Week One

My name is Ashley Wierema and I am a special education major. For my first placement for student teaching I am at Hamlin Upper Grades in Alsip. I am in a sixth-seventh grade classroom for high incidence special education. Many of my students have a learning disability in certain subject areas. I will be teaching many different subjects during my student teaching. These include: Social Studies, Math, Language Arts, Literature, Literacy Workshop, and Science.

This was my first week at my student teaching placement. On my first day I was able to meet my class that I spend the first five periods with seven students and for Literacy Workshop with a class size of nineteen sixth graders. For my first day I mainly observed and was able to watch my cooperating teacher interacts with her students and to see her teaching style in an array of subjects. Throughout the week she allowed me to lead small discussions or open up her lesson plans. On Wednesday my teacher allowed me to teach the Social Studies lesson and also the Science lesson. From Wednesday on I was able to teach both subjects until the end of the week. My teacher and I decided to co-teach on Thursday during our large class for Literacy Workshop. We broke the class up into two groups and I took my group to the back of the room to teach them the area and perimeter of specific shapes. My teacher did the same in the front of the room. My cooperating teacher made sure that I was part of her planning for the coming week. We wrote notes on what I would be in charge of or what we would try co-teaching. For the next week I will be in charge of leading Social Studies but using the resources from teacher and I will be teaching Science by my own lessons and resources. I will be teaching astronomy and I am able to use the unit plan I created in Education 380 for my class. On Tuesday I will be showing an interactive website on the solar system and the students will be able to explore it on the Smart Board.  

I learned so much in such a short amount of time. I learned what expectations I should have for my students and teaching strategies that are best for students with learning disabilities. One thing that I learned is how to be a model for my students. When I ask a question to my students, I first model on how I would answer or write for the question that we are trying to solve.

I hope to learn as much as I can from this student teaching placement. I have not been able to teach in a high incidence situation and I hope to take away many different experiences from being at Hamlin Upper Grades. I want to be a teacher that can be competent in many placements in special education and where I believe that God is calling me.

It is important to incorporate all the “multiple intelligences” while teaching. I hope that I don’t only teach from one multiple intelligences but learn to figure out ways that my students learn best from. I know that I always learn the best when I have a visual but I may have a student that understands different concepts by listening even being physically active.