#5 Bringing It All Together!

As this semester comes to a wrap and after reviewing my course goals that I had at the beginning of the semester, I realized I have made progress on them, but still have areas of improvement. I definitely developed a closer relationship with my CT and colleagues! I loved the wonderful team collaboration Le Roy brought between the 3^rd grade teachers and my other classmates in the other 3^rd grade classrooms. Everyone was so helpful, and I also think that my CT was more welcoming, helpful, and relatable than my CT from last semester. She is a great role model for first years of teaching and is definitely someone I want to keep in touch with! This is her second year teaching after she graduated from ISU, and she demonstrates good practices we have learned at ISU. Having her as my CT also helped me in making progress on my other goals such as, classroom management. She modeled effective classroom management strategies, which helped with the structure and behavior of the students. This also helped me in seeing how her strategies work, and how I can implement them. She has given me great suggestions, and I would take her suggestions for improvement. I would go over the morning math work every morning with the students, and my CT would always take notes to provide me with feedback on my teaching and suggestions for improvement. She did the same when I implemented my lessons. I learned a lot about different strategies such as, using charts on the wall for writing workshop and read to self (during guided reading), which tells what the students should be doing and what the teacher should be doing. My CT explained how she didn’t do guiding reading in the first week or two, until the students were familiar with what they should be doing. She used a timer and timed their “stamina” for how long they can last without misbehaving or talking out loud. They built it up to an hour until my CT felt they could begin guided reading groups. This is something I would like to implement for future teaching to help with classroom management. Some other ways I specifically improved was addressing issues as they arose in an appropriate manner, giving guidelines and rules in my lessons, giving expectations, and building a relationship with all the students. I think building relationships is really important and gaining the students’ trust. My CT always reinforces the students to make good choices, and she would say, “Show me 3,” which means being respectful, responsible, and safe (the school wide PBIS system). Her classroom management strategies also help in not having to use the clip system as much because students learn how to behave themselves. This is something we repeatedly talk about in class, and I think will definitely help me when I am student teaching.

I also made progress on learning more about how to accommodate for students with special needs. Specifically, the student in the 3^rd grade classroom with special needs was Abe. He has Fragile X syndrome. I never knew exactly what this was. Fragile X syndrome is a genetic dysfunction of the X chromosome, especially among boys, and related to autism. It causes intellectual disability as well as differences in physical and behavioral characteristics such as, elongated face, protruding ears, stereotypical movements (hand-flapping), and social anxiety. Abe has these characteristics as well as being non-verbal. To greet him, you just lay your hand out in front of him and he touches it. He has a teacher aide all day and is included in the classroom. He functions at a very routine-based level. For accommodations, he uses visual charts, schedules, manipulatives, communication devices, computer games/videos, etc. My CT also uses a microphone in the classroom so Abe can hear better, and also so all the students can hear better because Abe can make noises with his mouth. With my observations and discussions with my CT and the teacher aide, I gained a lot more insight on Abe and his disability. I was also fortunate to gain more insight by being able to sit in on a team meeting with Abe’s parents, my CT, teacher aide, special education teacher, occupational therapist, speech pathologist, and paraprofessional.  This was a great learning experience and was wonderful to see how well Abe was progressing this school year (struggling since pre-school). I saw how well everyone collaborated together in providing their information and opinions, and developing outcome goals and objectives for Abe. One of the objectives was for Abe to recognize the faces and names of his peers in the classroom. This would help with his social and adaptive skills. This experience also related to what I have been learning in SED 374, and it was great to see such good practices and models being implemented. This experience will definitely be helpful in the future as I may come across students with the same or similar disability. 

One thing I still struggled a little with was my teacher voice/confidence level, but I think I made some improvements. I would practice speaking at home as I would to the kids, and this helped. I tried being more enthusiastic and having a good tone of voice, which sometimes I think I did better than others. I’m learning that teacher voice and confidence level go hand in hand. I think as I continue growing more comfortable in what I am teaching, I will be more confident and therefore have an improved teacher voice (which includes really knowing the students, content, what to say, etc.). This is something my CT also wanted me to work on, and I will continue to improve on this, especially as I move forward to student teaching. This helps me to know how critical this aspect is in student learning and engagement, and also how it will help me to become a better teacher.

I’m also continuing on improving my time management skills. I progressed as I was making schedules for myself, and planning out what days and time of the day I have to get certain things done. In my clinical lessons, I did well with my time management in my science lesson. I planned out the timing for each part of the lesson, including giving the students time frames for moving to different stations. In the implementation of the lesson, I made sure to watch the clock and keep the lesson moving with a good flow. On the other hand, I didn’t do so well on time management with my literacy lesson. I had planned time frames for parts of the lesson, but it fell through in my implementation. I got caught up in the moment, and also mixed up my timing by thinking my lesson ended at 9:20 instead of 9:10. I definitely need to keep this as one of my goals for the future to continue improving on. This plays a huge part, not only in teaching and learning, but also in everyday life!

Overall, I really enjoyed my experience at Le Roy with my CT, colleagues, and especially the 3^rd grade students! I learned a lot more that will help me as I move forward to student teaching and becoming a teacher! Even still, I am going to continue working on these goals I made for myself to keep improving. I’m so thankful to have such a great experience at Le Roy, and I’m glad I got this chance. I’m going to miss the students, and will be keeping the cute drawings and notes they would give to me. It will be bittersweet this last week of clinical, but I’m excited to finally implement my social studies lesson!

#4 Science Focus

Just like social studies in the 3^rd grade classroom at Le Roy, science takes place by quarter (alternating with social studies each quarter, and the last quarter is both subjects). Just like social studies, science is integrated with the writing workshop from 10:00 to 11:00, and some can take place at the end of the day. As I have discussed before, no textbooks are used (only used possibly sometimes to get some content information from the books), and the teachers work collaboratively together in their lesson planning. At the beginning of the year, they did a unit on volcanoes. Then while I have been there, they started a unit on simple machines. My CT introduced them to concepts such as, forces, friction, energy, and the 6 types of simple machines (lever, wheel and axle, pulley, inclined plane, screw, and wedge). My CT said she had the students just watch videos on these concepts, and my CT held discussions with them. She also discussed what work means to scientists and that it means moving an object. I then introduced the first simple machine (lever) for my science lesson. I started with a Brain Pop video on the simple machines (my CT also likes to use Brain Pop, and the students love it!). I then activated their prior knowledge and did a PowerPoint presentation; including showing examples and focusing on where the force is applied, where the fulcrum/turning point is, how the object is being moved, and most importantly how the simple machine makes work easier! The students then worked hands-on in an activity I set up for them in 3 stations. One was with nails nailed into woodblocks and a hammer where the students first tried to get the nail out with their hands and then used the hammer to remove the nail (showing how the hammer can make work easier/finding where the fulcrum or turning point is on the hammer). The next was scissors and straws where the students first tried to rip the straw in half with their hands and then used the scissors to cut it in half (showing how the scissors can make work easier/finding where the turning point is on the scissors). Lastly, was a screw driver and tin cans where the students first tried using their hands to lift the lid and then used the screw driver to lift the lid (showing how the screw driver can make work easier/finding where the turning point is on screw driver or lid). Rules and guidelines were set, and the students definitely enjoyed this activity and engaged cooperatively. For assessment, I used a rubric my CT suggested and usually uses. She used the points I scored for each student in her grade book. The next lesson I saw for science was on another type of simple machine, the wedge. My CT activated the students’ prior knowledge on what they learned about the inclined plane and how this simple machine connects to what a wedge is. She asked for examples of inclined planes and had a short discussion then asked them to pay attention to why and how this relates to a wedge in the video they will watch. She played the video which explained what a wedge is and showed examples. My CT then had a discussion with the class and asked them to get out their flip books. In their flip books they have 6 pages for each simple machine. They write the name of the machine, then draw a line down the middle of the page and on one side they write the definition of the simple machine, and on the other side they draw and write examples of it. My CT had the definition of a wedge on the SMART board, and the students copied this in their flip book. Later, my CT said they will be using Legos to build their own simple machines! :) The next unit is on inventors, which connects to what the students have learned about simple machines. This is easily integrated with social studies, and I will be doing a social studies lesson on an inventor.

                I think that incorporating science into the curriculum is very important and beneficial, and I love that Le Roy does this. I am a little skeptical though about the alternating of quarters for these subjects (science and social studies) and having few specific units on this content. Like I have said before, I think it is more beneficial to have the students expand on their learning in science/social studies and have a wide range of topics. I understand how this can be difficult to fit in within the time period given throughout the school day and year, but as we have discussed in classes at ISU this can be doable given that one knows what and how to teach and integrate science or social studies into the curriculum. If I had my choice, I wouldn’t structure science and social studies like this by quarter. I think the students can benefit more from having these subjects throughout the school year, maybe every other day or every two weeks (as discussed in TCH 277). I think this allows for more topics to be covered, and some topics that should be learned in the beginning of the school year rather than the end or vice versa. I believe this allows for the students’ knowledge to grow and progress and will help them remember content if it is taught throughout the year in an organized/effective manner. Also, from what I have learned in TCH 276, I would love to use science notebooks and be able to do fun, hands-on experiments with my students. There is so much more to science than we think! But with this said, I think my CT does a great job teaching the students science content, incorporating activating prior knowledge, using visual techniques, using modeling and discussion, and reinforcing academic language. I also like how the students will be able to use Legos to build simple machines! I would like to continue using these strategies in my future teaching and lesson planning. I’m still so happy about the effective collaboration team work at Le Roy!

Below are two quotes I found interesting :)