see that all the words ended in r. Then another student realized that they all rhyme or have the same ending sound (example: cougar and flavor). Another student noticed there were ar words, which led to other students seeing the er and or words too. With all these conversations and building on one another we got to the pattern and it was a much more meaningful process than if I just explained the pattern to them. As we discussed in many of my courses, it is very powerful to have students construct their own knowledge. 

The students moved on from the comprehension skill of determining importance to the skill of inferencing. Students struggle with this comprehension skill especially. Therefore, we glued in a handout of what inferencing is and some strategies. We did various activities to infer. We read a passage together, highlighted important clues, discussed background knowledge connections they may have had to the text, and went over the corresponding questions together. I then began doing the gradual release method the following day. We read small passages on the front and answered questions. Students then practiced what they had learned with their partners. The third day students practiced with a partner again the following day with passages that described a person and students had to infer who it was (example: astronaut). On the final day students worked independently to infer what occupation was being described and how they knew (example: zoo keeper, had to clean habitats.) I have found the gradual release method to work really well with comprehension skills. 

I did my final day of taping in math on Tuesday after the long weekend. We did centers to review before the post assessment. The students really enjoy doing centers. Therefore, we decided to incorporate one center at the end of each math lesson for about 15 minutes and the students will switch centers each day just to break things up a bit. 

In science we finished up Newton's laws of motion and did a lesson check. When it came to the lesson review day when we go over vocabulary cards and do the lesson check, a handful of students had lost their vocabulary cards. This event and previous similar experiences taught me that the students need some help with organizational skills. They have an accordion folder for each subject where they put materials so I am still brainstorming of ways to help them with that. 

I took on Social Studies this week and honestly struggled with it. Social studies is the last subject and students are often beginning to check out. It doesn't help that Social Studies often includes a large amount of reading and discussion. I incorporated using the map, interactive workbook pages, and discussion. However, I still felt it was very dry and boring. We are talking about the three English settlements of Roanoke, Jamestown, and Plymouth.  The informational text can have difficult vocabulary and concepts so I plan on trying to incorporate anchor charts, group discussion, and possibly maybe have students act out certain parts to grasp their attention. 

What I learned

This week I learned that I often keep the same phonics routine each week. I don't think its bad to keep the basic structure, but it is good to mix up some of the phonics activities incorporated so it doesn't become just going through the motions. 

I also learned that with the Literacy block it can often be a lot of sitting and reading. Therefore, I need to assess my list of activities and arrange then in a way that students have chance to break up a lot of sitting and working with an activity that is more interactive. 

I also learned how important it is to check over activities thoroughly before doing them. I was going to do an inferencing packet with the students however the passage and corresponding questions were very confusing and didn't teach the concept in a way I thought would be best for the class. I was happy that I caught that before I started it with the class. 

Along with that, I learned the importance of testing a Science experiment before performing it with the class. I always like to try to do the experiments in each lesson to give students the chance to discover things on their own and participate in a hands on activity. However, when I tested this particular experiment many many times, it did not go with how it was to go and didn't seem to really connect with the concept of the lesson ahead. 

I also learned this week that I have to be more clear with the wording of questions on tests. For example, on my post test, I asked students how the difference between the two expressions impacted how they would be written in words. A handful of students struggled with the word impacted and what I meant by written in words. I did read the questions to the class before the test and briefly explained each, but I understand now how that may have been difficult for students. 

Goals

I set the goal of writing down reminders on a sticky note for tasks, such as checking assignment notebooks. I did this this week and it was very helpful for me. I also had the goal of working on EdTPA commentary each night for 30 minutes. I had the opportunity to do this 1 or 2 nights this week, but didn't work on it every night. My goal for the next week is to work on my instruction for Social Studies by supplementing with more activities than just reading, discussion, and workbook pages. My other goal is to also arrange the literacy block so that the activities are ordered in a way that doesn't just have students sitting for long periods. A third goal is to incorporate 15 minute centers at the end of the math block each day. Illinois Professional Teacher Standard 10 states, "The teacher is a reflective practitioner who continually evaluates how choices and actions affect students, parents, and other professionals in the learning community and actively seeks opportunities to grow professionally." I have made these goals by reflecting on how I can improve to be the most effective teacher for my learning community.