Week 14

4/9-4/13

Classroom Confidential- Chapter 12

Personally, I work towards being a lifelong learner by reading/researching, participating in professional development opportunities, learning from students,  and collaborating with professionals. I specifically liked the idea tag team. I think it would be great to work with another teacher by combining are classes here and there. I think that I would learn great strategies from the other teacher while being able to offer my ideas as well. It allows me to still be exposed to other strategies and learn new methods even when I have my own classroom.  

What Happened

Round 2 of PARCC was this week. The students had a PARCC test each morning. It was pretty neat to see how much the class was persevering and not complaining about all the tests. The school has done a great job of encouraging the kids to do their best and show what they have learned thus far. 

This week was up and down with the weather and it was perfect for what we were discussing in Science. We were talking about clouds, weather, and the different forms of precipitation. Looking out the window each day led to some great discussions as we talked about the current weather. We also did an activity to help us better understand the different types of clouds. The students received cotton balls and for each type of cloud, they had to utilize the cotton balls to form them in a way that represented that cloud. Students had to pull some apart to create that wispy look of Cirrus clouds or they had to clump them together to create the large Cumulonimbus clouds. It was a fun way to make learning about the cloud types more hands-on.  We also did an experiment with sand to explore the concept of erosion!

I got the opportunity to be apart of one of my student's IEP meeting. This was especially cool because the mother only speaks Spanish so the meeting had to be translated. As an ESL minor, this was a great experience for me. The student of focus was being taken off of his IEP at this meeting. I got to see how the LBS went over the data and explained the progress the student had made. Along with that, he showed evidence of how he had reached the point where he will be successful without an IEP, which is ultimately the goal. I saw many things I've learned in ESL classes being implemented in the meeting. The staff made eye contact with the mother while they were speaking English. They had the materials available to her in Spanish. Overall, it was a great experience. 

Spring is starting to arrive and so is some 5th grade drama. Some of the girls are becoming cliquey and so are the boys. A particular situation happened this week where a group of girls were making up a song about a student. The song was not appropriate and involved the student being called gay. The student it was about did not hear, but his friend overheard and reported it. The girls were talked to and made aware that it was inappropriate. This situation brought to my attention the affect that media and the news is having on students. Topics such as the LGBTQ community are becoming more prevalent in today's society and I am going have to be prepared to address those issues.

What I Learned

I would say this week I learned more about the social aspect of teaching. Within our cooperative group learning with plays and during recess/ specials there have been some conflicts. These situations have brought to my attention how important those courses were that taught us about the psychological, social, and emotional development of children. I feel as though I have a better understanding of how to address issues because of those courses. I will continue to reinforce behaviors that encourage empathy, respect towards one another, and being inclusive. 

I don't have students that are currently receiving ESL services, so I learned more about that area and was able to relate it back to things discussed in my courses. The meeting taught me different requirements for meetings such as these, as far as Special Education and ESL goes. I was also able to see the roles of the general education teacher, LBS, and Speech-Pathologist be preformed. This addresses IPTS 3, by allowing me to see ways in which the Special Education team reaches diverse students and families. 

Goals

I am still working on my goal of keeping up with late work, missing work, and work with no names. I did a better job of keeping track of who is missing what on post-it notes and using time after they finished their PARCC test or time during AR reading to catch them up. My CT and I also reminded students of the expectation that when they are absent they must make up their work and turn it in without being tracked down, names need to be on papers, and homework goes in the basket each morning. My goal for the final weeks is to work on making sure that I am attentive and aware to students side conversations during a lesson when a peer or myself is talking.