I am student teaching in a 4th grade classroom for the whole semester. The teacher I am working with has been great! She made me a personalized lanyard for my ID and had a neat folder of important information that would help me get started. These included IEP/504 summaries and logins for the major applications used in the district. She has been very open and welcoming, as have been all the other staff so far. One of the 6th grade teachers even made my a personalized shirt!
This week was spent primarily observing the class. However, there were not many opportunities to observe direct teaching since the students began MAP testing the day I started. Also, teachers here do not begin submitting lesson plans until next week. Since the first 2 weeks are focused on relationship building, establishing routines and MAP testing, I can see the logic in this.Since it is not my style to just sit there, I jumped in and assisted or got involved wherever I could. I helped troubleshoot technology issues during Map testing, kept students on task and helped during activities, and performed various tasks for the teacher.
Although lessons haven't officially begun, I got to see students give oral presentations of their "all about me" puzzle pieces, read independently, and participate in various writing mini lessons and 4 science lessons. The highlight of this week was being asked to deliver the science lesson for our class yesterday and today. Since the science lesson is taught to the other 4th grade first, she figured it would be a good opportunity to have me try out. My teacher said it went well yesterday and asked me to continue today. So, beginning Monday I will be planning and delivering the science lessons!
My goals for this week were to learn all students' names, send out and receive signed permission slips for video recording, and become familiar with routines. I am happy to say that I had all 24 students names down on the first day! (I even had about 1/3 of the partner 4th grader's names memorized too! They come in daily for science while our class goes across the hall for social studies.) I also succeeded in sending a nice welcome letter and permission slip on Wednesday. As of today, I have gotten back 20 of 24 and all parents have given permission so far! As for learning routines, these are still emerging but I have become familiar with those currently established. So, I believe I have accomplished my goals for the week. My goals for the coming week are to plan and deliver quality science lessons, determine my EdTPA lesson set and dates of delivery, and introduce the class to the camera.
Classroom Confidential
I hope to use all of the intelligences in my teaching whenever possible. Of course, simultaneous use of them all is not always feasible. So I think it is important to ensure that the kinesthetic, body smart students are a focus. Since these students need movement to thrive, it will be imperative to have that needed movement on a daily basis.
I definitely plan to use Schmidt's whole brain learning approaches of building, patterns, experiments, show time, and publishing in my teaching. Although I would love to use them all, I imagine that the administration of the district I will be teaching in would have some say in this. It may be hard to make the case for imaginative play with students out of the primary grades. Who knows? I just know that the traditional paper and pencil work of my time is not feasible. It wasn't great for me then and it's not right for students now.
