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.