End of Week 3

Week of Reflection: Friday, February 15, 2019

 

This has been a good week overall. I would rate it as a 5. An accomplishment that I had this week was that we are continuing our unit on context clues. One day students were reading a chapter with a partner. In every one of our books, there was a word that didn’t copy right so you couldn’t make out what it was. I was walking around monitoring the students, so I couldn’t sit and figure out the word right then. I told the student that asked me to just skip over it and we would look at it when we come back together whole group. About 5 minutes later, she walks up to me with a huge smile on her face and says, “Mrs. Oaks, I used context clues and figured out what the word was.” Talk about being proud!

After reflecting back on my small groups this week, I realized that I definitely need to go back and reteach the type of context clues that we were working on this week. We were working on restatement clues and I could tell that none of the groups were getting it. It could have been my lesson or it could have been the concept. Either way I’m going back to reteach it because I can’t move on and expect my students to keep going if they didn’t understand!

I worked on edTPA this week and this short term effort aligns with my long term goal of passing it!

I feel that I could have spent more time on my portfolio. I have been focused a lot on edTPA, but I want to make sure that I am developing a strong portfolio.

This week I worked on more discipline. It became aware to me that I tell students to stop doing things, but there are no consequences if they continue to do it. I have tried to work on that more this week.

This next step for next week is to work more on my portfolio and finish up edTPA!

This past week, I looked at the grades from the bar graph assessments and my students did great on it! That showed me that I could move on to our area and perimeter unit!

A piece of advice I would give to other student teachers is to keep your head held

high. Some of us are half-way through and some of us are almost there. I am starting my 4th full week this coming week. We can do this! Our students are learning so much and we are making a difference. We have to believe that and finish strong just the way we started.

NC Teacher Candidate Standards

Standard 1: I analyzed student data from our graphing unit and realized that students were ready to move onto the next unit.

Standard 2: I have a student that has developed some serious behavior issues. I have chosen to implement a behavior plan on this student and I collaborated with the principal to ask his opinions on the plan and ask for any changes that needed to be made before I presented it to the student.

I also had students complete a timeline including their graduation from high school date!

Standard 3: I have been trying to include vocabulary into every lesson that I teach because that is integrating the literacy into each subject.

Standard 4: I integrate a lot of group/partner work into my instruction. In the beginning I did not because my students are very chatty, but I am learning to use that to my advantage.

Standard 5: I analyzed student learning from the math unit and realized that we were ready to move onto the next unit.

Ending Week 2

Week of Reflection: Friday, February 8, 2019

I have reached the end of week 2! It’s been a busy week and I’m super tired, but everything went well! I would rate it as a 5.

An accomplishment this week was that I started a novel study with my students and we are reading The BFG. This novel can be challenging for some students, so I was a little worried about how the students would handle it. They took their first quiz today and they all did great! I was so pleased with them and their hard work. I even have a non-reader in my classroom that always sits and listens to the novel being read aloud and he answers the daily response journal questions orally when I sit down with him one-on-one. I’m so proud of all of my students and their hard work on this novel. It makes me feel good knowing that they understand it.

I have realized this week that I do good with making sure I have things for my lower students, but I often forget about my high-fliers. Next week, I will ensure that I have things for them to either be researching or creating after they finish something early because I noticed them being bored this week especially.

I am continuing to focus on parts of the NCTCS to meet the long term goal of having

them all complete!

I feel that I could have spent more time having things for my higher students to do because I spent a lot of time on making sure that my lower level learners are getting what they needed.

I am beginning to have a few behavior issues in my classroom. I am working on implementing more discipline and having consequences. I think that is one of my biggest apprehensions. I also need to work on rewarding the positive behavior.

The steps for next week just include finalizing everything and having everything prepared for the next week!

I started a unit on bar graphs this week and the students did well with it. I gave one assignment where they were creating a bar graph and one where they were answering questions from a bar graph. I graded these and looked at the grades to see how students did and where they were on the topic. Then, on Thursday and Friday during our WIN time, I sat down with the ones who didn’t do so well and looked at the two assignments again with them to determine misconceptions and what I needed to do differently to ensure that they grasped the topic.

One piece of advice for other student teachers is to never forget to reward the positive behavior. I think we often forget about those because we never have to call them out, but they deserve to be rewarded for doing the right thing.

NC Teacher Candidate Standards

Standard 1: On Monday, we participated in learning walks during our planning time where we went to 2nd grade to observe them. At the end of the day, during our faculty meeting, we sat down and talked about the experience and things we learned. It was a great experience!

Standard 2: I did a lot of adaptations for my lower level students. I just need to work on remembering my higher students!

Standard 3: Students completed an activity where they pretended they were immigrants and had to choose 5 items that they would bring with them if they were to have to leave everything.

Standard 4: I have been working hard on incorporating collaboration and group work time into my lessons. My class loves to chat, so I’m learning to use that to my advantage.

Standard 5: I looked back on my student learning from bar graphs and used that to drive what I needed to do next.

End of Week 1

Week of Reflection: Friday, February 1, 2018

This has been quite an interesting week! This was my first full week of teaching and I think it went well for the craziness that the week held! On Monday, I had to be out due to bronchitis. I hated being away from my students, so I was eager to be back in the classroom on Tuesday! On Thursday and Friday of this week, my teacher has been out of town, so I have had a substitute in my room just to be an extra set of hands in case anything was to go wrong. Therefore, I was really by myself on my first week! It was a great experience though and I know that the rest of my 10 weeks will be exciting and rewarding! Overall, I would rate this week as a 5 because despite all the obstacles that I had to face, everything went well!

A pleasant accomplishment this week would have to be just getting that first week over with of teaching everything. It was a huge milestone to get over. Only 9 more weeks to go!

A lesson that I learned this week is that even though we have a math program at my school, we aren’t required to follow it word for word. It is supposed to be used more as a guide than a script. I tried following along just as the lesson did in the book, but I found that it does not work for me. I didn’t feel like the students learned anything from it being done that way, so I know that I will definitely go back to just using it as a guide for my lessons.

This past week, I set up an observation time with the principal at my school. He asked if he could come in and observe me just like he would a teacher that worked at his school. I will be able to get feedback and a copy of everything that he felt I did good at and the things that I need to work on. This short term effort aligns with my long term goal of having my own classroom in the near future!

I feel like I could have spent more time on edTPA this week. I feel that I am prepared to teach next week, but I feel that more time could have been spent on it.

I was a little apprehensive teaching without my CE being present, but I quickly got over that and kept moving forward. I knew that if my students could see the apprehension in my eyes, then I would never get anywhere with them. I kept the routine and taught what I had prepared and everything went great!

The first step for next week is to get everything prepared to record my edTPA lessons!

We finally got all of our scores in place from middle of year testing and our new WIN groups have been formed. This gave me the opportunity to find out who would be in my group and what they needed to work on. This gave me the opportunity to plan accordingly.

I began my positive monthly phone calls this past week and will continue to finish them at the beginning of the coming week (I have such a huge class). I must say, this has been so rewarding! Hearing the parents say how much they appreciate hearing from me and keeping that communication line open is so nice to hear. I wanted to explain to them all that it was my first full week and the changes that would be happening in the next few weeks with me teaching full time. It was so nice to just speak to them about GOOD things their students are doing and how proud I am of all of them. I recommend talking with all of your parents at least once while you are teaching!

NC Teacher Candidate Standards

Standard 1: I worked with the 3rd grade team and testing coordinators to develop our new WIN groups.

Standard 2: I began making positive phone calls home to interact with the parents/families and work together with them to get their students everything that they need to be successful.

Standard 3: This past week, we worked on the skeletal system. We talked about breaking a bone and what happens if we do that around here. Then, we talked about children in other countries and what they go through if they break a bone. I showed pictures of hospitals in Africa and we compared/contrasted their hospitals to ours. We also looked at a picture of a cast that we would have here in the USA and then we looked at a picture of bamboo and a picture of palm leaves to show the students that in other countries the bamboo is used to stabilize the broken bone and the palm leaf is wrapped around for support.

Standard 4: I shied away from a lot of class discussions like we had done in the past and let my students work in teams this week to complete different fables that we were discussing. It was cool to see how everyone worked together and what they accomplished.

Standard 5: I reflected on the teaching of the math lesson straight from the book and knew that my students could have learned more, so I made the change to go back to just using it as a guide.