::tears::

Well it has finally come to an end... I can't believe it! I have given back all my subjects, and the kids are going to enjoy their Thanksgiving Day with families. When I return on the 29th, I will be assisting and helping students in small groups. The week after I will be teaching my learning cycle in the science room in 5th grade (to fulfill some of the wonderful rubric requirements :p) After that week it will be time to head home for the holidays! It has gone by so fast! I have learned so much from all of my wonderful host teachers and my challenging students! Parents have gnashed their teeth at me and for the most part I have been able to come out alive with minimal damage! I am going to be extremely sad when it is time to leave this 5th grade. I think we have all learned so much from each other and I continue to look forward to spending some time with them during my contract hours in the Spring! For now I am going to enjoy my Thanksgiving Break and come in on Monday with a bittersweet feeling about finishing out my Internship!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL!!!

Social Studies Tests/Conferences

Parents seem to be the really stinky part of this job. After attending conferences and meetings and placing phone calls, I can say that they are the pits sometimes!
Although the conferences were not quite as bad as last time, they were still very interesting! Parents will send mixed messages to teachers, bottom line! My biggest complaint is that we make modifications for certain students and then their parents get angry! They want their students to have the good grades but then they get upset because they are sometimes in denial about the capabilities of their children. It seems like parents are just beginning to realize that their kids are in 5th grade and this is their last year before they have to up to middle school! It seems like the 5th grade is getting the brunt of the parent concerns because they have let these problems progress this far without attention. Parents are requesting that we check their childs' planners and help them pack up at the end of the day. These kids are in 5th grade!!! I think it is sad that they cannot be responsibile enough to pack up their things at the end of the day! I realize that there are some exceptions to this expectation but for some of these students it is a bit rediciulous!

Social Studies Tests:

The tests have been given and graded and for the most part, they were really good! It became very apparent to me who studied and who spent no time preparing at all! There were several students who I was pleasantly surprised with and there were others who also surprised me, but not in a good way!! Testing in classes where there are varied levels of students is a complicated process!! I had to make a modified test for those who qualified. Then there are those students who don't get a modified test, but need it read aloud to them! Then there are the students who get the modified test, but not read aloud to them! I was lucky to have Emily in there with me, other wise it would have been even more complicated! I really appreciate the chance to teach in my specialization area...finally! It has really inspired me to look into the middle school levels and see what classrooms are like there. I would love to teach social studies all day long, but I am fearful of student attitudes at that age!

Projects

I am starting a project with my reading class this week. They will have two weeks to complete a report, project, and present this to the class. I have provided students with an outline, my mentor teacher and I pulled appropriate biographies for our lower level students, and they will be given plenty of class time to complete this assignment! I am concerned because these students have not always shown the best work ethic. I am afraid that the projects will be below my expectations (which I have already lowered since 3/4 of the class is special education). I will be curious to see how they will turn out!

I am finishing my full time teaching this week! I can't believe it has gone by so fast! We will be finishing up our Geometry Unit and students will then work with Ms. Tennant on the Divison Unit. Students have taken their unit tests and I was slightly disapointed in the scores. Many students made silly errors and didn't take their time or double check their work! Although I was sad about the scores, I realized that sometimes it is out of the teacher's hands. I could have stood up on my soap box and preached for days, but if the students don't want to hear it then their is nothing I can do about it!

Next week is parent teacher conferences again so I am curious to see if they go any better than last time!

Social Studies is going well! We are preparing for our Unit Test on the Civil War.

GRADE TIME IS STRESSFUL!!!!!

Well I officially made it through my first 9-weeks in the school system! I have entered all my grades and received as much make-up work as students could hand in. After a few weeks I gave up trying to hunt students down for assignments and just gave them zeros. Entering grades into Edline is a very tedious job. I spent about 2 and half hours after school yesterday creating the grade columns for the rest of my grades. Then I spent about 1 hour at home entering all those grades in. It would have taken less time but since everyone was on the server trying to accomplish the same thing I was, it took a lot longer!

This experience has been good for me because I never thought that grading papers and recording grades would be such a daunting task, but I WAS WRONG! Another issue with the Edline set-up should be resolved shortly. Right now our math, reading, writing, and spelling grade books are still split by homeroom. These subjects are all ones in which we do not switch by homeroom. Since the grade books are done by homeroom we have to go into each of the 5th grade teachers' grade books to enter grades for these subjects, this is VERY time consuming. Our tech person is currently trying to get this glitch fixed for us which would just be wonderful!

Crazy Schedules!

As I get use to planning, grading, and adjusting my instruction I am noticing that no matter how hard I plan to do something there always seems to be something that changes my plans! Last week I fount it difficult to plan this weeks lessons because the schedule was so different. We have math grant days, other professional development sessions, Acuity responders, the Scholastic Book Fair, and the Halloween party on Friday! One of my afternoon rotations for social studies is a class behind because last Friday we also had a career speaking in the afternoon! Next week we will have Tuesday off due to Election day and the week after that we will have Thursday off for Veterans Day!

School holidays and professional development sessions are not the only scheduling obstacles! When students are absent 1 or two times a week it poses several problems for all teachers when trying to enter grades and have students make up their work. We have had several students out for about 10 days due to illness. Although their parents or guardians came a picked up their make -up work, when the student returned to school, he or she had little to none of it completed! As a 5th grade team we are trying to make them responsible, but the truth is many of them just don't care. They seem to not care about school, turning in homework, being on time, being prepared, and being respectful to students and teachers.

I'm wondering if there is anything more we can do or I can do to help these students transition. In less than a year they will be in middle school which will be a rude awakening for some of our students!

The week of October 25 is when grades are due, this time should be an interesting experience for me!

Action Research Update

Two weeks ago I started my action research project in 5th grade writing! It will consist of a small group setting (6 students) who are of mixed ability in reading and writing (based on teacher recc. and WESTEST scores) groups. We will be spending 7 weeks together focusing on two main traits: a. word choice and b. sentence fluency. We have been doing various activities that teach us about useing descriptive words and finding synonyms of words we might use too often such as bad or good. The students are a great group and we are having a great time learning and writing together. Currently we are about to finish our first group story, written by the whole class! Next we will be moving into individual stories hoping that they can take what they have learned from others in the group and apply it to their writings!

Last week was difficult because we missed two days (one for acuity and one for early dismissal) so I will be trying to keep the students on the tasks at hand as to not waste any of our precious time!

Big Wheels Keep on Turning!!!

Well I seemed to have forgotten about my entry last week so I will make this one about both last week and the week before!

Two weeks ago marked my first full-time teaching week! It was a lot of stress and prep. but I think it went well! It took me a few days to get accustom to not having time to stop and get materials ready in between classes (like I was able to do when I did not teach everything!). As you all know the last subject I took over was Social Studies for the entire 5th grade! I was very excited about this because Social Studies is something that I have been waiting to teach for a long time. It never worked out before since this topic was always taught in the afternoon periods and I was only ever teaching in the morning! I have been able to show students videos, read various texts, and currently they are working on their first collaborative project: making posters and presentations defending the viewpoints of either the North or South before the Civil War. The students seem to really enjoy the material, I just wish there was more time to really get into the material, but Social Studies classes only meet 3 times a week for 45minutes! Last week proved to be challenging because we had a half day on Thursday and an ISE day on Friday so class was only held twice that week.

Last week was my second week of full-time teaching. I am really beginning to set into a routine and planning and managing my time both in and out of the classroom has become much easier! My first week I was slightly overwhelmed, especially with the up keep of missing work and absences! I am becoming more confident and I would like to think a little more independent as well. Now is the time where I am trying to incorporate more strategies and methods I have learned in my college classes into my classroom teaching. Time is really flying by now that I am full-time teaching. I love the classes I'm in and the students I teach. Some days a few of the kids challenge my patience but I realize that is something that comes with the job!!!

Parents Parents Parents!!!

Tuesday we held parent teacher conferences.... what an experience! I have always heard that parents are the toughest part of this job, and now I know first hand. We had several conferences scheduled for Tuesday evening, but I only attended ones that directly involved my students (math and reading conferences). Overall these went very well! Many of the parents were understanding and cooperative. They agreeded with us when we offered some organizational adjustments for thier child. Some parents came just to check up on their children to make sure they were doing well and getting their assignments finished on time. Some parents came in prepared with questions for us which was great because we had talking points to start with!

I have also learned that some parents will come in with no scheduled time and a strong view point about their child's teachers and their assignments. Many parents have their own opinions about how teachers should be teaching, but they don't always know what is best academically for them! When this bacame an issue in our conferences I got to see a wonderful teacher work with the parents and try VERY hard to please them. It was quite an experience and I learned a great deal that I am positive will help me with conferences in the future!

Special thanks to those who were there and taught me so much about working with parents!

Action Research Update!!

Well it turns out A.R. really is not as scary as I thought it would be. Since the 5Th grade has decided to keep writing classes as they are I am still going to be able to use my original idea (pulling two students from each ability group) about writing. I have secured a spot in the library from 12:20 to 12:50 Monday-Friday! I will be trying various organizational strategies and collaborative writing with my small group during this time! With a lot of help from Sharon I have been able to find plenty of research about this topic and also several different strategies I am going to try once my small group begins to meet! I am very exciting and I hope I find interesting results!

Week 4!

Well we are halfway into week four and I am having a blast! I learn so much everyday from my mentor teacher(s) and directly from my students. To I gave my first test on a unit in math that I planned and taught on my own (well ok I had some guidance of course!). I am in the process of grading them but so far things are looking great! I think I was more nervous than the students were about the test today. It it going to be a true test of not only their understanding but of my teaching as well! I have my first 2 weeks of the reading block planned out and I will begin teaching math and reading on Monday! I am beginning to feel more comfortable with the idea especially since I taught half of the reading block today! I am anxious to see if some of the games and other activities I have planned will help these struggling readers ENJOY reading!

Today we had a welcome breakfast with the Participants and Tudors. It was exciting to have everyone together and to be a role model for the other girls! Our first complete Benedum class is in tact at Skyview now!

Week 3 as an Intern!

Now that students and teachers are beginning to get into a routine I am feeling not only more comfortable, but more confident that things will go smoothly as I continue to take over various subjects this Fall. I have been watching my mentor teacher as we try and navigate our way through the nearly 3 hour reading block we teach. This will be the next subject(s) that I take over beginning September 20th. I am both excited and nervous! It is a large chunk of time and I can think of so much that I would like to accomplish, but I am still working on trying to sort it in a way that will provide my struggling students with the structure and routine that they need to be successful.
In addition to observing my mentor teacher during reading I also started going across the hall to the Social Studies teacher. I will be teaching Social Studies instead of the health and English classes my regular mentor teacher has because of my specialization! Although I have only been in the SS class for 2 days I am already excited about being in my content area... finally! Some things I hope to accomplish in SS would be to try and have students use a web quest during one chapter, and I would like to create some stations at some point.
Time seems to be flying by, but I hope just stay ahead of the game and keep up! The only concerns I have right now are with my Action Research project. My project ideas are still very fuzzy because of the changes that are still being made in the 5Th grade writing block. I am waiting to see what the final decisions are before I commit to a specific research question or strategy to implement!

Week 2

The second week of school has been really exciting and challenging for me. We have started to switch classes for math and reading groups. I began teaching the high math class, which I really enjoy. Wendy is able to provide me with wonderful feedback and always offers great suggestions to polish off my lessons! One thing I continue to struggle with is time management. I have been spending a lot of time on the lessons so the students understand them, but then I find there is barely any time left to complete other partner or individual seat work! I hope this is something I can improve upon as the days go by!

In our reading class I am still observing and helping individuals or groups of students. During this time we have below level students for almost 3 hours! We teach them reading, writing, and spelling. This class helped Wendy and I decide on my action research topic, writing! These students can really use some more support in their writing, even basics like spelling sight words and writing a complete sentence! I hope that we will be able to devise a strategy for me to use in the research that will show us positive results!

First Week as an Intern!

My first week has gone very well! I am in a 5th grade placement and I love the students! We have not started roations yet, but when we do I will be teaching high math and low reading! In the afternoons we will rotate for social studies, science, and health/english. This rotation will not begin until the second week of school! Right now I have no concerns, I am just excited to be in my student teaching year and can't wait to get started!

Characteristics Of a Novice Teacher #8

The characteristic I chose for my fourth posting is #8: The novice teacher should be a reflective practitioner. The artifact I chose to go with the characteristic is my video tape lesson and analysis. I wrote in my paper about this chracteristic and about how this assignment was a really great tool to reflect upon and make constructive changes to our teaching plans. We were required to video tape and lesson of ours (no more than 30min) and then go back and analyze what we saw. We consider such things has student engagement, teacher questioning, and teacher responses. When I returned to my video to analyze it I noticed some of these things more so than when I was actually teaching. Although I don't think it is practical for a teacher to tape her own lessons because it would be hard unless someone could do it for you, I do think that being about to see yourself teach opens up the door for a lot of improvement. Through the video I could see more clearly which students were not engaged and piddling in their desks, and which students were focused on the lesson at hand. Through this assignment I have learned a great deal about myself as a teacher and I think that is the purpose of reflection; to learn and to grow.

Characteristics Of a Novice Teacher #2

The artifact I chose this week was the Scholastic Home Page I created in EDUC 401, classroom management. We created this home page as a means of communication between home and school. The home page web page allowed us to create separate pages for class news, class projects, homework assignments, contact information, suggested book lists, and recommended computer games both on the Internet and on a CD-ROM. The program allows the creator to add clip art pictures, plentiful text, and hyperlinks. I had a lot of fun creating my page! I believe this would be a great communication tool because the Internet is so widely used in our society today. Parents or guardians can check on the home page from any computer, even at work! They can see what the class will be doing for the week, make note of special occasions and announcements, and encourage their children to explore some of the supplemental materials. I think this fits with characteristic number two because it provides a great tool for communication between school and home. Many teachers are sending newsletters home or weekly progress reports. Communication through technology is fast and generally fairly reliable. This home page would also allow people such as fathers or mothers abroad or even grandparents to keep up with the day to day life of their loved ones. I think the only down side to using this home page as communication would be that the teacher is not able to send private messages to parents. To be a good communicator I think a teacher should be open to new ideas and willing to work with everyone involved. The home page project from 401 was a great tool to help achieve this.

Characteristics Of a Novice Teacher #5

The artifact I chose for this post is my learning cycle I developed for the science methods course last Fall. The learning cycle involved topic development, student interviews, and development for activities for all five phases; engagement, exploration, explanation, expansion, and evaluation. My mentor teacher I and developed a topic together (Natural Resources) as it was something the students don't get to spend much time studying. After the topic was decided we conducted interviews to get a sense of students' prior knowledge about the subject. We used the interview information to develop lessons and activities to introduce the topic, hook the students, expand and apply their knowledge, and assess their progress. I have decided to file this artifact under characteristic #5: "We believe the novice teacher should have an in depth knowledge of Pedagogy." I believe this artifact is a good representation of this characteristic because a major portion of the assignment was development of the teaching methods or strategies we would need to use in order to ensure student learning. Each phase demanded different types of strategies in order to be most effective. Sometimes I used cooperative learning groups, other times it was direct instruction. Each phase required me to use my knowledge of management skills to effectively monitor and evaluate the learning process. The learning cycle project was a great experience that helped me to further develop my pedagogy.

Characteristics Of a Novice Teacher #7

The artifact I chose for this post is my workstations project created in EDUC 461 last semester. My group members and I decided that characteristic seven would fit this artifact the best because we really had to focus on not only the content we were developing the the pedagogy we were going to use to teach the content. The project included choosing a text and planning a 2 week literacy unit around the text. My project's theme was remarkable women throughout history. The pedagogy was also a big part of this project because we had to specify exactly what methods we were teaching by and the rational for doing this.