Reflections from a Kindergarten Classroom

Final Synthesis

2008-04-26T12:19:00.000-07:00

This is that blog entry that always comes when one thing ends and something new begins. TE 402 Math/Literacy is finished and the internship process is that much closer.

When I think back to major themes that have stuck out to me over the course of this semester in this class, I can hear DIFFERENTIATION being screamed so loudly. The literacy component of this class inspired me so much to explore what it really means to differentiate lessons to accommodate the needs of the learners in my classroom. As a special education major, I’ve heard about differentiation in every single CEP course I’ve taken; however, the application process of differentiating is something new and different.

This course inspired me to read a text on differentiation instruction in mixed-ability classrooms by Tomlinson. I have to say, if there is one major thing that I’m taking with me from this semester, it is the actual implementation of differentiated lesson planning.

My field placement this semester has allowed me to work one-on-one with four focus/target students, all whom have varying academic support needs. The requirements of this class, to actually teach one-on-one lessons and/or small group’s lessons, have allowed me the opportunity to move away from the large group focus and really see the significance of knowing who your learners are. I have learned so much about these four students from our one-on-one lessons that I can’t imagine trying to teach them without knowing the things that I know.

The importance of knowing your students has never before been made so clear to me. I am very glad that I can walk away from this class having this kind of knowledge.

As an educator of students with special needs I will be focusing a lot on small group/individualized lesson plans. In the field of deaf education, most deaf/hard of hearing students attend school with 100% hearing friends. The role of a deaf education then becomes very individualized. Therefore, the opportunities that I’ve been provided with during this course have, and will be, a very important piece of my future career.

New Literacies Exploration

2008-03-25T09:26:00.000-07:00

So, it looks like almost everyone has uploaded their New Literacies Exploration and I have had a chance to look at a lot of them--well, at least the ones with active links!

I chose to explore the realm of digital storytelling because it is something that I had never heard of before I stumbled upon a website about what it was and how it can be used. At first, I thought to myself, this seems like too much work. I watched a sample video called "The Look" which was created to teach jr. high students about science fiction--real science fiction that is. It's an interesting video, but my first thought was that it would take more time to make a video about it at home than it would to prepare a lesson a teach about it in the classroom. Then I thought some more--would it really? Would it take more time? No. Time is not the issue. Equipment would be my issue. After all, once you've made your video then you just have to press play the next day in your classroom.
But digitial storytelling, using The Look example, is really more that the time that it takes to create the document. It's really all about reaching your students. Face it, we live in a society today that puts the boob-tube on a pedastal! Most people spend a significant amount of their day in front of a TV screen and the quality of what they set before their eyes is piss poor--yet entertaining to some degree. Doesn't it make PERFECT sense to take the mode of information gathering that your students prefer and channel something high quality to them via it? I think so!
In order to really make my New Literacies Exploration my own I didn't want to simply recreate a document I'd already seen. As I was searching my brain trying to think of something to do for this assignment using what I have learned about digital storytelling I remember some pictures that I had from a trip to Shawnee Park Elementary in Grand Rapids. Shawnee Park has a phenomenal hearing impaired program and their focus is using Oral/Auditory training for deaf and hard-of-hearing children. In one of the classrooms I had visited, the students were putting their finishing touches on their "All About Me" books. I was able to take pictures of each page of one young boys book and upload those pictures into Microsoft Photo Story 3 (which I had downloaded during my learning portion of this exploration). Once I had the pictures I thought to myself, it would have been great if I could have recorded the little boy reading these pages to me--but that wasn't an option at the time being, so I found a willing male in my dorm to audio record. And walla, I have a digitial story!
I would encourage ANYONE and EVERYONE to check out digital storytelling because it is a great technology and it's EASY. The bottom line is that it is DOABLE in the classroom setting. It is NOT a huge, extensive project that you have to create--I created both of the stories embedded in my write up in less than 15 minutes--and you're students will LOVE it!
Too often I think we shy away from technology because there is a set-up time involved that we just don't have. It takes A LOT of time to create a classroom webpage and even more time to keep it updated. One thing I have observed in my various placement settings is that teachers rarely have that extra time. If we want to bring technology into our classrooms, we have to find applications that work for us!

Field Thoughts...

2008-02-21T12:19:00.001-08:00

I just spent the 2 longest hours of my life in my field placement. As soon as I got some place where I could sit down and reflect this is what I came up with. Please read and respond with your thoughts....

Dealing with the unmotivated, unchallenged student in your classroom…

An underlying lack of motivation may explain why many students are disengaged from classroom activities and fail to participate with their peers. Motivation is the presence of a personal drive that pushes us, as human beings, towards a goal. When school becomes an insignificant goal to a student there is a lack of motivation. Teachers can impact a student’s level of motivation by finding out the student’s interests and framing at least on aspect of a lesson plan around what the student likes. But what happens when the lesson plan that you based upon that student interests fails to appeal to them still?

I’m talking about the unchallenged student. The student in your classroom who has the potential to complete more challenging tasks, but chooses not to. Every once in a while, he/she “slips” and says something profound or does something that you can’t believe. But the other 99% of the time, this student sits in his/her chair and stares off into space, is completely oblivious to the fact that you just assigned something, sits in the math circle and looks straight through you. This student doesn’t care that you call on him/her to answer because they’ve already made up their mind that they’re not giving an answer. And don’t try to bribe him/her because he/she is one step ahead of you. This student is so smart that it frustrates you to no end that they won’t just participate and do the work that you assign.

Even though you hate the way it sounds, you admit that most of the time you let this student get away with being disengaged, reminding yourself of the other 26 students in your class and the education they deserve. You try and try and get nothing back in response. Wouldn’t it just be easier to give up? runs through your mind constantly, but you fight it because this is one of your kids, one of your students, and you just can’t give up. You feel like you’re running out of options.
You’re so sick of hearing “differentiated lessons” from people who have never worked with this particular student. You differentiate all of your lesson plans and you’re doing a great job with the other students in your classroom. It’s just this one kid…And you’re class isn’t the only classroom he/she acts this way. You hear the same thing from the drama teacher, the music teacher, the gym teacher, and even the lunch lady has concerns.

The month of February is coming to an end and you’re at a loss. What are you going to do?

Portfolio

2008-02-17T13:25:00.000-08:00

You've read many cases, watched video, and discussed problems and solution strategies about the base ten system. For your writing prompt:
1) What ideas about numbers and the base ten system have ben highlighted fotr you by these readings, videos, discussions, and activities?
2) What questions do you have?

We've spent a lot of time talking about teaching students the base ten system of numbers and one thing still perplexes me--I never learned about it in elementary school!
It was not until I was taking TE 201 at MSU my Freshman year that I even heard of the term "base ten system" and learned how systems would be different if the base number was different, two or five for example.
So, when we're teaching our students about the system of numbers we just teach them how to count and manipulate number to perform the tasks we are given--but we never really say "This is the base ten system". Or should we? I guess this is a question that I still have, even though I have a gut instict about the answer.
And that is simple--if we try and teach our students so much and expect them to remember all kinds of unrelated things, they will develop a negative attitude of learning as it becomes a difficult task for them. When we make things too complex we are really making them even more abstract for our students and eventually we may burn them out. So, having said that, I feel that if we are going to introduce our students, explicitly, to systems, such as the base ten system, we must make it relevant to them.
In fact, all teaching should be relevant to our students and we need to be tuned into their interests so we can make learning exciting and valuable for them. This is not a theory only to be applied to math; instead, it is simply effective teaching.

Interview Plan

2008-02-14T08:00:00.000-08:00

After watching the video of the six year old boy being interviewed, I decided to duplicate the structure that the interviewer uses.

1. I want you to start counting and keep going until I say stop.

Doesthe student count smoothly?

Is there an obvious pattern to the students counting?

Does the student slow down and speed up at all?

2. What is the largest number you know?

3. Can you write that number for me?

Can the student write the largest number he/she knows?

4. I’m going to start counting and when I stop, I want you to keep counting from where I leave off

7, 8, 9, ___

27, 28, 29, ______ (25, 26, 27, 28, 29, _____)

42, 43, 44, 45, _____ (40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, ______)

86, 87, 88, ____ (84, 85, 86, 87, 88, ______)

95, 96, 97, 98, 99, ______

5. When I was counting aloud, what were you thinking about?

6. I want you to pick up one of the markers and write down the number that I say aloud.

9
14
27
58
63
100
113

E-Notebook Submission

2008-02-11T16:59:00.000-08:00

Free Write

More on differentiated lesson planning...

The text How to Differentiate Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms (Tomlinson) was recommended to me a few weeks ago. I have to say, as a full-time college student, mentor, employee, and fiancé who is ecstatically planning a wedding, I don’t have a lot of extra time for reading. But something stuck out about this text…and I ordered it.
After reading two chapters I’ve been recommending this book to every teacher/teacher candidate I know. It’s a great tool to have.
I believe that too often, we hear differentiated lesson planning and get this image in our minds of one teacher and 25 different students, each requiring a different method of teaching and the overwhelming impossibilities that are in our minds are burned there are they just get worse and worse over time.
The bottom line is that every student is different; each individual in your classroom will take in the information you give in a different way. This is inevitable. So where do you start?
According to Tomlinson, the very first thing you have to do is identify the needs of the below average student as well as the above average student. This is your range. Identifying this range can come from assessments, but also from observations, looking at a student’s previous work, talking wit the student, etc… By knowing this range and understand it, you will be less likely to teach above or below your student’s level. If you have a gifted learner and their mind is never challenged, what happens to their potential? If you have a student who struggles and you are constantly reminding that student that he/she is struggling, how will they ever succeed?
When you’re teaching a lesson, you focus should be ‘how can I connect what this student already knows with the new information?’
You have to know your students; they don’t come with manuals. You have to be aware when Jaime can’t understand you because school is the only place that he hears English, or how confused Erik is because he only understands the story if someone else is reading it, or how peaceful school is for Sarah because it’s the only setting that allows her to escape the abuse at home.
If you don’t know your students, how will you reach them? If you can’t reach them, how will you engage them? If their brain is not engaged in learning, how will learning take place?

E-Notebook Submission

2008-02-04T17:56:00.000-08:00

Take a digital natives quiz and read information from the website (http://coe.sdsu/eet/articles/digitalnatives/index.htm). Write about the following: Are you a digital native or immigrant? To what extent does the term "emergent" apply to your own digial literacy?

I was able to identify with 4 out of the 6 terms (blogs, massive multiple player online games, instant messaging, wiki's) on the digital natives quiz.

In terms of the digital world and new technologies, I'm not a native. I grew up on a farm where we literally rode on the backs of pigs for fun instead of instant messaging our friends or posting online journals. My family didn't even own a computer until I was in Jr. high. We had no need for one; I used the computers at school whenever I needed to type something and to this day my parents rarely have any interactions between a keyboard and their fingertips.
I was introduced to technology via school, not home. This is a major difference between myself and the students that I work with in my field placement and I believe it is something to capitalize on. If the attraction of multi-media arouses my students then why wouldn't I want to use it?
Too many "experienced" teachers steer away from utilizing technology in their classrooms because they themselves are intimidated by the endless capabilities that are available to them. They don't want to learn new things to teach with; they have their lesson plans that they developed 25 years ago when they first started teaching and other than a few changes in benchmarks and/or district curriculum, those lessons haven't changed.
So I ask myself, am I native or an immigrant? It's clear to me that I moved into the digital world before I entered high school, and because I wasn't born into it, I'm not a native. But the term immigrant doesn't fit me either.
When I think of an immigrant, I think of someone who left where they once were to reach a better place, a place with more options and resources. There was a purpose for their departure fom wherever they were before to where they are now. However, technology was something that I believe just came to me; I didn't necessarily find it. School introduced us, but like a child acquring language, my knowledge of how to operate the digital world soared. I didn't go looking for technology, instead, it was something that emerged.
Since taking CEP 416, Teaching with Technology, here at MSU, my digital literacy has been jumpstarted. I am more eager than ever before to learn about the new technologies that are available for me to utilize. With no previous knowledge of online works, such as blogs, I stepped into the first day of class knowing that "blogging" was the dumbest word I'd ever heard. But really, I had no idea what it was. It was foriegn to me and I wasn't ready, quite yet, to give it a try.
However, after learning that my instructor had his entire class outlined online (via a blog), which made it so much more assessible to me than a paper copy that I may lose, I was ready to learn more.
Now I have experience with podcasting, making webpages, using Skype, creating wiki's, and all other sorts of new technologies that I can't wait to try and bring into my classroom.
One thing that has always been in the back of my mind, and was reiterated to me in the Tompkins chapter is that you have to reach students at their level. Whether you're working with preschoolers or college students, you, as the teacher, have to meet them at their level-and if multimedia stimulates their learning, why not use it?

Portfolio: Base Ten

2008-02-04T10:36:00.000-08:00

What ideas about numbers and the base ten system have been highlighted for you by these readings, videos, discussions, and activities? What questions do you have?

My field placement has proved to be a challenge for me, personally, as a teacher candidate with hopes of teaching in an upper elementary setting. Working with Kindergartners who are learning how to count, how to spell, how to read, and other how to’s has forced me to step back and examine the reasons why I am pulled to upper elementary students. One advantage, that I see with working with older students, is that they already have a foundation of knowledge that supports the new material that they are introduced to; Kindergartners do not. Something as simple as using scissors varies depending on these settings—Kindergartners have to be taught how to hold the scissors and how to move their hands to make the scissors function where as fourth graders can be taught how to manipulate paper so that they can construct a woven project or create something that is more complex than learning how to use the scissors. Science, literacy, math are impacted in the same way.
The Kindergartners that I work with at Pleasant View are not comfortable yet with identifying numbers greater than 12 or 15. Almost every student in the class can count to 12 and there are a few who can count to 100 on their own. However, after watching the video in class today I feel like I have a much better understanding of why some kinds can say numbers aloud but not be able to recognize them on paper or write them. There are gaps in their knowledge and schematic composition of the base ten system.
The case studies that we have examined in class thus far help to give a more realistic view of classroom settings and what students may do. To complement the learning that I am gaining via the case studies, the Van de Walle text is right there to present the bigger picture of how the development of learning mathematics occurs within the minds of young children.
After being in my field placement and reading the different case studies, I’m wondering if some of the students who typically seem “distracted” are really just lost when my CT is talking. Each day the class begins with a counting of the number of days of school that have past. My CT uses a place value chart and straws. Each day a new straw is added to the ones pocket and if the ones pocket has 10 straws then they are bundled together and moved to the tens pocket. On days when a bundle is added to the tens pocket my CT guides a counting exercise that consists of counting from 1 to whatever number they are at (with the bundles of sticks). Some students gradually start to get quieter and quieter until there are only a few voices really sticking out as they approach 70, 71, 72, 73, etc…
I’m curious to interview a few of the students who I believe may be lost during this activity to gain better incite about their knowledge.

Re: E-Notebook Submission

2008-02-01T17:53:00.000-08:00

As of today, my plan is to focus my literacy lesson around the US Postal Service.

I want to incorporate the text The Jolly Postman and utilize what the students have been learning about writing letters. I hope to have the students write letters to each other during class and learn about address labels, return labels, and stamps to send the letters that they have written to each others houses.
There will also be a wrap-up discussion for this lesson once the students have received a letter from a peer at their home address.

Obviously, it's still a plan in progress; but it's more than I had the other day :)

Are Inclusion programs all inclusive?

2008-01-29T22:15:00.000-08:00

On Tuesday, January 29th the Urban Educators Cohort of MSU's College of Education brought in a panel of urban educators to talk about special education in the urban setting.
Panelists included:

Lori Abbott
Principal, Gier Park Elementary
Lansing School District

Virginia Acheson
Principal, Sheridan Road Elementary School
Lansing School District

Elizabeth Coverson
Teacher, Schulze Elementary School
Detroit Public Schools

Troy Mariage
Professor, College of Education
Michigan State University

Charles Tutt
Teacher, Holmes Gender Academy
Flint Community Schools

Jessica Henning
MSU sophomore

Katie Murphy
MSU freshman

Shalayla Williams
MSU freshman

Dr. Troy Mariage began the guided panel discussion by discussion what he calls the Deficit Problem within the current educational setting. Teachers and experts have become so good at identifying a student’s weaknesses and those areas where students struggle that they’ve completely lost the notion of highlighting students’ strengths. As special educators one of our biggest tasks is working with our students and their parents. Dr. Mariage went on to stress how much it means to the parents of a child who receives special education services to find their child’s strengths. Parents of children with severe cognitive impairments or children with physical impairments have spent a significant amount of time with doctors who tell them everything that’s “wrong” with their child. Most parents of children with special needs need someone to find something “right” with their child.

Elizabeth Coverson is a Kindergarten teacher at Schulze Elementary in Detroit, a school that has failed to meat AYP for 4 consecutive years. She admits that a school such as Schulze gets a lot of help from the government, however, she said “…it’s not the students who are failing, it’s not the teachers, it’s the system.”

Charles Tutt is a middle school/high school teacher of Civics, Government, and History. Charles teaches in the Flint area in a school that is known for its inclusion program. During his talk, Charles mentioned the push-out, push-in program that his school has for students of all academic backgrounds.

Lori Abbott, principle at Gier Elementary (here in Lansing) was a special educator for many years before she assumed her administrative role. As an individual who has put in the hours of being a teacher and is now in a leadership role for a group of teachers, she believes that the key to special education is training the teachers. General education teachers need to be trained on how to work with special education teachers and special education students. One of the training methods she has brought to Gier Elementary is differentiated instruction. She believes that it is her staff’s responsibility to “…meet the needs of all of the students in your room, no matter how many students you have, no matter the differences in their academic abilities”. She has also spent time training her staff in classroom management. When asked why, she responded, “What separates a general education teacher from a special education teacher? Classroom management.”

As I walk away from this panel event, I can’t help but question if inclusion programs are really all that inclusive? Both Elizabeth Coverson and Charles Tutt claim to work in buildings who provide full inclusion. Perhaps my personal view of inclusion is skewed, but I do not view Elizabeth Coverson’s Kindergarten class as a fully inclusive program because she mentioned that once hearing impaired students are fluent in ASL the student and his/her interpreter come into her classroom. Is this full inclusion, or inclusion with accommodations?
Charles Tutt mentioned the push-out, push-in program that his building offers, after discussing how well known his school is for their full inclusion program. Any student can go see a push-out, push-in teacher for assistance with the work they were assigned in the general education classroom.
Virginia Acheson, principle at Sheridan Road Elementary (also in Lansing) went on to say that students in her building (K-5) don’t know they are receiving special education services. She claims that they are not viewed differently for going to see another teacher for reading and that “special education just isn’t an issue for younger students”. Whether going to another classroom for an academic area is or isn’t an issue for the students in her building, I wonder about the students in Charles Tutt’s middle school and high school classrooms?

E-Notebook Submission

2008-01-28T19:04:00.000-08:00

Discuss what you are thinking for your lesson plan. What did you consider in making that decision?

Considering the fact that I have not been to field placement since Thursday, Jan. 17th, I am not that far along in the planning phases of my future literacy lesson plan.
However, before I dive into planning this lesson I want to get with my CT and talk about the thematic units she'll be covering this semester. My plan is to do that when I return to the field on Monday, Feb 4th.

Although I am not prepared to discuss the prompt provided for this week my brain is still very much wrapped up on the "new form" of discussion that we read about in Almasi. As I was reading the article I couldn't help but think there was nothing wrong with the form of discussion that she deems "recitation". After all, this is the only form of discussion that I have ever seen in a classroom. Teachers are always facilitators and as a student, I've always wanted to tell the teacher exactly what he or she wants to hear...So what happens when the teacher becomes a moderator and only interjects in the discussion to direct students on the right path?
The benefits of a true discussion, one in which the students are learning from each other and making connections for new information to fit into their schema of prior knowledge, are clear. One of the most beneficial advantages that I see from a true discussion is the social acceptance that comes from one peer evaluating another peers response. There is less fear/anxiety of saying a wrong answer, because you're not telling it to the teacher, who "knows" all the answers. Instead, you're sharing a thought with a group of classmates, some of which you'll probably convince.
There are more benefits of this kind of discussion that Almasi goes on to mention, however, I want to stop and apply this kind of learning tool to my field placement. In a room full of 27 Kindergartners, I am a bit hesitant about jumping into an Almasi discussion. What about the student who has something to say about everything? Or the students who can't process a discussion with such limited structure? In my opinion, this type of discussion has a place in education, however, I do not believe that it is in my CT's classroom, nor most Kindergarten classrooms.
Kindergartners are socially accepting. They want to be friends with everyone and they think classmate is a synomym for friend. They write stories about each other everyday. Do they really need evalutation from their peers? Sure they do. Does it need to come from a class discussion? I don't believe so.

Portfolio: Expectations

2008-01-24T13:11:00.000-08:00

Discuss what your expectations are for this course and how they are or aren’t being met.

Like any other student, I expect to learn material related to the topic of this course. Math is one of those subjects that I’m a little unsure of teaching just because I don’t know how to teach it. I understand it great, most of the time that is. However, I have several wrinkles in the teaching application of math that need to be ironed out.
Therefore, from this class I hope to gain some real applications that I can take and use. To be honest, I’m a little tired of reading about great methods of teaching and never having the opportunity to see them. This is something that I have struggled with in my classes at MSU, both within the college of education and outside. My style of learning is completely opposite of soaking in a reading; I need to see it and be able to reflect upon what I’ve seen and what I’ve read.
Based on the classes we’ve had thus far, I feel like that is happening and I’m excited to continue on. During the class session that we brainstormed all the different ways to come up with a solution to a problem it was amazing, to me, to listen to all these different ways of thinking about the same problem and coming up with the answer.
Math is a naturally differentiated topic to teach because we all have different experiences that forces our lines of inquiry when approaching a problem to differ. Perhaps that’s why math seems a little too complicated for me right now. Expanding my own thoughts and seeing something through a different point of view is often a task that I don’t embrace with open arms. I’m a very concrete person and also very feeling-oriented.
My fiancé and I differ in that he is very logically minded and rarely sees room for emotions to serve as logic, whereas I always am more concerned with the way people feel about something. That being said, it should be easy for me to ignore the logic-however I’m finding that I have great difficulty with making sense of other’s thought processes. Therefore, my hope is that this class will force me to examine different methods of teaching and applying math so that I can become a better teacher.
Lastly, I have high expectations of myself for this class. This is really the last education course that I will be taking before my internship and I really feel an urge to soak up as much as possible. I will come to class with readings complete and I will strive to learn as much possible from this course. I expect that my peers will do the same so that we can all learn together.

E-Notebook Submission

2008-01-22T13:28:00.000-08:00

What do you know about differentiation and how it is utilized in teaching?

As a special education major, I know that differentiated lesson planning is what my future is all about. There is no such thing as a special education curriculum; rather it is up to the teacher and the IEP team to come up with accommodations for students with special needs to access the general education curriculum.
For me personally, special education is really just effective teaching. Students with special needs that have an IEP or a legal document that highlights the academic areas for which they need a little help accessing the materials need teachers who are willing to try different things, to be creative, and to really care that the student gets it. There is nothing special about special education. Every student is special in his or her own way(s). As a future educator, it is my job to make sure that every single student who walks through my door feels loved and accepted and special.
In order to accomplish this, I believe that it is important for me to understand how to bring differentiation into my classroom.
With the extreme proficiency levels stated in NCLB and the push of inclusion programs it is easy to see that future educators of students with special needs are going to be working side-by-side general education teachers. Students who come to me for special education services will likely spend some portion of their time in the general education classroom and I need to know how to work with that general education teacher and make accommodations to his/her lesson plans for the students who need multimodal lessons.
The extent at which differentiation is used in typical classrooms today is a figure that I am unaware of, however, via the experience I’ve been gaining through my field placements, I do not believe that it is highly utilized.
I believe that one of the problems with the public education system in the United States is a general problem of ownership. Too many general education teachers see students with special needs as the “special education teachers kids” and not their own. Special educations teachers are just as guilty. Until teachers begin to work together for the bettering of the student, at the individual level, this problem will not go away.

"Like in the Noodle head story!"

2008-01-17T12:56:00.000-08:00

Although they are only 5 or 6 years old, Kindergartners are smart and they're brains are constantly building didactic connections to further develop their individual line of inquiry.

I got to spend some time today working with two below-average students on writing. After nearly 12 minutes of writing time, each of these student had barely finished their quick-sketch drawing that they are required to do, to get their brains ready, before their write in their daily journal. Another commonality among these two students is a severe lack of motivation. They are both very easily distracted--and there any many distractions in a class of 25 Kindergartners!
As I began working with the first student I wanted to find out what he was planning on writing about, and how what he was drawing was related to that. When I asked him what his story was going to be about, he said "I don't know." Then I asked him what he was drawing and he again replied, "I don't know." Clearly he was drawing something; the question is, was he to shy to share with me what he was thinking about writing about or was he choosing not to share with me for no apparent reason, or, does he really not have a thought going through his mind about what he wants to write and how the image he is drawing could relate to something that he could write about? I'm not an expect on learning disabilities so therefore it is unfair of me to suggest that there is a medical reason for his lack of sequential cognitive work. However, his work, based on other students in the class, is very below par and his daily actions suggest confusion and a lack of the mental and emotional capacity to function in a classroom with 24 peers. He is so distracted by what everyone else in the classroom is doing that he simply does not have time to do his own work. He cries when another friend uses what he believes to be his pencil, he had a meltdown today when he couldn't carry all of his belongings from the closet to his seat and completely shut down, he constantly has to tell my CT what other students are doing if he does not approve, and because of all these things and more he is falling behind.
Once I finally got him in a setting where he wasn't distracted by others and I clearly communicated to him that my expectation of him was that he finished his work we were able to come up with a story for him to write.
Then it was onto another student who could not discipline herself enough to focus. This student typically spends more time than necessary completing her quick sketches and many times her pictures are difficult to connect to her text. I believe that I realized why today...
This student cannot hold onto a thought long enough to write it down. She wants to verbalize 5-6 sentence stories but she won't stop talking after each one to write it down. Therefore, she wants to add elaborate detail to her pictures because the thought process behind what she is drawing makes complete sense to her, however, when she goes to write the story out she cannot recall her previous thought process. So, after she verbally communicated with me the 5 sentence story that she was going to write today I summarized it in one complete sentence back to her. She nodded in approval, so I told her that that was the one sentence she was going to write. I repeated it again to her but when she began writing she started in a different spot. The sentence that we agreed upon was "I seen Hannah Montana at the store." The first few attempts at writing began with "Hannah Montana" and "store". I used several different approaches for getting her to say the sentence before she wrote and also trying to say the sentence as she was writing. However, nothing seemed to be working. I decided to start using very basic signs with the words of her sentence as we were repeating it again. We verbally said the sentence aloud twice, with me using the signs. Then I asked her to write it. When she got stuck I used those signs without any speech and she was able to get the sentence down on paper.
What I realized with this student is that writing is challenging, speaking is not. She isn't looking for a challenge, so she does everything she can to avoid challenging tasks.

The best part of my day was when the students were sitting in their math circle on the rug and my CT asked them how she could count the number of noses in the room. She then said, "I'm only going to count the kid noses". After taking suggestions from the students and walking through the steps suggested, my CT asked anyone if they knew how many noses were in the room. Even though there were 21 students in class today and both of the ways they had previously counted gave them 21, one student still said 22. When my CT asked him why he thought there were going to be 22 noses he said that she had forgot to count her own nose. Quickly one boy said, "like in the noodle head story!" Everyone burst into laughter because they had heard a story about a family of noodle heads that couldn't figure out how to count correctly. This is the kind of connection that these students make on a daily basis and too often they are ignored. In the classroom, my CT embraces the process of making connections to prior learning. But I wonder how many times at home these children are ignored when they make a simple connection to something they learned at school because their parents don't immediately understand it. If I wouldn't have been in my placement the day that my CT read this story, I wouldn't have got it.

Portfolio: Analysis of Student Work

2008-01-17T08:00:00.000-08:00

The assignment:
Students were asked to evaluate their own names and identify the number of letters in their name. Using classroom resources, such as the white board which has all students’ names listed alphabetically and individual name tags at each desk, the students were to find at least 2 fellow classmates who have shorter names, longer names, and names with equal letter-if possible. Each peers name was to be recorded in the appropriate column.

Student #1:
I chose to analyze this students’ work because I feel like she is a very above-average student, especially in mathematics. I have been observing this student since September of 2007 and was instantly drawn to her keen intellect. She is an out-going student and always eager to help other students at her table finish their work.
I was not surprised to see that this student’s paper had a “Great” noted at the top from my CT and had more than the required number of names in the appropriate columns. In addition, every other students name was spelled correctly.
From my time in this classroom, and observing this student, I know that she probably knew most of her peers’ names without using the classroom resources around her. On a daily basis she writes about friends in her journal-and at this age level she refers to all of her peers as friends.

Student #2:
I chose to analyze this students’ work because she is a below-average student in multiple subject areas as well as her verbal skills. Once a week she attends speech therapy, a pull-out program during mathematics and/or science. This particular student lacks motivation to complete her in-class work. On numerous occasions I have sat with this student and tried to keep her on track during disruptful classroom settings. A majority of these times have resulted in her actually completing her work due to the fact that she was forced to stay on task.
I was most surprised to see that this student displayed some interesting writing samples on her worksheet. Instead of writing a peer’s full name, she only wrote a few letters. In another situation, she wrote a name backwards. However, there were also at least 3 names on her worksheet that she spelled correctly. Most surprising to me was that she put her own name in the longer name column. I have a difficult time understanding her line of inquiry and rationale for completing the task in this manner.

Student #3:
This student is, for lack of a better term, a “social butterfly”. She will try to talk her way out of anything; not in a convincing manner, but rather instead just wasting so much time talking. It is easy for me to assume, after observing this student, that the distractions of talking with other classmates while walking around the class and looking at everyone’s name charts was too much for her to handle. She did not finish the worksheet, nor did she get any answers correct-the first time.
I am unaware of the circumstances, but for some reason this student redid this worksheet on the back of her paper. After she re-did this assignment she put at least one correct name in each column.
When I return to my field placement I will ask my CT about the reasons for which she re-did this assignment.

"There's Monday and there's Tuesday..."

2008-01-14T20:33:00.000-08:00

I felt good to get back into the groove of my field placement today. Except today was a little different. This is the first day that I've gone to my CT's classroom in the morning, more specifically to observe literacy.When I walked into the classroom this morning my CT and the students were singing...imagine that :) However, they were singing a days of the week song that has taught them all 7 days of the week. Listening to them and carefully observing my CT purposefully stop singing while the students continued showed me that they know this song. They're not just repeating what she is saying; instead they are singing it and they've probably been singing it since they started Kindergarten. Which forces me to ask the question, do they comprehend that they are repeating the days of the week or have they memorized this song that they know they are going to sing every morning? It would be interesting to me to see if they could recognize the days of the week in a random order, not in the same pattern that the song repeats.Back to the main focus of the day...Literacy.In my placement last year I observed a 1st grade teacher who taught straight from her basal reader. After talking about my observations with my TE class as a whole, I was informed by my instructor for TE 301 that this is not a good approach to teaching literacy. Holding the basal reader in your hand/lap and reading from it is a sign of unpreparation. I was working with a young CT at the time and I sided with my TE instructor on this issue, keeping in mind that my CT probably just didn't know any better. This semester, I am working with a CT who has been teaching for 13 years and who I would consider a master teacher. She knows what she is doing and she does it very well. She knows how to reach/teach Kindergartners at their level. So, I was very surprised this morning when I observed her teaching from her basal reader. There it was; this binder that is apparently bound to every teachers' palm. And she read from it; word for word on some pages and slight glances at other times. Do I think she's a "bad" teacher? NO. She's an experienced teacher and she is not unprepared to teach. Does the fact that she didn't memorize an entire story from the basal reader and she had to read from it mean she is not a good example for me? Certainly not. The difference between my CT this semester and my previous experience is that it is VERY obvious that my current CT has read the material from the basal reader before she sits down in her chair and calls all her students to the rug. She knows what she is doing and she knows exactly where the literacy lesson is going and how it's going to lead into tomorrows lesson. She's done her homework.The story that my CT read aloud was about a Noodle family. Not only were these family members made of different noodles, they were all "noodle-heads". After explaining this term to the students, she began reading. But before she did she informed the students that good readers listen to details and can retell a story even after it's over because they were listening so well. She proceeded to tell the students that once they had listened to this story, they were going to act it out so she could see what good listeners they were. Watching the students act this story out was the highlight of my day. I've never seen children so young get so detailed about a task. They wanted to repeat the words from the story exactly and they did the story justice with their acting abilities. There was fake crying, there was screaming, there was a hysterical mother and a father who didn't know how to count. They were great! And then I began to think about how much more this story is connected to each students schema because not only did they sit and listen to it, they also seen some of their closest friends acting it out. They laughed about it not once, but twice. They heard it while my CT was reading it and they proved that they remembered it by acting it out. Repetition is key in education. Repetition has it's place, but how do we stay away from days of the week songs that have to follow a specific tune and pattern? Where does the agent of change come in? How do we ensure that because a child can repeat something, that they infact know it?

E-Notebook Submission

2008-01-14T11:48:00.000-08:00

What is your dialect? What do you say or do that can be attributed to your cultural environment? What can be attributed to the digital or medial environment?

I feel accurate saying that Standard English is my dialect (especially after reading the Codeswitching article by Wheeler and Swords). However, I must admit that my rural, small town upbringing has had some impact on me and my family. Coming to Michigan State has, in a sense, pulled me out of the so-called "redneck" culture and I feel that I do speak with a more proper language than I used to.
I don't want to blow things out of proportion, but my father has much more of the hillbilly-like dialect characteristics than anyone in my family. However, he has no post-secondary education and was born and raised in the same community that I was brought up in. At no time in my life have I ever felt the need to correct my fathers language, however, there have been times when he asked me to type something and I've had to proofread and re-proofread what he wrote down. *That's another highlight of my small town life, there's no high speed Internet service around; not that it would matter much, because my family doesn't even own a computer!

I would associate the type of culture shock that I experienced coming to MSU with my current dialect. However, my dispositions and personal morals also have had a major impact on the language that I choose to use. Being a mentor in the residence halls has exposed me to individuals, very different from myself, who value different things. I'll never forget when I heard someone say they were going to "get crunk". This was foreign language to me because I had never heard the term or used it before.
I was also first officially introduced to AAVE in the residence halls. For me, this was a totally new language and it was frustrating for me to always have to ask to have something repeated because I couldn't understand what someone was saying.
However, something clicked inside of me back when I read the Wheeler & Swords article on Codeswitching for the first time back in TE 301. Different dialects are called different because that's what they are; they're not wrong!

In terms of the digital environment that I see myself in, the gap between my family and I is much larger. I'll never forget the day that I told my mother that I made a web page. I seriously thought she thought I was a genius. Computers are foreign to her, and both of my parents are very intimidated by them. Granted my mother uses one for work, she really only turns it on and selects the program she's going to use and has no other interactions with it. My father, a self-employed farmer, could save himself so much time by paying rent online and keeping track of crop prices online, as well as many other things, but it will never happen. He doesn't see the need and he gets very frustrated with technology. He says he'll never run out of lead, whereas a computer can crash and you can loose everything.
For me personally, I view myself as somewhat technologically savvy. I feel like I know a lot more about technology after taking CEP 416, here at MSU.
I am also very supportive of bringing technology into my future classroom because I see the interactions that young children have with technology and I believe you should reach kids with things that interest them-even if it seems a little scary :)

Assessments...

2008-01-10T19:55:00.000-08:00

Today was my first day back in the classroom after a nice and relaxing winter break. Break didn't slow our learning down though. My CT had me finishing math assessments today with some students that she hadn't caught up with. I was basically just giving students a sequence of numbers on paper, in front of them, and asking them to point to the number, say it aloud, and move on to the next. In the mean time, I was making a check mark above the number on the child's document if they got it right, writing the number that they said instead of the real number if they were guessing or confused, and drawing a dot if they gave me no answer at all. A majority of the students had really improved since the last time they were tested in September. The assessment itself had 3 sets of numbers (1-10, 10-20, 20+). In September, if a student got an entire section correct, I didn't have to re-test them. However, of the few students who got an entire section correct, it was the first section only. There were lots of dots on the rest of the page. Today, though, the students were zooming through the number sets. The most mistakes, in the class in general, were with the numbers 21, 31, and 33. Almost everytime I tested a student he/she replied "12, 13, 13-3" for these three numbers. This is very interesting to me after having watched these same students participate in the morning routine of counting the number of days of school they've had. I assume that this chart is fairly common in a lot of lower elementary classrooms because it was very familiar to me; using straws to make ones-tens-hundreds, all while counting the number of days of school they have had. Each morning, my CT adds a new strawand when there is a completed bundle of 10 straws they move the bundle from the ones to the tens and they count up to whatever number they are at. If they have 70 sticks, they count from 1 to 70. The students are saying these numbers aloud, but are they really seeing them enough to put the sound of the number with the shape of 2 numbers together (i.e., 21, 31, 33)? This is a concern to me because I am forced to question whether or not the students are able to recognize that a 3 and a 3 next to each other is the number 33, not 3-3. Which forces me to think about teaching the concept of twenty, thirty, etc... For most of these Kindergartners, the idea of counting double digit numbers is abstract. Most of them are 5 of 6 years old and they are using their fingers to count. Their age is usually the highest number they want to count to at any given time because they just haven't been introduced to other numbers--on average. Obviously some students have more prior knowledge when they walk through those classroom doors but what about those students who have never read books with Mom or Dad before they go to bed at night? Who've never counted on their fingers? Who've never played hide-and-seek and used numbers? It happens, and I believe that it happens more often than we really think. One thing about my CT's classroom that amazes me is the amoung of young mothers. I have seen several mothers come into the school since I've been coming and I'm amazed that they have children in school. They seem so young to me! I give them 100% credit for raising their child and taking responsibility, however it still blows my mind that these girls, some of them my age, are bringing their children to school when I'm finishing school. Something is to be said for the trend of younger parents and children with less and less prior knowledge when they walk through our classroom doors. Based on NO scientific evidence, my theory is that unplanned pregnancies are a financial burden and young mothers cannot afford to not work. They have to work, along with their significant other to support themselves and a child. When I was born, my mother took 3 years off work and raised me. I spent every day with her and I knew how to count, read, and tie my shoes before I started Kindergarten. She had the means to stay at home and take the extra time to teach me those things. However, when you're 20 years old with a small child and only a limited income, sometimes those things are luxuries that you cannot afford. Does that mean you're child should suffer? NO. As teachers, we need to be prepared to work with all children and all academic levels. It may be one of the most challenging tasks as a teacher, but it is also the most rewarding. Leading a child towards that "a-ha" moment is priceless.

E-Notebook Submission

2008-01-08T13:34:00.000-08:00

Determine 2 personal goals you would like to pursue during our time together. What will you gain from this course? Provide an explanation of why you chose those goals.

Goal #1: To apply class material to field observations.

This was a very easy goal for me to come up with because it is important to me. I believe that we, as teacher candidates, are told too often to make observations without a real focus. I have pages upon pages of observations I've recorded from various placement settings that I've been in. The one thing in common with all of these observations is that they stop at the end of the page. Rarely, if ever, have I taken an observation from my CT's classroom and analyzed it to the point of pulling out pieces from MSU class materials and pursuing my own line of inquiry based on what I've learned in class and seen in the field. I've also never taken the time to question my observations, as most of them are facts. I am challenging myself to make more observations that are opinions or interpretations, not matter of fact statements that require no thought process at all.
For me, this is an important goal to set for myself because I am a very concrete thinker. When I see a problem, I want to search the pages of the textbook for an answer. This is how I have been brought up. However, the thought of abstract thinking is appealing to me and I want to move past the need for finding the "right" answer on paper to building my own inquiry and gathering more understanding of the different practices that my CT's use.
Going the extra mile to reach for that reflective answer instead of a reguritated observation is what I am striving for.

Goal #2:

A little help, please?

2007-12-03T16:50:00.000-08:00

Throughout the course of this semester I have spent a lot of one-on-one time working with a particular student. He's that student who you never know whether or not he's listening to what you're saying-and when he is listening you wonder if he understands it. He's the student who goes to speech therapy once a week, but doesn't qualify for special education services according to IDEIA. He's the student who can't write the story that he can say, and can't say what you know he's capable of thinking. You know that he'd could do so much better and that he deserves to have services provided to enable him succeed. But his mother's in denial that there is anything "wrong" with her baby boy. She refuses to acknowledge the fact that he cannot read and still writes his name backwards. He doesn't know how to hold a pencil, even though you've showed in time and time again. And the other day, when he wasn't feeling well, he couldn't explain to you what was wrong. He looked like he didn't feel well, but you didn't know what was wrong.
What do we, as teachers, do with students like this? If you're a CT for MSU and lucky enough to have a student placed in your classroom you're all set for a few hours, because you can have them work with him (sarcasm). However, what are you going to do each day when it's just you, all alone with 24 other students?
For any general education teacher this is frightening. However, as a special education teacher I know this is where I want to be. I chose the field of special education for this particular student and all of the other students similar to him out there. This is my niche, my place to be. This is where I fit in best and this is where I can do my best.
When my CT set up the math centers that the students would be working at for the next 35 minutes everyone was excited. The students have the choice to go to whatever station they want and practice counting in different ways. When my CT told the students to pick a partner, this wasn't the first time that he was left all alone. Natually, I told him I would be his partner and he could pick where we were going to go. We went over to the station where you picked a pond cut out that had a number on it and grabbed that many frogs to arrange on the pond. As he was counting out his frogs another student came and asked me to help him with a deck of cards that were stuck in the bag. While I was busy helping the other student get the cards out of the bag, my partner says, "A little help, please?" in the clearest sentence I've ever heard come from his lips. I can't lie-I was shocked that something so clear came from him. Of course I helped him out, and together we counted the number of frogs he had been placing on his pond (clearly more than 5, the number on his pond).
When I asked him how many, of the 14 that he had, he would have to take away to have 5 he didn't respond. I asked again but it was clear to me that "take away" was foriegn to him. He just stared at me as if I were speaking another language.
What can I take from this experience? First, I know that if I had not been here today, he would have been working all by himself and he wouldn't have been counting. Even with me sitting right next to him, he just continued to put frogs on the his pond, because I was trying to help someone else. He requires a lot of attention, that's another thing. But how does my CT do it? Does she? I don't know what happens during the hours that I'm not there, but I do know this; he has made me feel like my time in this field placement is not about me, it's about the students I'm teaching and impacting and that is a much better outlook on teaching that I ever considered.

Short Timelines...

2007-11-26T16:49:00.000-08:00

Today I taught my Social Studies lesson in the field.
I don't have too much to say about it because it only lasted for 12 mintues! I had planned on 30 minutes and I was done in less than 1/2!!! I guess it was a good experience, but I'm not the one that had to cover up the extra time.
Basically, I planned less in my lesson because my Science lesson went about 20 minutes longer than anticipated. When planning out this lesson, I allowed for 12 minutes to read a story instead of 5 because I found out last time that it really took 15 minutes to read a story that I only planned on taking 10. I also had several discipline/attention problems during my Science lesson, so I accounted for those things in my Social Studies activity sequence. However, the students were nearly perfect during my Social Studies lesson and we breezed through everything!
I also found out that my pre-assessment that I had completed with select individuals, from varying academic levels proved to be misleading as the students were much more aware of the purpose of a timeline when I was teaching the lesson; far more than during my interviews. So what was I supposed to do? Waste their time by explaining over and over why we use timelines, what we do with timelines, how we make a timeline, etc...? I didn't feel like that was fair to them-after all, they were answering my questions on the first try. And I was choosing students to answer, I wasn't just taking whatever hand flew up first. I deliberately tried to pick students that I didn't think would have an answer-not to shine the light on them-but to look for a reason to explain myself further, but I couldn't!
When I was done my CT looked at me and said "12 minutes". I immediately felt like a failure, moreso failing her. Now she has 20 extra minutes to fill in a classroom full of Kindergartners! YIKES!!!
She's an experienced teacher though, and she handled it great. Everything went smoothly from my unexpected quick ending and the students went straight into Math.
At the end of the day we sat down and talked about my lesson. I know that she was frustrated with the fact that she had to come up with something on the spot for the kids to do, but I know that she understands what happened. The week before I taught, the two of us had gone over my lesson and she thought it was great. My interpretation of that was, "it's great, don't change anything", so I didn't. Had I of looked at my activity sequence more I probably would have began to question whether or not I had the students doing enough, especially a formal assessment at the end.
But I also know that it's great to be able to have these kinds of experiences under the supervision of an experienced teacher. Had I been on my own I wouldn't have known what to do right away and I may have even lost control of the classroom. After all, a failure to plan is a plan for failure.

Incorporating Art...

2007-11-23T19:38:00.000-08:00

I've always been under the impression that art is a very difficult subject to incorporate into the general classroom setting. Most students go to art class once a week and are encouraged to explore their creative side. The typical artroom that I think about has a rack of painting shirts-large flannel shirts that the teacher has brought in for the students to wear so they don't get paint on their clothes-clay, paints, crayons/markers, paper, literature on famous art/artists, and an art teacher who sense of style is completely her own. At least this has been my experience with art class. However, the students in my CT's classroom have an advantage because she incorporates the arts into her classroom on a regular basis.

Today, the students used watercolors to paint pictures that they had drawn with black markers the day before. Of course, these pictures were all about severe weather because we are still in this unit. I handed back the students' pictures from the other day and I was really impressed with one of the student's drawings. When I asked her what she drew she said "I drew a picture of a doghouse with a dog running into it because there's a tornado!" She proceeded to tell me that even animals have to seek shelter. Although we had talked about seeking shelter during my lesson I realized that we never talked about everything that needs to seek shelter. Obviously our animals need to be safe too. The shear fact that she was able to make this connection without me directly saying it demostrates her deep level of understanding of the significance of seeking shelter during times of severe weather. Needless to say, I was incredibly impressed by her comments-and picture. All of the students continued painting for the next 25 minutes. During this time my CT put on some relaxing music (i.e., crashing waves, instrumental music, etc...). I was completely amazed at the level of concentration that these students had on their paintings. It was fun for them. It was also a nice wrap up for the end of their weather unit. And they didn't even make a mess! That's the most incredible part to me. Watercolors are really a great way to bring art into your classroom without the mess that's usually associated with artwork. None of the students got paint all over and the little bit that was on the tables wiped right up when the students went to music. My CT also let me lead the students to music today, which was a new experience. I know, from following at the end of the line each week, where she stops and where the greatest amount of noise usually comes from. Everything went great and I really felt like the students were listening to me until we walked up to the cafetorium and there was a presentation going on. Parents and other classes were sitting on the floor watching one of the 4th grade classes performing and we needed to walk right through them to get to the music room-YIKES! All went well after I waved my CT up to the front of the line, but for that one split second I was thinking, "Out of all days to lead the line..."

Billy, Maria, and the Thunderstorm

2007-11-12T18:24:00.000-08:00

After useless attemps with Channel 10 News I decided to see what my other options were. In the course of one day I made arrangements with Rob Dale from Channel 6 News to come and do a school visit on Monday, November 12 for my CT's classroom and one other Kindergarten classroom.

After we got all the students seated on the cafetorium stage, Mr. Dale started his weather talk. He began by asking the students what they already knew about weather. For a teachers perspective, I could identify this Science-Talk like strategy that he was using to direct his discussion with the students. He covered a lot of material, and it was interesting for me to see the different answers between the two classes. Obviously I only taught one of these groups of students, but the other teacher had just finished covering severe weather too. My lesson did not go into certain things, such as seeking shelter in a ditch if you are driving and there is a tornado in sight. I focused more on seeking shelter within the house. So, when Mr. Dale asked the students, as one large group, what to do during a tornado, 1/2 of the students said go to the basement and the other half said find a ditch. I realized that at this age, the students don't feel like they are wrong because someone else gave a different answer. And, if they have an answer and someone else gets called on before them and gives a correct answer, they still want their turn to say their answer. For me, this was noteworthy because I've worked in upper elementary classrooms where this is not the case.

Mr. Dale went on to explain the job of a meteorologist while still keeping the students engaged in his talk. I can tell that he has been giving talks to students for quite some time because he really knows how to speak to the children, not at them. And relating to a Kindergartner is not always the easiest task!

Towards the end of his school visit he had us take the students out in small groups and he let every child have the chance to sit in his weather van. Watching the students as they thought of all the different things Mr. Dale does in this van was a great learning experience for me. Something as simple as sitting in a van was concrete enough to reinforce the information they had learned, really lock it in place.

Mr. Dale also gave all of the students a coloring book called Billy, Maria, and the Thunderstorm to color and take home to explain what they learned to their families.

The BIG Day!!!

2007-11-09T17:46:00.000-08:00

After several hours of planning a science lesson on severe weather safety my day to teach has finally arrived :)
When I woke up this morning I was without a voice. At first, I contemplated whether or not I should immediatly call my CT, in case I got worse before I had to leave. But then I decided that after 3 hours I would probably be feeling better-plus I've been waiting to teach this lesson long enough!
When I got to the classroom the noise level was high, especially for publishing time. The students should have been sitting in their seats, writing a story based on the drawing that they first completed. Many students got excited that I was there and tried to read their stories to me-some from all the way across the room. While it's exciting that the students are so engaged in their stories, it's also disruptive to yell across the room. The first chance my CT had to say something to me she said, "I don't know what's wrong with them today. I can't do anything!" (in reference to their behavior level and loudness). What a great way to begin my first time teaching in front of this almost stranger!
After the kids came in from recess we sat down on the rug and I introduced my story to them, "Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs". I asked the students to listen as I read, because at the end I was going to ask them if they thought this was a real story, or a fake story.
As I was reading the story, which is quite funny, some students began repeating the name of the town (Chewandswallow). At first, I ignored it. But it quickly became a distraction and I had to stop and acknowledge the fact that it was a funny name. I then told the students that from this point forward they can say it one time-and then they need to let me continue with the rest of the story. That seemed to work :)
Once we finished the story and the students acknowledged that it was fake, we made a list of different types of weather that come down from the sky. Rain was quickly mentioned, along with snow. I had anticipated to hear sunshine, lightening, and hail-all of which eventually came out. One boy said "Crystals" which I immediately knew was a connection from my CT's lesson on clouds the previous week. I then used this as a seg-way into asking the children who else thought of another connection to something they already know.
Next my CT lead a demostration of the shelter drill during severe weather situations while at school. I had decided that this drill would be most beneficial for the students if the instructions came from my CT as she will be the one giving instructions to them if they ever have to do this drill again.
Once we returned from that we had a discussion about where information about severe weather comes from. The students decided that news about severe weather comes from 3 places; the TV, the Internet, or the radio. I guided the rest of our conversation about severe weather information as coming from the TV and talked about a weather man's job.
Discussing the job of a meteorologist smoothly led into my next activity, which involved using a concrete manipulative to stress the color of warnings/watches to the students. The object was a traffic light and we repeated "Stop, and seek shelter" for warnings and "Slow down, look around" for watches. The students were dismissed to their seats where they completed a worksheet that I made. On the worksheet student had to fill in missing letters of the sayings and color a traffic light.

What is a Kindergarten Education Worth?

2007-11-02T17:15:00.000-07:00

After learning last week about the significance of this lesson for some of my students I have decided to take my CT's suggestion of bringing in a local weather station to heart. I really want the students to remember this lesson; not so I can feel proud, but rather so they can learn this really important information.
So, I called Channel 6 News and talked to Darrin Rockcole. You won't believe what he said...

Hello, I am an MSU senior majoring in Elementary Education. For my field placement this year I am at Pleasant View Elementary Magnet School and I will be teaching a lesson about severe weather on Friday, Nov. 9th. I would love it if someone from your weather lab could bring in a weather vehicle and talk with the Kindergartners on Monday, Nov. 12th around 1:15pm, for about 30 minutes. Please get back with me at your earliest convenience to make arrangements if possible. Thanks!

Re: Hi Kelly- First grade is our low end cut off for school visits. Younger than that and we just don't have anything to offer to them and it becomes a waste of all of our time.

Re:Re: Darrin, Thanks for getting back to me so promptly. I understand that with young students there is often a lack of background knowledge and attention spans with topics such as this; however, I was just wondering if there is any possible way for you to come and do a modified school visit that specifically focuses on weather safety? I will be teaching the students a lesson on safety precautions during severe weather and I want to emphasize that we get these warnings from the TV. I would love it for someone to come in and just explain that process to the students. Please let me know what your thoughts on this are. Thanks!

Re:Re:Re:Kelly- After years of doing school visits, we just do not have anything to offer to classes lower than first grade.

What an insult to the future generation! I cannot believe that a man in his position would say such a thing! People don't give Kindergarten teachers a lot of credit and I don't understand why. With Kindergartners, you're shaping a life. You're not dealing with the latest drama of whose dating who or petty things like that; instead you've got children who have a lot of respect for you and the things you teach them are the foundation for several more years of education. To say that you cannot accommodate the needs of the children that will someday take care of you is ignorant.
Even though I was very upset at this point, I went out on a whim and contacted Channel 10 News. Rob Dale is one of the nicest men I've ever had the pleasure of talking with. He came to our school on less than a weeks notice and did a fantastic job teaching two classes of Kindergarten students about meteorologists, severe weather, and safety. Not only did he come and give a presentation, he brought coloring books for every student and let every single student sit in his weather van. I know that this was a memorable day for many of my students and I feel like this kind of stimulation re-inforced what I had already taught them. As they were answering Mr. Dale's questions correctly they kept looking back at me, almost as if to say, I remember you saying that.

Science Talks

2007-10-26T18:49:00.000-07:00

After much class discussion on and reading about Science Talks, today was my big day :)
I spent some time preparing a list of questions regarding severe weather topics so that I could get a more accurate picture of where my students were in terms of their prior knowledge. I can then use this information to make my severe weather science lesson the most appropriate for my students, because I will begin with what they already know and build from their personal experiences.
When my CT initially told me that I could teach a science lesson on severe weather I was disappointed. I didn't really see the value of teaching students about severe weather protocol because my parents had taught me what to do at home and my teachers had shown me what to do at school during severe weather. Much to my surprise though I quickly learned during my science talk that this kind of lesson is almost crucial for this particular group of students. It was made very clear to me that the students I will be teaching this lesson to don't have the kinds of prior knowledge that I did at their age. Some of this can be attributed to the fact that I had a stay-at-home mom until I went to Kindergarten and I was very prepared for school. I also grew up on a farm and knew the significance of severe weather, especially for our animals' safety.
One of the most important realizations that I came to during my science talk seems obvious, however I don't think I fully recognized it until it stared me in the eye. We all have different life experiences and learning opporunities that build our foundation of knowledge.
Almost all of these students come from a very different background than myself and I cannot assume that any of them have had any specific real-life experiences to learn from. In this specific situation, I assumed that all students would be able to relate to their experiences from last night with the severe weather that swept through the Lansing area. However, as I began to ask questions like "Who had to seek shelter in their basements last night" only about 3/4 of the class raised their hands. One student told me that he saw something on the TV that showed a picture of a storm, but his mother didn't make him turn the cartoons off.
Then I began to think about just how much our backgrounds allow us to build on the real-life applications that teachers bring into the classroom. I had the assumption that this was a great example that all the students would be able to relate to, but I was wrong.
So, where do I go from here?
The information that I was able to gather from the students today has given me much more incite about the necessity of the lesson that I will be teaching in a few weeks. Now that I understand how important it is I almost feel as if I have more responsibility. For some of these students, this will be the first time that they've heard about when to seek shelter during severe weather and I only have this one shot to convey the significance of this topic to them. I have 40 minutes to teach this lesson, and I know that I will only have 10 minutes of full attention from some students. I have to make this the best that I can.

A New Look @ Substitutes

2007-10-19T19:49:00.000-07:00

My CT was absent today as well, however, I was immediately relieved to walk into the classroom and see a woman with a Pleasant View Staff lanyard on. All of the students were sitting on the rug, finishing up a writing lesson and the substitute had total control over the classroom; unlike the substitute from 2 weeks ago.
Even though I enjoy my CT, I was really glad to step into this situation today because I got a chance to actually sit back and take some notes about individual students and the classroom as a whole. I feel like every other week that I come I immediately jump right in wherever I’m needed; not because my CT doesn’t have full control, but just because I more or less want to impress her. However, today I sat down at the round table and watched as students worked on their journals. One of the boys who knew it was his publishing day came up and asked if I was going to publish his tables stories again, like last time my CT wasn’t here, but I was relieved when Mrs. R. already knew which table was supposed to publish today and she took care of it.
We went out for recess for about 3 minutes before it started raining and I figured that the students would be disappointed that they didn’t get to play that much. But, much to my surprise, I didn’t hear one student say a word about having to go in early. Surely if they didn’t complain than they’d act up, right? Wrong. They were totally fine without that 20 minutes of free time and physical exercise. When we came back inside the students went straight to the rug and sat down, waiting patiently for their math lesson. But Mrs. R. sent them back to their seats. This confused a few students as they couldn’t understand why they had to sit at their tables after recess, because they always go to the rug. The students KNOW what they are supposed to do. My CT has done a great job of implementing a daily routine that the kids have absorbed.
I guess this can be a lesson learned for the future...building substitutes really have the advantage of knowing a lot of students by name already as well as the layout of the building. Our route to get outside for recess, for example, goes all throughout the building and I know that if I was substituting in this classroom as my first time in this building, I would be TOTALLY lost! Especailly because this building has the old part and the new part, including all the renovations and new sections, such as the auditorium and cafetorium (which I didn't even know was a word until today :) ).

The planning begins...

2007-10-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

So, now that I know where my CT is going with both science and social studies for the next few months, it's time to figure out what I'm going to be teaching in November.
Science: We just began this unit on Tree Homes last week, but the unit will be completed by the end of October. The next science unit will be on Weather. When I asked for a copy of the curriculum my CT is using I was very surprised when she told me that they were instructed to get rid of their MI Curriculum Frameworks because a new verison was being drafted. However, because this new version isn't approved yet, my CT currently has NO copy of the curriculum she is teaching these students. Her plans for teaching are the same as they were last year, as the teachers in this building have been instructed to carry on until the new curriculum is approved. In the mean time, she's just going to keep doing what she's always done...So what if I was a first year teacher and my principle told me to do this...I think I might freak out a little bit!
All I know if that I'm covering a small section of weather safety, including what to do during severe weather. I know that for my science talk I'm going talk to some students about what they have done in the past when there has been some kind of servere weather. Other than that, I don't really know how I want to go about teaching this lesson. My CT did suggest to me that I try to bring in a local weather person to talk to the students about severe weather...but I almost feel as if that's something she'd like me to do rather than leaving me the freedom to come up with something from my own line of creativity.
Social Studies: Personal history and timelines are a bulk of the curriculum for Kindergarteners so that's what I'm teaching on. I really want to go with this "When I Grow Up" theme and have the students make puppets of themselves as adults-but I have to work out the logistics of that first...
Being able to identify past, present, and future is also a major focus of this unit and therefore will be incorporated into my lesson in some manner, so, I think that I will have the students make a timeline of their lives (birth, now, as adults...) to place significant events in chronological order. This lesson is going to be really easy to base off of benchmarks, however I'm not so sure about the science lesson because there is only one benchmark about weather safety and it only includes key concepts like thunder, lightning, watch, and warning.
Let the planning begin!!!

Substitutes

2007-10-05T19:33:00.000-07:00

The stereotypical substitute teacher to me is an old woman, retired from teaching herself, who isn’t “up-to-beat” with the ways kids act nowadays. Coming from a small, rural school setting, these are the only substitutes I ever remember having; expect for the one 20-something guy we had one time in high school for computer class who got fired, on the spot, for looking at inappropriate Internet materials. Other than that, this is really my only experience with substitutes; until today.
As I was walking to my CT’s classroom I thought it was strange that there was so much noise bursting out the door. As I got closer, I realized there were several different familiar voices crying. My mind immediately began racing; what is going on in there? Why are so many kids crying? Is there a fight going on? I honestly didn’t know what to think. Then I walked in and saw a substitute teacher frantically trying to get 24 students to write in their daily journals without the “go-stamp”. Each day when I arrive, the students are working in their daily journals and they have very specific instructions to not start drawing their picture until they have the “go-stamp” which is a dated stamp on the next piece of clean paper in their journals. They cannot start until they have their “go-stamp” because their teacher is checking to make sure that they are writing their entries in order and not leaving blank pages in between their daily stories. It’s a system that they have been using since school started and judging by the frustration level of the students who literally couldn’t write without it, it’s something they’ve become depended on and they know the rule very well.
I immediately stepped in and got most of the kids settled down, especially the ones who were crying. I went around, table by table, and explained that I was so proud of them for knowing what they were supposed to do and I was going to tell my CT what good students she has, but I also told them that just for today we were going to bend the rules and write without a stamp. I also made this sound like something exciting because I told them all that their teacher was going to be so proud of them for knowing what to do, even when she is not there.
With Kindergartener’s, it’s all about delivery! They will believe almost whatever you tell them, and chances are, they’ll remember what you say too. It’s so important not to “brush” them off just because they are so little. What you tell your students can have a bigger impact on them than you’ll ever think.
Back to the substitute. I got them all lined up for recess, using the same song that my CT uses, and we went outside (Friday was 85°+). Up until this point I haven’t felt very strongly about the singing, but I think it might be growing on me…After 40 minutes of recess the students began lining themselves up. I knew they were hot and sweaty and ready for a drink, but I wasn’t too comfortable pushing my boundaries with this substitute, after all, I’d been at the school and in this classroom for over an hour now and she hadn’t even introduced herself (even after I did!). She just kept playing, and I’m almost positive that she was under the impression that the longer she kept them outside, the less she had to do with them inside.
I finally couldn’t take it anymore; I was hot too! I lined the kids up and she caught on to what I was doing and gathered a few more towards the line and we went inside.
When my CT walks the students to the playground she has certain stopping points where she waits for everyone to catch up and makes sure that everyone is still being quiet. I knew if I let the substitute lead them into the school she wouldn’t do these things, so I went ahead and kept the lead. When we got back into the classroom I went straight to the drinking fountain and used the same routine that the students are used to.
For the remainder of the day I kept the lead and took my liberty with this classroom. It felt really good to be able to maintain structure in the classroom; after all, who wants 24 screaming/crying Kindergarteners?
So, what did I learn from this experience? Aside from seeing all of the things that this substitute did wrong, I realized how important structure is in a classroom. This isn’t something that I just learned; it’s something that I practice every Sunday morning in my Sunday school classroom. But it is something that was able to see in a new setting.

Tree Homes

2007-10-01T17:45:00.000-07:00

We started a sciene unit today on Tree Homes. It wasn't until after class today that I really found out what all that entails, but basically, the students are going to be studying and observing different characteristics of tree's and the relationships that different animals have with them. On Monday we went outside and sat around a big locus tree in front of the school and everyone was given the opportunity to make an observation about the tree. Lot's of students commented on how much fun it was to climb tree's, which tied in the animals aspect of this unit. We looked at a piece of bark that had fallen off the tree, stood close to the tree and looked at some different insects that were living on the tree and even tore off some leaves of the tree branches so that we could compare them to other leaves around the area. This entire time I couldn't help but think about our In the Woods activity and how cool it is that I'm actually doing something similar in my placement. The kids loved putting on their scientist caps and really thinking about this large tree.
From there the lesson went back inside where my CT brought out a cardboard box tree that she's been using for several years and the students were able to point out differences about this tree and the one they observed outside. They were then told that the tree would be in the room for the next 3 weeks and at any point during free time they thought of something to add of this tree they were allowed to do so. I can only imagine what kinds of drawings are going to be taped to this tree next week!
Journals were the same story this week...everyone wanted to read me theirs. As I'm actually walking around the room I'm seeing even more of a variation in writing skills and it's a reality check for me. Teaching in a classroom isn't about teaching every student the same thing. What about those who are "gifted" and those who have a different ability? There is a wide learning gap between those who know how to write a simple sentence, with correct spellings, and those who are still struggling to remember how to hold a pencil correctly. How do you accomodate for all learners? There's a million dollar question!
As of right now I've observed about 10 hours of this classroom, including all the singing and I'm beginning to question it a little...The thing with singing to your students in a soft, calming voice is that those who are paying the least attention to their assignment and/or those who are able to multi-taks better than others are always the first to hear the instructions being given via songs. So, the same students are always hearing instructions first and always doing them first, and the same students who are only doing something because someone else is are always stuck doing just that. It's almost as if the students are learning from each other rather than the teacher, which is good for them to be able to identify with their peers, however, at the same time the same students are always last to catch on. Obviously this is just something I was thinking about as I was sitting here typing this and I need to think through it more clearly, but as someone who is not a big fan of the singing aspect, I feel that it may have it's pitfalls.

The choir continues...

2007-09-28T19:07:00.000-07:00

Now that I've spent three days in my placement I can see that the singing is not going to stop. My CT uses songs for everything. She practically sings instructions to the students and today I had the opportunity to ask her a few questions about the logic behind it. Music is very soothing to the ear, and in any Kindergarten classroom calmness is desired. My CT is actually a model teacher for the magnet school program and she attends conferences hosted by the Lincoln Center in NY to bring information back to Pleasant View. She is a teacher of other teachers as well; a mentor if you will. She was part of the initial grant writing process that happened a few years ago when Pleasant View was considered a failing school (for not meeting AYP). Now that this form of intervention has been brought it, the schools population is increasing as well as the students' academic performance. Pleasant View was originally a K-5 building, and enough parents got together to form a committee that expanded the building K-6. Within the last two years the building has expanded to a K-8 setting, with most of the older kids being schooled in portables near the playground. My CT noted that the facilities of the school are being pushed to their maximum right now and she would like to see the older grades split to a new building-but funding is always the issue.
Anyhow...today I was a little surprised when my CT turned on the "Cha Cha Cha" song for the students. Developmentally, moving along with the words of the song is probably a great them for them, but I'm not so sure I would want my 5 year old hearing the words to the beginning of this song. Anyhow, I know that the students had a great time with it because they were singing aloud and doing all of the right moves. At this point I'm really blown away by the intense amount of songs that my CT uses AND the students all know. Many of them sing along with her and my guess is that the music also has something to do with the visual and performing arts piece. But that would be a good question for me to inquire about later.
Journals were really fun this week because I really had a chance to get involved in the classroom. Once the students finished "writing" their stories, they were told to raise their hands and either myself or their teacher would come around and they could read their stories to us. After they read them, we write out the correct words/spellings and give them checks for each sound that they correctly identified. Because it was the first day that I was going around and doing this, everyone wanted to read their stories to me. It was a nice feeling :)

Welcome to C-2

2007-09-21T18:52:00.000-07:00

Today was my first day of field placement at Pleasant View Magnet School. I've worked in a magnet school before, however, Pleasant View focuses on visual and performing arts, which is new to me. The school seems like a nice place; it has a warm feel to it. However, I have heard from some friends that live in Lansing that the surrounding neighborhood is a little "rough".
My first impressions of C-2...
I walked in to a class of about 25 students with 1 teacher, all sitting on the rug in the front of the classroom singing a song. I quickly noticed the students' artwork hanging on the walls and the globe shaped lights that my CT has hung above the windows-which have cute little curtains hanging from them. The students sit at tables, in groups of 4-5. There is a play corner in the back of the room that has a Little Tykes kitchen along with student cubby's. There is a pretty diverse crowd sitting on this rug...racially at least. As I'm walking around, taking in this sense of community that has already been established, the students are dismissed to their seats for journal time. My CT then introduces me to the class and then they go about their business. It's clear to me that they know what is expected of them-they get right to work.
They begin their journal work and in a matter of minutes I can see the different academic levels coming through. Some students write whole words and simple sentences. Other students are still drawing a picture to get their brains thinking of words to use. Other students are drawing lines, instead of letters, as if they were text. Some students are copying their names from the name tag that is taped to their desk.
Recess time.
We all go outside and play for about 15 minutes. The playground is a busy place! K-8th grade students attend this school, and many classes are out for recess at this time.
When the students come back in the classroom they go straight to the rug and wait for their teacher to start singing a song. I'm noticing that there is a lot of singing going on in this classroom and I'm not sure how I feel about that. Would I be comfortable doing this in front of someone else? Is this my CT's personal choice?
The rest of the day breezes by as I spend more time observing the different interactions taking place and try to place faces with names as my CT calls them aloud.
This is going to be an interesting year...I wonder if the singing will continue???