EDUC 435 // Blog 3

October 25, 2018

References to Learning Experiences

     This month, I have really been digging into practice for edTPA. I submitted my practice Tasks 1-3 into Taskstream, and I am so thankful that we had the opportunity to practice this before we do the real thing in just a couple short months! I learned so much, and I already have picked up on a few things that I would/should have done differently that I will now know for the real thing. I have also been spending lots of time in my clinical placement, and have been completing my clinical experience feedback forms. I am absolutely loving my placement! Over Fall Break, I had the awesome opportunity to be trained in Orton-Gillingham Phonics with all of the K-2 teachers at my placement school. My principal got it approved to let me sit in on the training, just in case I was to get a job at this school next year and have to teach this phonics program! I really learned so much, not just about phonics in the training, but about the processes involved in learning and teaching students how to read.

References to Outside Learning/Research

     Since I was trained in Orton-Gillingham phonics this month, I decided to do a little bit of outside background research on the program and report it back here to y'all. Orton-Gillingham is published by a company called IMSE. This is an acronym that stands for Institue for Multisensory Education. This program is targeted phonics instruction for children with different learning styles! This program includes activities like forming letters in sand on a plate or air writing, which is for the tactile-kinesthetic learners. Another major component of this program is decoding words, red (sight) words, and other visuals cues for the visual learners. However, one of the most important components of this program is the auditory component. For some parts of the instruction, the teacher says "The sounds is ___." Students are expected to be able to mimic the sound, and spell it correctly. If the teacher says "The sound is /c/," students are expected to correctly write the letters c and k, because they both make this sound. I think that my placement school will do very well with this program!
     You can click the link in the APA citation below and read the journal of an educator that uses Orton-Gillingham in her classroom.

APA citation: IMSE - Journal. (2018, October 16). Retrieved October 25, 2018, from https://journal.orton-gillingham.com/

Connections to the NCTCS

     This month, I really applied myself to my clinical placement and became trained in the new phonics program that they are adopting in the school. At first, I thought that they were going to try to implement it next year, but my C.E. explained to me that they are actually going to start implementing this program either right away, or right after Christmas Break! This is going to be a brand new phonics program that they are going to be starting when I start Student Teaching! Thank the Lord I will be officially trained in it before Student Teaching starts! This is connected to NCTCS 1d, "Teachers advocate for schools and students," because by going through this training, we advocated for what our school and students needed-- a phonics program! This also relates to NCTCS 3, "Teachers know the content they teach." This one is self-explanatory, because if we are going to start teaching this phonics program either now or right after Christmas break, then we definitely need to know what we are going to be teaching! This only comes through training, as well as practice and a little more experience.

Ms. McDaniel's Future Classroom

     In my future classroom, I will use the knowledge that I obtained in this Orton-Gillingham training in order to help my students become stronger readers. Even if I teach grades 3-5, this information will still be very valuable to me as an educator because I can always get students in these upper elementary grades that either struggle with literacy, or cannot read at all. The training even touched base on how you can use this program for people trying to get their GED, or high schoolers that are struggling in reading! I am thankful for this experience because I really feel like I can use this information I learned in order to help my students in literacy in my future classroom, regardless of what grade I teach.

EDUC 435 // Bog 2

October 9, 2018

     I can't believe we are half way done with this semester! It is absolutely flying by and we are so close to student teaching.

References to Learning Experiences:
     This month, I completed my Leadership and Collaboration project, and unpacked the NCTCS for our class. You can view my website later on in this blog! I also taught my learning segment for tasks 1-3, and it went well. I just finished my task 2 commentary for peer review with Bailey, and I am now in the process of peer reviewing her task 2. Next, I will be completing my task 3 commentary for peer review. I am so thankful for the opportunity to do a run-through edTPA before doing the real one next semester.
     We are now getting ready for our Hands on Halloween event! I'm so excited, because I really enjoyed being a part of this event last year.

References to Outside Learning and Research:
     This month for my outside research, I read on Edutopia on how to help students build social and emotional skills. This article was written by Randy Taran, and it talks about how educators can teach (and learn themselves) happiness skills! Here's a visual that he includes in his article:

     He explains that we think "If I can just have/do this, I will be happy." Then, we get it, we are immediately happy, and then our happiness fades. Then we want something else that we think will make us happy, only for the cycle to start all over again. Teaching is a profession in which many people get burned out. What better skill and professional development is there than to learn about this "Never Ending Cycle of Desire," recognize how this happens, and find true, lasting joy? Wouldn't it also be really valuable for us to teach our kids the skills of true happiness, too? For example, instead of always wanting it to be Friday, we can teach them that we can be happy on other days of the week too, because we have so much to be happy about.
     Some of the skills that Taran discusses that we can do to help our kids be happier is relaxation and movement. Research shows that these two things are good for the brain and help everyone to be happier. I know that we didn't talk about this in class this month, but when we write our commentaries, we have to write about how we created a positive learning environment for our students. This is because it is important, y'all!

APA citation:
Taran, R. (2012, September 5). Activities to Build Social and Emotional Skills in Elementary Students. Retrieved October 9, 2018, from https://www.edutopia.org/blog/sel-for-elementary-school-randy-taran

Learning Experiences related to the NCTCS:
     The Leadership and Collaboration project that we completed this month is really eligned to NCTCS 1, "Teachers demonstrate leadership." This is aligned to this standard because we took the time to gather all the data we could find, analyze it, organize it into charts and graphs, and much more. We familiarized ourselves with our placement schools as much as possible so that we are ready for student teaching. This is us being teacher leaders!
     Unpacking the NCTCS is also related to NCTCS 1 for the same reason, but it is also related to NCTCS 5, "Teachers reflect on their practice." When we make our websites and we connect our standards to our future classrooms, we are reflecting on how we can actually apply these standards and be proficient in them.

✭Here is my NCTCS Examining website I made this month!  https://meganmcdaniel098.wixsite.com/nctcs2c2d

Connections to My Future Classroom:
     I will help my students to be happier by having them do GoNoodles to get moving. I'll have them take brain breaks when I see that they need one, as well. I am a person that needs relaxation and exercise to help keep my stress levels from becoming too much, so I can definitely see how this would help my students. I will continue to familiarize myself with the NCTCS as well, because I want to be the best teacher I can be, and these standards will help me to do that.