Week 8

Week of Reflection: Friday, March 29, 2019

This has been a great week! I would rate it as a 5. This was my 8th full week of teaching and I only have two left to go. It’s hard to believe. Time has flown by so quickly.

A pleasant surprise this week was how well my students did with using critical thinking skills in our reading of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I began asking critical thinking questions after the chapter reading for the day and my students had some great answers which led to great discussions. I’m so proud of all of their hard work!

Last week, I wrote about how chatty my students were. This week, before beginning math, I did a brain break with my students after lunch and it seemed to help them. I will continue to do these at this time to allow students to get their chatter out after lunch.

My short term efforts of lesson planning and working on my portfolio align to my long-term goal of having everything complete by the end.

I feel like I managed my time well this week. Having a planning day on Friday was very helpful in allowing me to plan. I also got to participate in registering students for K-day today and it was so fun to meet future kindergarteners and their families. It’s such an exciting time for them!

My first logical step for next week is to make sure I have my portfolio ready to meet for the next seminar on Tuesday.

Some data that I analyzed this week was student work on the perimeter tests. This allowed me to see that my students understand perimeter and it allowed me to move on to fractions. We have finished our curriculum and now we are going back to things that students need more work on before we go to all review after Spring break.

One thing I wanted to share with other student teachers was something that I observed while I was helping with K-Day. Today, as I was registering families, I watched as other teachers came to take the children to a classroom to explore while parents went to a meeting in the library. I watched as, for some of the children, leave their parents for the first time with a complete stranger. Many of them were so brave and excited to start Kindergarten. It then hit me what an impact we are making. These parents are trusting us with their whole life. They are letting their children go with an adult that had never met before. There is so much truth in the fact that we are held at such high public trust. How could we not? We have someone’s child in our classroom. They are trusting us with their child. Our jobs are so important and sometimes we forget that until we see a small children getting ready for Kindergarten, excited, and ready to take on a whole new adventure.

NC Teacher Candidate Standards

This past week I tried very hard to differentiate for all of my students. I wanted to make sure that each of them were getting what they need. For centers, I had some students working on spelling during their individual center because I knew that they needed more work on spelling than comprehension. This relates to NCTCS Standard 2.

I have also been working on using a lot of vocabulary into each of my lessons. This is how I can interconnect all of the content areas together. I try to pull vocabulary from the chapters we are reading in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, vocabulary in math, and vocabulary in science. This relates to NCTCS Standard 3.

7th Week

Week of Reflection: Friday, March 22, 2019

This has been a good week overall, I would rate it as a 4.

A pleasant accomplishment this week was finishing up my 7th full week of teaching. I can’t believe that I have been teaching that long and that it’s almost over.

This week I learned the importance of being flexible. My students were VERY chatty this week. There were times that I didn’t think we would make it through a math lesson because all they wanted to do was talk, talk, and talk. This helped me to see that sometimes, I need to just let my students go run outside and then come back in to finish math. I can definitely see my students getting tired. The long stretch without a break from Christmas to Easter is getting to them. They are humans too and I need to remember that they need a break as well.

I have been working on my final weeks of lessons and what I will be doing and this aligns to my long term goal of having my full ten weeks complete.

I feel like I could have spent more time on my portfolio. I worked on it, but I feel that more time could have been given to it.

I didn’t really feel any apprehensions or indecisiveness this week.

The next step for next week is to get everything together for my lessons and to work on my portfolio.

This week, we looked at data from our WIN groups. The group of students that I have is improving greatly in their fluency. This showed that the types of activities that I’m doing are working and that gives me a chance to find different activities along the same line.

Some advice for this week is to just breathe and count to ten. This week, my students were very talkative. There were days where I just felt like they weren’t listening to anything I had to say. I found myself often just pausing and counting to ten without even saying anything to the student that has been asked to stop talking 5 times and continues. Often times, they are listening, but they just need a break. If we are tired, often times, they feel the same way.

NC Teacher Candidate Standards

I have been working on time this week with my students. A 3rd grade standard is telling and writing time to the nearest minute. We are writing time and looking at other places where the time is different and comparing the two. The students are really enjoying it.

I also analyzed data this week in my WIN group and saw that the activities that I am doing with my students in fluency is working. This relates to NCTCS Standard 1.

Week 6

Week of Reflection: Friday March 15, 2019

This week has been good overall. I would rate it as a 4. There are always things that could have gone better, but it was a good week.

A pleasant accomplishment this week was that my students had to complete RTA passages on the skill of using context clues. This was the last unit that I had completed with my students so I was anxious to see how they would all do. They did great and even the students that normally don’t do so well on these passages did well. It made me feel like they really did learn something and I was so proud!

A lesson I learned this week that I will build upon next week is that I need to be more specific in writing my lessons.

I have been working on getting things tagged in my lesson plan binder so that I can meet my long term goal of having all the standards passed off.

I feel that I could have spent more time on my portfolio. I spent some time on it, but I feel that more time could have been devoted to it.

The first logical step for next week is to have everything prepared in my lessons and work on my portfolio.

This week, looking at my grade book, I realized that I need to rethink my individual centers. Often times, I have all the students working on comprehension. However, I realized that this would be a great time for true differentiation. This is the time that I can have students working on what they need.

A piece of advice I have for other student teachers is to get to know everyone in your school. When the custodians come in my room to clean during planning, the conversations we have have become one of my favorite parts of each school day. They do so much for the school and I want them to know how much I respect and appreciate them. I try to tell them that every day!

NC Teacher Candidate Standards  

I am working on a new way to integrate global awareness into my lessons. A 3rd grade standard is telling and writing time to the nearest minute, so I am going to start doing Minute Monday. Every Monday before we begin literacy, I am going to have students practice writing the time that it is where we live and drawing it on a clock and then we will look at a time from another country and practice writing it. This way, students understand the time difference and have practice writing time.

Week 5: Half-Way There!

Week of Reflection: Friday, March 8, 2019

This past week went good. I would rate it as a 4. The beginning was rocky with getting edTPA turned in, but after that was completed, the week began getting better because I was able to focus more on my lessons and teaching. I also finally began feeling better so I’m ready to tackle week 6 next week!

A pleasant accomplishment was getting edTPA turned in. It was so rewarding to have that finished and have that part of the semester behind me. I feel that I can finally begin to see the end!

A lesson that I learned this past week is that even though I have something big like edTPA going on, I can’t let my lessons suffer because of it. I think my lessons went well this past week, but I know that I could have put so much more into them. This taught me that I can’t let something else interfere with how well I plan out my lessons for the week because my students are always depending on me!

I have been working closely with my student that I made a behavior plan for. This short

term effort aligns with my long term goal of having data collected to show her growth for this semester.

Once again, I feel that I could have spent more time on lesson planning for this past week instead of stressing about edTPA and getting it finalized and turned in.

This past week, we had parent teacher conferences. I noticed I was very apprehensive going in wondering if the parents would listen to what I had to say because I was the student teacher. However, I quickly learned that they appreciate me as well because I am the one teaching their child. This taught me to believe in my abilities!

The first logical step for next week is to get everything prepared lesson wise. I already feel 10X more prepared this week than I did last week since I got edTPA out of the way. I know that I can put that away for right now and focus on my portfolio and getting it complete.

Great news! The spelling activities that I had implemented into my lessons are working. My spelling grades are improving and I can tell that the activities are working based on the scores and data!

One piece of advice I would share with other student teachers is to never see yourself

just the “student” teacher. We are making a huge impact in our student’s lives and we are doing it while being a student as well. This is our first class and one we will never forget. Our goal is to make it to where they never forget us either!

NC Teacher Candidate Standards

This past week we have been finishing up our entrepreneurship projects. I am so proud of each of my students and the work they have put into these projects. I have enjoyed watching them work as much as they have enjoyed completing the project. They were given a paper with a checklist of things they needed to include and a piece of paper to take notes on and this was all. I wanted their creativity to shine through this. Students had to work together in a group to decide on their business and what good/service they would sell. They also had to figure out what they needed to buy to start their business and where it would be located. They only were given $5,000 to start their business. Students were able to develop critical thinking/problem solving skills and develop 21st century skills of communicating and collaborating. This relates to NCTCS Standard 4: Teachers help students develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills and Teachers help students work in teams and develop leadership qualities. I can’t wait for them to present their projects!

Ending Week 4

Week of Reflection: Friday, March 1, 2019

Overall, I would rate this past week a 3. It wasn’t a great week, but it wasn’t a terrible one either. Getting back into the swing of things after surgery has been hard. It’s not that I was having a hard time re-connecting with my students, but I just felt like I had missed so much. It was also not the most ideal time to be out for a week with everything going on with edTPA. I know though that I just have to trust that God had a plan in all of this craziness and I just have to trust Him.

A pleasant accomplishment that I achieved this week was that I finished my first novel study unit with my students. We read The BFG with a literary focus on context clues. There are of course so many changes that I would have done, but I feel it went well and I can now say that I completed my first novel study with a group of students. We are starting another on Monday and I can’t wait to use what I learned from the first one to make the next one even better.

A lesson that I learned this week from my experiences was really about being absent when you’re the teacher. I know that me being absent was out of my control, but it really made me stop and think about when I do become the teacher in my own classroom, how important it is to be there, not only for your students, but also for yourself. I had surgery Wednesday and was back in the classroom on Monday. I missed my students so much and was eager to see them all again. Also, the students suffer from you being gone as well. You can leave wonderful plans for the sub, but those don’t matter. You have a special connection with your students and in order for them to truly learn, you need to be there. Thankfully, in this situation, my CE taught since I wasn’t there, but that won’t be the case when it is my classroom!

This past week I spent a lot of time on edTPA. That was expected because of the submission date, but I feel that my lesson plans suffered because of that.

The next step for next week is to focus more on lesson plans now that edTPA will be submitted!

I noticed when grading my student’s spelling tests and looking at previous grades, that my students struggle in spelling. It could be that they are not practicing at home, but it made me integrate more spelling activities into the instructional day. We now have a spelling center where students play spelling tic-tac-toe and students practice writing sentences with their spelling words for morning work once a week.

A piece of advice I would share with other student teachers is that we are halfway

finished! We can finish strong just like we started!

NC Teacher Candidate Standards

Standard 1: I used data to impact how much time I give for spelling each day.

Standard 2: It’s the end of the month again so I am making positive phone calls again! I will also get to meet with a few of my parents at Parent/Teacher conferences this coming week.

Standard 3: We have begun an entrepreneurship unit for social studies and the students are really enjoying it! I’m enjoying watching them learn!

Standard 4: My students are creating their own business with a small group. They only have $5,000 to start their business and they are using critical thinking and problem solving skills to start their business.

Standard 5: I am collecting data on how students are working through their entrepreneurship project so I can see things that need to change about it if I were to use it in my future classroom.