Those of us ECE Block 3 students who are assigned to Whitehead Road Elementary and Oglethorpe Avenue Elementary are supposed to schedule observations via the calendar on elc with a lady named Missy Jersawitz. She is not our EDEC teacher but is somehow connected to our program. I honestly do not even know what her exact position is! haha Anyways, she comes to our 2 schools and observes us, and our actual EDEC teacher, Janna Dresden, observes those of us who are placed at JJ Harris Elementary and Fowler Drive Elementary. As I may have mentioned before, I am at Whitehead Road Elementary again this semester and LOVE it!
Last week in my 2nd grade classroom, I taught a review math lesson on fractions to the students and had scheduled for Missy to come observe me. Of course I was super nervous and was worried my students would behave badly or something in general would go wrong. The observation for scheduled for 10:30 and I was so ready to get it over with! My mentor teacher had already mentioned to the class that a visitor was coming so they should be on their best behavior. I had my fingers crossed that they would!
After recess, it was time for Missy to come and for me to begin the final review lesson in the fraction unit. I actually was somewhat confident because during our full week in the field, I taught the opening fraction review lesson, which was what they should have learned in first grade. My lesson this time began with a card matching game with fraction pictures and words. This opening part of the lesson went really well and I had great control of the class. The next part of the lesson I taught from the Smartboard and I had the students volunteer to come up and solve the problems. This was a good way to engage students, but I did notice that the students that were still in their desks and not answering the problem at the board would get slightly unfocused. Next, I passed out baggies of foam shapes including hexagons, trapezoids, triangles, and rhombuses. The student used these shapes with a partner to help figure out the fraction questions on the board. I thought this part of the lesson went great as well, but naturally, the students started getting a little too loud and began to play with the shapes. The lesson unfortunately started going downhill from here. As I moved on towards the end of the lesson, I forgot to tell the students to put the shapes up so they were very loud and unfocused at this point. I kept having to get on to them and Missy could see that I was getting extremely frustrated.
After the lesson, I met with Missy and she told me, to my surprise, that she thought the fraction lesson went very well. She said she noticed how frustrated I got and that I should have just stopped, gotten my thoughts together, gotten the shapes from the students, and THEN moved on once I gained control of the class again. She gave me more helpful feedback and it all went much better than I thought! :) This Thursday Missy is coming to observe me for my 2nd and final observation and I will be teaching a guided reading lesson with the low level group. I have worked with these students before and have done guided reading lessons with them before, so I feel pretty confident! Wish me luck! :)
P.S. Sorry this blog post ended up being very long.....I didn't realize how much I was typing! :)
Monday, March 28, 2011
Monday, March 21, 2011
Full Week of Field Experience
Wow, it seems like we haven't written blogs in a while! I had a fabulous spring break and I hope everyone else did too! :)
So as I mentioned in my previous post, my 2nd grade students have been working on persuasive papers about their opinion on school uniforms. I must say that luckily the writing workshop time went better during the full week I was in the classroom. The students were finishing up writing their final copies of their papers and I could tell they were somewhat excited to finish this long project. My teacher allowed them to share their papers with the class and I heard many great reasons and word choice from the students. In Camille A. Allen's article we were assigned to read, it was clear that topic choice is a VERY important part of students' writing. Allowing the students to have a say in what they are writing about develops an interest and connection that then produces more engagement and success. I related this to my 2nd grade class because my mentor teacher did a great job of letting them choose as a class a topic that they can relate to and are currently interested in. Since the school has been trying to decide whether to insert school uniforms into next year's school policy, this topic is relative to the students' lives. I think it is great that my mentor teacher allowed them to do a persuasive piece on their opinions on school uniforms because it gave the students an opportunity to say what THEY think and why. Oftentimes children do not get a say in matters such as these, but since my class and even other classes in the school wrote persuasive pieces about their opinions, I really think the school board will take their opinions and reasons into consideration when making the final decision. I know that my class is only 7 and 8 year olds, but they definitely do have strong opinions about whether they want to wear school uniforms or not! (haha) Their passion about the topic was very clear in their writing and both my mentor teacher and I were very pleased with the students' final drafts. It was perfect timing to read Allen's article after this successful writing workshop experience because I was able to relate to how topic choice really does play a significant role in students' writing.
So as I mentioned in my previous post, my 2nd grade students have been working on persuasive papers about their opinion on school uniforms. I must say that luckily the writing workshop time went better during the full week I was in the classroom. The students were finishing up writing their final copies of their papers and I could tell they were somewhat excited to finish this long project. My teacher allowed them to share their papers with the class and I heard many great reasons and word choice from the students. In Camille A. Allen's article we were assigned to read, it was clear that topic choice is a VERY important part of students' writing. Allowing the students to have a say in what they are writing about develops an interest and connection that then produces more engagement and success. I related this to my 2nd grade class because my mentor teacher did a great job of letting them choose as a class a topic that they can relate to and are currently interested in. Since the school has been trying to decide whether to insert school uniforms into next year's school policy, this topic is relative to the students' lives. I think it is great that my mentor teacher allowed them to do a persuasive piece on their opinions on school uniforms because it gave the students an opportunity to say what THEY think and why. Oftentimes children do not get a say in matters such as these, but since my class and even other classes in the school wrote persuasive pieces about their opinions, I really think the school board will take their opinions and reasons into consideration when making the final decision. I know that my class is only 7 and 8 year olds, but they definitely do have strong opinions about whether they want to wear school uniforms or not! (haha) Their passion about the topic was very clear in their writing and both my mentor teacher and I were very pleased with the students' final drafts. It was perfect timing to read Allen's article after this successful writing workshop experience because I was able to relate to how topic choice really does play a significant role in students' writing.
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