Internship Week 7

This week, I learned that sometimes "tough love" needs to be established.  I have learned this week that  I needed to establish that I was an authority figure, and I know I should have done this a long time ago. My students certainly respect me, that wasn't the issue.  I just feel that they didn't take me as seriously as they would another adult figure in the room.  I think it is because they looked at me more as a helper in the classroom rather than a teacher.  This week, I talked to them in a group setting and set some rules.  I let them know that in a week, I will be a full time teacher, and they needed to treat me like one.  I told them that I would appreciate it if they acted the same for me as they did for their classroom teacher.  I talked firmly, yet positively, when something inappropriate happened in the classroom, took apples where needed (behavior plan in the classroom), and encouraged students to do the right thing when I had to correct their behavior.  I feel that the students really took me much more seriously.  I no longer feel that I am looked at as a helper in the classroom.  I feel like I am someone they can come to now initially.  However, if there is one thing I have noticed, it is that my mentor teacher is always extremely positive, even when something undesirable happened.  I have noticed the students do no shut down this way, rather they learn to try harder next time, instead.  I am really excited for this week and will continue to remind them of my position in the class.

Internship Week 6

          I attended another Common Core training today and once again learned a lot of strategies and ways to allow students to represent their knowledge through multiple means of representation.  This particular training was geared for fourth grade and I learned so many new strategies of how to teach the new standards for fourth grade.  I also learned a lot of things about my own teaching in a resource room classroom.  Just because the students I am teaching may be on a level other than fourth grade, I should still cover the standards that are set for their grade level, but accommodate and modify where needed.  For example, one standard was talking about comparing informational texts.  Well, I could do that easily with a book that is at each student's individual instructional level.  This might sound like something that should have come to me automatically, but I have always been searching for Standards in the students developmental stage rather than adjusting to their own grade level where need be.  I feel like I am learning so much in my field experience that can’t be taught in a classroom, and I am lucky to be able to attend trainings as an intern that have already impacted my teaching in the few weeks I have been there.  

Although the standards seem to be an adjustment, I am happy to be student teaching with them.  This is a great way for me to really become acquainted with them, as I make my lessons extremely detailed.  I feel that if I were to do this as a first year teacher, I would be so overwhelmed with everything else I would have to establish that I wouldn't understand the Standards as well as I am learning to understand them now.  This internship has given me the opportunity to take things one step at a time.  It is so nice to be able to slowly immerse myself into teaching full time.  

Internship Week 5

Although our discussions are intended to focus on our time in the school, I would rather make this blogpost about what I learned at training this week.  On Wednesday,  I went with my mentor teacher to a training on Common Core and how it coincides with IEPs.  Going into this training, I really did wonder if it would be a review of what I have learned in class about the Common Core standards, or if I would gain new information from it.  I can honestly say it was one of the most effective trainings I have been to in regards of incorporating the new standards into IEPS as well as how to write IEPs.
We first started out by talking about the new standards and how we want to show growth as a school.  I thought this was a great way to connect the school to the new standards.  Instead of our content taught being a mile wide and an inch deep, it is an inch deep and a mile wide.  I feel that the new standards will certainly help our school growth rate, as we are really unpacking topics and digging deeper to understand what it's all about.  I feel that my classroom I am in really unpacks what the students are learning.  My teacher does not move on until the students really understand the topic.  I have already seen growth in my students in this aspect.
Moving onto the special education aspect of the training, I learned many things.  For example, I did not know that once a student was identified as having a disability, that 'label' is with them the rest of their life.  No matter how much they have improved, if you are categorized as having a learning disability, you will always have that learning disability, even if you do not possess those qualities of the disability. In a way, the term that was used, "labeling", rang through my head.  It makes me sad to think that students are considered as 'labeled' because that is exactly how I feel some people view them.  There are many close-minded people that view them as their disability, but not as the person they are.  This is what I would like to comment on.  I would like everyone to have the experience I am having in my classroom this semester.  I have seen 15 students work their hardest to complete tasks that we take for granted daily.  I have seen them frustrated because they couldn't quite 'get it' and I have seem them triumph for working through their frustration and confusion.  I do not feel that students get the respect and POSITIVE recognition they deserve.  For me, I will make it a personal goal to show my students just how proud I am of them each day and I want them to feel proud of themselves, as well.

Internship Week 4

This week, I have incorporated a big goal of mine, not only this year, but the past two years.  In our practicum plan our tutor and participant year, I always wanted to include more hands-on activities.  I have found that most students seem to enjoy these, though not all.  This week I took over Science/SS/Health with one student.  This is a designated time for 40 minutes where I have only one student in the room.  This is the only time I only have one student, so I thought this is a great time to slowly incorporate hands-on activities.  I have noticed this student use a lot of manipulatives to aide her in computation and it really seems to help.  I thought to myself, if this student seems to learn kinesthetically, then why not incorporate more hands-on activities for her so she is able to learn and enjoy through movement in other subjects, just as she does in Math.  This week, I did a personal hygiene/health unit with the student and had a hands-on activity almost every day (it was a short week due to a holiday and a field trip).  I was very pleased with how well the lessons went.  The student seemed to absorb so much. I had nothing to compare her learning with (for example, did she learn better kinesthetically than she would have visually or auditory), but nonetheless she really enjoyed the lesson and gained the main point of what I was teaching.  She even applied what she had learned in conversation the next day and it made me feel very accomplished.  I felt that this will be a great approach to extend throughout the year.  In conclusion, this was a great first week of teaching.  The first couple weeks were observe and assist, but actually taking over one subject allowed me to see the prep work that goes into making lessons valuable and effective.

Internship Week 3

Once again, a week has passed and I don't know where it went! This placement is so fast-paced and I really love it.  I feel like I am at the school for maybe 30 minutes a day.  I like the fact that in a resource room you are constantly discussing different areas of a subject with different students.  It is never the same thing.  For example, during reading, one student was working on ending sounds, another on writing a paragraph, another on sounding out/spelling words, another on rhyming, etc.  

It was from this that I discovered the topic I wanted to research for my Action Research project.  This was not something I was particularly looking for.  I sort of stumbled across it.  I saw a student struggling with reading words in isolation.  I thought to myself, "if words in isolation are a struggle, I wonder how this student does with reading fluency and comprehension?" Immediately, I realized that this is certainly an interest of mine.  How can I improve fluency for my students? This is a skill they are going to need in life, especially for their future schooling.  From there, I began researching different strategies to improve reading fluency for students.  I am still narrowing my subject down, however.  Do I want to see how one particular strategy influences reader fluency? Or do I want to try different strategies each day throughout the week to see if it improves reader fluency? There is a lot to be done, but I certainly feel up for the challenge! 

I always liked reading time as an elementary student, and I feel that I developed positive feelings toward reading because of that.  I want to help my students so they do not have a negative connotation with reading.  Perhaps focusing a lot of my time with this area will give my students the confidence and tools they need to take chances with reading and conquer it.  I am very excited to do so and I can't wait to see what this study produces.