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.
This week went by really well. Mr. Ericksen and I went over my 10 day unit and came up with multiple ideas for what he would like me to teach. WE have decided that I will teach science and the two of us are going to work together tomorrow on the final plan. I am really excited to start my teaching next week. I will start Monday afternoon which will be both exciting and nerve racking. I am very much looking forward to whatever happens.
What a messy week of poetry! This week me and my kindergartners have been working on two specific types of poetry: sense poems and found poems. On Wednesday the kiddos where each given a packet that contained five sense slips, a subject and the instructions to write five sentences about that subject using their sense slips. When the rough drafts were complete students glued their slips onto a hand outline, completed their sentences and colored the hand to match their theme. When all was said and done the kiddo's shared their poems using the document camera. Kathleen and I both were impressed with the results! On Thursday the kids where given newspaper adds and given fifteen minutes to search for their favorite picture. That picture became their subject and they were asked to write a two line poem about that picture that had rhyme in it. On Friday the kids went back to the newspapers to search for the words they had written down for their poems. If they couldn't find the word they were allowed to form it using letters cut from the newspapers. There was newspaper EVERYwhere!! I wouldn't be surprised if Kathleen bans me from her room after this! Hopefully she'll let me finish my last lessons first though.
I had my first two days of teaching on Thursday (4/28) and Friday (4/29). I am working with a second grade class and will be teaching a 10 day lesson on poetry. The students have not had much experience working with poetry and so I think I will have my work cut out for me. The first type of poetry we worked with was Acrostic Poems. The students wrote acrostic poems using the parts of speech. We focused on nouns, verbs, and adjectives. To open the lesson I did mad libs with the students to get them thinking about the parts of speech. After that we made an acrostic poem together so that they understood what I was asking for. The students started working on their poems but were not able to finish because they had to go to specials. On Friday, we continued working on the acrostic poems we had started the day before. The second part of the lesson started when the students completed writing their poems. After they finished the students wrote their poems on construction paper so that they could all be combined into a class book. I did not realize how difficult this task would be for the students. The students really struggled with figuring out what nouns, verbs, and adjectives were so we had a mini lesson to discuss different types of these parts of speech. This helped the students to understand a little bit more. I am interested to see what the next lesson holds. I will be teaching description poems next and I am going to try to elaborate more in hopes it will make more sense to the students.
This week of school began with my introduction of a new subject: Integers. The students had been working on shapes and solids in their regular classes and I wanted to try pre teaching this new subject. Monday’s lesson got off to a great start as I related a story about using gas as I drove around and eventually running out of gas. I then asked if I could have less than zero gas and finding that the answer was no, I asked the class where we do see negative numbers. We discussed temperature and negative yardage in football. Finally I asked the class what you get when you subtract 9 from 6. The consensus was that you simply could not do it. Eventually I let them in on the long hidden secret of negative integers. Over the course of the week we used the familiarity of the number line to race from right to left on both sides of zero and I tried to develop understanding of adding and subtracting negative integers, connecting tricks to the real math behind them.
I was more confident in these lessons and my management was changing under constant self analysis. It will not suffice to say that I’m still a work in progress, so here are some of the details. I didn’t fully comprehend the responsibility that comes with introducing a new subject. The use of the number line was tremendously helpful to me for my lessons, but I did not give students enough time to practice with it. Later in the week I tried to introduce symbols that represented positive and negative integers. These symbols were used to represent integers in problems and manipulated to obtain an answer. This and the number line were how I attempted to connect the difficult concept of subtracting a number and moving to the left of zero. The students were not able to practice enough with these manipulatives for them to add to their understanding.
My principle mistakes were in time management and student rehearsal. My lessons always ran long. Several times I introduced something new 10 minutes before the end of the lesson only to rush through it and lose any chance of making connections. This is directly connected to why students never had time to practice new ideas independently. However, I was not prepared for students to practice on their own, for I had no printed number lines to practice on or other problems for students to do individually. Part of the reason for this was that I knew they would be working individually in their regular math classes and I wanted to offer a more collaborative/fun lesson, but in retrospect I needed individual practice every day.
On Friday I had the chance to sub for Ervin. I learned more about classroom management during this time than I ever have in one day. I battled with students throughout the first part of the day and I was exhausted at lunch. During my last two classes I finally realized that my words weren’t helping, and that I needed to return to a basic goal in my teaching philosophy: students are at school to learn first. At this point I rose above the silly struggles I had been having all day with the more difficult students and I was reminded of my responsibility to all the students in the room. I am not a 6th grader, and I don’t need to be having arguments with 6th graders. It is my goal to remember the management lessons I learned on this day above all others.
This week had its ups and downs. I had some trouble getting the kids to stay on task and there were battles of power at time between myself and them. However by then end of the week I think I have refined my classroom management style and began to make my expectations of the students more clear. This has helped tremendously. Also, I have gone from being the friendly teacher to being taken more seriously. The student now know that I have the power to reward and take away their privileges. This was a hard step for me to take but I feel that utilizing this power is what pointed us in the right direction for this week. Hopefully we will continue on this path for the duration of my time with them.
I began teaching my ten days this week. So far, so good. I was pretty nervous the first day, but not so much after that.
The students have really taken to me and I really feel that even in this short amount of time we have been able to build a feeling of mutual trust and respect.
I have tried to make these lessons as hands on as possible. The students have been really interactive with both me and each other. There are a few students who really just get what we are doing and they have been helping the other student in the class.
I haven't had alot of trouble with classroom management, yet...hopefully it won't be an issue. If I keep them busy, they won't have time to be a problem :)
This week went by really well. Mr. Ericksen and I went over my 10 day unit and came up with multiple ideas for what he would like me to teach. WE have decided that I will teach science and the two of us are going to work together tomorrow on the final plan. I am really excited to start my teaching next week. I will start Monday afternoon which will be both exciting and nerve racking. I am very much looking forward to whatever happens.
ReplyDeleteWhat a messy week of poetry! This week me and my kindergartners have been working on two specific types of poetry: sense poems and found poems. On Wednesday the kiddos where each given a packet that contained five sense slips, a subject and the instructions to write five sentences about that subject using their sense slips. When the rough drafts were complete students glued their slips onto a hand outline, completed their sentences and colored the hand to match their theme. When all was said and done the kiddo's shared their poems using the document camera. Kathleen and I both were impressed with the results!
ReplyDeleteOn Thursday the kids where given newspaper adds and given fifteen minutes to search for their favorite picture. That picture became their subject and they were asked to write a two line poem about that picture that had rhyme in it. On Friday the kids went back to the newspapers to search for the words they had written down for their poems. If they couldn't find the word they were allowed to form it using letters cut from the newspapers. There was newspaper EVERYwhere!! I wouldn't be surprised if Kathleen bans me from her room after this! Hopefully she'll let me finish my last lessons first though.
I had my first two days of teaching on Thursday (4/28) and Friday (4/29). I am working with a second grade class and will be teaching a 10 day lesson on poetry. The students have not had much experience working with poetry and so I think I will have my work cut out for me. The first type of poetry we worked with was Acrostic Poems. The students wrote acrostic poems using the parts of speech. We focused on nouns, verbs, and adjectives. To open the lesson I did mad libs with the students to get them thinking about the parts of speech. After that we made an acrostic poem together so that they understood what I was asking for. The students started working on their poems but were not able to finish because they had to go to specials. On Friday, we continued working on the acrostic poems we had started the day before. The second part of the lesson started when the students completed writing their poems. After they finished the students wrote their poems on construction paper so that they could all be combined into a class book. I did not realize how difficult this task would be for the students. The students really struggled with figuring out what nouns, verbs, and adjectives were so we had a mini lesson to discuss different types of these parts of speech. This helped the students to understand a little bit more. I am interested to see what the next lesson holds. I will be teaching description poems next and I am going to try to elaborate more in hopes it will make more sense to the students.
ReplyDeleteThis week of school began with my introduction of a new subject: Integers. The students had been working on shapes and solids in their regular classes and I wanted to try pre teaching this new subject. Monday’s lesson got off to a great start as I related a story about using gas as I drove around and eventually running out of gas. I then asked if I could have less than zero gas and finding that the answer was no, I asked the class where we do see negative numbers. We discussed temperature and negative yardage in football. Finally I asked the class what you get when you subtract 9 from 6. The consensus was that you simply could not do it. Eventually I let them in on the long hidden secret of negative integers. Over the course of the week we used the familiarity of the number line to race from right to left on both sides of zero and I tried to develop understanding of adding and subtracting negative integers, connecting tricks to the real math behind them.
ReplyDeleteI was more confident in these lessons and my management was changing under constant self analysis. It will not suffice to say that I’m still a work in progress, so here are some of the details. I didn’t fully comprehend the responsibility that comes with introducing a new subject. The use of the number line was tremendously helpful to me for my lessons, but I did not give students enough time to practice with it. Later in the week I tried to introduce symbols that represented positive and negative integers. These symbols were used to represent integers in problems and manipulated to obtain an answer. This and the number line were how I attempted to connect the difficult concept of subtracting a number and moving to the left of zero. The students were not able to practice enough with these manipulatives for them to add to their understanding.
My principle mistakes were in time management and student rehearsal. My lessons always ran long. Several times I introduced something new 10 minutes before the end of the lesson only to rush through it and lose any chance of making connections. This is directly connected to why students never had time to practice new ideas independently. However, I was not prepared for students to practice on their own, for I had no printed number lines to practice on or other problems for students to do individually. Part of the reason for this was that I knew they would be working individually in their regular math classes and I wanted to offer a more collaborative/fun lesson, but in retrospect I needed individual practice every day.
On Friday I had the chance to sub for Ervin. I learned more about classroom management during this time than I ever have in one day. I battled with students throughout the first part of the day and I was exhausted at lunch. During my last two classes I finally realized that my words weren’t helping, and that I needed to return to a basic goal in my teaching philosophy: students are at school to learn first. At this point I rose above the silly struggles I had been having all day with the more difficult students and I was reminded of my responsibility to all the students in the room. I am not a 6th grader, and I don’t need to be having arguments with 6th graders. It is my goal to remember the management lessons I learned on this day above all others.
This week had its ups and downs. I had some trouble getting the kids to stay on task and there were battles of power at time between myself and them. However by then end of the week I think I have refined my classroom management style and began to make my expectations of the students more clear. This has helped tremendously. Also, I have gone from being the friendly teacher to being taken more seriously. The student now know that I have the power to reward and take away their privileges. This was a hard step for me to take but I feel that utilizing this power is what pointed us in the right direction for this week. Hopefully we will continue on this path for the duration of my time with them.
ReplyDeleteI began teaching my ten days this week. So far, so good. I was pretty nervous the first day, but not so much after that.
ReplyDeleteThe students have really taken to me and I really feel that even in this short amount of time we have been able to build a feeling of mutual trust and respect.
I have tried to make these lessons as hands on as possible. The students have been really interactive with both me and each other. There are a few students who really just get what we are doing and they have been helping the other student in the class.
I haven't had alot of trouble with classroom management, yet...hopefully it won't be an issue. If I keep them busy, they won't have time to be a problem :)