Field: Week One :)

1. Describe your teaching day.

   This past week was parent teacher conferences at our school (Wednesday and Thursday) with no school on Friday. My field partner and I spent most of our first two days observing, grading, fileing and helping students prepare for their student led parent teacher conferences. We also helped to give a spelling test. Today, Monday, we spent our teaching day participating in a school fire drill, grading and helping students with learning/re-learning how to divide in math.

2. Describe your favorite part of the day.

   My favorite part of last week was just finally being inside the classroom and observing how my cooperating teacher manages her classroom full of thirty students. My cooperating teacher uses the “class-class, yes-yes” part of whole brain teaching which I found really neat but I haven’t observed her using other whole brain strategies yet. Another favorite part of my day was when a little girl came up and quietly gave me a halloween pencil. This small gesture was so sweet and thoughtful which completely warmed my heart and made my day. Today, my favorite part was getting to know some of the students, and their names, a little bit better by helping them learn how to divide, as well as accomplish other paperwork.

3. What went well, what didn't work, and what did you change?

   Last week, helping students prepare for their student led parent teacher conferences went well because I was able to assist in comforting their nerves a bit (this was the first time the school has done student led conferences). Today, helping some students really start grasping the division concept went well. What didn’t go so well was not remembering students names! I tried hard to not let students know I couldn't remember their names but I felt bad and am continually striving to get names down this week. The first couple of days in field I was more shy and nervous, but I feel that I changed so I’ll speak up and manage the classroom with more confidence.

4. To help your students this week you would…

   This week, my field partner and I will be starting to teach our unit plan in language arts, so I would like to help our students learn about persuasive writing and what it is.