final post for first semester

I really enjoyed the semester and think I have learned a lot. I still have a lot to learn but I think from where I started out this semester, without any experience, I have come a long way. I have started to understand the things we are learning as more logical and a little more common sense, now that I have been in a classroom and seen the methods and activities in action. I hope that I will be able to build on my knowledge in the following semesters, work on making my lessons much clearer, more concise and to the point, and more interesting. I also need to work on my classroom management skills and how to teach one lesson but to gear different parts of the lesson to help kids of all levels and learning styles, whether it be tactile, visual, or auditory. I also hope to get myself reorganized so I can keep all of my resources I acquire and my lesson plans for later use someday, with some alterations. I cannot believe how fast the semester flew by and I know after just a few days of break I will probably ber eagerly anticipating the start of my second semester in the program.

Observation d'une leçon française à ECDC

I spent the Tuesday before Thanksgiving working in ECDC in the 4's/5's room and got to experience something over there I have never seen: a lesson in french. ECDC has a french teacher come in and learn basic french vocabulary and french songs. When I met the franch teacher, who is fantastic, and brought the students in from playing outside, I was absolutely blown away! The students sang numerous french songs without looking at printed words or images, and as someone who took seven years of french, I am pretty sure their pronunciation of the words was on the dot. And on top of that all the students participated and was able to contribute in french. The french teacher spoke only french to them during the half hour she came to visit. I am amazed with the potential or 4 and 5-year-old's and love the idea of teaching french to young kids, not only to learn the language, but to improve their: phonics skills, pronunciation, and awareness of the English language; and their acceptance and appreciation of other cultures. I really hope I get the more of the opportunity to be part of that.

Last day in my third grade field study...

Today I spent my last day observing and helping students in my third grade class. I am really going to miss walking into a classroom and getting 5-10 hugs every morning, and kids wanting Liza and I to teach them. I really learned how much you get back from teaching, and I know that is just the tip of the iceburg becuase we only spent 15 hours observing in this classroom. When I first started the field I was a little nervous and unsure of myself and how I was going to teach. The idea of teaching to an entire class seemed so scary to me because public speeking has never been my thing, but I found it much easier to speak in front of kids and people who look up to you than to my peers. Even though I know I have a lot to work on to improve my teaching, the opportunity to teach some lessons built my confidence and allowed me to get through one small hurdle.

I really find teaching to be a new creative outlet for me, whether it be through reading, writing, spelling, math, or science (I have yet to teach Social Studies). I think it challenges teachers to think outside the box and come up with alternative ways to teach one lesson in order to address the needs of all students> Not only teaching, but observing the entire class and my case study/spelling student learn and interact, and the lead teacher, assistant teachers, and a peer student teacher, I was able to see what does work and what does not and how students respond to different styles of teaching. I am also amazed with the connection I formed with some of the students in the classroom (as cheesy as that sounds) in just 5 short weeks. I remember the first day they were so shy and although I may still struggle with names at week 5 (which I know appreciate teachers more who can learn names within the first week), I felt like I got to know most all of the children by the last week.

Through my one-on-one work with a boy in the third grade class, I really have become aware how important this kind of instruction is, especially for those students who are struggling. Not only does it boost the students confidence as they realize that someone is taking a personal interest in them and their needs, but it helps boost their motivation to learn and improves learning more rapidly, students also in return learn to trust the teacher. Trust is a huge part of the classroom environment between student and teacher and among students and their peers. In so many of my classes we have discussed bullying and one thing that really impressed me about this environment was the lack of bullying, name-calling, and put downs, and the amount of respect that was exemplified in not only the third grade classroom, but across the school. The school emphasisized the idea of both community and helping others, but at the same time being able to help yourself. This is such a valid lesson because it teaches students the important morals and values of kindness toward others, but also knwoing that just because you show kindness doesn't mean you will receive the same treatment back, and so a student must be strong for themself and be able to help themself.

As I have just finished my pop culture project for lang/lit, I also found the project to open up my awareness to the personal interests of the students, ways in which pop culture is already part of the classroom enviornment, and ways to incorporate it to activate the schema of the students. This was another domain of the classroom environment that plays a role in both learning and social dynamics. It was really fun to take a look at!

In conclusion to this field study, I am so happy that I got this five week opportunity over this semester to "get my feet wet" in a classroom other than my experiences in ECDC and also I am very glad I got assign to a third grade class, since I have mostly worked with pre-schoolers. I think that this experience was taught me so much and was a good way to ease me into the classroom environment. Her at CofC the majority of the student body is of European descent, and even more so at Bucknell, where I did my undergrad, and also Parsons for my post grad. I have always been exposed to people of different cultures and races growing up in the east bay area of CA, however, I never new what it felt like to be the one who was the minority. I really can't say it enough, this was really the best experience I could have asked for. I hope to be exposed to all kinds of new situations and environments in my fields to come. I was also so lucky to have been assigned to the teacher I was. She was very nice and gave me feedback on what I could do better and commented on what she thought I did well. Even with the things she suggested that I change, I still felt she helped to boost my confidence in the classroom.

Issues with My Blog...

Okay, so just thought I would let you know that my settings for my blog still say that anyone can comment on it and there are no privacy settings set. I tried changing my background template back to the general one several times to see if that is causing all of this and since the computer is not allowing me to do so, I am guessing that it has something to do with that. I will try and see if I can find a computer whiz tomorrow to help me solve this, so you won't have to send me your comments via e-mail Jameca.  Sorry 'bout that!

Teaching my First Reading Lesson

Today I was at Charleston Development Academy again with the third graders. I noticed out in the hallway, before walking up the stairs to the 2nd floor, that there is a bulletine board that has tips for parents and how they can be involved with their child or children and what they are doing in school. I never noticed this before but I thought it was really neat becuase we are always discussing in class how important parent involvement, support, and interest are in their child's academic success. I also noticed how much text there is both in and outside of the classroom and that it is very culturally appropriate with a lot related to African American Heritage.

I also had a chance to teach a reading lesson this morning. I think it went okay, however, I felt like my writing lesson was the stronger of the two. I feel like I don't have much practice reading aloud recently (not since high school) and I think I will need to work on this. Next semester I think my public speaking course will help me to improve on this. I think that the secong paragraph I read, of the two that they illustrated from, was too long and as suggested to me, I agree that the vocabulary was probably hard to understand and follow. I think my point would have been much better addressed with a shorter abreviated lesson, that was more focused and clear. In fact, I think this will be my challenge throughout learning to teach... that is staying on topic and being clear and precise in what I teach. This means shortening lessons, timing myself, and figure what is and is not important to teach. I think my lesson would have worked out much better if I had focused on this and I think it can be reworked to be better. I also think I still need to work on controlling the students' behavior and getting their attention.

Overall, I think I learned more today than I have in previous days at our field experience, which is a good thing obviously. I felt a little more pressure being observed but it is such a help to get that feedback! Next Monday will be mmy last day in the 3rd grade class and I look forward to another day to observe and reflect.

Day Number Three with the Third Grade

Today, was the first day I taught lessons in this class. Actually, it was the first day I have ever taught a formal lesson in any classroom that is non-tennis related. I absolutely loved it!! I am not a very good public speaker and normally get nervous when doing class presentations or speaking in front of a large group, but similar to how I felt when I coached tennis, I think speaking in front of kids and working with them is much easier. I taught both a one-on-one spelling lesson and then a writing/designing lesson, which followed up on Liza's reading lesson. The focus of the lessons today was on sequencing. For my spelling lesson, which followed after my writing/designing lesson, I worked with a student on short /a/ and short /i/ sounds and word families for both short /a/ and /i/. My writing/designing lesson plan was focused on sequencing and on main events of a story. I had the students design their own comic strip, after showing examples and discussing the parts of a comic.

Overall, I think my lessons went well. I know Liza did a great job with her's and the teacher seemed happy with both of ours. Both Liza and I used something to throw at the students when they raised their hands (Liza used a very round pig stuffed animal-so funny, and I used a soft stress ball) and I think that helped to get the class more involved. I had trouble limiting the talking during the comic designing/writing part of the lesson though and at times walking around felt more like a parent than a teacher. I am not sure if there is any other good technique to quiet them besides team points (which I did not use today). I have also collected the comic strips and put them into a book for the class and as I went through them, I noticed that the boy who I work on spelling with wrote a comic about me-About the day he saved me! Definitely made me laugh! I think this was a fun lesson to teach but think it would be better to do at the end of the year, as some kids struggled. I also noticed through this assignment that there are some perfectionists in the class who kept re-doing and erasing, or also some people who got frustrated because they felt they didn't have good drawing skills. I found it a struggle for me to try and help everyone. I felt like I was jumping from student to student and could not spend the needed time with each one. I think that there should be some one-on-one time between the student and teacher at least a few times a week if possible.


Next class I will be teaching another class lesson, but this time a creative reading lesson, and then another one-on-one spelling lesson on long vowels and the CVCe pattern, focusing on learning when to use/when to not use a silent /e/ at the end of the word. I am excited to have another opportunity and to learn more from my next experience.

3rd grade field observation #2

In my 2nd observation this morning I felt like I was more more involved in what was going on in the classroom. I got there about 15 minutes before the teacher and a woman who helps out in the classrooms, after retiring from teaching for 57 years, started giving me some advice. She told me that the two most important things you need to teach are discipline and to be on time. The teacher for my room arrived about 10 minutes before 8 o'clock but kids were already there, and this woman who I was speaking with also suggested that before you leave your classroom each day you should leave instructions for what the students should do the next morning so that if any get there before the teacher they are expected to be seated quietly and working on something productive. I thought this was a great idea. As I waited for the teacher, I also started talking to one of the students who was telling me all about the trends for third grade girls and her favorite shows, which include hands down of Hannah Montana, Drake and Josh, and That's so Raven, which are all Disney TV series. There are quite a few Hannah Montana backpacks in the room too. Once the teacher arrived I handed out a 2-sided reading and reaction handout. One side was a reading about Helen Keller and the other about the sport, Cricket. While the teacher got organized, I made an answer key for the lesson , and then Liza and I walked around and helped kids. The kids seemed much more comfortable with us helping them today and I got a much better sense of their personalities than I did the previous observation.


As students were finishing up their worksheet, it was time for the morning meeting and assembly, so because it was nice weather, we all went outside. At the assembly, which Kenneth's dad ran today, Dr. Roper, a WW2 Vet, spoke about why we put the flag at half mast and about the recent military trajedy. We did the pledge of allegiance, and sang, "My Country 'tis of Thee," and they recited their school moral code. We then listened to the Kindergarten class (who were adorable!) talk about caring attitudes. They also discussed 2 specific students who had written essays and won awards for them. After the assembly we headed back to the classroom.


The next activity was DOL, and Liza and I circulated the room, helping kids write about when they say "Thank you" and how often they say it. Then the teacher reviewed prefixes and suffixes with the class. She then did a short activity, looking at the roots of words, their prefixes and suffixes, and what they mean. The next activity, Liza and I helped the students trace their hands on two pieces of paper. Some kids were able to trace their left but tracing their right with their left hand was a challenge. On the palm of one hand they wrote, im- ,and on the other they wrote, "-ful". The teahcer handed out dictionaries and they were to look up words with -im as a prefix and put one word on each finger they traced and on the other 5 words with the suffix -ful, with one word per finger. They then were to write sentences using these word. The teacher let them us dictionaries for this, but I felt like many of the kids did not understand the word they were writing.


I think in this observation the kids really opened up more to us and were a lot less shy. It is nice to see kids who are eager to learn and seemed to appreciate our help and kids were even giving us hugs. I also noticed things that were not working in the classroom and I think I may have an idea as to what might work better for the teacher, which I hope to try in the next 2 weeks when I teach some lessons. I think there needs to be more visual and creative learning, more use of gross motor skills and moving around, and less worksheets and assigned readings. I think enforcing behavior as a game and making it competitive between desk cluster groups would help to ensure better focus and less talking to. I am really enjoying my time in this classroom and look forward to getting an opportunity to teach in the next two weeks.