Techsteps

Throughout the past few weeks, I have been doing TechSteps with second and third graders at Valley Elementary. Since I had never had the opportunity to do lesson, I was a little unsure of what to expect from the students. I have heard most of the teachers at the school discuss how difficult the lessons were for each level, and I had also sat in a PLC about the teachers need for a technology specialist at the school to aid in completed the required TechSteps lessons. I co-taught with another intern during the lessons. While one of us gave the instruction, the other walked around the lab to assist students. I understand that the issue with a lot of the teachers and TechSteps are that the teachers have not had a lot of experience with the technologies included in the lessons. Luckily, since Amber and I had a lot of experiences with the technologies included in the lessons, we were able to teach and assist the students. Both grades did a great job during our lab sessions, and I think the classroom teachers learned some things too! I don't know my opinion on the effectiveness of TechSteps, but I think that having students use technology is a great idea. Some of the lessons are definitely beyond the students, and I don't think they necessarily target skills that second and third grade students should be working on.

ESL classroom observation and lesson reflection

On January 11, I observed Ms. Nedeff, North's English as a Second Language Teacher, instruct students of all different ages, backgrounds, and of course, languages. Since my home PDS does not have very much diversity, I was amazed at the student differences. These students have come from all over the globe from places I had never even heard of.

During the first few classes, Ms. Nedeff had the students show me books they had written and were in the process of writing. She heads a program at North titled "Students as Authors," in which students write and illustrate their own stories. The stories get binded and the authors also translate them into their first language, whether it be Chinese, Arabic, Spanish, etc. Over 25% of the population at North speaks a language other than English, so Ms. Nedeff keeps very busy throughout her day.

While there, I assisted Ms. Nedeff and worked with some students one on one. I played a game with the second grade students in which they practiced vocabulary using picture cards and were "sentence detectives" to find the mistakes in a sentence. Ms. Nedeff created the game board herself and used it as a motivator to keep the students engaged. She had me keep score and used the score as a test grade. I liked the idea of this because the students had no idea they were being assessed, they were just having fun!

I also had the chance to observe/work with her first and fourth grade students. In first grade, I helped students get started on there story assignments, then helped them brainstorm sentences to write in their journals for that day. In fourth, the students were working on illustrations for a book they collaboratively wrote. Ms. Nedeff wanted the students to be very specific with their illustrations.

After observing the class for a day, Ms. Nedeff allowed me to plan my own lesson to do with the second grade students. I chose to do a lesson from the book, "Snowmen at Night" because of the snowy weather we had been having. To introduce the topic of the lesson, I planned to have the students "create" a snowman out of various shapes I previously cut out without telling them what the shapes created. At first, I only gave the students the scarf, nose, and arms of the snowman. While manipulating the shapes, they were making guesses such as "tree, bird, leaf, arm, hands." When I added one of the white circles, they guessed "moon." Then, one student put the white circle and the scarf together and said, "It's going to be a head and a scarf." As I began to add in the small black circles that formed the eyes, mouth, and buttons, one of the boys immediately yelled, "Snowman! It's going to be a snowman!"

After congratulating the students on figuring the figure out, I allowed them to glue all the pieces together to create the snowman and then told them we would come back to it after we read the story. Instead of just beginning the read aloud, I guided the students through a picture walk of the illustrations in the story. I allowed them to take turns interpreting each page and asked them to be very specific in their descriptions. The students did a wonderful job, and could use the correct vocabulary. When I actually read the text aloud to the students, they found it funny how similar the story was to their descriptions using simply the illustrations.

To assess the students comprehension of the reading, I turned the large snowman over and asked them to tell me about the story (e.g. how did it begin? end? what happened in the middle? characters? setting?) After discussing the story, I had the students create their own page in the book. I asked them to write at least one sentence and illustrate their sentence. I asked them to be sure that their picture goes along with the words in the sentence. Although we ran short on time, the students got pretty far on their pages, and I was very impressed with their creativity. I left these with Ms. Nedeff so the students could finish them up whenever they had extra class time.

I was very satisfied with how this lesson turned out. I especially enjoyed conducting the picture walk, because the students were able to tell their own version of the story, before actually reading it. I will definitely use this lesson and activity again, and plan on using picture walks more often when conducting read alouds. In my opinion, they really helped with the students' overall comprehension of all the different events that occurred.

Student Teaching Week 13

This has been the first full week of school we've had in November. It was a struggle to get through all five days. I've been so spoiled! The week went well. We've been focusing a lot of our instruction around a Thanksgiving theme, included the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Indians. The students learned the sound for the letter Ii, so it worked out perfectly. They make wampums, Indian headbands, Pilgrim hats and bonnets, canoes, pots, and lots of other fun crafts. For their ABC book, they made an Indian, to represent the letter I. I was impressed to see how well the students caught on to the word Wampanoag and how much they understood about the way they lived during that time. I videotaped a vocabulary lesson on Tuesday for my portfolio. I read the students the book, "We're Going on a Bear Hunt," and had them incorporate movement. They loved it! The lesson tied in the vocabulary words with the story. They did a great job with it.

For action research, I let the students play different games they seem to enjoy the most, such as fishing for letters or matching upper and lowercase letters. I also had them write invisible letters on the wall with their fingers, and make the letters using their whole bodies. They surprised me with how well they could do. Their favorite activity is matching the letter flashcards when they are face down and I timed them. We did these activities everyday during that morning block. The biggest problem I faced was attendence. Three out of my four students missed over half the week due to pink eye and other sicknesses. I just decided to take whoever was there each day, and keep my research going. I think it was helpful to the students that were present because they had more of my attention. On Friday, I assessed the students for the final time. It was wonderful to look at the chart and see the progress they made within five weeks. Of course I know that their was a lot more that went into that progress than what I did, but I'm glad that they are closer to being on level with their peers.

No school next week!

Student Teaching Week 12

This week was a very hectic week. The school conducted their bowling incentive, so our schedules were flip-flipped on Monday through Wednesday. Of course, in Kindergarten, this was tough because the students are so used to their schedules, and the change rocked their worlds! I was observed during one of my lessons that totally failed during small groups. Since rhyming is big for phonemic awareness in kindergarten, I had a lesson to reinforce the skill. In the small group, I first said two words and wanted the students to give me a thumbs up if the words rhymed or thumbs down if they didn't rhyme. This failed for two reasons. One, it was too loud in the room and the students couldn't really hear the words. Two, they use the thumbs up/down/to the side when rating a new book during a read aloud, so they didn't grasp what I was asking them to do. A lot of them were just doing a hand motion without really understanding why, but just copying the person next to them. I then had a cube with words on it for them to take turns rolling and then they would say a rhyming word. This went okay, except they can't read, so I had to wait for them to roll, read the word to them, and wait for them to think of a word. Looking back at this, I now know that I should have used pictures rather than words so they could easily identify and think of a rhyming word. The third activity I had was a concentration game with picture cards of rhyming words. Of all the activities, this went the best, because the students were familiar with the pictures and they enjoyed matching them up. When planning this lesson, I thought it would go great, but it just goes to show that not everything goes as well as planned. Kindergarten is definitely harder to teach than it appears to an outsider of the classroom. I never quite understood this until I really started teaching in the classroom. The students are all so different that you never really know how a lesson will work out.

My action research this week went pretty well. Once again, I only got to meet with the students one time, but the activity I planned was successful. I had them use fingerpaint on glossy paper to practice writing their letters. I had a dry/erase board, and would write a letter, have the students identify it and make it's sound, and then I would have them write it on their paper, while repeatedly asking them, "What's this letter?" I only focused on the letters we've learned the sound to, as well as the letters in their names. The students seemed to enjoy playing with the finger paint and most of them were exclaiming things like, "This is fun!" and so on. On Friday, when I assessed the students, I was pleased to see their progress once again. Although I know that my part in their progress is small compared to all they do in one school week, but I am happy to see that they are coming along. Next week is my last week collecting data for my inquiry. I am anxious to look over all of the data I've collected and see how everything will fall together for my paper. I am also planning on assessing the students after they have that week off for Thanksgiving, to see how much they have retained over the nine day break. I think it will be interesting to see who increased, decreased, or stayed the same. I am hoping that their parents will use the letter flashcards we sent home to help them practice, so they just keep progressing!

Student Teaching Week 11

This week a little hectic, because Valley only had school for 3 days. On Monday, I read the new story called Animal Babies in the Grasslands. The book focused on the different names for child animals compared to what their mother's are called. The students seemed to really enjoy the book, compared to how they sometimes react to books included in the basal curriculum. I introduced three new sight words, and the students were already pretty familiar with them because of the daily news report done at the end of the day. We, my, and like are used a lot in kindergarten, so most of the the students didn't have a lot of trouble picking up the new words. On Tuesdays, I taught the initial sound /p/. The students liked making the noise with their mouths, and did not have much trouble with recognizing what letter the sound matched up with. Since it is fall, I decided to plan most of my activities for the rest of the week around a pumpkin theme, since "P is for Pumpkin." I read books about how pumpkins grow, and they created a book about the life cycle of a pumpkin. The vocabulary words for the week were fun words, so the students picked up on them pretty quickly as well. It's so interesting to see the difference in how much they learn when they are actually enjoying themselves!

For my action research, I did not get much data collected in the three days we had school, because no school for students on Friday was a last minute decision due to one of the staff passing away. On Monday and Wednesday; however, I had the students roll playdoh to form letters. I had them put die-cut letters underneath clear plastic plates, and roll playdoh to form the letters on the plates. The students did really well with this. My hope is that by forming the letters, they picked up on their different lines and circles to descriminate between each of them. On Thursday, I played BINGO with the students in the conference room. They had to spin to get a letter and then find the letter on their card. I was surprised to see how well some of them were doing with their letters. It also helps a lot when I make the sound of a letter they can't recognize right away. This shows me that there is definitely a strong correlation between letter recognition and letter sounds. Last week, we sent home capital and lowercase letter cards along with a ring to hook them onto. Students that did not do well recognizing their letters on their progress notes received these. Since there is research that says that students need that extra parent motivation and help at home, I am hoping this will help not only the small group I am focusing my action research on, but all of the students who need the extra help.Next week, I plan to have the students write their letters on wax paper using finger paint, and writing their letters on trays filled with sand. I'm hoping these kinesthetic activities will continue to help them learn their letters. I plan to continue to only focus on the letters we've gone over in class, vowels, and the letters in their first names. If they veer from these letters, of course it is okay. But I feel this is a better approach rather than overwhelming them with all 26 letters.

Student Teaching Week 10

This week went much better than last week because my health was finally back in order. Since Halloween was on Saturday, my lessons for the week tied a lot around that theme. We had a lot of Halloween book read alouds, the students created their own Halloween books, and they completed a journal on what they were going to dress up as. I think that the students definitely see me as their teacher, rather than just a student teacher; however, they are still a little talkative at times when I'm teaching whole group. This is also due to them being 5 and 6 year olds! I am definitely getting much more used to the flow of the lesson plans, and it is becoming easier and easier to plan for the entire week. I have also developed a greater sense to timing and if students aren't ready for a certain lesson or activity I may have planned for them. The students learned the initial sound /s/ this week, and I had a lot of fun incorporating that into almost everything we did throughout the day. I also started sending home a weekly parent letter this week to inform parents of concepts we are working on and how they can practice these with their children at home.

On Thursday, I stayed after school to help with the Authurdale Service Club at Valley. The two head teachers of the club were past mentor teachers of mine, so I felt very comfortable at the meeting. I helped the students create treat bags that would be passed out during trick or treating at the Authurdale Historical Building. It was nice to work with an older group of students and to help them out at the club meeting. I definitely want to attend more in the future.

My action research this week went well. I decided to play a game on Monday and Tuesday called Roll-Say-Keep with the students. On the game board, there are six spaces and in the top left corner of each space is one side of a die (i.e. one dot to stand to represent the first space, two dots to represent the second space, and so on). Using the game board and a stack of note cards with lowercase and uppercase letters, you place one card, face up, on each space, leaving the remaining cards in a pile. The student take turns rolling the die, and identifying the letter in the corresponding space. If the student could identify the letter, they get to keep the card. If he or she couldn't, I would tell them to "phone their friends" and get the answer. Thus, they still got to keep the card. The students loved this game, and it was great because they got lots of exposure to the letters. To tie it in with Halloween and the initial sounds, /s/, I mixed in cards with spiders on them. If the student rolled and got those cards, they had to say the sound they heard at the beginning of spider. I made a big production out of the spiders, so they all tried to roll the number to get the spider cards.

The students had RTI Wednesday morning, so I was not able to pull my AR group of students on that day. On Thursday, I just pulled all five out of their playtime together and used the Fishing Pole Game as incentive. Since I know they love the fishing poles, I figured it would reduce their behaviors and they could just take turns. The students did a good job cooperating, and they helped each other out when one of them didn't know the letter. Since they were sitting in a circle, it was easier for them to see all of the letters, and get more exposure to them. During both activities, I've continued to notice that a lot of the students relate letters to the names of their classroom peers. I plan to use this method more next week to see if learning how to spell their classmates names helps their recognition.

To assess them on Friday, I did the usual flashcards I've been using. This time, I got the students much more involved with the sheets I circled the letters they knew, and brought out the "Letter Stars" poster. If they had three circles around a letter, they were allowed to put a star sticker by that letter on the poster. I had them find which letters they had three circles, and let them pick out the color star they wanted to designate as their color. We counted how many new letters that had circled, and they all showed excitement about the poster and the stickers. I am hoping that this type of reinforcement will encourage them to try harder and practice more with letters. Next week, I plan to do more kinesthetic types of activities with the students to make them more aware of letter formation.

Student Teacher Week 9

This past week was a bit frustrating for me because I was sick. Towards the end of the week, I lost my voice and the students could barely understand what I said. Apart from that, the week went well. I started implementing my action research on Monday and throughout the week I had to make a lot of changes to accomodate the students and the times that were available to do activities.

On Monday, I set out the Wikistix one of the tables during free play. At first, the students enjoyed the Wikistix; however, the glamour of them soon wore off and the students quit using them to actually make letters. They began sticking all of the stix together and ignoring the letter cards. I tried not to intervene as much as I could because I wanted them to use a form of "self-discovery" when using the Wikistix. The other problem was that the students weren't saying the letter name as I could they would be, they were just silently doing the acitivity. Eventually, they stopped playing with the stix totally and went back to their puzzles. I had the wikistix out again in the afternoon as an alternate activity when they finished their work at quiet table. Although there were other choices, a few of the students played with them and used them correctly. Higher level students were saying the letter name and looking for specific letters in the pile of cards. Another thing I did together was put the magnetic letters up on the board. In called each student up during their free play and had them pick a certain letter. This took a lot longer than I expected, and didn't do much good considering they only had to find one letter. I didn't have as much time before bathrooms and transitions, so my whole plan of doing short activities during those times failed immensely.

On Tuesday, I changed things up a little and decided to pick two lower level students to do the "Fishing For Letters" activity. This activity worked well, especially with only two students, because I could prompt them to say the letter at first, and then they eventually just said it on cue when they "caught" a letter. All of the other students were in awe of the activity, so I decided to put it out during groups so everyone could have a chance to play with it. There are only four poles, so I told them that only four people could play at a time. The student responses to the activity varied. Some students would independently say the letter they caught without any prompting, while others just tried to catch as many letters as possible. I walked over a few times when students at my table were busy working and prompted them to say the letters, but I couldn't supervise the entire time. I also set the wikistix out at a table, and some students would chose to sit there if there was no room for them at the fishing site.

On Wednesday, I had decided that I was going to focus on a small group for my AR rather than the entire class. Since Tuesday's morning activity went much better than Mondays, I decided that maybe just focusing on a small number of students that need the entra help with letter recognition would be better than trying to focus on the entire class of 21 students. Also, when I went through my baseline scores, I realized that there was a significant difference in the majority of students that knew over three-fourths of their letters versus the minority of students that knew less than ten. These five students are all in RTI Tier II, so I decided that they would benefit most from the extra help. I decided to do an activity with playdoh and letter stamps with those students during the free play time in the morning. The students were a little confused at why they were sitting at the table, but once they started playing with the playdoh, they weren't too distracted anymore. At first, I had to prompt the students to tell me the letter they were stamping, but eventually a few of them started to say what letter they were using. I've noticed that the students' have a difficult time staying on task for more than 15-20 minutes when doing these activities, and when it passes that time limit, they just start messing around with the manipulatives rather than using them for their assigned purpose.

On Thursday, I had decided to pull the five students out to the hall at a table to do the activity I had planned. I got the idea from a Dr. Jean Reading book to glue dotted letters onto the unlined side of notecards. Since the glue basically dries clear, the students couldn't tell what the letters were. I had them do crayon rubbings and told them they were mystery letters, and they had to feel first and guess what the letter was, and then use the crayon to rub on a sheet of paper over the letter to find out what it really was. It was a little difficult to do this activity with five of them at once, especially because two of the students were late coming to the classroom because of breakfast so they didn't hear the directions. At first, they seemed to enjoy guessing the letters and called them out when they were finished with the rubbing. After about five minutes, they just started picking different letters and rubbing the crayon too hard to even see the outline of the letter. I also had to prompt them to identify the letters for me, instead of them just calling them out, like before. I do think they enjoyed this activity, but it would be better to do with a smaller amount of student at one time.

On Friday, I spent the morning giving the students their weekly assessments. I was happy to see that they were all able to recognize more letters than they did when I took my baseline data. I also noticed that they were all able to recognize the letters they had been learning the sounds to during their comprehension story, which included Aa, Tt, and Mm. From this, I can see that there is a strong correlation between letter recognition and letter sounds.

Next week, I plan to continue working with my small groups during that small chunk of time in the morning when they have free play. I may decide to only work with a few of the students at a time on certain days, so they don't entirely miss out on that social time with their peers. I have written all of the lesson plans for the week, and I am excited about teaching full-time. My main concern is keeping the students' behaviors under control. The school already has a behavior plan set for kindergarten, so I have been doing my best to implement it. The students are still getting used to me being their teacher, so they are still setting their boundaries to see how far I will let them go. I know that I am going to have to crack down on some of the students that act out a lot to set an example of what kind of teacher I am. It's going to be rough, but I can do it!