Student Teaching Week 6 - Valley Elementary School

This week, I returned to my regular PDS at Valley Elementary in Preston County, and it honestly feels like I have returned home. I didn't realize how much I've missed the school, my coordinator, the staff, and all of my past students until that first day. The school has a wonderful way of working together, and it is evident in the attitudes of everyone present. My mentor teacher, Mrs. Sausen, is wonderful and possesses all of the qualities a kindergarten teacher should. It is so evident that her students love her. As I watched her on these first few days, I am amazed at how many learning opportunities she provides her students on a daily basis, without them even realizing they are working. I only went three days this week, because they had Thursday and Friday off for the Buckwheat Festival. Since the students have already dealt with a lot of big changes recently, I didn't want to totally impose on their set routine. For these first three days, I decided to just follow Mrs. Sausen's lead, and help out as much as I could. I also want the students to get used to my face, learn my name, and start to feel comfortable around me. Mostly, I love just watching the students work/play/socialize; they are so interesting to me!

On day one, my main focus was learning all of their names. I got that accomplished, and attempted to place their learning styles and abilities. The students had just taken their September assessments a week before I arrived, so I had a chance to look those over and gain some background knowledge on my students levels. I also discussed the students with my mentor teacher. These types of things helped me with figuring out some ideas for action research, which is a big relief. I noticed from their assessments that a lot of the students do not know their letters, both capital and lowercase. Although I original planned on doing my action research with writing, I have decided to downgrade a little and go for letter recognition. Simply because, if the students do not know their letters, how can I expect them to write? I still plan to tie in writing in some of my lesson plans later in the eleven weeks I am there. For now, I want to be sure they have their basic skills down.

Luckily for me, my liason, Sharon, was at the school on Wednesday. It was a special day for kindergarten because their whole morning was dedicated to Buckwheat festivities. It was also a good day for me, because I had time to sit and discuss some ideas and questions with Sharon. I showed her the students assessments, and she helped me pick apart the data they showed. We also discussed what I could make a my main focus be for letter recognition, and I decided on studying how kinesthetic activities affect the students ability to recognize their letters. She gave me a ton of ideas to start out with, and since then I have been researching online, through books, and simply discussing things with my mentor teacher. I plan to do activities where the students can be actively engaged in learning their letters. I am already so excited to get started! Next week, I plan to collect even more baseline data and try to fill in and hopefully finish my research brief. I want to begin implementing my study as soon as possible, since I know only have nine weeks to get all of this done (counting the entire week Preston has off for Thanksgiving break). Back into the grind I go!

Student Teaching Week 5 - UHS

Today was my last day student teaching at the high school. It is definitely a bittersweet feeling, because I'm happy I'm done with part of my required student teaching, but I'm sad to leave my students and mentor teacher. I have grown to really like the high school aged students and I wish I could have spent more time with them. I've learned a lot about how to handle different behaviors and personalities, and how to differentiate material for students that are on completely different academic levels. It has been quite a challenge, and I feel that I surpassed my own expectations I set for myself on the first day I walked into the classroom. Today was a sort of "fun day" in all of my classes. After briefly reviewing a topic or after finishing a quiz, I played Monopoly with my smaller classes. It was nice to relax and just have fun with them. To my surprise, they were all very into the game and very good at it as well. I left on a good note, and plan to return again when I have a day off of kindergarten, and definitely for some of my contract hours. It was my pleasure to get to know Mrs. Broker and her students, along with the other faculty and staff at University. I only wish I could have stayed longer!

Student Teacher Week 4 - UHS

This week at the high school was very busy. I have started writing a few IEP's on top of teaching and I can already see why so many special education teachers complain about the process. I reviewed the students' files and there is so much information that goes into revising the forms. I must say that the practice is helping me learn a lot about what's helpful when doing a child's yearly revisions. I am also a lot more understanding of how to create modifications for the student's and how they should be based on certain scores. Another thing that caught my interest was watching a teacher go through the student's IEP with him to make him a part of the process. I thought this was extremely important because it helps the student feel important and have a voice instead of allowing others to speak for him. I had a lot of fun with my students this week. I'm sad that next week is my last week with them. It's crazy how much my attitude has changed about being in a high school placement. At first I wasn't too sure how things would pan out, and now I don't want to leave them! I definitely could see myself teaching at a high school level when I graduate, but my heart is still in elementary. I am looking forward to being in kindergarten, and I'm so excited to meet all my new students.

Student Teaching Week 3 - UHS

Through this third week of teaching, I have realized that you will have great days, okay days, and just terrible days. By now, I have taken almost complete control of the classroom, and it's a been crazy, but fun! Although I'm stressed, I still look forward to each day. Planning has gotten much easier, especially now that I am familiar with the text books and corresponding websites. I have also become quick with coming up with extra assignments when all I have planned doesn't fill the entire period. The students treat me with respect, and I feel comfortable enough to reprimand them whenever necessary without having to look to my mentor teaching first. Today my teacher was not at school, so there was a substitute in the classroom. Since I have been in control of the class full-time, I tested myself to see if I could handle the whole day without any assistance from my mentor teacher or the substitute. Surprisingly, the students were great. There were no behavioral issues and the day went by smoothly. This gave me a lot of confidence in myself. For the past few weeks, I have been back and forth about whether I could handle high school special education as a full-time job. Now I know it's possible and I might even enjoy it. I definitely need to keep my sense of humor though!

Another thing that has improved is my collaborative class for transitional math. At first, the students were shy about asking me for help over the other two more familiar teachers in the room. Now, they raise their hands and ask me to come over to help. Although I am not always sure how to do the problem immediately, I work through it with them and check to make sure I led them in the right direction. I have a lot of fun in that class and it's nice to have a mixture of students as opposed to just having all students with IEP's singled out. I also think it's interesting to see them in an inclusive setting. On the first day of this class, I after walked around the class to observe them do independent work. I could only suspect one or two students as maybe having learning difficulties. When my teacher and I discussed the other students, I was surprised at some that had IEP's. This definitely makes me lean towards full inclusion, especially when students just have mild learning difficulties. It's amazing how the social aspect of LRE's can have an affect on the students academic abilities.

For next week, my goal is to differentiate intruction for my algebra classes because the student's are so different in abilities. My only worry is that the students will have trouble staying on task while something else is going on in the same room. For example, I may briefly go over a concept to the whole group, then assign higher students independent or group work while I explain the concept more in-depth for lower students. I have already been doing this for the past few weeks on the spot, but sometimes I feel like I have students sitting with nothing to do for a few minutes, and I definitely want to avoid that.

Student Teaching Week 2 - UHS

My second week at University was very different than my first. As I have gotten to know the students as well as their ability levels, I have been able to modify my lessons for each individual student. In a school day, I teach Algebra 1, Algebra 1 Support, and Geometry. When I started to get into harder material, I noticed which students needed the extra help and which could move ahead or be challenged. I've been giving the more advanced students more challenging problems/activities to keep them on task while I work one on one with the students that are needing extra help. In geometry class, I made up my first test and the students took it on Friday. They seemed to really understand the material gone over during the review on Thursday, so I was excited to see how they did.

In all of my classes the behavior issues I dealt with last week have calmed and the students have been giving me a lot more respect as their teacher. I have gotten them on a more personal level, and can talk with them about things as they come into the room or before class ends when there are a few extra minutes. I have noticed that they all get a small boost of confidence when they get the right answer, and I have been rewarding them with small prizes, such as a jolly rancher, or just positive reinforcement.

I still have three more weeks in the high school and I am optimistic that it will keep getting better and I won't ever want to leave my students. I have learned so much from just observing other teachers, students, and administration, and I am sure that I still have much more to gain from being here.