Practicum Reflection: The Exploring Tangrams Students

Also, we had some posters about the shapes and I used them to demonstrate to them. With showing the illustration and let them to touch the colourful shapes I engaged them and I let them to discuss between themselves. I asked them for this activity you should all work as a team and should look at the shapes carefully and according the sides you must put in one circle. For example, in circle 1 we have all shape with 4 sides that we call quadrilateral.

While student teaching, I planned many small group activities, hands-on science lessons, and math lessons using manipulatives.  I planned for each possible classroom management issue so that I could avoid problems.  For example, when introducing base ten blocks to the first graders, I knew these brand new manipulatives could be a distraction.  To avoid this, I allowed the students to use bellwork time (the first 15 minutes of school) to explore and play with these new math manipulatives.  When the time came for our math lesson that afternoon, I stressed that students had an opportunity to play with the base ten blocks this morning, but now it was time for us to use these as our math tools, not math toys.  Our lesson ended up being a very productive one.

I learned how to explain and the task thoroughly, I walked around the room more, checking up on the groups. If students had any questions, comments, or thoughts about the task they could asked me while I was walking around the room. I asked my students many different questions like inviting, probing, pressing, waiting, orienting, re-voicing, connecting, and explaining questions to help them start or continue solving the task. These questions would extend their knowledge of the concepts and make them think deeply about solving and justifying their answers.

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

As the children participated in this Math Counts/Manipulatives activity they were learning to work cooperatively in a small group. They were also learning understand

When educating students, it is essential to their growth, that teachers have the ability to learn and grow with their students. Every child learns, thinks, and comprehends differently; therefore, the same material should be taught in multiple ways. For example, in my Math 106 class, all students solve the same problem, the teacher then has a few students explain and depict the different ways they received the correct answer. When a student has a difficult time explaining their method, Mrs. Graybeal provides encouragement and guidance; thus. Also, students who are having a difficult time solving the problem used one of the methods provided by a peer to help them comprehend and solve the problem. Math 106 teaches future educators the

For three years (2013, 2014 and 2015) I have been participating with the Predental Students Club. I was able to invite sometimes the Operative residents to join me and gave lectures to predental students or prospect dental students interested in dental career. A lecture followed by lab exercise was performed, sometimes with waxing procedures some others with Resin-based composite exercises. This year we had 45 students from the University of Northern Iowa and we did the resin based composite procedure.

Although, it was still necessary that I demonstrate what they were going to do before I did anything. In the beginning, some students struggled with catching from any distance, yet their performance and effort was great. In the last activity (Leap Frog) their skill level was moderate, some struggled with shuffling simply because they did not have on appropriate gym wear. When I noticed this a gave a better demonstration and let most students preform the task in a modified manner. If I did this lesson again I would check for understanding more frequently in all four quadrants of the

2) Did the activity go as planned? Why or why not? Overall the lesson went I as planned for it to go. The students enjoyed the activity and were easily engaged it in. The students asked lots of questions that showed they were thinking about what we were doing and trying to figure out how it worked. Something that I didn’t anticipate was some of the children had an issue with touching the wet cotton balls. They didn’t like the feel or texture, so I had to help them complete the activity. It was definitely easier to work with the smaller groups, two or three students, than the bigger

Two of the stations were manipulatives stations. Students could use manipulatives like cubes, to solve problems. The last station, Ms. Doe calls students up to her desk and work with them in a small group base on previous assessments. For that day, she was in a small group going over fractions because of previous test scores. She is able to observe the manipulative stations by looking at their worksheets at the end of the week. For the small group, Ms. Doe is

Carolina is a student in Mrs. Romero’s Geometry class who is completing homework for another class while she is supposed to be doing centers. Although one of Carolina’s friends seems to enjoy the class and is working hard, most of her friends slack off during class as well because they know that Mrs. Romero is not strict and will let them turn in late work. Mrs. Romero has a system of guided discovery set up in her classroom but it is nowhere near as effective as it needs to be. She allows the students to have too much freedom. She had a good idea at first with full out activities planned for each station as well as an assignment to complete and criteria needed to pass but she hasn’t fully executed it. Consequently, most of her students are not actually learning anything but rather doing the bare minimum they need to pass the

This particular lesson plan focused on place values, in particular the tens and ones place value. The goal of the lesson was to have the students identify the place values or any two-digit number. This particular skill was something that the student had been working on in their classroom. After we started the lesson the students informed me that they had just gone over place values the week before. Although the students had been introduced to the concept of place values, they were not at a mastery level yet. However I feel that a majority of students were at the level after this lesson. During the lesson, the majority of the students seemed to grasp the concept of place value, although a few of the students where struggling with the skill.

Since each of the students were on their own individual level, and none of the students were on the last level, all of the students would benefit from more instruction regardless of whether they did better or worse than expected. After completing the post-assessment, and the self-evaluation, I would be able to see what sort of activities the students were more engaged in, more interested in, and be able to begin some enrichment activity based on that data. The students really seemed to grasp and enjoy multiplication facts in the form of educational games so I would have my instructional actions try and focus around fun, active educational games. First, however, I would have an individual conference to talk to each student about their data, where they improved, where they were still struggling. For these students looking at individual problems, the sixes through eights times tables would get more focus because they are what the students struggled with more.

The observation was on math again and in group lesson form shortly after 11 in the morning. My host teacher finds this time best for her students because it is after recess and lunch. Practicing with documentation in anecdotal notes with photographs was an effective way to get individual information in assessing each student’s learning in comparison to just observation notes or relying solely on pictures. Anecdotal records provide a different context of notes in its specialization typically for one student and for its form in being objective based in preparation, introduction, and reflection. “They allow the teacher to bring the child’s learning experience to life.” (Helm, Beneke, and Steinheimer, 2007, p. 36) This week’s observation gave me information that worked well with anecdotal notes.

I’m about to embark on teaching ratios and proportions to my students that are in a resource setting. These students are in my class because their disabilities affect the way the can access the standards. Learners need to first understand how to set up ratios before they can solve proportions. At the start of a new concept I use a lot of direct instruction and modeling to present the new material. Similarly to the teacher in the video, I try to model the appropriate way to find ratios and use academic language so the students can mimic the correct way, in order for them to internalize what’s being taught. I start each lesson taking notes using an Interactive Notebook or INB. The INB is crafted by students using graphic organizers that students glue into a notebook. When the notes are glued in I write an “I Can” Statement. This is an objective for the lesson that the students will be working towards being able to do after the lesson. Stating the objective first is a crucial part to direct instruction. Students then will participate during the notes by answering questions that I pose. Once the notes are taking, students are lead through guided practice answering questions with teacher assistance. Once the majority of the class is ready, I provide a few problems for the students to complete independently. During this independent practice I float