Week 16 December 10-12

This was my last week at my PDS. I spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday at my school co-teaching with my mentor teacher and running errands around the school. I was so sad when I had to leave on Wednesday. I didn’t know how much of an impact the students had had on me or how much of an impact I had on my students. I became very comfortable in my classroom and was able to take charge when I needed to. The experience I have had this past semester is invaluable to me. I was so lucky to be given the opportunity to spend so much time in the classroom and experience what being a real teacher is like, along with the many different things (good or bad) that occur in the classroom everyday.

This week I got the opportunity to sit in with our speech teacher and observe her testing a student for a learning disability. The child was a student in my class so it was really cool for me to watch him and see the ending results of his test. This particular student ended up being right in the middle of the level the teacher was screening him for. This meant that he was not eligible for more screening for a learning disability. My mentor teacher, the speech teacher, and I were both very disappointed with the results because this student has an obvious problem in reading.

Overall, I have learned so much from my mentor teacher and students in my classroom. I was very lucky to have a mentor teacher that gave me full control of the classroom and helped me plan lessons and helped me with anything else I may have needed. I am looking forward to next semester with my release days in which I will be acting as sub in the classroom. I believe this semester gave me the experience and confidence I need to have my own classroom one day. Getting up in front of the class and teaching is no longer scary for me and has become easier and easier. I used to be so nervous teaching, however, now it has become so normal for me. I am grateful for the teacher education program I am and the experience I have been given through the PDS.

Week 15 Dec 3-7, 2012

This was my final week of full time teaching and implementing my study. The biggest challenged I faced was planning lessons, teaching, and collecting data and analyzing it all at the same time! I was overwhelmed often with trying to balance everything. However, I did it! I found planning lessons becoming easier and easier as the week went by. Even though I only did full time teaching for 3 weeks at each of my placements, I do think it would have been even easier come week 6! This week was crazy with all different activities going on everyday! On Monday, we had a two-hour early dismissal, which means our schedule was all switched around and we didn’t have afternoon stations. On Tuesday, about an hour of our day was spent waiting for and attending a school wide puppet show that the students really enjoyed! On Thursday we had a filed trip to the CAC to see Aladdin. The field trip was so fun for the kids, but absolutely exhausting for me and the other teachers! On this day we only had afternoon reading and math stations. So, with all the crazy scheduling, I had to be really flexible with our time and had to make sure I planned activities that we needed to get done, like the spelling test and my vocabulary lessons.

I am starting the findings section of my research paper and it is so much work! I decided that I would look at each students activities according to week, and then look at the entire week and see if there were any improvements from the words the students missed on the pre-test on Monday and their change during the week. Second, I decided I would look at the individual activities with all the students and examine them for any change. Did they show improvements or not? Was there an activity where they showed success or one they did not? The final thing I decided I would do is look to see if there was a particular activity in which all students succeeded or did not succeed.  I am still going through this process. However, I did find one interesting thing. My below level male participant is able to show his understanding and knowledge of the words through his illustrations pretty easily. However, when it comes to showing his knowledge through writing or representing the words in a journal entry or sentence, he really struggles. The above level female student was very consistent with her vocabulary words. She either never missed a word on the pre-test, or she missed one. Her pictures and definitions were always correct. The only area I would say she needs improvements would be coming up with original words that mean the same thing as the vocabulary words. I believe she should be able to come up with creative words, but she needs more practice with words that mean the same thing.

Next week I will be at my PDS Monday through Wednesday. During this time I will be sitting in with the speech teacher/ IEP coordinator to observe some testing of a student in my class. I am really looking forward to this! I will also be scheduling some of my release days for next semester. I’m really going to miss my students. I have become so comfortable with teaching them and I know for sure now that I can be an effective teacher! I was terrified at the beginning of this semester, but I have really come to see that this is something I love doing and I will miss my students dearly!