January 11, 2019

          This week is a 3 rating simply because students had a more difficult time following rules and procedures and beginning to really recognize me as the lead teacher. This is definitely something my CE and I have talked about and are working through. This will mostly take time and firmness on my part, but I also am eager to see how students are once I begin implementing my behavior management chart for my two severely defiant students in the room. They seem to be the ones that bring the rest of the class down with them when they begin to act up. But overall it was a good full week. 

OBSERVE

            As I observed students this week, I was surprised to see was students voluntarily looking through books during center time. I interact with students during this time each day and it is always a joy to see students at play. They have the option to go play with puzzles, blocks, home living, art, tablets, Legos and other connectors. The most popular is usually the tablets, but this week I had several students want me to sit and read with them. I love to see students so happy and eager to read. I love for them to switch roles as well and let them pretend to be the teacher and have them “read” the book to me. 

REFLECT

            My lessons this week went well. There were some activities that went better than others. I saw that student did very well on the morning work review sheets that I chose this week focusing mostly on literacy and letter to sound correspondence. The sheets that they seemed to wiz through were filling in the missing letters A-Z and seemed to struggle some with the beginning sounds sheet having to look at the picture given and figure out the first sound that is missing. Literacy centers are always fun these students love any chance they get to move around. The struggle that I am facing is focusing on my teacher led center as well as monitoring other students throughout the classroom. But it is a work in progress. 

FOCUS 

            This week in planning my CE and I planned out when I am going to teach for my edTPA segment and trying to stay on top of everything so I can get it out of the way. This helps my long-term goal of not becoming too overwhelmed in the process. 

BE PRODUCTIVE

            I could have spent less time planning for our inclusion time this week because we found out that because of testing we are not actually going to be doing it school wide like we usually do for a few weeks. All Title 1 people are helping with each grade level benchmark and TRC testing. But we are still going to try and implement the same schedule during that time, so it was definitely not planning wasted.  

HAVE COURAGE

            This week I had to up my discipline particularly with our two defiant behaved students. As a result, they ended up losing a paw and my CE had a talk with them and the whole class as a reminder that I am a teacher just like her and our assistant, so when I give directions or commands they are to be followed. This was difficult for myself, but it had to be done. This is an area I would like to improve on as this experience continues.  

BEGIN ANEW

            Next week I am starting my behavior plan with my students to see if my ideas and plans are something that might help these two students. I am eager to see how they respond, and I am hopeful for some better behavior. 

This week we began our DIBELS testing. I was able to see some great data results as I got to participate in getting these students tested. There was a tremendous amount of growth which is so exciting. These students have come such a long way and will continue to grow, and I am so happy I have been able to be a part of this process from start to finish. My advice to my fellow student teacher friends is to soak it all in. Yes, there will be bad days where we question every move we make but, I know for myself I will never get tired of seeing that smile on a student’s face or “light bulb” moment!

NCTCS 

1a: Teachers lead in the classroom

            I implemented this, this week by leading students through their literacy centers this week. I led my own group each day as well as assigned students to a center each day to work through. 

2d: Teachers adapt their teaching for the benefit of students and in the world 

            This week as I was planning, I tried to be intentional in differentiating for those students in my classroom that have special accommodations and modifications. For example, I have a student who is developmentally delayed, a hearing-impaired student, and several with speech deficits. 

3d: Teachers make instruction relevant to students

            This week also in my planning of literacy centers and morning work I tried to plan activities that I felt were fun and engaging that also taught the objectives that I had planned. By doing this I had to think in the mind of a 5-year-old to see what they would be interested in doing. 

4e: Teachers help students develop critical-thinking and problem-solving skills. 

            One of the literacy centers students went to this week was a write the room activity where each student had a clip board and had to search the room for snowmen taped up everywhere with words on them. Students then had to practice writing the words on the given lines. This was one of the more difficult activities because students had to use trial and error sometimes to make sure they found every word. 

5a: Teachers analyze student learning

            This week I got participate in the DIBLES testing and analyze all the student data looking at their scores from BOY and now at their MOY scores. 

            

            This week I created a lot of outlines towards my portfolio like: Live Binder, global awareness project, added more to my classroom website, recorded all the data from my interest survey for my classroom management, and began working on the behavior management plan for my two students. At this point I do not need any support from my university supervisor.