My Progress

One of my learning goals is improving my classroom management skills. I have had a lot of opportunity to work on this this semester, and I feel I am improving and learning every day. The main thing I have done is to really pay attention to the things my mentor teacher does during class. The students in this class have various disabilities, so it is necessary to handle their behavior issues in different ways. Sometimes it feels very overwhelming to me becuase I feel like I can't control the class nearly as well as she does. I have learned to just keep changing my approach until I find something that works.

My second learning goal was to collect more inquiry data and document it better. This is still something I need to work on because I haven't been able to collect very much yet. My third goal was to get my lessons approved ahead of time. I have not written many of my own lessons thus far, so this is something I will continue to work on in the future.

I have not changed my practicum plan that much so far. I have had other assignments that were not listed on it such as journals and other random things that teachers assign. Some of the due dates were changed as well. My learning goals still remain the same and I am working on all three of them. Overall, I would rate myself as on track as far as completing the assignments go. I have turned in everything on time so far, and have managed my time enough that I could give each assignment enough attention and effort. I would like to be ahead of schedule, but at this point in time that is not the case.

Mentorship

Reflect on your work in your PDS this semester. How have you benefitted from the mentoring relationship you have with your mentor teacher? What actions have you taken to be sure that the mentoring relationship is beneficial to you both?

This semester, I have had an unusual experience in regards to mentorship. I started with one mentor teacher who retired part way through the semester and then I got a new mentor teacher. This experience has been very beneficial to me because I have got to see how two different people manage and run the same classroom. The thing I have found that helps the most in creating a relationship with both of these teachers is e-mail. It is so hard to find time during the school day to plan things or talk about things, so using e-mail is a great way to keep in touch. Both mentor teachers I have had have very different strategies in the classroom and personalities. I have had to adjust to find my role in the classroom after the first teacher retired, and it has made me see that different situations require different actions and attitudes. The best part of this semester was seeing that a classroom can be run very differently, but still teach the students.

Wikis

In completing the wiki assignment, I learned a lot about the process of actually completing something like this online. It was difficult to figure out how to do some of the things, but after playing around with it I was able to find some really fun things like adding a YouTube video. I realized that when doing something like this with a classroom of students, you should know all the technical aspects of it because if the teacher doesn't understand it, its going to be a mess. Another thing I learned was how many different ways you could use a wiki. For example, in science you could make a wiki with different projects, you could use it for vocab words, or you could use it in math for different projects. It gives us a whole new way to present material or assess students while using technology.

My favorite part of the wiki is the pictures. We took pictures around the school, but we also included pictures of ourselves. Two of the girls in my group went to the Buckwheat Festival and took pictures, and we also have a video of the Bruceton Dam. I think the pictures really show what the school is like and how the community is. Another thing I liked that we did was interviewing the principal and the teacher education coordinator. I think this was an original idea and I enjoyed getting to know them better. Hope you enjoy our wiki!! :)

Blog 3

What are some benefits and limitations of incorporating technology into a teachers' instructional day?


There are many benefits to using technology, but if used inappropriately or incorrectly, the limitations can outweigh the the benefits. For example, using a SmartBoard is a great way to incorporate technology. Students love to use it because it is interactive, and it gets them involved in the lessons. I have witnessed (more than once) teachers trying to use the SmartBoard and not knowing how. They took valuable class time trying to figure out how to use it and never really did. It wasted time and frustrated the students and the teacher. Some of them had no back-up plan and so the lesson was ruined. The middle school I went to had 2 SmartBoards. I never saw them being used as anything but a projection screen/ dry erase board. The teachers were given the boards and not given any training on how to use them, and so they were a pointless waste of money. It would be very beneficial to teachers to have training workshops on how to use the technology. Especially for older teachers who did not grow up with computers like we did, the task of just "figuring it out" is nearly impossible.

Another way to use technology would be for grading purposes. This is extremely useful because it can organize everything for you and give averages, etc. without ever having to use a calculator. However, teachers should always have a back-up grade book because computers are known for crashing and everything will get lost. In my high school there was an older teacher who had been teaching for many, many years. He absolutely refused to use the computers to do his grading. He would only use his gradebook and calculator to do grades. The administration would get frustrated with him, but he was not willing to change what had worked for him for years. In this situation, it really was easier to just let him use his gradebook than try to teach him to use the computer!

A good example of technology use was used by my Pre-calculus teacher in 11th grade. He had a system that allowed the notes on the board to be saved onto the computer. Then, if someone was absent or missed any of the notes, he could print them out instead of having to copy everything and re-teach it. He also had a type of clicker that we played games with kind of like the clickers here at WVU.

When used correctly technology is a great thing. Students need to know how to use it because it will be a big part of their lives. I do not think that we should be totally dependent on it, however, because technical malfunctions do occur. One of the most important things I have learned about technology is to always have a back up plan just in case!

My question to you is how much should we be reliant on technology and is there a point at which we are too reliant on it?

Spring 2010 Blog 2

In week four we talked about responsive teachers and differentiation. I am placed in a Special Education classroom and so these two things are especially important. Many of these students have situations that are different from their peers and they deal with different things such as impairments, learning disabilities, etc. A responsive teacher can react to situations and be understanding of what the students are going through. A part of this is differentiation. Many of the students that have learning disabilities did not succeed in the general education curriculum, and that is why they are placed in Special Education. Ms. Waugh does different activities with them that are at their level. This way, they do not become as frustrated and can improve more quickly. The first week I was in the classroom, the students had 10 spelling words, whereas their general education peers had 20. The students are now worked up to 15 or 20 words and are doing great with them. It took them a few weeks to not feel overwhelmed, and now they are doing well. This is a good example of being a responsive teacher as well as differentiation.

I have also witnessed other forms of being a responsive teacher. Ms. Waugh has a few students with ADHD. This means they are full of energy and loves hands-on activities. Instead of having these students do worksheets, they do other activities. To learn how to alphabetize, the students used magnetic words and took turns walking up to the board and placing their word in alphabetical order with the other words. An activity used to learn vocabulary was flashcards used with race cars. Each student had a car on the "race track" and got to move it one space for each word they got correct from the flashcards. The students loved the cars and wanted to win the race and so they put forth a lot of effort.

Like in general education, the students in special education are not all on the same levels. Ms. Waugh gave the students different stories on different levels in order to suit their own needs. They didn't know that one was harder and one was easier, they just knew they were different. This is important for the sake of the child's self-esteem. I think Ms. Waugh does a great job of this. I have never heard any student make fun of another no matter how much the student struggled. I believe this is one of the reasons the students are so successful in this special education classroom because they are not afraid to try.

Teachers who do the same thing every year, every day despite the students are not responsive. The students will not be as successful in this type of environment. Being responsive and differentiating is essential if you want ALL students to succeed.

Post 1

In Education 400 and some of our other classes, we have talked a lot about differentiting instruction. I am currently placed in a Special Education classroom so there is a lot of this going on. Each student has his/her own IEP and special lessons that the teacher has set up for them. My question is, how much can you change the lesson or accomodate for the student?

In the classroom I was in last semester, some of the students had trouble with spelling and so they only had a list of 10 words rather than a list of 20 like the rest of the students. When I was doing my volunteering hours, there was a child with an emotional/behavioral disorder who refused to do a lot of his work. When he did do his work, he was not penalized for missed problems as much as the other students. While I do believe that differentiating is important and accomodation is absolutely necessary, I just wonder how far you can take it before it becomes unfair to the other students who are required to do more work. Also, do the other students notice that some of their peers are not required to do as much work or get easier versions of the assignments?

We have heard a lot about students "falling through the cracks" of the school system and getting passed through school without learning much. I fear that if the assignments are modified too much, the student will become used to not doing the same things, and come to expect that they do not have to do as much. In this case, they will just keep getting passed on and on without having learned as much as their peers. I think this would also be a case of "falling though the cracks," because the focus is on promoting them to the next grade rather than having seen that they have learned everything they are supposed to. So how then as a teacher or special educator can we ensure that our accomodations aren't actually debilitating the student and cause them to become reliant on these changes?

Lessons Learned

Throughout my time at the PDS, I have learned a lot of different things... some of them things I did not expect to learn. Because I am specializing in Special Education, I paid close attention to the students who had special needs. I learned different ways to adapt the curriculum in order to benefit these students. For example, one student struggled with spelling so instead of doing the full 20 words, she only did 10 per week. This gave her a better chance at being successful on the tests. Another student had a hearing impairment. The teacher wore a microphone in class and the student also had an aid that used sign language with her to ensure that she would be able to understand everything the teacher was saying. Some of the students had a lot of energy that could have possibly been used to disrupt the class. Halfway through the lesson, if she could see students getting restless, she had everyone stand up and do stretches. This not only helped the students who were physically restless, but also the students who were frustrated with the work because it gave them a break. Although this is something simple, it really helped a lot of the students to refocus.

The second lesson I learned was the importance of incorporating real-world scenarios/ issues into the classroom. When the students first enter the classroom they all use hand sanitizer. They have been warned about the dangers of the H1N1 (Swine Flu) virus. Before the Buckwheat Festival, which most students were attending, they discussed how important it was to apply hand sanitizer and wash your hands thoroughly in order to prevent germs from spreading. Although this did not have to do with the curriculum, it was important for the students to know. She also talked with them about making sure they did not walk alone at the Festival. For middle schoolers, this is very important and probably was not addressed elsewhere. Some days, the students are given the opportunity to read newspapers if they finish early. It was interesting to hear the students discussing the articles in the paper and for me to realize how impressionable they are. For example, one day the students were reading about WVU's football player Scooter Berry getting arrested for fighting with police. They at first thought it was funny. When the teacher began discussing it with them, they saw how it was a problem and that it was not something to be proud of. Things like this build character and life skills which I realize are important, as well as the content of the class.

The third thing I learned was about motivation. We talk about motivation a lot in EDUC 311 and 301. It is always the question of "How?" How can we motivate students in class and keep them attentive? I saw different methods of motivation in the PDS. The schoolwide incentive program used tickets. When a student got a ticket, it would go in the drawing for the prize at the end of the week. The ticket system was not used in the middle school classroom that much. I think this was a good idea because they would eventually become bored with it, unlike the younger students who would keep striving for the tickets. Grades were mostly used as incentive and this seemed to work pretty well for the students. They took Accelerated Reader tests and when a student got a 100% they were extremely proud of themselves. They wanted to tell everyone. Something as simple as the teacher telling them they were doing a good job on an assignment was enough to make them keep trying. One student earned a certificate and could not stop smiling about it. I learned that incentive does not have to be anything big and elaborate. In fact, most of the time it isn't and this works well.

If I can learn to incorporate these three things into my own classroom one day, I will have a good start to classroom management and being a successful teacher.