Week 11

Well, now I know why I felt fatigued most of last week (and am still battling it now)...it was illness (not EdTPA)! I has a fever that went up to 102.6 from Sunday through Tuesday morning. So, I missed teaching on Monday and Tuesday 😞 and feel I did not pay close enough attention to final details on EdTPA before submission. Luckily, I had to view every item on Pearson before the final submission, because I had forgotten one of the assessments! I will happily accept your prayers for a passing score! 

When I returned on Wednesday, I was surprised to be greeted with such enthusiasm and hugs from the students. With it being the week of Halloween and a field trip, there was a lot going on. On Halloween, we still managed to pull some science into the celebration. Students from both 4th grade classes came together to complete a STEM challenge. They worked in groups of 3 to build structures from toothpicks and candy corn. Here's one of them...

Then, we had a field trip to the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum by Lincoln Park Zoo on Friday. This tied in well to our unit on vertebrates and invertebrates. We began by having a class that dealt with observation of "Red Wiggler" worms and their behavior.

Then, the students got to visit the various exhibits of the museum, which were awesome!

Water current exploration

Butterfly observatory "Oh wow, it landed on me!"

Butterfly observatory

Live snake show

Brave students touch the snake

My goals for the coming week are to continue doing what I can to enhance my students' learning for the last few week I will have with them, and to start looking into school districts and teaching opportunities for after graduation.

Classroom Confidential

This chapter highlights some important points regarding effective communication with parents. Schmidt's 10 essentials of effective communication are a great guide in this respect. It is also amazing to learn how many cultural considerations there are regarding communication. For example, I never knew that showing the sole of your shoe when crossing your legs is offensive to some Middle Eastern cultures or that the number 4 is associated with death and bad luck in Korean culture. It will be important to consider these ideas when encountering seemingly unusual communication behavior with multicultural parents.

This week's reading comes at a good time, considering that parent teacher conferences are just around the corner. I was considering the use of a student "self survey" already and this reinforced the idea. I intend to be ready with positive insights, work samples, and notes to support my observations. However, I will be sure to set boundaries and be prepared in the event of a disgruntled parent. I am very glad to have this as a reference when conferences come up on the 25th and 26th.