This past school year I have created weekly goals to teach mathematics. I learned that making weekly goals for mathematics gives me a purpose for what I want to accomplish. When I began the school year my goals were mostly about the content that I wanted to teach instead of how I was going to teach it. I learned that it’s essential to make goals on HOW I’m going to teach the content since every learner is different. When I changed the way I made my goals I noticed how my teaching improved. My goals helped me reach all students. Since my goals were more specific on the way I was going to teach the content it was easier for me to plan. I knew how I wanted to differentiate instruction and gave attention to learners who needed extra support. My goals led me to target individual students that were struggling with mathematics. They also led me to start my inquiry to improve my teaching. I think it is very important to create weekly math goals so that I can have an “end picture” for the week. I can make plans based on my goals.
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This past week was a tough week for me. I had so much going on (personal stuff) and on top of that I was taking the lead in planning and teaching all subjects all week and I was being observed on Friday by the principal. I decided that I needed to keep a positive attitude all week and be prepared with all my lessons to have a good week. Keeping a positive attitude and having well planned lessons made this week good, but what made this week PHENOMENAL are the following things:
1. My students were working independently during reader's response time and most importantly they were trying their best! One of my goals for this semester was to stop rescuing my students (I helped them all the time with writing), and instead scaffold. I been modeling how to sound out words that I have trouble spelling. I also been editing my own writing in front of the students. As I edit my writing I do things that good writers do such as look at the word wall, look at my reader's response journal to find words I want to use, and sound out words. On Tuesday, I gave my students a writing prompt (Draw a picture of what you see yourself doing when you grow up and write at least 3 sentences about it) and told them to try their best before asking for help. The students were working quietly the whole time so I walked around just to see how they were doing. I was surprised to see that a lot of them had at least 2 sentences. I was so happy to see that one of my students had his readers response journal out, he was looking at his response about firefighters and was looking for the word "fireman". The students found that word and wrote it on his writing assignment paper. As I saw him do this I smiled at him and told him how happy I was to see he was using his readers response journal to help him. As I kept walking around I looked at M.C.'s paper and her page was filled with sentences. This was very shocking to me because this student usually sits there and rocks or looks around the classroom, she usually needs someone to be sitting with her prompting her to get her pencil and telling her how to spell words. Seeing her page full of sentences made me so happy! (even though she didn't spell most words right she was trying!!!) The rest of my students were trying their best too! As I passed by, a lot of them read me what they had and were so proud to share it. 2. My students were sad I wasn't there on Thursday I have seminar, math class, and math coaching on Thursday's so I don't go into the classroom. When I went in on Friday they all screamed "YAY!" and clapped when they saw me and told me how much they missed me. They always tell me they miss me on Thursdays but they made such a big deal about it this week. They all came and hugged me and it made me very happy! 3. My students were so engaged during science Friday (my observation) I did a lot of planning for my science lesson on Friday and got feedback from both my science coach and PRT. They both loved the lesson and gave me a few suggestions. I polished my lesson throughout the week and was ready to teach it on Friday. The students were very engaged from beginning to the end of the lesson. They were answering questions, collecting data, and writing letters to Lisa with supporting evidence (which was a person in a probe I used). Writing the letters was a type of formative assessment. Some students were done with their letters by the end of the lesson and had the opportunity to read it aloud to the class. I was so impressed and happy with the letters the students wrote. The following is a letter from a student: (I corrected grammatical errors) Dear Lisa, Today me and my classroom researched different animals and collected evidence. We noticed that animals and humans have very similar needs. They both need food, water, and shelter. Sorry Lisa, Bob was right! Sincerely, C.C. I was so so so happy with the quality of this letter. The student used the word "research"! The rest of the students that were done with their letters had really good ones too. It makes me so happy to see my students learning! My inquiry this semester is on autism. I became really interested in this topic last year when I had a student with autism in the kindergarten class I was interning in. I had the privilege to loop with this same classroom to first grade. As we started off this school year I noticed how much Lisa (the name has been changed for privacy purposes), the student with autism has regressed. She spent the summer in and out of the hospital which affected her drastically this year in first grade. In kindergarten the student was able to read most kindergarten sight words and she started off knowing about 30 in first grade. As the school year went by she started falling behind. It's very difficult to stay on task for her, it's also very difficult for her to communicate with others. I decided I wanted to do an inquiry on strategies to help Lisa communicate and stay on task.
I started doing research and thought about the impact of my implementation. As I started implementing my research I started seeing a difference right away. So far I have been implementing social stories and the use of the iPad. I've learned that social stories are really helping Lisa stay on task. Everyday before math class I show her a picture of herself focused doing work and I tell her that I want to see her working that hard. When I show her this picture she immediately pushes in and gets her pencil out and starts working. She usually just sits there looking at her paper and starts rocking and making noises when she's suppose to be doing work but social stories have changed this. Social stories have been very effective for her. I've learned that visual media is very helpful and seeing herself doing work is motivation for her to keep working. Working in an ESE classroom is very challenging. It's challenging because you have to be very patient and make sure that every student can work towards being independent. Throughout the school year I have been helping my students so much during writing time. Every time I assign them a reading response entry I make sure to walk around and help them with things like spelling, staying on the lines, spacing, and punctuation. Don't get me wrong helping them is great because it helps them see how they should be doing it, but it doesn't give them the opportunity to work on it independently. As I reflected on my teaching and talked to my writing coach about it, I realized that I am rescuing and not scaffolding. She made me realize the importance of scaffolding. I learned that I must scaffold to help them be independent.
I knew that I had to change how I do things so I started off by modeling how to spell things by sounding out and by looking at the word wall. The first lesson I did this way was a writing lesson. I showed the students a picture of themselves sitting in the carpet looking at a snake that my CT was holding. I gave my students a purpose for writing; I told them that we are going to draw this picture and label it so that we can write sentences about this moment, I told them that we had to write Thank You letters to Mr. D for letting us observe his snake. I had the students sit in the carpet and I turned on the elmo so that I can model how to do the assignment. I drew a picture of the picture of them sitting in the carpet looking at the snake. After I drew it I told them that I had to label it so that people can know what I drew. I started off by labeling each student. Then I asked them how they felt when they were looking at the snake so I labeled their emotions. As I was labeling their feelings I was sounding out how to spell the words, I asked some students to help me spell words by sounding them out. Then I started labeling the colors of the snake and the colors of their clothing. I asked the students to help me write the color names and told them that it was okay to look at the word wall if they weren't sure how to spell them. The students were so engaged doing this because it was about them. They were laughing as I drew them saying that my drawings don't look nothing like them but I told them it was okay and that's why I labeled them. After modeling how to label by sounding out words and by looking at the word wall I sent them back to their seats. The students had to draw the picture too and label it. The students really enjoyed doing this and were eager to share when they finished so I gave them the opportunity to share what they did. I think giving them this opportunity made them feel like their writing was valuable since everyone was paying attention as they projected their drawing and explained their labels. I complemented each students about their drawings. I really enjoyed this lesson and saw how important scaffolding can be! For the water unit I decided to start with a video. I engaged the students by showing this video and the video ended with a question that started a class discussion. The video was very engaging to them because they saw teachers in the schools on the video. They loved the video! As the week went by we learned more about how people use water. The next weeks standard was on how people on Earth stay safe with water. The students understood this sooner than I thought they would, so I decided that I wanted them to make their own water videos in which they show how water can be used and how they are being safe with water. I took out four iPad's from another elementary school and split the students up into groups of four. Each group had about seven students. I told the students what we were going to do and I told them that they had to create a draft of what was going to be on their videos. For instance, the students had to write or draw pictures of how they were going to use water in the video and discuss it with their team members. This worked out so great! The students were engaged the whole time and they communicated effectively with their group members. The next day they had to tell me or one of the teachers about what their plan was and start recording. The students really enjoyed making the video and had a lot of great ideas. The next day they watched their own video and discussed with their group how they were staying safe with water and what else would they change, then each group shared their video with the whole class. I really loved making videos for this lesson because it helped me see where their understanding was; it was a great formative assessment.
This week our classroom learned about the different things that are found on Earth's surface. I had a lot of trouble planning this lesson because I wasn't seeing what the big idea was. Why do kids need to know that our Earth is made out of soil, rocks, and water? I felt that it was going to be hard to teach that through the discovery method. I thought that the only way to teach students about what the Earth's structure is made of is by reading about it or showing a presentation. Luckily, Jeni, my science professor helped me plan for this lesson. She helped me understand why it's important for students to know this and she also gave me an idea on how I can engage my students.
I engaged my students by telling them that I went digging into the Earth's surface to plant a tree. I told them that I had collected everything I dug and saved it in ziplock bags so that they can see what I found on Earth's surface. The students were very engaged since it was going to be interactive. I gave the students gloves and magnifying glasses so that they can feel like scientists. I split the students into four groups and had an adult at each group eliciting ideas. I was amazed at the thoughts of the students in my groups. I had a student say that she couldn't believe that our Earth's surface was made up of things she saw everyday. She said she thought the Earth's surface was only made up of fire and cement. It was so funny hearing her say that but I didn't laugh at her idea I just smiled and said that when we go back to the classroom we'll talk to the other groups and compare our findings. Engaging the students from the beginning is what made this lesson a successful one. The students were engaged throughout the whole lesson, asking questions, talking to their group about their findings, making observations, and most importantly being scientists. :) Click here to access this lesson! This past week we have been learning about snakes. My CT and I decided that our students need to learn more about nonfiction books. I started off by activating their prior knowledge and seeing what they know about snakes. When I asked my students what they knew about snakes I realized that there was a misconception, they all thought that snakes were only green. Before I started reading I asked them what they wanted to know about snakes and gave them options such as: how they look like, how they move, what they eat, etc. The first day they were mostly interested in knowing what they look like and what they eat. I modeled looking at the table of contents in the "Snakes" book to find the pages I needed to read. As I read these pages the students became very engaged in learning about snakes. The students wanted to learn more about them. The pictures in the books showed us how snakes are different colors and that they also have patterns. After reading the book we went back to our seats and we made a web about snakes. On the center of the web the word 'snake' was written. On the right side of the web I wrote "what they eat" and on the left side I listed "how they look". I asked the students to help me fill the web out and see if they remembered anything from the book that can help us fill out our web. Every student was able to tell me something about snakes. I was really happy to see this. The next task was for the students to write and draw about what snakes look like and what they eat. The students were able to get information from the web that we worked on together. The next day I started off with a video about different types of snakes. Then I modeled looking at the table of contents and read the section about where snakes live and how they move. I think modeling how to use the table of contents is very important because this shows students an easy way to find information. When we finished reading these sections we wrote about what we learned in our reader's response notebook. The students were really enjoying learning about snakes so I had the idea of borrowing a snake for a day from a 4th grade teacher in our school. I made sure that all the students felt comfortable seeing a snake and they were all eager to see it. The following day I brought the snake in and we were all able to make connections about what we learned in the book and video to the actual snake. This was such a great experience for the kids! They no longer have the misconception of snakes only being green. :)
When teaching area it's very important that you keep in mind the following:
1. Know what attributes you are using 2. Have students compare two objects- which object takes up more space? 3. Estimate which object has a bigger/smaller area 4. Measure with non-standard units -Tiling -Iteration 5 Principles We Must Remember When Measuring Length
1. You must know if your using standard or non-standard units 2. All units must have equal length 3. Units must be without gaps 4. Units must not overlap 5. All units must be placed on the path being measured Yesterday I had the opportunity to substitute for the classroom I am interning in. It went very great! I was very nervous about it for some reason, but I had everything well planned for the day. When I came into the cafeteria (which is where the students are first thing in the morning) I noticed that one of my students "Bob" was there waiting with his mom. His mom warned me that he was not having a good morning and hopes that he doesn't give me any trouble. I felt challenged since this student has behavior problems. As his mom left he held my hand and we walked and sat down with the other students in the classroom. Everyone was eating breakfast except for Bob. I walked around and greeted all the students and Bob came up to me and told me he was sleepy, so I told him to put his head down while the other students ate. At this moment I was starting to get more nervous because I know that he throws tantrums when he's sleepy. When the students were done eating breakfast I began lining them up. Bob did not stand up when everyone was in line so I went up to him and whispered in his ear telling him that I am going to be teaching all day and I want him to be part of our learning and that things were going to be fun so that he can't miss it! Bob nodded his head and got in line.
When we got into the classroom we did our morning procedures and I went over the rules and asked the students what each rule meant. We usually read the rules to the students and they repeat what we say. It was nice being able to hear what they thought each rule meant. I was very glad to see how excited they were to share what they thought the rules meant. After going over the rules we started RTI. I decided to try doing something different in RTI and it went very well. I also tried station teaching for mathematics which has never been done in my classroom. I was excited to see how teaching math in small groups was going to turnout. I had three different stations where students were rotating. In one station I was doing part, part, whole with the students. In another station one of the aids was doing word problems with the students. In the third station, my PRT was doing related facts with the students. Teaching them in small groups was very effective! I got to see how the students were doing in the three different areas and they were able to get the help they need. Overall, my day went great substituting! I took the lead in planning for reading, science, RTI, and math and it made me feel more comfortable to teach these sub |