I was so excited to plan an amazing activity with my kids this week. They spent an entire week discussing and learning about poetry and they focused their energy on writing their very own poems. This was a chance to show their creativity and explore the endless possibilities of writing. I wanted to find a way to showcase their work and allow them to display and be proud of it. So I suggested that we have a mock coffee house poetry reading, which turned into the cocoa house poetry slam. I brought in hot cocoa and cookies and the students read their poetry aloud to their classmates as well as a few special guests. It was important that the students be able to have fun and enjoy learning, but in the back of my mind there was a purpose greater than that. The area I teach in is a high poverty area. I have 2 students who are homeless, and many others who enjoy their ONLY meals a day at school Monday through Friday. I look back to a book we read last semester called Nickel and Dimed. A book about the harsh economy we live in and the struggle of most poverty level families. This reminded me of how I have to consider in teaching the way my students live and be aware of ways that I can enhance their educational experience in ways that also enrich and bless their lives. I brought food, so that they could take a snack home, just in case they don't get to eat dinner. I brought hot cocoa, because they may have not ever had the opportunity to enjoy it. I created an environment of community and caring, where they could share their feelings through poetry and enjoy the pleasure of each others company. What I didn't expect to happen was me learning so much about my students. They really dug deep, writing poems about their home life, their friends, their fears. I was so proud of my kiddos and so blessed by this experience. I feel like I know them better now than ever and I have made a bulletin board in the hallway to showcase all of their hard work. What an amazing experience and an amazing opportunity to take learning to a whole new level.
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Returning from Spring Break was a bit of a struggle for me. I had to get back into work mode. As a student, I had a lot of refreshing to do in preparation for a new week. In reviewing my assignments, especially those relating to my inquiry, I said to myself several times, " I wish I could SEE an example." This led me to thinking about how my own preferences as a student are to learn in a visual manner. I constantly need to refer to visual examples, take notes when I read in order to remember what I've just read, and I depend heavily on graphic organizers to straighten out my thoughts. To me, the way my students prefer to learn is just as important as the way I choose to learn as an adult. The difference between the two is that as an adult, I can choose to study and learn in any way I find helpful. As an elementary student in a classroom setting, too often the method of learning and displaying what is learned is determined by the teacher. This thinking is what has led me to the inner core of my inquiry. If only we took the time to find out how students learn best, and differentiated instruction based on these needs, would our students be more successful? Is our student's knowledge stifled by the way we force them to learn and produce evidence of learning? Fortunately, in my coursework I am learning the best practices for differentiation, how to effectively plan lessons, and how to pull from research the best techniques relating to my inquiry. After discussing this with my CT, we have determined that on Monday the planning will begin. she is going to provide me with her own plans and I will revise them for a group of six students in order to appeal to their specific learning styles. Earlier this week I administered a learning modailty survey and have collected and oranized my results. I selected six students to focus on for the next few weeks. I have chosen 2 visual learners, 2 kinesthetic learners, and 2 auditory learners for this research, and in the coming weeks I will track their success in these differentiated lessons. Hopefully I will find that by appealing to their individual learning styles, they can be more successful and more confident in the classroom.
This week, we got a last minute notification that my CT would have to attend a data chat the very next day, that would pull her out of the classroom for a few hours. Instead of allowing our lesson to be placed in the hands of a last minute sub, I asked my CT if I could take this opportunity to take the lead and create a few lessons for the kids and keep them on their current track. She was very excited to be able to plan with me and let me take on the responsibility, because this meant that the students would not have to do meaningless worksheets, but could be engaged in a meaningful lesson instead. We planned for RTI, Science, and Guided Reading. The Guided Reading groups and RTI group are already on a schedule, and I basically just had to pick up where they left off and continue the current planned lesson. Science on the other hand, was an introduction of a new concept, and I had free reign to be creative. I wanted to practice differentiated instruction, since that is the focus of my coursework and the overarching concept of my Story of My Professional Learning. For the science lesson, the initial plan was that the students would read independently the lessons 7 and 8 on the organs of plants and animals, and the senses, and then discuss. In order to differentiate this lesson, I considered the students learning styles and readiness levels. I have a fairly diverse mix of readers, with different ability levels. To differentiate with my low readers in mind, I selectively grouped the students into six groups which included a low reader, a high reader and 1 or 2 mid-range readers. I made sure not to include all ELL's, all Low Readers, or all ESE in a group together. The mix was as even as I could create it, and my low readers were supported because they had a high reader in the group that could assist or read aloud while they followed along. Then for their groups, I differentiated by assigning jigsaw readings. The pages were split between groups and they were to read their portion, create a DLE on chart paper, and present their section to the rest of the class. I chose a DLE (Draw, Label, Explain) to appeal to each of their different learning styles. My visual learners could Draw and easily understand drawings, my auditory learners could benefit from the Explain and the presentation, and my Kinesthetic learners could participate in the hands on part of creating the chart. When I introduced the lesson, the students reacted badly. They were unhappy about their groups and were very verbal about it. I feel like the students were testing me because this was the first time I was in the lead and their regular teacher was not in the room. There was a substitute in the room, but I was in charge, and I stood my ground. I understand that they needed to test me to see how far they could push, so I had to step out of that passive, friendly mode, and into the authority mode. As they complained about their groups, I told them that I had the same high expectations for them as their teacher did and that I would not have assigned them these groups if I didn't think they could be mature and handle it. They stomped off to their groups, and then 5 minutes or so later, as I was circulating the room, I noticed that everyone was working very well together. Everyone was on task, and they really enjoyed the creativity that I let them express in the drawing. I gave them the freedom to display their learning in any picture they wanted to. I just told them that they should include as much important information as possible because they would have to teach it to their classmates. The groups did a good job of delegating responsibilities on their own, and they were all contributing. Now, because our schedule was disrupted, we only had 30 minutes for science, but the kids worked really hard on their posters, and I told them that they could finish up and present tomorrow. Although I feel like the lesson itself was successful, there are some things I would have done differently over the course of the day to improve myself. First of all, I focused on my lesson so hard, that I didn't consider classroom management. I should've just started the day by taking 5 minutes at the very beginning to talk to the kids about my rules and expectations. This might have saved us a little time in the long run. The kids needed to know that I wasn't going to tolerate misbehavior and they should've known that from the beginning. Most of the day, before science, I had to remind them to be on task, and to control the noise level. And most of the time I was having to remind them was when I was pulling small groups. Had I addressed my expectations in the beginning, I probably would not have had so much fuss out of them.
Reflecting and making adjustments to my management skills and lessons, and using data on student learning styles and readiness to plan and adjust lessons, help me to accomplish my goal of FEAPS : (a).1.e- uses a variety of data, independently and in collaboration with colleagues, to evaluate student learning outcomes, adjust planning, and continuously improve the effectiveness of lessons. (a).2.b.- manages individual and class behaviors through a well planned management system. This week I has the privilege of being able to contribute to a synchronous co-teach. I was responsible for taking the lead in the beginning of the lesson to ask the essential question, give instructions for writing in the science journal, the turn and talk, and the whole class discussion. All of this was a warm up to the lesson. This particular day’s Science lesson was about the human body organs and their function. The purpose of the first day was to introduce the unit to the students. My responsibility was basically to informally assess the student’s prior knowledge before we began our instruction on the unit. I met with my CT to plan the lesson and we first decided, using the article I read for my instructional planning course (Badali & Titus), which co-teaching model we would use for the lesson. After planning and consulting with my CT, we decided that we would perform what we call a 2:2:2. This is where I introduce the essential question and give the students 2 minutes to journal their thoughts in the science journal, 2 minutes to turn and talk with their shoulder partner, and 2 minutes to have a whole class discussion. So I began by asking, what are human body organs and what do they do? I told the students that they were to take 2 minutes to write their thoughts on the essential question in their science journal. The first problem that we encountered, is that it took almost 2 minutes for the students to just write the essential question in their notebook. This led me to allowing them more time to write, which pushed our lesson back by an additional 4 minutes. The second problem we encountered, is that when asked to turn and talk, the students did not have on-topic conversations about the essential question. My CT and I drifted around the room and had to constantly re-direct groups back to the topic. The 3rd phase of the lesson however, was a success. The students really enjoyed and contributed to the whole class discussion. They were fully engaged and were asking some really wonderful questions. They were also answering each other’s questions. I was able to facilitate this conversation and my CT chimed in when needed to ask them further questions and deepen their thinking about the topic. As I do with every lesson I contribute to, I video taped my interactions with the students. After going home and reviewing the video, I decided that there were a few things that I would have liked to do differently if I had the opportunity to do it again. The overall success of the whole class discussion made me think, what if we had done this first instead of last? If I had begun with the whole class discussion, the students would have been engaged and would have had many other ideas to pull from when writing in their science journal. I believe there overall written responses would have been more thorough and well thought out after having a meaningful class discussion. I also noticed, that because I was unfamiliar with the content, that my questions during the discussion were not as rigorous as I would have liked. The teacher's resource for the science material was unavailable to me at the time, and I had only briefly glanced at it prior to the lesson. This really prohibited me from asking good question, because I did not fully understand the content requirements of the unit and which direction the instruction needed to go. After this lesson, I asked my CT to please share the teacher resource with me and make me copies of the material so that I could study them in depth for the next lesson. Having this experience really opened my eyes to the importance of thorough planning and knowing the content. I also was able to compare our attempt at synchronous teaching to the examples given in the article, and overall, I think my CT and I complimented each other well!
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