October 19, 2017

EDUC 350

     While completing our visit at the elementary school yesterday, I was surprised by many things, yet not surprised at all by other things. My teacher was very welcoming, and it was obvious how much she cared for her students. Walking in the hall she told me, "I wish I had started out student teaching in a school like this. Student teaching in a school located in a middle class to wealthy neighborhood did not prepare me for teaching here. The needs are just different here." She explained that her heart was at the school where she is teaching now because of all of the needs.
     I absolutely loved spending all day in this particular third grade classroom. The kids were so loving and sweet, and I think I must have gotten 1,000 hugs throughout the day. Many of the little girls begged me to let them play with my hair when we went out on the playground. One thing that surprised me was that the little boys craved attention and love just as much as the little girls did. With my past experience in classrooms in different areas, almost always it is the little girls that want love and nurturing and the little boys that want someone to talk to, play with, and give them attention. It was obvious that the children at this particular school craved love and attention. All of them.
     One thing that made me sad yesterday was that I saw a little girl that had a piece of twine tied around her pants through her belt loops. She was trying to hold her pants up with twine because she didn't have a belt. The twine wasn't working well, and her pants were falling down anyway. I saw multiple kids with dirty clothes and book bags that were falling apart. At one point I looked over at the teacher that I was with, and she was trying to safety-pin a little girl's book bag together. The book bag looked like it had been through a blender, but the teacher just kept trying her best to pin it and make it work. What surprised me most about this was that the teacher had a look of total concentration on her face. Not sadness, not frustration, just a "let me see what I can do here" look on her face. I admire how this teacher does her best and is loving and does not get frustrated with her students. But I really admired how she doesn't let her job get the best of her emotions. By just observing this teacher, you can tell that she is totally in her element. Completely comfortable by her surroundings. Not worried about the traumatic experiences of teaching in this particular elementary school that tomorrow might bring. She takes it one day at a time, meeting one need at a time to the best of her ability. This relates to so many of the NCTCS Standards, but especially to Standard 5c, "Teachers function effectively in a complex, dynamic environment."
     I saw several kids throughout the day that looked like they were going to cry, or were very frustrated and angry, even though nothing in class happened to make them upset. I think that this is because they are carrying burdens with them that are placed on them outside of school. I don't really care what the NC School Report Card looks like, the kids that I spent the day with yesterday are smart and eager to learn. How and why in the world would anyone label these children as "not intelligent" because "they are in poverty and they'll just keep failing and never be successful." This is why I want to teach. Because I don't label children as a failure because "their home lives will never let them rise above and be successful." I believe in giving all children a chance because they are all able to learn and they all deserve it. If you don't believe this statement, education is not the right field for you. This aligns with Standard 2a, "Teachers provide an environment in which each child has a positive, nurturing relationship with caring adults."

EDUC 410

We had a great seminar today about Integration and Technology. Often times we used examples in the seminar today about how the teachers that we spent the day with yesterday used Technology and integrated many subjects into one lesson. We talked about how important it is to make utilizing technology in the classroom seamless. This is exactly what my teacher did yesterday. As a part of every lesson, at least one center was using computers to work on math, reading or phonics. The students were so used to this that they were independent, knowing how to log in, plug their earphones in, and work quietly on the computers and iPads. This relates to Standard 4d, "Teachers integrate and utilize technology  in their instruction." For my outside research, I looked up what some of the best ways to integrate technology into my future classroom are. Here's the link:
https://www.edutopia.org/technology-integration-guide-implementation
This resource is from Edutopia, so it's really good. It includes everything from how to begin introducing technology into your classroom to some of the best sites to actually use in your lessons. This article also talks about how to make this integration of technology seamless, how to use technology to provide feedback, and how to use technology to make a professional development plan. It's got some good stuff!

In my future classroom I will...

• Create a positive relationship with my students and my class as a whole because in the school visit yesterday I saw how important that was.
• Create a positive classroom culture and environment because in the school visit yesterday I saw how important that was.
• Integrate technology in my classroom seamlessly.
• Integrate many subjects into my lessons because this makes life easier when it comes to teaching the Standards, and it helps students to retain the information and become more engaged in the lessons.

    

October 5, 2017

EDUC 350...

This week in EDUC 350, we had Dr. Mitcham come talk to us about Special Education, Multi-Tiered System Support (MTSS), Response to Intervention (RTI), and Team-Initiated Problem Solving (TIPS). (Wow, that's kinda information overload!)
With MTSS, we learned about the different tiers. There's Tier 1, which is Differentiated Core. Everyone participates in the regular core curriculum in the classroom, but many students need differentiation. 80-85% of students are in Tier 1. Tier 2 is Supplemental Support/Enrichment. This is "core plus more," and 15-20% of students are in Tier 2. Lastly, there's Tier 3, which is Intensive Support/Targeted Curriculum Extensions. About 5% of students are Tier 3. After Tier 3, those that don't benefit from the Tiers go to Special Education. Those in Special Education have Individualized Education Plans (IEP's).
There were a few key points that I took from Dr. Mitcham's visit, and they really stood out to me. I enjoyed the important information that she provided, but what I most enjoyed was the advice she gave us about teaching in general. These key points were:

• A teacher needs to fix behavioral problems first, and then academic problems. However, the teacher needs to make sure that these behavioral problems are actually behavioral, and not stemming from frustration from an underlying academic problem.
• Children are like oysters. They will only open up when they are ready, and if you're not there for them when they finally decide to open up, they will just shut again.
• We teach children. We need to remember this. The content that we provide them is important, but in the end it's only content. We need to teach kids.
• The paycheck isn't why we teach. The paycheck is the result of teaching. The "why" is our own personal reasons. {My own personal reasons: It's my calling and my passion, I want to help children, I love kids... I could literally go on and on about all the reasons why I want to teach.}
• ALL children can learn. Just because a child comes from poverty absolutely does not mean that they aren't as smart as a rich kid. The difference can simply be that the child from poverty was not introduced to as many things (like books) as the child coming from wealth.
• The bulk of my time will not be spent lesson planning. It will be spent problem solving.

All of these key points are related to many of the North Carolina Professional Teaching Standards. I think that they mostly relate to Standard 2a, "Teachers provide an environment in which each child has a positive, nurturing relationship with caring adults." I will integrate ALL of these key points into my future classroom because I think that they are all so SO important.

EDUC 410...

We talked a lot about Formative Assessment specifically in this class this week. In one of the Frontline assignments for this class this week, there was a video about a teacher who was frustrated because she had specific students that were so smart and knew all of the material, but they were not doing well on their tests and other assessments. She KNEW that they knew this material. So she came up with a strategy for helping them do their own assessment data, getting their parents more involved, and helping the students learn to take responsibility for their own learning. This new strategy was Student Led Conferences. Each student had their own binders with their goals, data of improvement, and evidence of this improvement. Their evidence was graded work that they completed. Each student met with their parents and teacher, and explained to their parents and teacher their goals, how they reached them, and their data as well as evidence supporting this data. I thought this idea was golden. I definitely plan to implement this in my classroom. This aligns with Standard 2e, "Teachers work collaboratively with the families and significant adults in the lives of their students." It also relates to Standard 5a, "Teachers analyze student learning." Lastly, it also related to Standard 3d, "Teachers make instruction relevant to students."

For my outside research this week, I read about formative assessment on Carnegie Mellon University's website. It says that formative assessments "help students identify their strengths and weaknesses and target areas that need work." I think the key point of this statement is that formative assessments help students to target areas that need work. This helps students to take responsibility for their own learning.

Source: https://www.cmu.edu/teaching/assessment/basics/formative-summative.html