Blog Post 1

These first two weeks of student teaching started off very overwhelming and ended very satisfying. I feel like I’ve learned a ton in such a short time about the inner workings of an elementary school and the relationships amongst fellow co-workers and team members. Joining the classroom in the middle of the year meant there was a lot of catching up to do. My goals for the upcoming two weeks are to work on my classroom management by keeping the students focused on what they are doing during pairs or group work and to start teaching a second subject, writing.  Besides starting off overwhelmed, if I had to use one word to descibe this past week, I would say excited. I taught my first Math lesson on Tuesday. I was very nervous and felt like it didn’t go well, but after talking to my cooperating teacher, she said that everyone feels nervous on the first day too and that it was okay. The rest of the week continued to get better as I became more comfortable. By Friday, things went a bit more smoothly and I’m excited for more practice next week. 

As I begin the learning and teaching process with actual students, the first thing I learned is to slow down and keep it simple. Trying to pack a ton of information  into a lesson can be too much for 4^th graders. Slowing down and explaining things in different ways helped the students to retain more and gave them time to actually think about the material. Another thing I learned is that teachers always need to be thinking ahead and that its okay to change course once in awhile and take a break. On Thursday, my cooperating teacher decided that since the students had filled their jar of marbles (met their classrrom behavior goal) that they would have a vote and decide on a reward. For Friday, they chose a “floor day” and pushed all the desks aside, wore their PJ’s, brought blankets and stuffed animals, and spent the school day on the floor. During guided reading time, we watched an educational movie that had a great message about Martin Luther King, Jr, which they all seemed to enjoy. It made the first long week back after break a bit more fun. 

My cooperating teacher and I established planning times during the hour before school starts and the 40 minutes while the students are at Specials. Sometimes she has other meetings going on at these times so I attend those along with her. I try to plan at lease one specific topic I would like to talk with her about for each day. For example, on Fridays we plan my teaching schedule for the next week. I learned that often things get pushed forward to the next day due to uncontrollable things like severe weather days or due to the way things are going in the classroom. For my cooperating teacher, it seems best to plan a week in advance for specifics, while also keeping your general long term plan in mind.

Reading the first two sections of The First Days of School by Harry and Rosemary Wong has been very inspiring. The most important things I have retained from the reading so far is to start the school year prepared by having a definite plan for your classroom expectations and finding a mentor to learn from. I also liked the concept of inviting students students to learn in you classroom and making sure everyone knows that they can be successful in your class. Another important idea to me was showing courtesy and respect for your students. I am a strong believer in teaching children manners and modeling this behavior for our students is a valuable skill to instill in them.

I have thought a lot about the edTPA these past two weeks and believe my coordinating teacher and I have decided on the Math unit and schedule in which I will be teaching it in weeks 4 and 5. Due to their district requirements, addition and subtraction of fractions seems to be a good unit to teach. I, along with the help of my coordinationg teacher, am currently working on figuring out the cultural and community commonalities that unify the classroom to work into my lessons and am struggling a bit due to the wide diversity of students. I will probably start working on my lessons this week.

Prof. Royster is scheduled to visit sometime this week and I’m excited to hear what she has to say. I’m really not sure what to expect. I really feel I am aware of what I need to work on, but am very interested in receiving her input. I hope that this week, as I get more comfortable in front of the students, I will be able to start being more creative with my lessons and more natural with my teaching, which will hopefully be more engaging for the students as we begin learning about fractions and decimals. I think she will be surprised at how well the students work together with partners and in groups.