My Friday At Hutchinson Elementary Life Skills Room

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

The language arts lesson began with Ms. House having the students discuss the use of punctuation in a sentence. I liked how she sternly, but calmly was able to redirect students back to their seats when they came up the book. The students knew exactly what she meant and quickly listened to her. I also noticed how the majority of the times she called on a student whether or not they had their hand raised. This is a great practice because it prepares students to always think about the question asked and to have an answer ready. Ms. House had the students transition to the next activity by standing and shaking their arms and legs. I believe this is a great way to quickly give students a break and then redirect them to the next activity.

Despite my somber interest of my temporary workplace, I still yearned to do something different. Therefore, I took a clean shot at substitute teaching, but little did I know that the captivating adventures of Substitute Teaching, Up-Close and Personal were in steady progress.

The teacher passed around a microphone to each child, it symbolized who was speaking and this made everyone special. The students then had to write two sentences and draw a picture of what they remembered best about their holiday break. Eventually, they shared their two sentences with the teacher or me. Second, I noticed that once everyone read their journals, the teacher quickly called on students based on their bin color, which meant it was time for reading to begin. Each student had their own colored reading bin which included: three reading level books, a word list of the week, and a worksheet using the given word list. The colored bins symbolized what the student was to complete during reading time. For example; students with yellow bins read with the teacher at a table, students with green bins worked on the worksheet, students with blue bins read the three books quietly, and students with pink bins worked on writing on a small whiteboard the word list for the week. This strategy was beneficial because it developed independence. Thirdly, I noticed enthusiasm during the math lesson at the end of the day. The teacher had the students sit on the purple rug for a math lesson. The teacher used her laptop and the video clip to provide the students with visual instruction. Once the video clip was over, the teacher pulled up the worksheet to preview together with the class. Then the students went back to their desk to work on the worksheet

During student teaching both of my placements were in math classrooms. With math being my endorsement, having a strong understanding of the content and knowing different methods (standards I & XII) lead to success with my students As a future teacher, I believe these two standards are the most important. I need to create learning experiences that are meaningful and age appropriate for my students. I created a lesson for my 8th grade students that showed the importance of content and methods of teaching. In this lesson, students had to solve questions involving the 8th grade math standards, but the questions were made in puzzle pieces. Students had to match the question and answers, making a shape once the problems were completed. This is called a tangram, which is a concept students had learned in an earlier grade. This lesson used a variety of strategies and met the needs of my diverse learners (standards III & V). The puzzle pieces had students use creative thinking and

After this, the students talked to each other and they decided that they enjoy it when the teacher reads to them. The teacher read the book and the students followed along with the reading. When the teacher finished reading, she asked various questions that the students had to answer. The students, had to discuss the question and the answer with their group members. The teacher, asked each group to give their answer and, all the students participated in the activity. They had a good teacher and student relationship. The students respected the teacher and she did an awesome job with the lesson. The teacher, talked to us and, explained that when she creates her lessons she tries her best to incorporate group work and class discussions. Her goal is, that her students are engage in the lesson that she created.

Since I was unable to help the children with their understanding of the new concept, I spent extra time going over it with them again. The students began to connect previous knowledge to the new concept using descriptive words, sensory words and emotions. As they worked in groups, they were able to think up different points of view for different characters. They played with creativity while giving human characteristic to objects. Students showed a good understanding of the material. One group in my first class gave me a great idea. As they stood up to share the point of view of a specific object, they did not tell us what object they had until the end of their writing. This made the class guess what the object was. I noticed all the students attention became more focused on what they were saying as their brains were churning. Since this was such a fun experience, I decided to continue it with my next couple classes. I was pleased with the outcome of the second lesson and how much the class not only learned from this lesson, but also how much fun they had doing

Next time, I would have started with a review of the syllable types and go over what short and long vowel sounds sound like to gain an understanding of what the student knew and also use it as a review. In my comprehension lesson I would add the video as an anticipatory set. Instead of using the Tom Sawyer passages as independent practice in the vocabulary lesson for all, I would use a different worksheet that is multiple choice. From there I would use another paragraph but take out the multiple choice options to ensure the students have an understanding. The Tom Sawyer passages would not be on a worksheet but would provide the entire text with certain areas so they will have more to read to help figure out the underlined words. All of my objectives were met and I altered instruction by reflection and checking for understanding and allowed that to guide my process. During Delaina’s period of frustration I was sensitive to her needs and noticed the change in her body language and overall appearance and made changes to the lesson. I was excited and positive throughout the lesson. Although everything didn’t go as planned I remained calm, positive, and supportive throughout the lesson.

Did the activity go as planned? Why or why not? Overall the lesson didn’t go as planned, but I think overall it was still an effective lesson. The time I thought I would have to teach the lesson was a lot different the time I actually got to teach the lesson. I had to just scrap certain part of the lesson to make it fit in the time I was given. I didn’t get to work with all the students because the concurrent center my cooperating teacher was doing. The

The day started off fairly well. Hatfield hadn’t told his students I was going to be observing, and thus they assumed I was his daughter or a substitute teacher. After giving the students their bellwork, he quickly dove into the lesson. Hatfield had taken a day leave the day before, so the classroom was a bit scrambled with what they did with their substitute. It was an interactive day with videos, discussions, and written work. The good thing was that he really seemed to love what he was doing and could keep the students under his reigns fairly well. There were some attitudes from some of the students that he dismissed with ease and it was palpable that he had been doing this for years.

For session three I read Walker the story The Dot by Peter H. Reynolds. This story is one of my favorites and he really enjoyed it. It is about a little girl who does not have the confidence that she can paint. Once she overcomes it and starts painting her paintings are placed in an art museum. I thought this story could give Walker the encouragement he needed. After reading the story I gave Walker cut out lo-go’s of McDonald’s, Ward’s, John Deere, Ramey’s, Dollar General and Wal-Mart. Walker was able to read them all except Wal-Mart. He was so excited to read them to his mom whenever she came to pick him up. Teachers can use environmental print to relate the pictures to the letters they begin with. The McDonald’s logo can be used to teach

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

Daniels gave the students an opportunity to share with others what was going on in their life she called this time “What’s going on”? This opening exercise was a very good tactic because it gave the otherwise hesitant students a chance to speak of what was going on at home, what fun stuff they had planned for the weekend or what happened the evening before. It also gave them the necessary practice in English on the subject that mattered to them. I observed that the students enjoyed that activity and were very attentive when someone was speaking. The Volcanic eruption group activity was very fun. This required the students to work together, each group consist of one or two English learners and two English speakers. The kids delegated who would do what and worked very well together while Mrs. Daniels walked around to assist each group. Students received considerable feedback during the activities and were encouraged to talk to each other. It was noticeable that the verbal feedback within the groups was very encouraging to the English learners and helped build their confidence. By being directly and appropriately challenged they became more actively involved in the lesson and more enthusiastic about the

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?