Final Blog!

As the semester is starting to come to a close, I have found myself incredibly busy with all of the end of year work. One thing I have been working on completing is my clinical experiences for all of my classes. In doing that, I have learned a lot and found out that I really enjoy being in first grade! One thing that I did with my students was a lesson on how people impact the environment. We read a book that focused on how one boy changed his community by starting a garden. Then, we discussed the different things that we do that either help or hurt the environment. I also assigned an art activity for the students to do in order to show that they understood how they could help the environment. It was really exciting to see the students work hard on their projects, and in the end, I saw that they had thought of some really great ideas on how they could help the environment. This content area connects with Standard 3: Teachers make instruction relevant to students. Caring for the environment is something that is really relevant for students today because the environment is a big topic in the news and classroom.

I have also been working on my unit plan and trying hard to get it finished and make it the best it can be. In doing that, I feel that I am much more confident on assigning performance tasks to my students as well as taking two concepts, and tying them together to make a unit for my students. I know that in my future classroom, this will be a helpful technique when I teach my students different content areas and will have to connect different standards.

Overall, I am excited that the semester is coming to an end. It has been a crazy and hectic year and I'm excited for summer break. But before that can happen, I know that we all have to finish strong. So good luck everyone!

Almost There!

It's so crazy to think that we only have a few weeks left this semester. Needless to say, the work has definitely been catching up to me! This week, we have been presenting our flipped lessons for everyone. This has been really fun to watch because it is giving us great practice teaching in front of our students one day. One thing that I enjoyed about the flipped lesson plan was that it gave students more responsibility. It also gives students the chance to get their parents more involved. Part of standard 2 states that teachers work collaboratively with the families and significant adults in a students' life. I know that in my future classroom, I want to have good communication with my parents. I want them to always feel like they are an intricate part in their children's education because they are. I know that if my parents are involved, then my students will have more success. A flipped lesson may be the way to do this.

We also had our virtual field trip projects due this week and I had learned a lot from this experience. I realize that there is a lot that goes into planning a field trip, even just a virtual one. I know that in the future I will be in charge of planning field trips so I'm grateful for the practice now! One thing that I included in my virtual field trip was a ThingLink. I saw this first in our mock classroom on Blackboard and thought that I would include it in my virtual museum. It was really easy to create one, and I thought that this would be a great resource for us all to have in our future classrooms. Specifically for social studies, this is a good tool to use for maps. Teachers can include information about different areas of maps that are important to know. It gives students an easy way to learn details about specific places on a map. ThingLink also connects to standard 4 of the NCPTS in that teachers use a variety of instructional materials. If you use ThingLink for maps, not only are students being able to look at maps, but they aren't just gaining information from a textbook. They are using technology to learn more about specific places and things.