March 8, 2019

I would rate this week as a 2 out of 5. This was such a stressful and overwhelming week! But edTPA is finally submitted!

OBSERVE

This week I observed some great changes with my students. This week we were able to have more of productive afternoon after lunch instead of having an increase in behavior problems. I this is a also due to the way I paced the afternoon this week. After lunch we tried more slow and soft transitions to get students in the classroom mindset instead of more high energy and loud transitions that I originally had been doing. I think these were just too much like the lunch room atmosphere that students were coming from that it did not get them classroom ready and focused for learning.

REFLECT

This week I had the opportunity to attend parent teacher conferences and this was a great opportunity to see some of the parents of my students for some only the second time since the beginning of the year for orientation. We had some great conversations and I just think this was a great experience to go through before I have a classroom of my own.

FOCUS

This week my main focus was on edTPA since we submitted Tuesday. I was so nervous about this thinking of every way that this process could go wrong, or just thinking and worrying about the scores. My goal is to leave this topic for a while and focus more on my lessons and finishing this experience.

BE PRODUCTIVE

This week I could have spent less time working on getting things ready for edTPA and more time lesson planning. I got very behind on writing my lessons and by the end of the week I have just been wiped out.

HAVE COURAGE

I had courage this week to talk to a lot of the parents during the teacher conferences especially those that are struggling both academically and behaviorally.

BEGIN ANEW

Next week I want to focus more on lesson planning and seeing what my next steps are for student teaching to make sure I finish this 10 weeks on a good note.

DATA

The data that I got to really focus on was the progress monitoring data to show the parents. THis was really awesome to see especially from those lower leveled students that have improved tremendously.

NCTCS

1c. Teachers lead in the teaching profession.

This week I lead in the teaching profession by helping my CE lead the parent teacher conferences.

2a. Teachers provide an environment in which each child has a positive, nurturing relationship with caring adults.

This week I really tried to keep the positive proximity up especially with my more challenging students to encourage better behavior.

3d. Teachers make instruction relevant to students

This week I tried to incorporate more 21st century skills into my instruction like more teamwork and leadership. I started doing table captains each week. This helps give each student a special responsibility to help out their table when we are passing out materials, or getting to go to their tables first.

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

This week I tried to promote more thinking and problem solving in both math and literacy time. We have bee transforming number bonds into number sentences with addition, and then in literacy talking about storms and the potential harms they can cause.

5b. Teachers link professional growth to their professional goals.

This week I continued to implement some of the behavior management strategies and resources that I learned from the PD that I attended and am seeing some growth. While it is small it is there.

This week my focus was on edTPA for my portfolio!

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