Week One

 

01.17.12          Day 1

First day of school today; I am nervous but ready to get started. There are only 22 students in the class, 2 with limited inclusion. Went around the school and met the other teachers, staff, and principle. I would like to have more time to talk to Mr. Burtrum in the future. No lack of time this semester. I like the school; it is warm and welcoming, with large classrooms and big windows, and the best playground in Kalispell.

Today I observed Mary Lloyd for half the day. She had an appointment in the afternoon. It’s interesting to watch her management strategies. There seems to be a lot of student-centered reflection and responsibility, which I like, but there also seems to be more ‘free time’ on the students part. I was struck by how much freedom they were given. Maybe this is because there was a sub today.

01.18.12         Day 2

Second day I felt more comfortable in our classroom, am learning the personalities of students, and finding my voice in this class. In the morning I observed our small reading group have a discussion about paragraphs they have been working on. Mary did a great job leading the discussion and giving prompts when the students needed it. Also, the students gave insightful feedback to their peers. During math I gave individual support while Mrs. Lloyd instructed the whole class. For math we spilt the students between two teachers, in our class there are 23 students who are near proficient or above and the novice students go to a different classroom. This type of differentiated learning is great, so much easier to teach one level rather than three.

It has been a different transition to Mary’s class from my experience at Lolo. I went from a classroom that needed repeated management because of amount of students and their personalities to a school where there is little need for teacher management. The students self-manage and there are not many in the class. It’s a strange transition from managing students to pushing them to their full potential. Don’t get me wrong, I always try to push students but theses kids can be pushed further. It is exciting to start thinking of all the lessons we can do!

Kathy Dunnehoff came in this afternoon and did a wonderful presentation on writing and what it means to be a writer. We all practiced working on creating a story plot line. Reading the student ideas was fun. Getting some creativity in the classroom breaks up the monotony of the math-reading-math-reading cycle. Bring on more!! Kathy left a lemonhead writing prompt for the students to do at a later date.

Another aspect of Mary’s class that is different is the schedule. We teach all the subjects so cross curriculum lessons happen often. It’s fun to create a lesson or unit that touches on all our content areas.

01.19.12         Day 3

Things were a little overwhelming for me today. I experienced the students self-monitoring and freedom to the max this afternoon. There were about four different activities happening varying from cleaning out and organizing desks (yikes!), self-grading, using a rubric, a large social studies/writing project, and catching up on other work. I am glad to experience this type of organized chaos because it shows me that students can bring it back, sometimes. Our class is really good at being able to regroup after a chaotic activity and move to a group activity.

Math zips by each day, which is nice. I like being able to assist students while Mary is teaching the whole group. I can monitor the progress of individuals as she moves forward. It is great having two teachers; I am learning how to present difficult concepts in ways I would never have thought of and the students get two different examples. It is exciting to think about how much we can cover working together. My experience with co-teaching has only been positive. This semester will be a good one!

01.20.12         Day 4

In the mornings we have a short motivational clip from Rusty about overcoming bullying and keeping it out of our schools. The students seem to really take to his message and tools. I’ll have to remember Rusty for my classroom.

More assisting during division today but I had three students ‘get it’ while I was working with them. That was an awesome feeling; knowing that I helped make sense of the world for a student makes the hard days worth it (never forget that).

This afternoon I observed IXL math on the computers. It seems a bit of a waste of valuable technology time, but some students really need all the practice and time they can get working on math facts. It doesn’t seem to be happening at home.

We did the lemonhead writing prompt this morning. Students were to describe a lemonhead with as much detail as possible. I head a lot of giggles and whispers between students and saw wide smiles. In the afternoon the students read their stories to the class. It was so fun and creative. I love using prompts that make students really observe the world around them. We do need to work on varying sentence beginnings and transitions, but that’s for a later day.