Week 10 October 22-26, 2012

I just finished my 2^nd week at my PDS. Wow, time is really flying by, I only have 6 weeks left! This week at my PDS, I took notice of the collaboration among the teachers. Our PDS has new principal this year, and she has changed the whole schedule of the 2^nd grade. I thought since I had been with my mentor teacher before that this would be a piece of cake mainly because I already knew the schedule of the day. Well, everything has been changed!! We now have reading stations in the morning and math and more reading stations in the afternoon. This means there is over 5 new stations for math and reading each week! This is a ton of stuff to prepare for. Luckily, my mentor teacher said she would definitely help me when I start full time teaching because even she gets confused about the weird rotations we now have. There is only one other 2^nd grade classroom at my PDS. Since both 2^nd grade classrooms now have this new schedule, the two teachers really try to share resources and bounce ides off of one another, because let’s face it, there is a ton more planning to do now compared to the last time I was with the 2^nd grade! Collaboration makes their lives so much easier because they get to share their stations. I wouldn’t mind working with or even being a collaboration teacher. I worked with one at the middle school and my mentor teacher and I did a lot of co-teaching. The collaboration I see at the elementary school is different though, I se more of sharing resources than I do actual collaboration teachers, which I don’t think our school even has.

I also began my research study this week. It’s a lot more work than I thought it would be. I found it really difficult to fit in my vocabulary lessons for my research and all the other lessons we need to teach during the day. Luckily my mentor teacher is really flexible and allows me enough time to finish what I need to. I decided to look at 6 student’s work for my study. 3 girls, and 3 boys. I picked one boy and one girl each from the 3 reading groups; on level, above level, and below level. Unfortunately the girl student I picked from the at level reading group was absent from class during day 2 and day 3 of the this week’s vocabulary words. With this being the case, she missed the actual vocabulary lesson on Tuesday. I was out of town this week Thursday and Friday for a cross country meet, so my mentor teacher implemented my activities these days. I sent home day 1 and 2 activities with the student so she would still be able to complete them, I just may not use these in my data analysis and if I do I will make sure to note her activities were completed at home. I don’t have much to analyze yet because I have only conducted each activity one time and I am looking for comparisons among the activities.

One day this week we had a sub. This sub was no help at me all and it makes me feel bad for the students when there is a sub because their whole day is completely messed up. Even the students told my mentor teacher that the sub didn’t do anything all day. I ended up teaching the whole day, which was fine because I need and enjoy the experience, but the students definitely tried to see how far they could push my buttons. They were so chatty all day and it was really hard for me to get them to calm down. Turing the lights off didn’t work, giving them laps to walk at recess didn’t work, giving them slips didn’t work. Nothing. This is something I am going to talk to my mentor teacher about because it was very frustrating for me as a new teacher. My mentor teacher has told me many times that that class is very immature for 2^nd graders, and I definitely saw that when I was teaching the whole day. I had one student who cried 4 times throughout the day. One time because the gym teacher didn’t let the boys come into the building first. It was a very tiring day and at the end of the day I questioned if this was something I wanted to do all my life. I told myself that next year I will have my own classroom and I will be seen as the real teacher and hopefully my students will find more respect for me. The next day at school my mentor teacher told me that she noticed a huge difference with how the students approached me. She said she saw them coming to me instead of her and asking for my self and guidance. She said this was because I was the boss yesterday and they were starting to look at me like they look at her. This made me feel really good and that I actually did teach and make an impact on the students the day before. My mentor teacher also told me that the principal at our school complimented me on what a great a job I did with the students while Mrs. Wilson was away, so this was really good news!

Next week I begin week two of my research study and start teaching more math and reading, which I am really excited about. All my math lessons this week went very well and I am definitely more confident teaching the younger students now than I was when I was teaching the 2^nd grade last Spring!