Classroom Reflection

My time spent in the Clinical setting, so far, has been extremely inciteful as to how to become a better educator in a classroom setting. Through the data I collected I was able to connect Borich’s Seven Variables of learning to the students. By being in the clinical setting for nearly two months, I have been exposed to new ways of thinking when it comes to structuring a classroom and instructing a classroom. Within this reflection you will find out how I would better plan an effective lesson for the pupils in my future classroom. You will also discover what I will do about certain issues in the classroom and how I will address/fix them.

Similar to Liz’s room, Mary and the students were seating in a triangular fashion, which allowed Mary to control their behavior with more ease. Mary stressed turn taking between the children and was very animated throughout the lesson, which held each individual child’s and the entire group’s attention. Moreover, she ensure each student would have equal talking time by pointing at each child to signal whenever their turn was. Mary redirected misbehavior by move the student’s hands if they began to increase their fidgeting. Furthermore, when the students become handsy with the tube of dough, she gently moved their hands as she warned them that they didn’t want to squeesh it. Lastly, Mary had appropriate expectations of the student’s behavior as seen when Zachary ate a small amount with his tongue and Elijah followed suit. Mary gave each a verbal reminder followed by a verbal warning that they need to eat like “big kids” with their hands instead of their tongues. The students rarely became distracted in the lesson, and those moments that some may have deemed distractions were really just spontaneous comments about the activity. For example, Elijah asked about sharing the turnovers with the observers after they were finished, and also invited the observers to the table to make

The changes that I would have made during this unit would include not always assessing with worksheets and varying my instruction. I would have still used some of the worksheets that came with the book, but not after each lesson like I did. I would have liked to use various instructional strategies that would have got the students up and moving during the lesson and not just having to sit there for a majority of them. My student’s performance told me that I taught the material very well and in a way that they could understand. I say this because all of the students improved by at least 15 percent from their pre-test. Yes, my students achieved the level of growth that I expected them to after looking at the pre-test and then looking at their post-test after the unit. The explanation for this is take the students knew what was expected on them each day in class regardless of how the lesson was being taught. When I began teaching and the students were sitting up front on the floor I set expectations for them. If they didn’t follow these expectations I would ask them to move a magnet. In the beginning I would remind the students of the expectations and then after a while I would just say remember the expectations. By setting these right away it showed the student what I expected and left no room to say that they didn’t know what I expected of them. My strengths were presenting the material at a level that the students could understand and being able to be flexible with my

For my practicum, I was placed in a sixth grade English and History classroom. Working with two classes of Fargo middle school students proved to be a great learning experience for me. Prior to my first day with them, I had been questioning whether or not I’d truly like to proceed with earning a degree in education; however, now I am certain I do. One of the most valuable lessons I learned through observation and working one-on-one with students, was that everything in the classroom is subject to change, from the physical learning environment to the timeline of the topics covered.

In my position as a vice president of curriculum programs, I visit many diverse educational settings in public and charter schools, both large urban and small rural districts. Daily, I face issues of race, gender, culture, socioeconomic class, and disability. Because I work with diverse students and a multicultural workforce, my reflection regarding powerful social and cultural influences leads me to two different conclusions. The first is that many children in the schools I visit are disadvantaged. They are born into immigrant and transient families and live in communities that rank in the lowest socio-economic strata in the country.

Question 1. How do you make work more meaningful to your students? What motivators are you currently using with your students? Examine the climate in your classroom. What would you change to make it better?

When I arrived to my classroom today, Mrs. Beach’s students were still at their special. This gave us about ten minutes to talk about my upcoming less. Mrs. Beach would like me to teach my lesson on October 24. I am not certain which standard I will be teaching, but I do know that I will be teaching students how to solve story problems using the standard subtraction algorithm. I am excited to teach this lesson, but I am also very nervous because I don’t know exactly how to introduce this topic to the students. At 10:10 A.M., the students returned to the classroom, grabbed their math baskets and sat down at their desks. I am constantly amazed at how well behaved these students are. I cannot to learn more about the management strategies that Mrs. Beach implements in her class.

First, when this class began I knew I would learn a lot of beneficial information throughout my career as well as my home life. As the class progressed it helped me see things about myself that I did not think was there. The book has helped me see things about my personality I did not think was there, but as the book ended it seems they were there all along. The class puts things in a perspective where you can hypothetically see yourself in at the workplace. It makes you think about different types of issues people experience daily and helps you learn how to handle them in a professional manner that is best for you, the customer, and the business. Sometimes we must go an extra mile to please people, but it is all about doing the right thing the first time and making people happy at the end of the day.

Throughout this English course we have created two different projects thus far. Our first project consisted writing about our literacy sponsor and allowed us to think back to how we developed our literary skills. The second projected consisted of finding a rhetorical statement from a source that affects the Charleston population. Our final project was taking one of the two projects above and changing the medium of it. My rhetorical statement was about how technology should be used in the classroom for younger generations to improve their learning development. Having this topic, I automatically thought about an interesting way to change the medium versus the topic from my first project. I created an article that would be found in a parenting magazine.

On November 11, 2017 I attended the Victoria Crossroads Council for Math Educators from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. This event is hosted twice a year, once during the Fall semester and once during the Spring semester. The conference is hosted by Dr. Barba Patton and Dr. Teresa LeSage Clements. Students in the education program at UHV in Victoria and Katy, come together to present and teach lessons on Science and Math. There is a morning keynote speaker, a lunch speaker, and a closing ceremony speaker the speakers are individuals involved in the field of education that present on topics regarding education.

The role of the teacher is a critical piece when he or she teaches literacy programming because it is evidence of how a teacher view teaching (Izadinia, 2012). If teachers are prepared to address the diverse, and sometimes complex needs, of their students, teachers much understand phonological awareness and embrace it and work toward understanding the application for a diverse classroom (National Early Literacy Panel, 2008). The capacity to understand phonological awareness and its importance in literacy define the role of a reading teacher who produces an environment of learning that is high in quality (Norris, Lucas, & Prudhoe, 2012).

Pa Xiong’s classroom is room 118 and a couple others that she shares. Room 118 is the Special Education (SPED) classroom. In this room she works with seniors. It is supposed to be CP (college prep) time, but they treat it more like a Resource period. This happens because these students need more help in keeping their grades up than they do anything else. There is always a teacher and a para in this room incase a student comes down to the classroom seeking assistance or support they will find it. Ms. Xiong also has a ninth grade resource class. This class takes place in an eighth grade science classroom. During this class I sit down with a different student every week and we work on getting caught up on their benchmarks (online quizzes worth about ten points each) in any subject. She also has a co-taught English Language Arts class.

2) Describe a time when you were on a team that was dysfunctional in some regard. How did you address the situation? (Teamwork)

As I walked into the school the first thing I noticed was the student work on the wall. I could observe the whole writing process on the wall from beginning to end. It was amazing to see their ideas, turn into a rough draft, and then turn into final published pieces (p.143). The school’s focus on integrating literature into every subject was apparent. Students had to write how they found an answer in math and had vocabulary words they learned. Also, in art, they found an opportunity to integrate literature. Every chart, mnemonic device, and procedure had a purpose. I only spent half a day at Ozark North, but I know the teachers set high and ambitious goals for the students, and the students expect an engaging and productive day when they walk into the school.

Over the course of the semester, this class has uncovered a crucial, behind-the-scenes look of education from the perspective of the teacher. My opinion of teaching from the beginning of the course to end has drastically changed. In my analysis, I discovered at the end of the education 200 course that education can be seen as: frustrating, productive, and rewarding.