Organization

I have seen and learned a lot of things through my main placement. One thing that I saw last week was the importance of organization. My cooperating teacher and I really like to stress the idea of being organized so that the work that the students do gets turned in.
My teacher and I like to show students that in doing this, it prepares them for their future. Especially since this is a highly capable class, we emphasize that in fifth grade and sixth grade, they need to keep this up. If they fail to turn in assignments because of lack of organization, they have to leave the program.
So last week, my teacher went around to each student and organized their binder for them. She showed them what it means to be organized as a student. This is the kind of teacher I want to be. Through this, I saw so much dedication and care for her students. She took her own time, to do this for the students, so that they will succeed.
I think that as a teacher, these kinds of things are important. What can I do to help a student succeed? Seeing this the other day allowed me to reflect on what I will do and what kinds of things I would sacrifice to help students succeed.

choral counting!

Choral counting is something that I believe to be beneficial. I think that it's a great way to see patterns in numbers and sequence. I really liked what we did in class by counting by 19. I thought the patterns discovered here were quite interesting.
I think that this is a good way to show students that math is about finding patterns. It's that satisfaction feeling when you can solve things in a different way.
It's interesting to see how elementary students go about choral counting. They find patterns that we don't even find.
I think that this is a great opportunity to explore numbers, especially with students learning their basic multiplications.

quick images

I very much enjoyed quick images. I think that it is a good way to start a math lesson because it engages students with a fun challenge.
I learned a lot working with the group of third grade students. They seemed to have very much enjoyed this activity because presented them with a challenge (a game) to do.

This is an interesting way to see what the students are thinking. The challenge that is presented is a group of dots that are shown for three seconds at a time. The students' task is to figure out how many dots are in the group. Here is an example: This example uses tally marks instead of dots but it is the same concept.

I love this, definitely something that I hope to use in the future!

constructive feedback

Some of the constructive feedback that provided valuable to me were one that were detailed. They tell me what was missing and how I can include them. I thought that this type of feedback helped me the most because it provides more reflection. Through this type of feedback, I am able to sit back and see what I did that was either missing or wasn't as effective.

I definitely prefer detailed feedback versus a general statement.

Co-Op versus Regular Elementary School

When I reflect back on the past few months in student teaching, I saw a lot of similarities in why we teach. but i also saw a lot of differences in ways of teaching.

In my dyad, the teacher was a little bit more traditional. She used a lot of the given curriculum and had a great sense of authority in the classroom. The parents were very much involved because each parent was required to volunteer in the school for 3 hours a week per child. There were always around 3 adults in the room at most times. This seemed to help a lot because the students were allowed to do a lot of group work with adult supervision. Each student was able to be watched for most closely. I thought that this was good because the students did get that attention that they needed.
Although this was the case, I thought the ways in which some subjects were taught were a little bit bland. The reason I say this is because it was very instructional based. There wasn't much student engagement. The students didn't show too much that they were actually enjoying school.

In my main placement, the atmosphere is completely different. The teacher is much more engaging and uses other methods to teach. She uses some curriculum but tweaks it for the students that she is teaching. It is amazing to see! She has a good mix of discipline and fun that the students can really relate to and listen. She incorporates a lot of life lessons and lets the students know what it will be like in the future for them. She challenges them in many ways and has high expectations. I'm excited to see what she will be doing in the next few months. :)

Lesson Plans

Writing lesson plans has been a challenge. I don't know if it's because it's the start of us learning but it seems to take a long time. I am so excited to be at the place where we don't have to think so hard about it and everything just naturally comes out.

The end of the quarter has been stressful because of the many lesson plans and assignments that are due... this may be the reason why I am finding writing these lesson plans more challenging. I can't wait for it to end.. at least all of the assignments.

main placement

I love being back!
I felt so welcomed. I walked into the room to my desk and found flowers and chocolates. When the students came, I got hugs and just a nice welcome!

They have grown so much! The atmosphere in the classroom is very different. The desks have changed and the students are much more responsible for their actions. The community in the classroom has grown as well... There was a student who was not paying attention and another student called him out and reminded him to listen. It was quite amazing.

I didn't realize how much I missed them.