February 15, 2019

I would rate this week as a 3 out of 5! I have been very sick this week with a sinus infection and have been very drained trying to get lessons written and commentaries ready for the edTPA seminar. But, I have made it and even survived Valentine’s Day with kindergarteners.

OBSERVE

I think something that surprised me this week was how much my students retained when we talk last month about the Ukraine. This week we talked about China and did some similar activities for this month’s global awareness so students could easily compare our country to others. I had several students mention the Ukraine showing that these activities were sticking with these students so they could get a better overall global awareness.

REFLECT

This week as I reflect I learned a lot about how powerful songs and transition sounds are. I used my bell a lot this week to also preserve my voice and it worked much better than me using my voice to get my student’s attention.

FOCUS

I was very productive in the edTPA seminar and feel good about where I am this point with this process. I also will be teaching my math edTPA this week and feel that I have chosen a good solid lesson segment with a lot of meat to it so I can truly see where students are struggling either with procedural fluency, mathematical reasoning and problem solving, or conceptual understanding.

BE PRODUCTIVE

This week I could have spent less time working on my lessons and more time taking care of myself. I think I just let myself get too worn down resulting in my having to go to the dr to get some antibiotics for my sinuses.

HAVE COURAGE

This week I spoke up a lot in our grade level meeting when we were talking about our math data. I spoke up about potentially starting a math guided group on Friday’s for a portion of their center time or even having math guided centers on Fridays. I got a pretty good response and got some ideas that we can maybe try in the next upcoming weeks to see if this is a good time to do this.

BEGIN ANEW

My first logical steps for next week are to finish polishing my task 1 and 2 and begin on task 3 so when I am finished teaching for task 4 I can solely focus on completing it to meet this deadline.

DATA

Some data that I analyzed this week was during our grade level meeting with the other kindergarten teachers. We looked at where each of us were with math and where the areas of struggle seem to be and how we are going to address this.

NCTCS

1a. Teachers lead in their classroom.

This week I lead in the classroom by urging students to be aware of germs and take care of themselves. We have had a lot of students out and myself included sick, so we used this as a teaching moment of how we take care of ourselves.

2d. Teachers adapt their teaching for the benefit of students with special needs

This week I brainstormed ways that I can help my students who are lower in math by trying to fit in a guided math group through the week.

3d. Teacher make instruction relevant to students

This week while we were learning about China we learned about the Chinese New Year and compared it to how we celebrate our New Year. We also looked at China’s weather, their flag and then their ABC’s by having students see their names written in Chinese.

4d. Teachers integrate and utilize technology in their instruction

This week we played some interactive games on the smartboard to help review our 2D and 3D shapes since this seems to be an area of math that students are struggling in.

5c. Teachers function effectively in a complex, dynamic environment.

Thursday was Valentine’s Day and while students just wanted to party all day long I tried to make instruction fun and enjoyable but still explain to students that yes we were going to be exchanging valentines and have a cupcake at snack time, but we also have to work and learn in order to get to do that.

This week my focus was on edTPA for my portfolio and will continue to be until I get these tasks complete.

My CE and I do not need any additional support from my university supervisor right now.