Reflection for the week of October 16th - 20th

This week KJ and myself are preparing to teach our peer-to-peer lesson on Wednesday and Thursday. We found a book about map keys, and we plan on doing guided reading with a creative element on the end of each lesson. We are also video recording this lesson which has its own complexities.

KJ and I decided to merge our lessons so that we could have a more in-depth and well-rounded lesson set. We decided that KJ would teach the first lesson and I would piggy back the following day and close out the lesson. The book was short but had a great deal of information, that covered places including a zoo, museum, state park and aquarium. KJ covered plurals using “s” - “es” - “ies” and I covered compound words like waterfall and boathouse. These were used in the book and allowed for us to have a connected lesson set but cover different items so that we did not lose the students attention. The lessons creative elements were also merged to make our lesson more connected and seamless. KJ was to have her students create a map with a map key and then my group was going to take the map and make it into a game board and the map key was going to guide the question you would get asked for landing on certain spots.

the original map / game board layout and potential symbols for the map key

 The original plan was to teach our lesson on Wednesday and Thursday that way we could have the weekend to reflect on our lesson and complete our MAP forms. This plan was changed when we were told that we must evaluate the students in our group so that we know what reading level that they are. We explained that the teacher already tested our students. We were then told that we had to evaluate our students using the DRA kit and have evidence of our students reading level before we could teach them our lesson.

On Thursday we had to test our students so that next week we could teach our lesson and have time to reflect and turn everything in before our Professor observed lessons on the week of October 30^th. This was not optimal but KJ took two students and I took the other two and we used our whole class time to evaluate our group. It was not optimal but it was required so we got it done. When the testing was done we noticed that all our students were exactly where our cooperating teacher said they were.  It was a busy week but we are now ready to teach next week unless something comes up between now and then.

Reflection for the week of October 9th - 13th

This week was short due to Columbus Day. The students came back to school with their batteries fully charged. One of the students that I have been watching was gone all week. I asked the teacher if the parents understood that taking their child out of school for the week could be bad for him in terms of missed time and missed assignments. She told me that they wanted his work for the week and so she gave it to them. I used this week to test the students with my Piaget task kit. I had one student almost complete the kit and another student stopped when they came to the conservation questions. I had one set of questions in the kit that I think were hard for the students because they did not understand the words. The task kit took up a lot of time but was insightful into the minds that my students have. some of the answers from one student could be considered creative in nature but still based in a more concrete since of thinking. Do to the week being short I mostly focused on working with the students and making sure they were successfully doing their assignments. Since my lab time is primarily focused around reading I try to get the students to engage their reading so that they comprehend the book they are reading at the time. I do wish the students work was more creative instead of being mostly worksheet work. I think about the fact that during reading the kids have to be silent and sit at their desks so that they do not disturb the guided reading group, to me this limits and even stifles the students creativity, it is almost unfair to do that to the class but I understand that sometimes students need to be quiet so that others can learn.

     

Reflection for the week of October 2nd - 6th

This was an interesting week not only did we go to lab on Tuesday and Thursday but we came to lab on Friday so that we could teach our first lesson plan. Most of the week was devoted to preparing for the lesson plan which was our Co-op plan, we had to figure out how to integrate our plan into a classroom that most would call traditional in design and implementation. On Tuesday we had to get creative to fit another class into our room because one of the 2nd grade teachers was out for the day. Some kids were at tables with Ms. Ells kids (where we could fit them) and others were on the main carpet so that we could still do guided reading. We got to have Cherry join KJ and I to help wrangle in the madness of a class and a half worth of students. Noise and space were the main issues especially during guided reading were our normal routine is that everyone is quiet. Cherry worked with her normal students and KJ and I worked with our students, so that no one was left out or in need of help. When the class went to recess KJ and I were able to talk about our lesson and finalize some of our thoughts. On Thursday KJ had to be out of class so I was on my own when Ms. Ells started guided reading. I used this time to check on some of the students that I had noticed that were either struggling or doing well just so I could see a difference. I laid down on the carpet and took notes and called students over for a very informal and stress free talk while I looked through their reading notebooks. I stressed to the students that they should slow down when taking their AR tests so that they could improve their test scores. I also informed many of the students I called on how to fix their work if it needed fixing. At the end of reading Ms. Ells had me take up everyone's reading notebook and remove the work the students had done. Unfortunately some of the students had decided to not complete their work on time resulting in them losing their Friday Funday time, this time would now be used to complete work instead of being able to bring in their own electronic device for Bring Your Own Device (BYOD). FRIDAY Friday friday, lesson plan 1 taught by myself and KJ is a go. We started by telling the kids we were gonna "play" and "craft" during our lesson the response was "cheers" and "woo-hoos". The plan didn't go as planned but the content was delivered and we were able to challenge a lot of the kids. We observed team work and lack of teamwork. The best part is we gave no stipulations to the students on what they could create except they had to name it and write their names on the project. The following pictures show the projects and the results run the spectrum on completed design and implementation of design. these results definitely helped me to understand the relationships some of the students have with each other.

The only team to complete the task was the yellow team!

Blue team did well but ran out of time

 

Black team had a great design but no name on the project.

Green team argued the whole time and the results are evident!

Orange team had a good start but creative differences halted their progress.

Reflection for the week of Sept 25th - 29th

This was an odd week, it was split between Double Churches and New Mountain Hill.
       On Tuesday I was in Ms. Ells class. I was still getting used to being in the classroom but had started making observations about the students and the daily operations of the class. I found out that the students can use tablets in the classroom to take AR tests instead of using computers, which I did not expect to see. The class is not what I would consider creative but it is also not boring. the students have the freedom of choice during the time I'm there to choose what task they want to complete that day as long as all the work gets done by the end of the week.
       Thursday's lab was moved to Friday at New Mountain Hill I like STEAM Days because I get to see the students react to new and exciting stimuli. On todays journey to New Mountain Hill I got to introduce my group to coding using a simple coding mouse that the media center had. The mouse could go forward and backward and could turn either right or left and for some added fun it could do a random action if added into the code. I had my students first design a course using foam blocks, over a five minute period the course was formed and it was time to code the mouse so that it would navigate the course. I tried to be as hands off as I could on the decision making because I wanted the students to learn how to problem solve, but of course I had to offer some guidance when they either became confused or started to argue. I went in order from my left to my right and each student got to decide on a direction to send the mouse. it took four iterations to get the mouse to the end of the course with a few corrections needed to correct miss coding due to student decisions. The mouse was not perfectly accurate in its actions but came close enough. The students were able to see that their decisions had made the mouse go from its starting point through an obstacle course and end at the designated ending point. When the mouse stopped at the stopping point my group started cheering, it made me smile how happy they were to complete this task. From design of the course to giving the directions to code the mouse it was all them and they knew it.


Building the course

              These two videos show the mouse working through its code that the students created!

              





The finished course and the mouse at the end point.
The mouse started on the opposite side,
between the red blocks facing the finish point.





If you zoom in or look closely you can see the course
 laid out by arrows that the students created.
Course corrections are marked by an X with the new direction next to it.