Elapsed Time In The Classroom

Instead of taking entire class to drink water and use restroom after lunch, allow groups of students to go while others are working on bell ringers.

How successful was the lesson? Did the students learn what you intended for them to learn? How do you know?

All these voices come from the same people. Students wishing for longer passing time in the halls. Now Smithville Middle School joins the fight, but this school isn’t using a barrage of exclamation points. It’s time somebody got to the root of this argument. ‘How can short passing times affect middle school life?’, ‘Does it affect student behavior?’, and finally, ‘How many minutes are really needed?’

I believe that I am proficient in establishing a classroom setting that calls upon the students to learn in an individual and collaborative manner. I believe that I have sufficiently encouraged positive social interaction, active engagement in learning, and self motivation. I have shown this in learning activities that have been presented to the students. An example of this would be with the placard assignment, which had the students fill out a sheet that corresponded to four maps to help them figure out what artifacts certain cultural regions would use. During this learning segment, students would have to be self directed after the directions were given, the students would have to use collaborative skills, and they were all engaged during

together as a class will also reinforce what they have learned and will give the teacher an

I liked that we each had partners. We could work with them in case we needed any help. I also liked how the steps were set up. They would carefully direct us to success. The last thing I liked was how each of the students subconsciously made the project into a contest and we all started to do our best. This gave us motivation to have the best paper airplane in the class.

Through completing this activity, I learned more than I have with any other activity I have done thus far while earning my Education Specialist degree. I had to observe a teacher and provide constructive feedback using the Framework for Teaching. This observation included a pre-conference where the teacher told me what she wanted me to pay particular attention to. It required that I observe in real-time, rather than simply using a video where I can pause frequently. I then had to analyze the data I collected during the observation, in order to determine strengths and areas for improvement that I shared during the post-conference. The teacher was a master teacher and thought the lesson went very well. She was shocked when I had some ideas for how to improve her instruction. I mentioned that students seemed fidgety, and she could incorporate more cooperative structures to get students more active in their learning. I also thought she needed cooperative roles for students when they completed their group work, that way everyone was accountable for the work.

I don’t feel I managed equipment or space well in this lesson. I should have had the paddles out and the balls ready instead of having the students get them out of the ben. However, I do feel that I managed teacher movement well in this lesson. I made sure that I was moving at every moment that way I could accurate feedback to my students. If I had a group of 14 students, I would then break them down into groups of 2 or 4 depending on what sporting we are playing. I would do it this way so that I can see everybody and give appropriate feedback.

In this class I was able to assist with everything the students did. I helped with craft time where the students would create a craft depending on what the lesson plan was for that week. I helped students utilize their fine motor skills by advocating the individual task of using a glue stick without help, coloring in the lines, and using safety scissors. Each task was focused on the child performing at the best of his or her ability and using praise to promote the task and the child 's ability to perform the task. During story time the students would sit in a circle and either Mrs. Abby or I would read to them while asking questions about the story or about something pertaining to the story. During music time, the students watched educational videos about letters, numbers, colors, and how to count. I saw that the videos kept their attention while also allowing them to dance and sing along. In this type of class setting I was able to contribute to the development and advancement of each child by pouring my knowledge and experience into their lives. Having such a small class was helpful in that I could focus on each child individually to ensure that the students were equally cared for and valued.

The teacher allowed students to work cooperatively in groups to discuss problem solving strategies. Students appeared to be very much engaged in learning through interaction with peers. The first grade teacher was very active in using the think-pair-share strategy to promote thinking and oral communication. During her writing lesson of editing a sample story, she asked students to think about what corrections they thought needed to be made, then asked them to share their thoughts with a partner. I thought this strategy was very much appropriate and effective for promoting students’ language acquisition, especially for her class of early intermediate language learners.

I want to be able to bring the dice game into a future classroom. This allowed all students to experience success and that is incredibly important. I will also be able to know other strategies for students who have autism and create a relax area in order for them to refocus. I also really liked the two meeting rugs. It allowed for movement and the students were able to refocus. Students would get up and get a white board and then go to the other rug and start writing their sight words. If the teacher only had one meeting area it would have been too much time on the floor and the students wouldn’t have focused on the activity. From the second round of practicum I will be able to bring how the teacher taught to her students. She talked to all of her students with a lot of enthusiasm and treated them equally while still knowing what they needed to work on. The teacher would expect the student to understand the concepts and would continually practice with them until they understood, “That is, students tend to give to teachers as must or as little as teachers expect of them.” (Spradlin, 2011, p. 63). She would spend one-on-one with one student each day and that was something that I found very important for each student, it allowed for them to know what was expected of them and ways to get to where they wanted to

In this week’s assignment we as a group, were to watch the two videos “Planning a Playground” and “Politics of Sociology”, discuss them as a group and write a summary. Being that this is my first online class that I have had to work with a group in I was very nervous about it. When doing discussions online, without prior physically meeting and getting to know one another, things can always take a turn that is not intended or needed. My team/group was great! Not only was the intent of our discussion clear but I also liked how we all posed questions within our discussions that made you really think. We challenged and

I personally think that my lesson went pretty well. It seemed like many people were engaged and they participated. There are things that I could have done to make the activity more challenging for the consonant digraphs and consonant blends, but overall I think the activity was fun. I felt like the students payed attention to when I was speaking at the beginning and the end of the activity, which was ideal for any lesson.

In general, how successful was the lesson? Did the students learn what you intended for them to learn? How do you know?

The balance of Rob’s lesson between cooperation and competition was fair. The first half of his lesson involved the students being in groups of two allowing them to work together and develop skills in communication and teamwork. In the second part of the lesson, there still contained cooperation between the two student teams but also creating the sense of competition between the two teams in trying to score points against one another. From this, I believe that Rob balanced cooperation and competition well throughout his activity.