I was so nervous going into this field experience, that now, I cannot even imagine why I was nervous because it was the best teaching experience I have had so far. I miss the students already!
1. Describe your teaching day.
The day starts out where the students come in and start working on their daily oral language and they work on it through the announcements while the teacher gets the lunch count and takes attendance, then the teacher corrects the DOL with the students. The students then immediately go into math where they take about 45 minutes to an hour to do math because this class has been struggling with long division, so the teacher has been spending a lot of time trying to help the students understand it. After math the students go to keyboarding and when they come back they usually do guided reading, shared reading or DEAR (drop everything and read) then they go to lunch.
2. Describe your favorite part of the day.
As always, I LOVE it when I get to teach! It is absolutely my favorite part of the day. When I am not teaching, I love spending one on one time with different students to help them understand math better or taking a group of students and working with them on their assignments. It amazes me how well I know these kids in such a short amount of time and I have grown to love each and everyone of them.
3. What went well, what didn't work so well, and what would you change or do differently?
Me and Kristie had our second observation this past Friday, which we did our lesson on the 5 tribes of Utah, which went very well. The students were engaged and taking notes during our PowerPoint presentation, which was a bit long, but they hung in there and were very good! Our observer was amazed with how well the students took notes. After our lesson was over we had the students in groups of 5 and each group made a poster about their tribe they were assigned by using their notes. They did a FANTASTIC job! I was so proud of their posters that I decided to share them with you. Goshute Navajo Shoshone Ute Paiute
I am also proud of how well our management technique went with the turkey. The students responded very well to it and they all received a prize once they finished coloring it in. Here is a sample of what we did and a student who had their turkey all colored in. Turkey
What would I change or do differently? Once again, I felt our lesson on the 5 tribes of Utah was a little too long, but it was what our cooperating teacher wanted us to cover, so we did what we could to cover so much information in a short amount of time. Another thing I would change would be the prizes I put in the treasure box. Some of the students did not like the prizes I put in the treasure box, so I think I would put more thought into that when buying prizes.
4. To help your students you would....
I am always thinking of ways I can help students who struggle or just need a boost in their brain to get things to click or to understand something better. Me and Kristie helped a student in the class who was not in her Zone of Proximal Development ( ZPD). She has been struggling with long division and cannot remember the steps very well and struggles with her multiplication, so to help her out me and Kristie made her a math book with the steps to long division with examples in it and we tested it out on her and it seemed to help her. She had this big smile on her face the whole time we were helping her...I think it made her feel very good about herself to know that someone was reaching out to her to help her. Today when I was helping her with her math assignment she didn't hesitate to get the math book out that we made for her to use, as a matter of fact, she was very proud to use it! I hope she continues to use it.
Here is what the pages of the book we made her looked like.
Multiplication table Steps to Long Division Divisibility Rules
Math Page 1 Math Page 2
I have had such a wonderful experience! We ended our last day by showing our digital story to the class and we had the students and the teacher write down their feedback on paper and give it to us! Our cooperating teacher and the students absolutely LOVED it! WHEW!
Even though I am sad to see this come to an end...I am way excited to see everyone again! See You Soon!
That is really cool that you made that little girl a math book, what a great idea. I hope she does continue using it. That is such a clever way to help her with something that was hard for her. I think that is one of the hardest things is to watch students struggle through things.
ReplyDeleteLaurel! LOVE your post! Your attachments (--your "Divisibility Rules," etc.) were Wonderful to see! What a great job you did on those! You'll have to show me how you create them (and attached them)!
ReplyDeleteI've had that experience (in which students are a little "picky" about what prizes are put in a surprise box), as well. Although, I suppose that once you know your students, it will be easier to know the types of things they enjoy getting.
I too was surprised to see how well I came to know the students in "my" class during such a short time.
And...the 5th graders in "my" class were also great at taking notes. I noticed that when their teacher would go through his Power Point slides for their Social Studies lessons, the students were feverishly writing, taking notes the whole time! I was impressed by their ability too.
Nice...that you got to show your Digital Story to the whole class!