On Monday, the students had Math
testing to access where they were at in relation being ready for the CRCT
testing for spring. The results
won’t be back for a few weeks but I must say that I only think a small handful
of my students are on track for passing the CRCT. Many of my students struggle with Reading and Math. They need a great deal of remedial work
before they can begin to study at the level they should be at. I hope that this semester, I will be
able to get more of the students on track for their testing in the Spring.
Since I picked up
Grammar/Readng/ELA as my third subject to teach, I hope that I can begin to
give them the practice they need. With Social Studies this week, the students
were creating a culminating group activity. They began to create their projects on Monday and continued
working on Tuesday. Most of the
groups were very self motivated.
But on Tuesday, I had to take a group off to the side and talk to them
because they were refusing to work together. I tried to remedy the situation by reminding them that
everyone must get along and be mindful of their actions as a group because the
process of group decision making and collaboration extends into the world
outside of school. After we talked through their problems, they changed their intentions and decided to work together.
I had to talk to the students with a firm tone and it seemed to get my
point across. I am realizing, that
with these students, it is a must to change my tone in certain situations
because most of them only respond when the teacher is yelling at them. (Which
is sad, but that is the only time they know they have done something wrong.
Wednesday
began with my Grammar lesson observation.
I am very pleased on how the lesson went smoothly and how it was
received well by the students. I
thought my activities were engaging and fun. After reviewing the comments you left me, I realized that I
failed to put very much emphasis on a connection with other disciplines and a
connection to the “real” world. I
am usually very good at this but for some reason I neglected to put much
thought into those aspects for this lesson. It has been so easy for me to connect Social Studies and
Science to Reading/ELA and the outside world. But, I suppose I have never really put much thought into
connecting Grammar with other disciplines. I could have talked about the history of prefixes and
suffixes more in depth rather than just simply touching on it briefly. (I mentioned that they were from Latin
and Greek but failed to mention how that impacted our world today.) Next time, I will be more mindful of
this.
I
was very excited to see that I received an exceeding on technology for my
lesson. I have been playing around
with the Smart Board and their ActivExpressions for a few weeks. It has taken me a good bit of time to
get used to using these in lessons.
In the spring, I tried to use these in my TOSS classroom but I was not
very successful at it. Even though
I am young, I seem to have some problems with understanding technology.
Therefore, I am thankful I have a Collaborating Teacher who has an affinity for
technology and can help guide my need for technological integration in my
lessons.
On
Thursday, most of my lessons were taken away by our specials and CRCT writer’s
workshop. But I was very happy
that the students were able to present their Civil War culminating projects. I had four groups: group #1 made a
PowerPoint, group #2 made a newspaper, group #3 created a monument, and group
#4 created a play. All of their
presentations were simply wonderful.
I would have liked to invited Ms.Harmon to visit and watch them because
they were so creative and fun. My
students went above and beyond.
They added raps, props, and costumes to their projects and they weren’t
even required to. It was one of
the best days that I have had so far a Gideons. I felt like it is one of those days I will remember forever
because it stands for all of the reasons why I want to be a teacher.
Field trip Friday! All of the students had a
lot of fun and were excited to learn about all of the animals at the aquarium. They continuously asked questions and were excited to inform
me about the new facts they learned about the sea creatures. I love field trips and I think they are
necessary for all students to connect the outside world with their textbooks. They need to know that the things in
their books are real and important.
~We also had a new student show up on this day. He was able to go on the field trip and
I think this made his first day one to remember.~
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