On Monday I was asked by a fellow resident to come and film her performing a mini lesson for her thrid grade class. This was really exciting for me because I was able to observe her teaching style and how she interacted with her students. This was an awesome experience. Also on Monday I learned about a little program that the Tampa Bay Buccaneers put on, called BUCSCARE. The picture at your left shows you the worksheet that students need to participate in BUCSCARE. Each student writes down the number of pages that they read daily; at home or during independent reading at school. At the end of the month, the class with the most pages read total, gets to take a field trip to One Bucs Place to tour the facility, see locker rooms, equiptment, the practice field and much more.
On Tuesday, at my partnership elementary school, we had an awesome anti-bullying assembly, put on by one of the memebers of the Harlem Globetrotters. He gave the kids a lot of important information about bullying and how to put a stop to it in our schools. He performed some tricks, and let some of the kids participate in activities. The kids were really pumped and they really received a good message about bullying.
On Wednesday, we put our tattle monster in the classroom. If you read my blog from last week, then you know what I'm talking about. This was a truly effective tool because we have less tattling and more working going on in the classroom, and the kids are still able to feel like their tattles are important, even though they don't get the same kind of attention that they used to. If you wish to see a picture of our tattle monster, you can view it in the photo gallery. Also on Wednesday, myself and 2 other of my resident friends were responsible for morning meeting in our classroom management class. We rocked it, if I might say so myself. Our community building activity included a mummy wrapping contest. It was a great deal of fun, everyone got involved (including the teacher), and there are also pictures of this in the photo gallery.
On Thursday, we did some group work in my CT's classroom. Turns out that I really got to see some of the flaws of group work. We had instances where some students dominated the group conversations, while others were completely left out. And then they all spent more time fighting over whether or not they got to participate than they actually did working. After observing this behavior, I wondered what would be some good strategies to help ensure that all members of a group got equal participation rights? I will make surfe to ask my CT how she usually resolves these situations.
Friday was supposed to be my first day responsible for an entire teaching block. My CT had the day off and she planned to allow me to teach the RTI group that day. There would be a substitute in the classroom of course, but she wanted me to take the lead in the phonics lesson. However, when I arrived on Friday, my dreams were shattered. They were unable to find a substitute for her class, so we had to split the students up between the pod, and I got to sit in on one of my fellow resident's classes. This was a blessing in disguise! My friend's CT has such a different teaching style from mine and it really was a good experience to be able to see a different teacher in action. Although I love my CT and her teaching style, I also loved this teacher's style. I feel like my classroom one day will be a blend of both of these. I took lots of notes on things that she did that I either liked, or disliked. It was really good for me to be able to gain a different perspective.
Overall, this was a great week. I really got to see how some of the "Big Names" like the Bucs and the Harlem Globetrotters, make community participation a priority. The kids really have respect for those who take time to show that they care. This week proved to me that teaching really is the most rewarding profession, and I'm so glad to be a part of it.