A Month Full of Learning!

It’s hard to believe we’re about to finish up week 8 of Social Studies Methods! This has been a busy semester so far, but we still have a lot to do and learn!

For my learning this month, I would say that the most impactful moment would have to be in my clinical. I am placed in a 2^nd grade class and there are 4 tiered students and a few students that are classified as EC. I knew this was a reality for a class, but I had never got to see it in action until I observed in this class for the 1^st time. It was life-changing. The teacher of that class is awesome. She knows her students all have different needs and she differentiates to ensure that they all have what they need. I watched as she would teach a whole group math lesson, while the tiered students and EC students were pulled out to work with an assistant. After the lesson was over, she put the students who observed the lesson into small math groups. When the tiered and EC students returned to the class, she had them come to her table and she worked with them one on one with their reading and math work for the week. It was amazing to me to see her giving the attention that those students needed to them, while watching the other groups and helping them if they needed it. It was great and a true picture of what differentiation is supposed to look like. Every student was learning and every student was learning on their level, at their pace. I will strive to do this in my future classroom. I admired how much that teacher cared for each of her students. It was so evident that she knew her students and she knew each of her individual needs. She mentioned to me that she had one student that used to be in a school strictly for behavior issues. This student never had the academic learning time that he should have had, so he is significantly behind his classmates. She knows that sometimes he just needs to go over and read a book because he can’t always focus on the lesson. She handles this so flawlessly and in a way that doesn’t distract from the other students learning and staying on task. I want my future classroom to have this type of environment. I want differentiation to be so smooth in my classroom that the students don’t even realize most of the time that it is happening. This relates directly to NCTCS Standard 2. This standard says that teachers adapt their teaching for the benefit of students with special needs. This teacher ensures that all her students are cared for and learning. Those that need to be pulled to have one-on-one learning with another teacher get that. Those that need to sit at her table to work, can do so. She takes every student’s need and does everything in her power to ensure they have what they need to learn. That’s the kind of classroom I want. I’m so glad I have the opportunity to work alongside her this semester.

I also had a huge learning experience through a Google Community discussion about how long we should pause after asking a question in our classroom. After we had that discussion, I also retweeted a tweet from Teacher Goals that talked about how in class, the student that thinks the quickest and can answer a question the fastest is the one who is rewarded. However, there are those students that must take more time to think and to think deeper and form their answer before they speak. I learned so much from this discussion and from my findings on Twitter. I think often about how I will handle situations like this in my future classroom. I want to take the time to let those students who are deeper thinkers the time to think. They need the chance to answer and show their knowledge just like the other students do. I like the idea of proposing a question to the class and then having them break up into small groups or individually think about the answer to that question and then we will come back together as a class and discuss. This gives every student the opportunity to think and the ones that don’t need that extra time to form an answer, they can take that time to think about how they will say their answer in a way that truly shows their understanding. This learning relates to NCTCS Standard 4. This standard says teachers help students develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills. By taking the time to let my students think about their answer and collaborate with others, they are learning to think critically instead of thinking fast and just blurting out answers. I think this would be a great way to see learning in my classroom and really see what my students’ level of understanding is.

For my outside learning and research this week, I found a YouTube video that explains the term “wait time” very well. It goes into detail what happens with the brain when wait time is not given in a classroom. If some students answer the question quickly, those students that are still thinking, stop their brains. Their thinking stops and they never form an answer to the question in their mind.

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCLRrmeLk6A