This week was such a great experience for student teaching. I was able to pick up the rest of my teacher’s case load so I was teaching “almost” full time within the classroom. I was able to plan the lessons with my cooperating teacher and lead each lesson. Even through my teacher allowed me to lead the lessons she was still available in the room if I needed her. There were also times in one of our larger classes that she would step in and co-teach with me. We did this a lot in Literacy workshop. This class was created for students who are struggling in math. We are currently doing a workbook of story problems that relate to life outside school. The booklet is called “Math in the Mall,” and the students don’t seem to mind doing the math since they see how it can be used outside school. Each problem has multiple steps to it and can be solved in many different ways. I would walk through the problem in a way that I though students would understand and then my cooperating teacher would show the class how she would solve it. This way it allowed students to see that there are multiple ways to solving a problem and that students who struggle with math can find the easiest way to solve their math equations.
I am currently teaching six subjects and they are social studies, math, language arts, literature, literacy workshop and science. In five of the classes I am teaching five students with learning disabilities in math and reading and because of that it carries over the other discipline as well. In literacy workshop I have a class size of about fifteen students. I found this class to be my most challenging. I have a larger class and students that are on all different levels. I also have students with some behavioral issues. For this class I am really trying to work on my classroom management and to have full control over the classroom.
Being in this placement, I have learned how to put many teaching theories into action. This week in science we are learning about the solar system. As a final project I had them create the solar system out clay. I also connect math into our lesson by students reading a large number the correct way (example: 60,439). We started the lesson by writing the order of the planets on the board. We then looked up the diameter of the planet and wrote that number next to each planet. After that I asked the students to tell me what the smallest planet is to the largest. Each student was given an amount of clay and was given a specific planet to build. They had to work as a team and make the planets proportional to each other. As a class we found that Venus and Earth are “sister” planets so the students creating these two planets had to make sure they were the same size. By creating a lesson that used prior knowledge, visual and tactile it really helped them to learn our solar system, the sizes, and the order of the planets. I was an incredible experience to see my lesson and what I learned in my education classes come to life.
It sounds like you had a very good week. I’m glad you are working well with your teacher. I also like the fact that you are co-teaching when appropriate.
ReplyDeleteThe ‘math in the mall’ booklet does sound interesting. It is a best practice when you can relate the material to students’ live. I’m glad that you co-taught when using this booklet. It seems like it was an appropriate thing to do.
I’m wondering what you are learning about yourself as you teach? Are the strategies you are using successful? Why? If not, why not?
Teaching literacy when students are working at different levels can be very difficult. Add on top of that management issues and you have quite a challenge. What are you doing to manage this big group? Is it working? Do you think you should make changes? If not, why?
Your lesson on the solar system sounded fun. Did you learn from it? Did your students? How do you know?
I hope next week goes just as well.
Prof. Meyer
Thank you for your feedback Professor Meyer.
ReplyDeleteI just wanted to take a moment to answer some of your questions. It is exciting to see the growth and confidence I have now that I am student teaching. I remember going into my Novice teaching placement and only teaching one lesson a week and being so nervous. Now, if I am not teaching but observing my cooperating teaching I take in what she does but I also think how I would teach the lesson the same or differently and just wanting to be in the front of the classroom. It's such an exciting feeling waking up in the moring wanting to teach the whole day and no longer being nervous but grateful for this time and the experiences I know that I am getting out of this placement.
In my literacy classroom there are a few things I learned in teaching a large class on many different levels. The first thing is I never try to talk over my students if they are having a hard time focusing in on a lesson. One thing I do is if we are about to start class is if they do not stop talking once I call the class to order, the students that do look at me and are quite I announce to the class how well that student is doing and I tell them they can put a star on their "star chart." This has worked really well in the classroom since they get a prize if they fill out their star chart. Another thing I learned from my teacher is having my stop clock going and however long it takes the students to focus and listen, time will be taken from the end of class when we usually end in a fun math game if everyone works hard. By doing this I feel like I have more control over the class. I do not think it is worth yelling over the class because I learned with this type of classroom that it just adds to the bar to the noise level and serious "teacher voice" no longer has an effect in the classroom.
I have learned so much about the Solar System by teaching my students this unit! I finally learned the full story on why Pluto is not considered a planet and many facts that I never knew about the planets and the rest of our galaxy. One example is if we look in the sky, we can tell we are looking at a planet if it doesn't "twinkle," since only stars will do this. I can tell my students are having fun in this unit and I think it is because I love teaching them about this unit and I feel that students pick up on that passion.