My First Step Into A Classroom

Is this really the end of only my FIRST semester of Graduate school?? I feel like it has been so long but maybe that is because I have learned so much. We had our last class and my Unit Plan is DONE! I am incredibly excited and proud of my accomplishments this semester. I am also excited that I had my first experience in a classroom since going to MSMC.

I did my observation in a 3rd grade classroom with Mrs. D. Immediately upon meeting her, I knew that I liked her, and am not the only one....her kids love her. Her classroom has a very relaxed atmosphere. The walls are very cheery and display everything from her students artwork, their achievements to their pictures. Mrs. D's classroom is set up as three long rows parallel to the whiteboard. In the back is her reading area with a smart board, next to the computer area where she luckily has three computers. She said that normally, every year, she sets her desks up into groups of four. The first two weeks of the school year are spent figuring out the kids and then rearranging the groups to contain different level learners, splitting the chatty kids up and finding the right mix. This year she said that for the first time, that went out the window because all of her kids are chatty and she couldn't find a way to get them to stop so she went to rows.

Mrs. D's work table is set up on the side of her three rows of desks. The students come in and immediately drop off their homework, ask questions and then go to their desks to start the assignment on the board. Throughout the day, you will find her sitting there while the student crowd around her for help or just to talk.

The 3rd grade class was made up of 19 students: 7 boys and 12 girls! She said that she is a general education teacher so she does not have any special needs students in her class and that most of her students are on the same learning level. I did notice that when certain students finished early, she enlisted them to help other students. She did tell me that she had a student in the beginning of the year who was out of control and violent towards her and the other students. She had to have someone come in and observe and then they took him out of her classroom. He ended up going to a special program at Boces, where she sends over his lesson plans on a weekly basis but never sees him anymore.

She has a very relaxed classroom where kids are allowed to roam, yet when things got too noisy, she would either ring her bell or say"Hand on your head if you hear my voice." She taught mostly with direct instruction while I was there but had some very creative learning games for her students to do when they had free time. Though her classroom had a lot more freedom than I am used to seeing, it really seemed to works with her students. They were excited to learn and even more so to show her that they were learning. Even the shy girl seemed to feel comfortable enough and was able to contribute. I must have heard her name mentioned well over 1,000 times during my ten hours of observing!

I am very excited to be in this program and have had some wonderful instruction so far. I truly look forward to my next semester(even though it is the summer) and will be honored to one day call myself a teacher.

Quote of the Week

"The mediocre teacher tells. The good teacher explains. The superior teacher demonstrates. The great teacher inspires."

-William A. Ward

One Week To Go!

"GO WEST PIONEERS"

Well, we have been working hard on our Unit Plans with days left to go. I feel that I have come a long way considering I had never even seen a Unit Plan as of two months ago! I feel pretty confident that I have created a pretty good Unit Plan on pioneer life but am still a little unsure if it is properly aligned in all the right places with the standards. It has been a lot of work and thought I am sure it gets easier, I can only imagine how busy I will be my first year of teaching! Well, this has been an excited process and I can't wait to have a finished project.

New To Voki

This week in class, I had to micro-teach on anticipatory sets. To do this, I created a sort of cartoon called a Voki. The idea was a little intimidating at first but I ended up having so much fun! Voki.com is a great site to use for teaching. What an amazing way to get students excited about an upcoming lesson! There are so many different ways to change your Voki or you could use the same character every time for your students. I am so glad that I had to do this because it has opened my eyes to different ways of doing things. I'm not as intimidated by technology as I used to be. Now if I could just figure out how to post my Voki on this blog!!

For now, here is the link: http://gowestpioneers.pbworks.com/Starting-a-Unit#view=page

As Oprah says... I've Had My Aha Moment!!

For weeks, we have been learning about Bruner's Triangle of Knowledge and Bloom's Triangle of Objectives. In class this week, Dr. Smirnova showed us how to make the connection between the two. Bruner's triangle shows how learning occurs. Bloom's triangle helps teachers plan, touching all levels. When you teach, you want to align the two! She also showed us how Bruner's levels all line up with the different theories we have been learning such as Meta-cognition aligns with the Social-Cognitive Theory. I feel as if we have been taking in so much important information that it was hard to get it straight. But now as I see it all line up together, it makes sense. I have made the connection...aha!

Higher Order Thinking

We have been learning about Bloom's Taxonomy and higher order thinking. We all remember sitting in a classroom, day in and day out, being lectured to for weeks followed by a test that we would stay up cramming for. What we don't remember, most likely, is what we learned. That is because we were only engaged in lower-order thinking. Higher order thinking is when students combine facts and ideas and synthesise, generalize, explain, hypothesize or arrive at some conclusion or interpretation. It is up to the teacher to create activities or environments that allow the students an opportunity to engage in higher-order thinking. Studying Bloom's levels of taxonomy really help me to understand what is needed when creating a unit plan and his list of action verbs will be carried around with me always!!

Quote of the Day

“Educational procedures are intended to develop the more desirable rather than the more customary types of behavior.” Benjamin Bloom