My teacher has been working with the students on adding details to their stories. So today, she told them to write down the steps one should follow when brushing their teeth. After all the students had had ample time to write, they came back to the carpet. The teacher then placed a toothbrush, tooth paste, and glass of water at the front of the classroom. She informed the students that she would choose various students to read out their steps, and she would follow them exactly. The first student told her to put toothpaste on her toothbrush. She then proceeded to put toothpaste all over the brush from the handle to the bristles. Another student then told her she was to brush in circles. She did brush her teeth, but not in circles. Instead she was turning her whole body in circles. The students were in absolute hysterics, but they really got the point that they need to use more details in their stories. They were reminded that they should probably include things such as amounts, time, etc. They went back to their desks to put more detail into their stories.
I started my final praciticum on January 7th. Each day, I take two grade three students to the library to work with them on their reading and writing. Although they are in grade three, their reading and writing is at a kindergarten or grade one level. One student mentioned something about money one day and this sparked a great idea for me. These students also struggle with basic math. So, the next day, I brought in monopoly money. The students each get a whiteboard and marker. They say what dollar word they would like (3 letter=$3.00, etc.), I give them a word and they must spell it correctly (or close to) and I will give them $3 for it. I find the students are eager to try bigger words since they are worth a higher dollar amount. Also, the students are regularly counting their money so that they can trade in their one dollar bills for five dollar bills etc. The students are now asking for sentences to write instead of one single word. When I first started working with the students, one was still unsure of what some letters looked like. Both students struggled with differentiating between vowels. Thanks to my experience in a kindergarten classroom last semester, I had an idea of how to approach this situation. I created a sensory alphabet booklet for the students to flip through if they never needed assistance in figuring out what letter was making a certain sound. As the vowels are the most regularly needed, I have them all on one sheet of paper for quick referral. Previously, the students tended to always choose the letter 'a', now, they are using all of the vowels. Ever since the beginning of my practicum, during journal time, one of these students would only draw pictures while the other students were writing. A few days back though, this student completely knocked my socks off. Without any prompting from me or the teacher, he began to write sentences. I love my (future) job.
Last semester, while I was completing my final undergrad class, I also took time to volunteer in a couple of classrooms. One of these classrooms I volunteered in was a kindergarten classroom. First of all, I must say, kindergarten teachers are amazing. In September, some students came into the classroom unfamiliar with what some of the letters in the alphabet looked like. When I left the classroom in December, students were forming sentences and reading to me! I am absolutely amazed by the methods that this kindergarten teacher uses to develop the foundational blocks of literacy. 1. She first taught the students her multi-sensory alphabet. Day by day, she would introduce one letter at a time, such as Amy the Apple. Take notice that the 'A' in Amy and the 'a' in apple are two different sounds that the letter 'A' can make. While introducing the letter shapes and sounds, the teacher would also teach the children hand signals to represent the sounds. For instance, if the teacher pretended to bite an apple, the students would make an "ahhh" sound that is heard when saying "apple". The teacher would practice this throughout the day while noting any students that needed more practice with it. 2. As the students became familiarized with the actions and the sounds that the actions represented, the teacher would do a number of actions in a certain order. The students would make the sounds that were associated with the actions. After repeating the sounds a couple of times, they would recognize the word that she or I was spelling with our actions. It was amazing to see! 3. As students were progressing through her multisensory alphabet, she had them begin to think about syllables. Aware that students may have different strategies that suit them best, students were encouraged to clap out the syllables, take steps with their feet, say words slowly, etc. 4. Students would then think of a simple sentence. They would create the sentence using colored 3-D blocks. If the word was one syllable, they would use a single white block to represent the word. If it was two syllable, the would use a green block, followed by a yellow block. If it was a three syllable word, they would use a green block, followed by a yellow, which was then followed by a red. Now, of course, if it was a three syllable word, all the blocks would be touching because it was still one word. White blocks though, should never be touching any other blocks because they represent a single word. (Therefore spaces between the blocks are indicating spaces in sentences.) 4. Once students have shown they understood how to use the blocks correctly, they would then 'transfer' the blocks to paper via colored paper, glue, and their notebooks (this is pictured below). The teacher and I had precut small strips of white, green, yellow, and red paper. So students would still use their blocks to create their sentences, and once their block sentences were approved, they would begin gluing the paper in their notebooks. 5. If students wanted to take on the challenge themselves, or if the teacher or I felt they were ready for it, they were encouraged to start filling in the sounds that they heard. For example, a student may of had a white piece of paper representing the word 'tree'. If the student believe he/she hears an 'r', they will write an 'r' on that white piece of paper. Once they are satisfied with their work, the teacher or a volunteer would write their sentence below to look back upon as further assessment. 6. Just before the December break, the teacher was starting to push students towards using punctuation at their end of their sentences too. What outstanding progress for a kindergarten student!
This multi-sensory alphabet combined with the students book-bag (that was changed regularly) assisted the students in developing their reading and writing skills! I also didn't mention the countless stations she created that had students practice the formation of letters while using fine-motor skills. I'm so glad that I got to volunteer with this wonderful lady. I learned so much and I know it's going to assist me for years to come!
I take part in a french class every other day of the week. In this class, there is a student that has a difficult time getting motivated to complete his work. Currently the students are working on content that may surpass the level of this student's understanding. I took a seat by him today and tried my best to encourage him to work on the content. I quickly came to the realization that no matter how much I encouraged him, he was not going to do it. Therefore I decided to change my tactics. First of all, this is a student that I don't know that well yet. Secondly, I wanted him to gain something from this period. So I decided to have some fun with him while learning some of the basics of french. First, we read through the numbers one to ten, in french. I then explained the rules of the game"dix". To play "dix", we each take turns saying either one or two numbers in ascending order. The person that is forced to say 'dix' loses. He learned some more french and we even had some laughs too!
At the beginning of the week, I had planned a photo scavenger hunt for the light and optical unit that occurs in grade eight science. As I walked around the halls, I found students incredibly engaged in scientific discussion. This was so exciting and encouraging for me to see! Reasons why I believe this was an incredibly successful lesson:
Use of technology (students took photos on their Smart-phones)
Getting students up on their feet!
Allowing students outside of our classroom walls
Finding real-world applications of the units content!
Competition aspect-Students had a time limit and were rewarded points
High student engagement has always been a desire of mine. After seeing the levels of engagement that occurred in this lesson, it has only increased my desire to continuously strive forhigh levels engagement in all the lessons that I plan. This certainly will be a goal of mine throughout the rest of my time in PSII and throughout PSIII.
For this practicum, I have been placed in a classroom where I teach the same lesson to two different classes. This allows me to teach a lesson, reflect on it, and then make tweaks to enhance the lesson for the following class. Something that I have been noticing is that I find myself giving more explicit instructions in my second class. This is because I am able to address questions and uncertainties that had occurred in the first class before they even come up in the second. I am learning that what I initially believed to be perfectly comprehensible instruction, probably was not. Even if my instruction is adequate though, it does not hurt to go into more detail about my expectations to ensure that students meet those expectations. By spending more time on instructions, it may seem to like I am taking valuable time away from student-centered activities, but in actuality, it has the ability to save time by reducing student confusion.
This is the first lesson I taught for my second practicum. Since I am teaching two grade 8 classes, I was able to use these stations twice. I was fairly content with how my first try with it went, and even happier with the second! Just prior to the end of class, I quickly asked each student which station they enjoyed the most. All stations received votes. Snakes & ladders and the triangle puzzle were the most popular. I was quite intrigued to see if the students would find the coloring stations cheesy or not, but I heard great feedback from this station too. Initially I had also planned to have a teacher station. At the teacher station, I had intended to go over any questions the students had and to try challenging them a bit too. Due to the amount of students in class, I chose to eliminate this station. This allowed me to spend my time assisting students at other stations. This proved to be a great choice because students seemed to need clarification to ensure what they were doing was correct. As I get to know the students more and understand what specific instructions are needed, I plan to incorporate this station back in as I see it as incredibly valuable! .
This afternoon, my teacher advisor and I attended a session that was developed to assist us in identifying our roles over the next six weeks. Over this time frame, the following question popped up: Are we teaching content or students? As a student-teacher, I have spent numerous hours creating countless lesson-plans and tweaking them to perfection. Therefore, when I go into school the next day with this seamless lesson-plan in hand, I’m going to teach exactly that, right? Chances are probably not. This is because we are teaching students! These are people that have wants, needs, and lives! Conversations are going to occur, and at times, things may venture off a bit. This does not have to be a negative thing! Especially when we are able to take advantage of these conversations and relate them back to the topic. In actuality, this will probably make the content even more meaningful than what was initially planned for.
During lessons, we also may bump into things that don’t work as well as we had planned for, so what do we do? Leave them behind and move on! Allowing a lesson to completely veer off from what was planned may seem incredibly daunting, but in doing so, the content can be made into something that will better benefit the students. Do what needs to be done to assist the students' learning and to show you care!
It is highly critical that we adapt instruction to meet the needs of students with exceptionalities such as learning disabilities, ESL, etc . Besides these noted exceptionalities, it is also crucial for us to note the interests and skills of each and every student within our classroom. As we have learned thus far, students have a wide variety of learning styles. Through using these various learning styles, we have the opportunity to encourage engagement and learning within our future classes. Additionally, by getting to know our students’ strengths, weaknesses, and interests we have the ability to help make our classes more profitable and stimulating for our students. Accommodating for exceptionalities, learning styles, and interests involves teachers getting creative with their lesson planning and teaching strategies. Consequently, some days may not go as well as others, but as long as we continue to strive to better students’ learning, we will find ourselves becoming the effective teachers that we all desire to be.