Dana: live love &learn to teach

28^th Nov 2011

Monday // 11pm // 1 year ago

Let’s ADD and CARRY! (edte 255)

Today was wonderful! I felt like I made such a wonderful connection with my special pal with school work and just on a friendship level! Today, Mrs. Arn was giving a lesson on adding large three digit numbers and showing the students more than one way that they could add the large numbers. The main focus of the lesson was carrying (groups of ten into the next place value). She used a farm pen as an example, having the ones place be chickens, the tens place were sheep, and the hundreds place were cows.

During the lesson, a couple students came over to me asking for extra help while I was helping Kyle. He really needed me today, and I could definitely tell. He was so distracted all day and not focusing at all. His chair was off the ground, he had so many things he was playing with, and he wasn’t listening at all. I reminded him many, many times to pay attention without distracting the class, but that wasn’t working. So, I sat with him and showed him what we were doing, and since he wasn’t listening to the lesson from the start, I taught him everything and by the end, he could add large numbers and CARRY ALL ON HIS OWN!!! It was such a breakthrough moment! I was so excited! And by the end of the day we were making challenging problems for each other, and he was learning, involved, and so excited about math! I left the classroom today really believing that I’m on the best path for me and I can really really do this and be a great teacher!!

25^th Nov 2011

Friday // 11am // 1 year ago

more students, more connections! (edte 255)

Last week when I was in the classroom, both on Monday and Wednesday, Kyle was absent. In the beginning of my placement when Kyle would be absent, I always wondered if I wouldn’t be needed or should just leave and come back another time when he would be present. As time has progressed though, I was truly wrong. When Kyle isn’t there, I am a great help to all the other students in the classroom, and I also have the opportunity to learn so much for myself. I realized that I made a lot more connections with others students when I was there this week, and that was something I absolutely loved. I feel like this is wonderful practice for my future because I will sometimes be helping one individual student in my classroom, but will always need to have those strong ties with my other students, even the more independent workers.

This being said, I am seeing so much progress in Kyle (on and off) with his behavior. But, this week I feel like I helped to make progress with other students in their math lessons. just even from starting on Monday and finishing on Wednesday. I learned a lot this week. I helped a lot of different leveled students and sometimes I would even try to explain different math problems and such in small groups which seemed extremely beneficial. 

I love being extremely hands on in the placement I am in. This is by far the best placement I have had throughout the past three semesters. Mrs. Arn puts a lot of confidence and trust in me, and I really like having that responisibility. I love teaching and I love to watch and help students learn, and those two concepts are being EXTREMELY reinforced this semester! 

07^th Nov 2011

Monday // 11pm // 1 year ago

today was a struggle (edte 255)

Today was one of the more challenging days with Kyle, unfortunately. He just didn’t want to do any of his work; he just has so much energy and he is constantly so full of life. I had to move him today so he could focus more on his math assignment, but even when he was alone he found distractors. So, I sat with him and really just tried to re-direct his work, but not really help him with it, because I know he knows how to do it and he understands it. 

I think the thing I struggle with the most is wanting to hear all about Kyle’s life and getting to know him better without that interfering with his schoolwork, staying on task, and participation within the classroom. He always just has so much he wants to talk to me about and I really really struggle with telling him he needs to work and shifting his focus, when I truly do want to hear about him more and stay on track with being someone he can confide in and talk to. 

Even though today was more challenging then other times, Kyle did accomplish all he needed to and he was happy at the end. I really really LOVE my time in the classroom and I am so thankful for this amazing opportunity and experience. I am learning so much from everything I have experienced, seen, and taught! 

06^th Nov 2011

Sunday // 2pm // 1 year ago

06^th Nov 2011

Sunday // 2pm // 1 year ago

06^th Nov 2011

Sunday // 2pm // 1 year ago

06^th Nov 2011

Sunday // 2pm // 1 year ago

this week at Little Chico Creek (edte 255)

This week was a fun week and it was different than all the rest! Normally, when I come in we are doing math for the entire time I am there, and that is something I actually love. But this week, Monday when I went in it was Halloween and Wednesday when I went in, the class was in the fine arts room just with the fine arts teacher. This was a wonderful week, but each time I went in this week and saw we weren’t going to be on the normal schedule I questioned if I should come back when I thought I could maybe be more helpful or spend time more “productively”, but boy, was I wrong! This was a week where I got to see all the students, and my special pal in a different element; their personalities shine, watch interactions I do not normally get to see and experience, and I got to experience Halloween and art which were always two of my favorite things when I was younger and in school!

Even though my special pal doesn’t necessarily know I am just there for him, we share a wonderful relationship, he loves talking to me and showing me all sorts of cool things, he comes up to me with a smile every time he walks in from recess, and he is so happy, and I just love that. It was so great to see him on Halloween, all dressed up, BEHAVING! and really interacting with his classmates and seeing him with all his friends. Also, seeing him in fine arts was so great; he was creative, but there were many times where I needed to keep him on task and remind him of what he was doing. And it was absolutely adorable watching him flirt with the girl sitting next to him:)

I see a lot of progress in Kyle and I am really proud of him. He is acting better and I can tell he is trying to stay on task. In relation to the speaker we had this week, I think I am finally really able to analyze why Kyle acts up and behaves the way that he does. He gets bored; he knows how to do the work, so when he is on-task, he finishes it so quickly and doesn’t have anything else to do so he maybe will disrupt classmates, play with pencils, talk, etc. I feel like a student like Kyle needs more and needs to be challenged more. I love being in my placement and I am learning so much; my teacher is amazing, Kyle is progressing so well, and I am making so many amazing connections with all the students in my classroom, and I absolutely love that!

24^th Oct 2011

Monday // 7pm // 1 year ago

PROGRESS!!!!! (edte 255)

Today was a wonderful day in the classroom!! I loved working with my special pal and I really saw improvement; just the simple things of him keeping his chair on the ground and looking forward and FINALLY being fully ready before his math timed test began!! I was so proud of him!

Something that I found challenging today was the fact that he finishes his work so quickly and then he gets really bored and starts to get jittery and he moves around a lot. So, Mrs. Arn would be going over math problems with the class that he had finished, understood, and explained to me like five minutes ago. He wouldn’t really be sitting still and she would have to continuously remind him to focus and sit still; hence he was bored. I think next time I’m in the classroom, I am going to discuss this with Mrs. Arn and see if there is maybe a solution or something else I could have Kyle to when he finishes his work early.

All the kids are working well, Kyle is doing great, I love the classroom, and I am learning and finally TEACHING so much!!!!!

12^th Oct 2011

Wednesday // 7pm // 1 year ago

Before I forget this (EDTE 255)

I LOVED THIS ANALOGY MY TEACHER MADE IN CLASS ON MONDAY! As she was teaching students to tell time, she was asking if the (hour hand) was on the 12 or the 1. Students were really struggling with this idea. Then my teacher went on to say, “If it is the day before your 7th birthday, are you still 6 or are you 7?” That was really an aha moment for me and I just loved that all the students began to understand as my teacher described that, I KNOW I WILL USE THIS IN MY CLASSROOM!! LOVE IT!!

12^th Oct 2011

Wednesday // 7pm // 1 year ago

STEP UP TO WRITING- part one!

I NEED TO UNDERSTAND THIS: WHY IS ONE STRUCTURE OF WRITING TAUGHT IN FORMAL EDUCATION WHEN WE (STUDENTS) ARE EXPECTED TO BE ABLE TO WRITE FOR ALL DIFFERENT AUDIENCES (IN THE REAL WORLD)?

Step Up To Writing was actually a really dynamically interesting cirriculum program for me to dissect and explore. Honestly, I am not 100% sure how I feel about it though; whether I am all for the program or not. There are a lot of things I really agreed with and would really use in my own classroom, and then there is some stuff which I look at and want to delete it off my screen.

Some of the strategies that were being used in the program are some I want to implement in my own classroom. I love the idea of having children draw or write out their emotions next to something they read/write to show (and remember) how they felt.

**I just want my students to be able to express themselves; especially in writing. I understand that in science class there answer is either right or wrong because we are dealing with FACTS. But, that is not the case in writing, so why do we treat it like it is?

I just think that we (as teachers) and especially this program forget why we are having students write. This program is really all about structure. Even for planning to write a story there is even a format. When we tell a story to we have a format. Yes, we obviously speak in sequencial to what has occurred, but if there was a “STRUCTURED” format we HAD to follow everytime, the emotion and point of the story could and would get lost in the stucture.

I want to understand why we need outlines. Outlines are sturctured, quickwrites are not. We need to indent outlines and space things in wierd different ways, and honestly..Why is that necessary? Quickwrites get the real ideas out and isn’t that what we want?

WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE?

I feel like this Step Up to Writing idea is almost going backwards and having kids learn unnecessary things and procedures and structures to just not use it later. The perfect example is college. I learned sentence structure in all twelve years of my schooling before entering college. I was always told run-on sentences are not okay, and they need to be fixed. But now, I am in the real world and runaway sentences are seen as creative and I know they are creative. It makes my writing better, and it helps me to express myself. So now I question what I learned in my years of school and why would I want to feed that same (useless) information to my future students.

I feel like some teachers could use Step Up To Writing as a guide for their entire teaching. It tells you what to do before class and in class and additional ideas and there is just SO MUCH stucture. Let’s be creative and explore new ideas and teach our students what they need to grow and be the best versions of themselves.

I am struggling on figuring out how to encourage my students to grow, learn, be creative, and express themselves when I am the one in the classroom putting their ideas to a halt (because I have to follow a cirricculum that I don’t necessarily agree with).

 I used to believe in giving students a foundation for writing, but as I think and explore more, I don’t know if ONE STANDARD foundation can be provided.