SSED 307 April 24, 2018 // Blog 4

Hey y'all!
     I can't believe it's time to write our last blog post! This month has been crazy as I have been trying to wrap up everything for the semester.

Learning Experiences
     This month I turned in my Concept Based Instruction Unit, my clinical experience commentaries, my last Top Tweets of the Week, and now I'm finishing up my PDP and I will be (almost) done! I am thankful for the opportunity to practice the edTPA commentaries in order to help prepare me for student teaching. Speaking of student teaching, we should be getting our placements back very soon😍
     Today was our last day at the elementary school that we have a partnership with this semester, and they gave us gift bags and provided lunch for us! My C.E. also shared a cool "teacher trick" with me today: you can apply for grants for field trips and the field trip will come to you... she applied for a grant for a field trip at an aquarium, and she won it for her classroom. Some of the aquarium's staff is coming next Friday to her classroom (they are driving 5 hours and spending the night in motel rooms just to come visit and teach the class)! I didn't know that this was possible, so I thought it was really cool.

Outside Learning & Research
     I know that as (future) teachers we're always looking for research-based strategies for our lesson plans, practice edTPA, etc. I found this research-based strategy to help students with their writing, and I thought I'd share it! It's called the "Collaborative Community of Writers" strategy. 

• The “Collaborative Community of Writers” strategy is based on the analysis of research whose evidence shows that “Because well-structured collaborative writing activities allow students to learn from each other, compositional quality improves significantly.”
• Santangelo, T., & Olinghouse, N. G. (2009). Effective Writing Instruction for Students Who Have Writing Difficulties. Focus On Exceptional Children, 42(4), 1-20.
In a nutshell, kids learn to write better when they write in small groups and hear their peers' writing. 
I used this strategy in one of my lesson plans for kindergarten and I loved it. (Yesterday was my last day teaching in my kindergarten clinical and I'm going to miss them SO bad.💗) 

NCTCS

     This month as I have really spent a lot of time in the classrooms, I have gained a whole new perspective on what Standard 2a, "Teachers provide an environment in which each child has a positive, nurturing relationship with caring adults," really means. I have seen the worst and the best of it in some of my clinical classrooms this semester. Not all kids are easy to love, but there's something to love about each kid! And they deserve for us to dig deep and find what makes them lovable and love them for it! Even if it's a challenge sometimes. 

So what does all of this mean for my future classroom?

     All of the edTPA commentaries are definitely making me a stronger lesson planner, so that's definitely going to be great for my future classroom. I gained a ton of classroom experience this semester, and I think that every single bit of experience counts and prepares you more as a teacher. This semester has taught me the importance of time management and breaking each week up into bite-sized pieces, because every day counts and you shouldn't put off till tomorrow what you can do today. I think that this will help me a lot when it comes to my future classroom.