Ela Observation

I teach in an eighth grade classroom that is set in a Jr-Sr. High school. It is located in the Jr. High hallway, near the rear of our high school. I have thirty-two student desks situated in rows and two small tables at the front of my room used for paper pick up. I painted my room a turquoise beach blue and it is decorated with various beach themed paraphernalia. I also have many inspirational quote posters up around my room, hoping to engage my students into deeper thinking. The students all have their own Chromebooks and I have a desktop computer as well as a Samsung Tablet. Many computer applications suited for 1:1 schools are used in our building. We begin our day at 7:40am with a zero period for professional development and meetings. The students have seven, forty-five minute periods beginning at 8:20am and continuing until 3:15pm. My classes include four “regular” English classes, one “Honors” class, an Essential Skills class that rotates every week with two other teachers, and a prep period. My duties throughout the year consist of sponsoring the Jr. High Student Council as well as parking lot duty for two weeks during second semester. We adhere closely to the Indiana State Standards and use the ISTEP and NWEA mandated assessments. We, as teachers, are given free rein to teach how we see fit; however, we were asked to submit curriculum mapping outlining the content/topics, key terms, sources/resources, assessments

By providing Crestview Elementary with additional resources, students will become exposed to the abundant ways in which they can use technology to further engage their learning and help prepare them for their future. Through the use of Promethean boards, laptops, students will learn how to use technology to think critically and problem solve. Students will also be more motivated to learn, and will affect the quality of work they turn in as well as their attitudes toward learning in

I had an opportunity to meet the ELL teacher who is responsible for educating ELL students in the district. She allowed me to observe her teaching a couple of her students at Brighton Elementary School. The teacher informed me that she teach ELL students using Scholastic books and a Scholastic app. Additionally, she informed me that the scholastic app is usually used to help students replace missing words in a sentence, and also assist students with pronunciation, punctuation, & comprehension. The students were able to tap on a word and the computer would pronounce the word. The teacher had several strategies that she utilize in her classroom to help students understand the English as their second language, for instance, she mentioned

Ellander is enrolled in the advisory shared by Mrs. Janet Dewey and myself and we would like to share some our observations with you on Ellander. You will receive another one on Miles. I know that Ellander prefers to be called Trey so he will be addressed as such. Fortunately, I have had the opportunity to speak to Mr. Lewis on a couple of occasions to discuss Trey’s progress.

Several of our ELA teachers participated in the Broward Summer Literacy Institute and are bringing new and innovative strategies into their classrooms to support the English Language Arts standards. Last year, the district provided laptop computer carts for all language arts classrooms so that students have access to their online textbooks as well as web-based programs for reading, writing, speaking and listening skills. Additionally, intensive reading teachers received carts and will implement programs which will stretch their students’ reading such

I had the honor to be placed in Mrs. Lundman, an ESOL endorsed teacher, second grade class at Galaxy Elementary School to complete my field observation and it was an amazing experience. Galaxy Elementary just reopened about three years ago because they were rebuilding it as an e3 school (energy, environment, and engineering). When I first entered the class, the first thing I noticed is how decorated the class is. Many posters and colorful projects done by the students on the walls, a colorful carpet on the ground with different centers for the students, and how big and pact her office space was. Also, the objectives for each lesson were listed on the boards. All of the students in the classroom were of Haitian decent except for one boy and one girl who were Hispanic. In total in her class, she has seven ESOL students out of her 25 students, all at different level for their English proficiency. This class is a general education class with all kinds of students from gifted, ESE, at grade level, and ESOL students. According to Claire McInerny: “In the U.S., roughly one in 10 students is an English language learner”, which is a pretty big number of ESOL

This video opened with students interacting with Chromebooks to explore a trail on a computer program called The Oregon Trail. Most of the time, when students have the chance to engage with technology it is an effective “hook” for them. All of the kids seemed engaged and interested and they were working independently at their seats. This was certainly an activity that sustained the attention of the class. Differentiation was provided through choice and interest since the students were able to choose which trail they wanted to explore and write about. However, there was not much differentiation for varying learning styles or multiple intelligences. I believe the kids felt safe to explore the topic and ask questions. The second half of

The ELL class that I observed was a Math and Science Academy West, in West Baton Rouge. The students looked very excited upon entering the classroom and from their interaction looked like they have formed a good relationship amongst each other. Ms. Davis was very welcoming when the students entered the classroom, she greeted each student individually, and each time she greeted the student,she waited for the student to respond directly to her. The students were familiar with the material that the teacher was teaching, before they started their lesson, the had a warm. The warm compromised of the game which Ms. Davis named it Memory Box. The concept of the game was for the students to look into the box and see what it contains. Then

This week at seabourn elementary I went to Mrs. Kirkland s class and i asked her about her ELL students and how she scaffolds her lesson to help accommodate the students. She told me that she scaffolds her lesson by putting the students in groups. Mrs.kirkland also does this by better explaining the lessons to the ELL students. The last way she does this is by showing the students picture vocabulary so the ELL the students can see what the words actually mean. After the teacher explained all this she told me an example n a way she could help and she told what she would do is give them a part of the notes so they can fill in the keynotes

If I were an English Language Learner (ELL), I would desire to have an educator as accomplished and compassionate as Mrs. Yglesias. Her mindset of treating all her students equally is exemplary. When I first started observing her instruction, I was unsuspecting where the ELL or exceptional students were seated. All the students blended very well together. The children are carefully integrated around the classroom according to their behavior, not their ability. The teacher’s main objective is to control distractions, since during her instruction she delivers an array of phenomenal strategies. In this case, her tactics function effortlessly and every child is fully engaged. There was no observation of any tattle telling or someone refusing to

Most everything I know about technology is self- taught. I spend a lot of my time teaching classes to students and teachers on how to use databases, e-books, and the new hardware and software our system purchases. I took this course in order to learn more about student assessment as it relates to technology-enhanced instruction. This knowledge will in return help make better use of the hardware my schools currently have and the type of assessments that are offered. In doing so, I hope to change the mindset of some in my district that technology is not for just the students to “play” on, but actually can and should be used to increase the rigor in their classrooms.

The second observation was during a math period. The students were reviewing subtracting three digit numbers with regrouping. The teacher used the researched based strategy of reciprocal teaching. She chose a student that is socially outspoken and proficient in math. As he was reviewing the problems on the board, he would call upon his fellow peers to share answers. On a few occasions as he scanned the room for a student, it was observed that Mrs. Yglesias encouraged him to choose an ELL student to participate. On the difficult examples, the teacher would interject and us visual hand gestures to assist students in arriving to an answer without verbally offering the solution. Also, the teacher walked around the room offering support to all her

This article attempts to enlighten educators to allow computers in the classroom as a workshop to help improve literacy. The computer allows for students to have both a visual and a verbal reference to a topic, thus, solidifying a concrete comprehension of the text, allowing the student to be further engaged and stimulated with the assignment. Over the years, educators have seen such a vast change in technology, especially in the classroom. It is time now, that educators embrace the change and use it to their advantage. “If students can be motivated and engaged when using technology, teachers should continue to support this type of learning when appropriate.”

In the following lesson I combined my students’ interests mixed with theory I have read about to create an interdisciplinary classroom activity. The lesson I created is math content based with a special education sixth grade class. The specific unit of study is solving equations and specific vocabulary attached to this unit is: variable, constant, inverse, and solution. Through this lesson my students are going to be able to identify the parts of an equation and solve equations to find the value of the missing variable. My district developed a program of one-to-one chromebooks for all of the students at my school so my students also have access to their own chromebooks for this lesson through Google Classroom. I would also have all of my worksheets, graphic organizers, assessments, powerpoint, etc. translated into Spanish so that all my students could understand it. My sixth grade class consists of six students, all of who have a learning disability of some kind. Three of the students also have ADHD along with their learning disability and four of the six students are also ELL all of whom are long-term English learners. Each of them has been in the U.S. for at least seven years. With this varied mix of students it makes teaching precisely and providing choice a priority. Also making sure to teach off of theories that have worked with students of this magnitude.

In the last 30 years, technological advances have begun to change how students acquire knowledge. They do not need to depend on the teacher to tell them what they should know. Textbooks have changed from page after page of printed text with a few simple black-and-white line illustrations or graphs to glossy color publications with 3-D computer-aided illustrations that occupy more space than the text. Now, textbooks come with a lot of technology-driven aancillaries: interactive CDs, websites, animations, and simulated activities which are defiantly far better ways to transfer information as to the methods, thatmethods that was almost unimaginable years ago. The teachers were the primary source of information and knowledge. Books