Pre-Student Teaching (EDUC 362: Teaching Experience I) serves as the initial field experience for prospective student teachers and is completed the semester prior to student teaching.
I look forward to meeting your Host Teachers and visiting your new classrooms next week, April 4.
....Be sure to have your teacher sign your Log In Sheet during weekly visits. ....Begin journaling with your teacher by email, chat or by hand ....Team teach together when you can ....Talk about your first lesson you will be teaching ....If you or your teacher has questions - please ask
On March 31st from eight to eleven I observed the kindergartners of Mrs. Benally's class; and had a blast. I started my day observing Kathleen as she worked on letter and site word recognition with her Gear Up kids. Then, as is customary for this class, the students were split into four groups and I was given charge over the writing group. In this center students were assigned the task of drawing a picture, on a raindrop, of what they would do in the rain. Once their drawing was complete they then had to write a sentence to accompany their drawing. It was during this time that I happened upon a couple realizations and a reminder. My first realization is that kids are MESSY. Of the ten kids I worked with half drew pictures and wrote about jumping in rain puddles and the other half played in the mud. The second realization was just how amazing these kids are. I saw some of the most imaginative and fantastic writing pieces come out of the minds of these students. It was at this time that I was reminded of why I am going into the teaching profession despite all of the hurdles that come with it; I want to become a teacher because I want to work with students and I can't wait to go back.
After meeting Ervin Trujillo before Spring Break I had my first chance this week to really enjoy his classroom. His first period class was by far the most interesting to me and it is where I hope to spend my time teaching this semester. It is an academic lab class, aka Knight School, and I really enjoyed watching the way that the lesson offered the students the opportunity to practice, giving them the extra support they needed with math. More importantly, the students enjoyed the activities as the class progressed and were engaged repeatedly with different methods. The class started with the expectation that everyone sit down and get to work immediately and, amazingly, they did. This can be partially credited to the magic of the laptop and internet, but I think more is owed to the power of Ervin’s expectation. In the next part of the class it was great to see the students stand up after this and work together to develop definitions of different types of triangles, then to use geoboards to show their work, and finally to play a game in partners with the geoboards. It was fun to watch as the students worked, paid attention, and learned with interest.
The other classes I observed were great too. Overall I saw lessons which deftly wove together instruction, activity, technology, and fun. But more than that I got the chance to observe the reward of interested students.
I am going to be working in a first grade classroom for this practicum...yes, that's what I said, first grade. I love it, so far. Mrs. Lyautey will be a great mentor for me. I will be going to this classroom twice a week. On Tuesdays, I will have the opportunity to work with the students during Language Arts, and on Thursdays, I will be there during Math. This is a big class. There are 24 students. They took easily to me and I to them. Tuesday, they were doing centers, I worked with different groups at different centers in an effort to learn their names as well as who they are in terms of what they like and such. At the library center I found myself coersed into reading Skippyjon Jones to the group. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thursday was Math, and I felt like I just fit right into the flow of her classroom. The students were using manipulatives to do fractions, and I helped Mrs. Lyautey as much as was necessary to make sure the students were understanding the fractions and the point of using the manipulatives. I also had to monitor "eating the manipulatives" as they were using Teddy Grahams :)
My first observation went really well. Last Tuesday I was fortunate to not only observe in Mr. Ericksen’s fourth grade class at Animas. The students were working on Readers Theater for Language Arts. Eight of the students volunteered to read aloud the roles in the front of the classroom. Mr. Ericksen gave me the teacher’s edition to follow along with the students and asked me to have the students explain the meaning of the highlighted vocabulary words as well as any words they may not know. I was a bit overwhelmed being thrown in to the teaching role right off the bat. However after I relaxed it became second nature. It was very reinforcing that Mr. Ericksen trusted me enough to have me jump right in. My next observation was on Thursday during Math. The students are working on long division and have been for several weeks. Most of the students are doing well and understand the concept. However, several of the students are really struggling with it and are in need of extra help. I was able to work one on one with several of the students. When working with them it was very interesting to watch them work through the problems and see the logic they used to acquire the answer. Even when getting the wrong answer it was easy to see why they made the mistakes they did. Working through this process with them I was able to get a better understand of the many struggles a teacher has with having such large class sizes. I am enjoying my time in the classroom so far and am excited to continue through the next few weeks.
Okay, so I just wrote a wonderful post describing my observation experiences so far, and then technology erased it all...so here is my attempt to recapture my original post:
I have been observing Mr. Polk's U.S. History class since mid-May, although I feel like the term "observing" does not fully capture all that I am experiencing. As soon as I started visiting Mr. Polk's class, he immediately started integrating me into the daily tasks of taking attendance, passing back papers, participating in discussions, etc. I have been observing "full-time" for the past couple of weeks, which has given me the opportunity to start to feel comfortable interacting with the students and knowing their names. Some students have already commented about how I am a part of their class now! I have also been able to team-teach a couple of lessons, and some days (after observing 3 or 4 sections of the same class), I am given 5th or 6th period to teach.
I will be starting my 10 days of solo teaching this Friday. Mr. Polk will be out of town next week, so I will be on my own without my cooperating teacher for 5 days. We worked hard last week (taking advantage of downtime during testing week) to get my lesson plans finalized and technology up and running. I am actually working to set up the clicker program in the classroom this week to use in next Wednesday's class, so I'm learning new technology too! I'm hoping that everything goes smoothly while Mr. Polk is away. The students seem really great, and I'm thinking that the controversial subject matter I'll be covering will keep them engaged: U.S. anti-immigration policies; Japanese American internment; U.S. perspectives on the Holocaust (eugenics, lack of willingness to accept Jewish refugees, liberation of concentration camps); participants in times of conflict (victims, bystanders, rescuers, oppressors); and the atomic bomb.
I feel so luck to have found such an inspiring, supportive, and energetic teacher to work with this semester! Although it is a lot of extra work to teach all 5 sections of U.S. history instead of just one class period per day, I think the opportunity will give me good experience.
I look forward to meeting your Host Teachers and visiting your new classrooms next week, April 4.
ReplyDelete....Be sure to have your teacher sign your Log In Sheet during weekly visits.
....Begin journaling with your teacher by email, chat or by hand
....Team teach together when you can
....Talk about your first lesson you will be teaching
....If you or your teacher has questions - please ask
On March 31st from eight to eleven I observed the kindergartners of Mrs. Benally's class; and had a blast. I started my day observing Kathleen as she worked on letter and site word recognition with her Gear Up kids. Then, as is customary for this class, the students were split into four groups and I was given charge over the writing group. In this center students were assigned the task of drawing a picture, on a raindrop, of what they would do in the rain. Once their drawing was complete they then had to write a sentence to accompany their drawing. It was during this time that I happened upon a couple realizations and a reminder. My first realization is that kids are MESSY. Of the ten kids I worked with half drew pictures and wrote about jumping in rain puddles and the other half played in the mud. The second realization was just how amazing these kids are. I saw some of the most imaginative and fantastic writing pieces come out of the minds of these students. It was at this time that I was reminded of why I am going into the teaching profession despite all of the hurdles that come with it; I want to become a teacher because I want to work with students and I can't wait to go back.
ReplyDeleteAfter meeting Ervin Trujillo before Spring Break I had my first chance this week to really enjoy his classroom. His first period class was by far the most interesting to me and it is where I hope to spend my time teaching this semester. It is an academic lab class, aka Knight School, and I really enjoyed watching the way that the lesson offered the students the opportunity to practice, giving them the extra support they needed with math. More importantly, the students enjoyed the activities as the class progressed and were engaged repeatedly with different methods. The class started with the expectation that everyone sit down and get to work immediately and, amazingly, they did. This can be partially credited to the magic of the laptop and internet, but I think more is owed to the power of Ervin’s expectation. In the next part of the class it was great to see the students stand up after this and work together to develop definitions of different types of triangles, then to use geoboards to show their work, and finally to play a game in partners with the geoboards. It was fun to watch as the students worked, paid attention, and learned with interest.
ReplyDeleteThe other classes I observed were great too. Overall I saw lessons which deftly wove together instruction, activity, technology, and fun. But more than that I got the chance to observe the reward of interested students.
I am going to be working in a first grade classroom for this practicum...yes, that's what I said, first grade. I love it, so far. Mrs. Lyautey will be a great mentor for me. I will be going to this classroom twice a week. On Tuesdays, I will have the opportunity to work with the students during Language Arts, and on Thursdays, I will be there during Math. This is a big class. There are 24 students. They took easily to me and I to them. Tuesday, they were doing centers, I worked with different groups at different centers in an effort to learn their names as well as who they are in terms of what they like and such. At the library center I found myself coersed into reading Skippyjon Jones to the group. And I thoroughly enjoyed it. Thursday was Math, and I felt like I just fit right into the flow of her classroom. The students were using manipulatives to do fractions, and I helped Mrs. Lyautey as much as was necessary to make sure the students were understanding the fractions and the point of using the manipulatives. I also had to monitor "eating the manipulatives" as they were using Teddy Grahams :)
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to my next two sessions.
My first observation went really well. Last Tuesday I was fortunate to not only observe in Mr. Ericksen’s fourth grade class at Animas. The students were working on Readers Theater for Language Arts. Eight of the students volunteered to read aloud the roles in the front of the classroom. Mr. Ericksen gave me the teacher’s edition to follow along with the students and asked me to have the students explain the meaning of the highlighted vocabulary words as well as any words they may not know. I was a bit overwhelmed being thrown in to the teaching role right off the bat. However after I relaxed it became second nature. It was very reinforcing that Mr. Ericksen trusted me enough to have me jump right in.
ReplyDeleteMy next observation was on Thursday during Math. The students are working on long division and have been for several weeks. Most of the students are doing well and understand the concept. However, several of the students are really struggling with it and are in need of extra help. I was able to work one on one with several of the students. When working with them it was very interesting to watch them work through the problems and see the logic they used to acquire the answer. Even when getting the wrong answer it was easy to see why they made the mistakes they did. Working through this process with them I was able to get a better understand of the many struggles a teacher has with having such large class sizes.
I am enjoying my time in the classroom so far and am excited to continue through the next few weeks.
Okay, so I just wrote a wonderful post describing my observation experiences so far, and then technology erased it all...so here is my attempt to recapture my original post:
ReplyDeleteI have been observing Mr. Polk's U.S. History class since mid-May, although I feel like the term "observing" does not fully capture all that I am experiencing. As soon as I started visiting Mr. Polk's class, he immediately started integrating me into the daily tasks of taking attendance, passing back papers, participating in discussions, etc. I have been observing "full-time" for the past couple of weeks, which has given me the opportunity to start to feel comfortable interacting with the students and knowing their names. Some students have already commented about how I am a part of their class now! I have also been able to team-teach a couple of lessons, and some days (after observing 3 or 4 sections of the same class), I am given 5th or 6th period to teach.
I will be starting my 10 days of solo teaching this Friday. Mr. Polk will be out of town next week, so I will be on my own without my cooperating teacher for 5 days. We worked hard last week (taking advantage of downtime during testing week) to get my lesson plans finalized and technology up and running. I am actually working to set up the clicker program in the classroom this week to use in next Wednesday's class, so I'm learning new technology too! I'm hoping that everything goes smoothly while Mr. Polk is away. The students seem really great, and I'm thinking that the controversial subject matter I'll be covering will keep them engaged: U.S. anti-immigration policies; Japanese American internment; U.S. perspectives on the Holocaust (eugenics, lack of willingness to accept Jewish refugees, liberation of concentration camps); participants in times of conflict (victims, bystanders, rescuers, oppressors); and the atomic bomb.
I feel so luck to have found such an inspiring, supportive, and energetic teacher to work with this semester! Although it is a lot of extra work to teach all 5 sections of U.S. history instead of just one class period per day, I think the opportunity will give me good experience.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDelete