As the semester is beginning to come to a close, I am starting to find my workload increasing more! This week at Washington, I was able to work with a group of students developing their writing skills. I was impressed with what my first graders could do. They looked at pictures that told a story, then answered questions about the pictures. The story cards they were given gave students the beginning of a sentence, and they had to finish the sentence in their own words. I really enjoyed this activity with my students and being able to share my love of writing with them. I also experienced my first professional development opportunity this week and it was so much fun! I went to Duke and attended a symposium on fetal alcohol syndrome and how it affected students in the classroom. It was very eye opening to listen to the speakers talk about their own personal experiences and how important it was for teachers to recognize a child who may be suffering from FASD. I know that in my future classroom, I will more than likely have at least one student who is on the spectrum and just like standard 2 states, I must adapt my teaching to benefit my students with special needs.
Also this week, I have been working on my flipped lesson plan and my clinical lesson plan. Doing this, I have used some resources from Time for Kids and decided to share with everyone. TFK is a great instructional tech tool that can be used not only when teaching social studies, but any other subject as well. It has news articles that are age appropriate for elementary students, as well as videos, worksheets, and activities for students. Sometimes schools will have subscriptions to TFK which allows students to have a copy of articles, but there is also a lot of great content online for students, even without a subscription. Standard 2 says that teachers must embrace diversity in the school community and in the world. By providing news articles that are understandable for students, we are able to provide our students with global awareness. This is a way for us as teachers to use current events to teach our students about diversity and the different cultures and people in the world. In my future classroom, I hope that I am able to have a subscription to news sources such as this in order to better teach my students about current events and global awareness.
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Thursday, March 23, 2017
Week Ten
This week as we dive back into school, I have gained so many new experiences. On Tuesday, we had duty free lunch at Washington and it was very eye opening since I haven't been inside an elementary lunchroom since I was in 5th grade! I really enjoyed being able to help the teachers at the school though because they have such a short lunch time every day. Every teacher I saw was so grateful and excited to have a day off and it made me feel so great.
We have also started our edTPA boot camp this week and it has been so helpful. I finally feel more confident when working on my lesson plans. One thing that really stuck out to me that I don't think I've realized before this point is that all the tasks that we are working on; planning, instruction, and assessment, are not only centered around student learning, but it is also preparing us to be the best teachers that we can be. As someone who is planning on getting their National Board Certification, I am grateful for the opportunity to get prepared for that process. I feel that I can connect what I am learning this week to standard 5 of NCTCS in that teachers link professional growth to their professional goals. What I am learning now can help me throughout my career to be a better and more student-centered teacher.
Along with edTPA, Washington, and all of my education classes, I am also preparing for my clinical experience. When meeting with my CE, we decided to work with the environment concept since Earth Day is coming up. While looking at activities for my students, I found a great resource for kids to use. Kids.gov is a neat website that has all sorts of topics for students, many which relate to social studies such as history and government. Students can watch videos, play games, and learn from online lessons. I thought this was really neat because standard 4 of the NCTCS states that teachers use a variety of instructional methods in order to teach their students. Kids.gov provides students with so many different educational opportunities. There are infographics that they can look at, maps they can study, and even links to other reputable educational websites. I know as a future teacher, in my classroom I want to be able to give my students different ways of learning information in order to make learning more enjoyable for my students. Instead of just having my students listen to me tell them information all day, I want to give them the opportunity to learn on their own and have different resources.
We have also started our edTPA boot camp this week and it has been so helpful. I finally feel more confident when working on my lesson plans. One thing that really stuck out to me that I don't think I've realized before this point is that all the tasks that we are working on; planning, instruction, and assessment, are not only centered around student learning, but it is also preparing us to be the best teachers that we can be. As someone who is planning on getting their National Board Certification, I am grateful for the opportunity to get prepared for that process. I feel that I can connect what I am learning this week to standard 5 of NCTCS in that teachers link professional growth to their professional goals. What I am learning now can help me throughout my career to be a better and more student-centered teacher.
Along with edTPA, Washington, and all of my education classes, I am also preparing for my clinical experience. When meeting with my CE, we decided to work with the environment concept since Earth Day is coming up. While looking at activities for my students, I found a great resource for kids to use. Kids.gov is a neat website that has all sorts of topics for students, many which relate to social studies such as history and government. Students can watch videos, play games, and learn from online lessons. I thought this was really neat because standard 4 of the NCTCS states that teachers use a variety of instructional methods in order to teach their students. Kids.gov provides students with so many different educational opportunities. There are infographics that they can look at, maps they can study, and even links to other reputable educational websites. I know as a future teacher, in my classroom I want to be able to give my students different ways of learning information in order to make learning more enjoyable for my students. Instead of just having my students listen to me tell them information all day, I want to give them the opportunity to learn on their own and have different resources.
Tuesday, March 7, 2017
Spring Break Here I Come!
This week has been pretty crazy as all of my professors try to cram in everything before we leave for spring break. I have to say though, I'm pretty thankful that I won't be worried about work on break. It can hopefully be very relaxing!
This week at Washington, I got to experience some pretty neat things. I saw something unique in my class where the teacher gave each of the students a dry erase marker and a sock. She then allowed them to write their math problems right on the desk and work everything out without using any paper. I definitely plan to use this idea in my future classroom because all of the kids loved it! Each student was engaged and working hard. It also gave them plenty of space to show all of their work without having to try to cram it all in a little section on a worksheet. For younger students who tend to write large, this is such a great way to help them get all of their information written down.
Also this week, we had our midyear PDP meetings. After meeting with Dr. Parker, I got redirected in the direction that I want to go in order to make sure I am benefiting from working to reach my goals. This week, I found an awesome website that really gets students engaged in social studies. It's called iCivics and students can play games that are directly related to social studies topics. For example, I played a game that put me as a presidential candidate, running the race to get elected to the White House. This connects to the NCTCS standards 2B and 4D. Students get to choose the issues that they care for or relate to, which will be entirely different for each student in the classroom. By allowing the students to do this, we as teachers are embracing diversity in our classroom, as well as recognizing it around the world. We are also integrating technology by allowing the students to play virtual games that keep them interested, but at the same time, learning important social studies topics.
I hope every one has a great week, and an awesome spring break!!
This week at Washington, I got to experience some pretty neat things. I saw something unique in my class where the teacher gave each of the students a dry erase marker and a sock. She then allowed them to write their math problems right on the desk and work everything out without using any paper. I definitely plan to use this idea in my future classroom because all of the kids loved it! Each student was engaged and working hard. It also gave them plenty of space to show all of their work without having to try to cram it all in a little section on a worksheet. For younger students who tend to write large, this is such a great way to help them get all of their information written down.
Also this week, we had our midyear PDP meetings. After meeting with Dr. Parker, I got redirected in the direction that I want to go in order to make sure I am benefiting from working to reach my goals. This week, I found an awesome website that really gets students engaged in social studies. It's called iCivics and students can play games that are directly related to social studies topics. For example, I played a game that put me as a presidential candidate, running the race to get elected to the White House. This connects to the NCTCS standards 2B and 4D. Students get to choose the issues that they care for or relate to, which will be entirely different for each student in the classroom. By allowing the students to do this, we as teachers are embracing diversity in our classroom, as well as recognizing it around the world. We are also integrating technology by allowing the students to play virtual games that keep them interested, but at the same time, learning important social studies topics.
I hope every one has a great week, and an awesome spring break!!
Thursday, March 2, 2017
Halfway There!
The weeks are flying by and I cannot believe we are almost to spring break! I have learned so much already this semester. This week at Washington, I got to help co-teach a Dr. Seuss lesson for Read Across America Week. It was so much fun to be in my first grade classroom and help the students with all of the fun activities that my group came up with. The students were so excited and it made me so happy when a little boy came up to me and asked if we could do another lesson again sometime soon. It was a very rewarding moment to say the least!
This week in class, we met online and we talked about TPACK and SAMR. These things are really about how we as teachers should bring technology into our classrooms in a beneficial way for our students. I had never really thought about this before, but just sending students to the computer lab or handing them iPads isn't really the best way to integrate technology. Instead, we need to be creating activities and lessons around technology in ways that today's learners will best benefit from. Like Dr. Parker said in the video, we don't want our students to go back in time in our classrooms. We want them to be in an environment where they can grow and learn. Just like standard 4D states in NCPTS, teachers integrate and utilize technology in their instruction. In my future classroom, I am going to be teaching students who were born in 2013. These kids have grown up with technology and I need to make sure I am including it for them in my class so that later on, they can benefit from living in the digital age.
While working on my SAMR ideas this week, I found a really neat app that I think would be good to use in the classroom. It is called ScuttlePad and it's a safe social media site for kids. It's basically like Facebook for ages 6 to 11. Students can create profiles, add friends, and join interest groups. It's free for kids and there are monitors that ensure it's a safe environment. Standard 2B states that teachers embrace diversity in the school community and in the world and Standard 3D states that teachers make instruction relevant to students. Using social media in the classroom is a way for kids to get connected to the world around them, and for teachers to make things relevant for their students. The majority of kids now have Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, so by giving students a website that is age appropriate, they can still be connected while also learning. I know that in my future classroom, I would love to have pen pals from around the country and around the world in order to give my students global understanding. This app makes it easy to do that.
This week in class, we met online and we talked about TPACK and SAMR. These things are really about how we as teachers should bring technology into our classrooms in a beneficial way for our students. I had never really thought about this before, but just sending students to the computer lab or handing them iPads isn't really the best way to integrate technology. Instead, we need to be creating activities and lessons around technology in ways that today's learners will best benefit from. Like Dr. Parker said in the video, we don't want our students to go back in time in our classrooms. We want them to be in an environment where they can grow and learn. Just like standard 4D states in NCPTS, teachers integrate and utilize technology in their instruction. In my future classroom, I am going to be teaching students who were born in 2013. These kids have grown up with technology and I need to make sure I am including it for them in my class so that later on, they can benefit from living in the digital age.
While working on my SAMR ideas this week, I found a really neat app that I think would be good to use in the classroom. It is called ScuttlePad and it's a safe social media site for kids. It's basically like Facebook for ages 6 to 11. Students can create profiles, add friends, and join interest groups. It's free for kids and there are monitors that ensure it's a safe environment. Standard 2B states that teachers embrace diversity in the school community and in the world and Standard 3D states that teachers make instruction relevant to students. Using social media in the classroom is a way for kids to get connected to the world around them, and for teachers to make things relevant for their students. The majority of kids now have Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat, so by giving students a website that is age appropriate, they can still be connected while also learning. I know that in my future classroom, I would love to have pen pals from around the country and around the world in order to give my students global understanding. This app makes it easy to do that.
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