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.