week 3 of my intern year

After reviewing my portfolio with my mentor teacher, we discussed what I felt was great aspects I included. I felt that a great strength was the variety of examples I included, and it showed the effort I put into each project. My teacher said that she loved that I could use these projects and implement them into my instruction. She also said she really enjoyed my CHPR unit because I could effectively implement this into a resource room for students that don't have those general skills. She especially liked that the worksheets for the unit plan were already included.

I think for my year five portfolio, I will use pieces of my education experience that reflect my educational philosophy, just like my fourth year portfolio. My research I plan to conduct will also be a great piece for my portfolio because I am centering it around my philosophy by implementing technology. I also plan to use videos that show my creative lessons and variety of techniques that attempt to reach all learning types. Making sure my lessons are diverse is important to me, even if that means that some lessons may fail by bringing in new ideas to the classroom.

Week Two of Intern Year

My second week of my internship went really well! We began pulling students out of the classroom after finalizing the schedule for special education services. During the inclusion settings, I began to get to know the students better, and adjusted to the different classroom routines. In the mornings, I am in a second grade classroom for Mathematics and Reading. I am also in a fourth grade class for Reading. In the afternoons, I am in the resource room with four students for reading. I was able to conduct a baseline test for the students site words. At the beginning of the week, one student struggled with pre-primer words, and I implemented a reward system to motivate the student. By Friday, the student missed less than five words and improved drastically. I'm so excited to work with this student this semester to help him get to grade level.

I am beginning to get ideas on what to do for my research, which will be conducted in an inclusion setting at the second grade level. I was able to go over time, the calendar, and money. I was able to connect these items to real-life and help students at different stations. Overall, I am looking forward to working with these teachers and students all semester.

I also found out this week that one of the special education teacher positions was filled, and I am excited to see/meet this teacher because she is from California. This semester has been so far so good.

Week One of Intern Year

During my first week of interning at Bruceton School, I observed how teachers prepared for the school year. I had many obstacles leading up to this week, including receiving a new host mentor teacher. I adjusted well and quickly as I sat through professional developments and staff meetings. I was surprised to see how informational the meetings were, discussing all the policies and changes that would be occurring. Unfortunately, many teachers at my PDS are severely disappointed with some of the changes and I was able to see how the teachers collaborated with the principal to make best of the new school day changes. It was interesting to see ideas bounced around to find a solution that was best for the students.

One thing that I learned that will benefit me during my education career was how to create a schedule for the special education resource room. I was able to help create the schedule and found it was much more challenging than I anticipated, but eventually I accomplished the mission and figured out the schedule. During the first two days of school with students, I witnessed how the teachers went over classroom rules and routines. I thought this was a great experience so I knew how to do this when I had my own classroom. Having the students get use to the schedule and routine is definitely crucial so they know what to expect throughout the year. I loved getting to know the students during these days, especially the students in the classrooms I will be conducting inclusion in. Overall, this first week was a great experience and I'm glad I was able to see how typical preparation days were conducted with the staff, as well as setting up the classroom and routines with the students.

The inquiry celebration on April 19th was very informative and helpful in guiding me on what to do during my own internship. I learned a lot about the different reading techniques you could implement into the classroom also. The first thing I learned about was literacy workstations, which I also learned in education 461. I found this presentation very useful because I was able to see the different techniques used in the workstations and how it kept the students engaged. I think that I would use this during my internship year because it gives the teacher a chance to individualize instruction, while giving students the responsibility of finishing the work given for that day. I also found that the inquiry taught me about literature circles, which seemed to be effective in understanding text. I am not sure I would use this in my internship year, but seemed like a good idea to implement if I could get a better understanding of how this worked. Each presentation I saw was helpful in seeing what the interns did during their action research and how they gathered data on a set amount of students and their learning. The presentations also helped guide my thinking for my action research to gain a general sense in how to map out my research to gather the appropriate data, thus creating a visualization of a timeline.

During my second session, I learned all about positive discipline that is implemented at East Park Elementary. I found it very useful hearing about how to discipline a student positively and that it shows effective results in the number of referrals students receive. Being a special education specialization, I have to understand that discipline is going to be a major part of my classroom, and implementing discipline in a positive way will help keep the students in the classroom and engaged. I find it hard sometimes to keep my tone in a positive voice when students misbehave, and seeing the different strategies that are used was helpful. For example, the wheel of choice seemed like a great technique to implement into the classroom because it gives the student a choice on how to react to a situation or how to behave appropriately. I also learned that using simple things such as keeping down time to a minimum and keeping a consistent routine helps minimize misbehavior. As we have learned this in multiple classes, the presentation showed me and enhanced what I was learning that these simple elements are crucial pieces and helps the overall classroom environment.

Overall, I felt that the Inquiry celebration was very useful and I learned a lot about different techniques to use in the classroom to keep the student engagement high. I felt that the celebration also helped me better understand what I will be doing next year as an intern, and gave me a general idea on what I may want to do within my classroom. I enjoyed the presentations, and while the PDS presentation on positive discipline was helpful, I wish I had signed up and participated in other intern presentations to see what type of research they conducted and other techniques I could use next year.

Characteristics of a Novice Teacher #1 and #2

The first characteristic of being a novice teacher I chose was characteristic number one, which states a novice teacher should have a commitment to and skills for life long learning. I believe this characteristic means that a teacher should always be willing to grow and learn throughout their career, and to never stop at a dead end. Teachers should never look at a lesson and think that the lesson was fine and can not be improved. That being said, an artifact that could be closely connected to this characteristic would be the website Pinterest. The education category on Pinterest displays unlimited resources that could be used in the classroom to enhance the learning for a student in fun, unique ways that teachers have already previously tried. If a lesson hadn't worked in the past, or the students seemed disinterested, a teacher can turn to this page and see what other ideas teachers across the nation, or world used. This helps a teacher grow because even if they only use an idea from the website, the teacher is still learning and growing to become a better teacher for the students, as well as the teacher themselves. Pinterest also connects to this characteristic by giving and receiving ideas for lessons that may have not be thought of before, but was successful in the classroom.

The second characteristic of being a novice teacher I chose was characteristic number two, which states that a novice teacher should  be an effective communicator. The main idea of this characteristic is that the teacher should be communicating with all people involved in the education world, whether it be the other teachers of a team, the administration, the students, the parents, or even the community. Without effective communication, there could be a misunderstanding, which could effect the students at one point in their life. The artifact I chose for this characteristic that connects well is parent/teacher newsletters. I have seen this used in classrooms at my PDS semester after semester, and it's a great way to let the parents know what is going on for that week. For example, when I began in my class this semester, my students were allowed to eat a snack and a few students brought in peanut butter the first day I was there. Being that I'm severely allergic, I informed my teacher and she sent the memo in the following newsletter to not send peanuts/tree nuts on the days I was there. Had the effective communication not been there through the newsletter, I could have been placed in a situation that would have been unavoidable and dangerous. The newsletters also help effectively communicate to parents what lessons are going to be learned, and if it's a complex concept, the teacher could include how to complete the concept (especially in Math) in the correct way to help the students at home. Being an effective communicator to everyone involved in the educational system is important for many reasons, and without the communication, those people involved would never know what was happening in the students' life. 

Characteristic of a Novice Teacher #7 and #8

         The first characteristic of the novice teacher I chose was characteristic number seven, which states the novice teacher will effectively integrate content and pedagogy. The main idea from this characteristic is to have different content areas integrated within one lesson plan using a variety of sources. Having main concepts that can be applied over at least one other area will benefit the students when transferring their knowledge to the real world. For example, one artifact that can be connected to this characteristic is the technology special education toolkit that was created fall semester of the participant year. This artifact connects to this characteristic because the toolkit is integrating several content areas, as well as integrating five different pieces of technology. For example, Prezi is an online source that can be used to introduce new materials, and there are many websites that allow students to use clickers to complete surveys/gather data. Gathering data shows students how to graph data in other areas, thus implementing mathematics in another core content area, like English.

        The second characteristic of the novice teacher I chose was characteristic number eight, which states the novice teacher will be a reflective partitioner. The main idea of this characteristic is that a teacher should always reflect on which lessons work well, and which lessons could be improved. In addition to improving lessons, reflective on classroom management strategies, and other theories utilized in the classroom is how a novice teacher exemplifies this characteristic. One artifact that would address this characteristic would be the inquiry of context project that is completed the participant year. This artifact is greatly influenced on what goes on in the classroom, and how one perceives the context in the classroom. The inquiry project completed for Education 410 and 411 connects to this characteristic because the project entails observing the context of the classroom and reflecting on what works and does not work. For example, how the classroom is set up, and the people in the classroom greatly influence how the students learn. Reflecting on the set up, and changing when one thing does not work will exhibit the novice teacher characteristic of being a reflective partitioner.

Prezi Project Educ 311

Technology in the Classroom on Prezi