Over all GLT reflection

     Over all my GTL experience was okay. It had its highs and lows. There were days where I thought my lessons went really well and others where I thought my kids were not listening to a word I was saying. One of my biggest struggles through these couple weeks was getting my student to see me as a teacher and not a high school student. My students do not act out when my mentor is in the room but as soon as she walks out for a second the students think it is a free for all. I had to have a couple talks with the class and remind them that I am also a teacher and they need to respect me like they do Theresa. Eventually I started being sterner with them, making them flip cards or miss recess when they disrespected me.

     Another low point was any time I asked the students to write. I would model how they should write and explain my thinking. I would go through the whole lesson and many students would have no clue what to write even though my example was still on the board. It got to the point where any time I asked them to take out their writing journal I got a bunch of moans and groans. They lost motivation to write because these stories were too difficult for them. My class has very low reading levels and they are attempting to read something that is far above it. It was a struggle but adding a few days to my GLT time really helped.  They did so much better when they had more time to work with the story. We were able to read it more and go over more of the vocabulary they didn’t understand.

     One of the highs was during my formal observation. My kids were on their best behavior and they loved the activity I had planned. It was a review for their test and I thought for sure I was going to get a bunch of moans and groans but they loved it. It was rough at first trying to get kids to participate but after the first few students went and they started to get a hang of it they really enjoyed it. This is definitely something I will use in the future as a review. 

Reflection 11/4-11/8

This past week my class was working on writing how to stories.  All of the students could tell me what they know how to do, but then when it came to writing it down, they seemed to struggle a bit to communicate the same focus and direction in their writing.  Some of my students were able to write great stories.  My main focus this week was the ordering of information.  However next week adding details will be the main focus.  My students always try to tell me that they are done, so adding more detail will allow them to see that they are not done so quickly.  Additionally, I still need to reiterate the "rules for writing time" with the students in a different way because my students still do not do so and challenge me.

Additionally, the main thing on my mind after this week is conferences.  It was interesting to just sit and listen to the conferences.  It was great to see my MT discuss the report card, and respond to questions.  I did not say to much during the conferences, I mainly just smiled and nodded.  If however a parent was concerned with their students writing or mathematics abilities I chimed in just mentioned what we have been doing and what we are panning to do.  It was interesting to sees one of my students come in alone or with their siblings and interact; some of the quite, well behaved students were bouncing off of the wall and some of the louder rambunctious students were calm and settled.

This week was a huge learning experience and eye opener to my future career.  After this week I am really looking forward to making more connections with my students and for my future career.

Week 3 Reflection

               This is my final week of guided lead teaching, though I will be keeping writing instruction and adding reading instruction to my workload after this week. A lot of the same things are happening this week as last week. I’m continually frustrated with the multiple schedule changes (half days, holidays, etc) and am trying to learn ways to plan and implement around those unavoidable changes so as to disrupt the learning process as little as possible.

           This week all my students were making how-to stories. Due to the nature of this assignment, I didn’t have as much trouble with the students being at different spots, or all wanting my attention. This was a project my students were able to complete with more independence, and I also always had prompts available for those who finished early which decreased the clamor for my attention.

            Something I am frustrated with this week, is the lack of direction with the writing curriculum at my school—mainly is that there really isn’t one. I’m supposed to be taking over the writing for the remainder of the school year, and besides a few CCSS I have no real idea what the students should be learning, how they should be learning it, and how to teach it. I’ve gone to my mentor for help but honestly, they are as lost as we are with the whole curriculum thing.  This week I ‘m hoping to really scour the internet and teacher stores for some good, interactive writing projects that my kids can complete.

         As far as my unit as a whole went—I’m still doing it!! Due to the half day schedules and election day, I lost three days of writing last week so our project is still on-going. My hope is that my students will finish on Monday and share on Tuesday.

        As far as my core practice went—I think that I learned some good ways to conference with students (through trial and error) and still have the class function smoothly. I also think that I need to work on exactly how to conference with students this age and what is developmentally appropriate for them. Along the same lines, I think that editing/revision strategies may have been to high of a goal for students of this developmental level—it is something we set a foundation for, but ultimately something I think they would be more ready to handle in the spring.

I’ll update after my unit actually ends!  I’m really looking forward to the kids being able to share their work with the class. 

Week Two reflections

The eighth was supposed to mark the end of week 2 for our guided lead teaching. After talking with my mentor, other third grade inters, and their mentors it was decided that we needed to extend our unit to last another three days. When we started this unit we noticed many students were struggling. The text that we were reading was above most of their reading levels and they did just not comprehend. On top of that we had one day of no school and three half days. We couldn’t teach all that we wanted in a way that they could understand in that shortened amount of time. After much adjustment to our lesson plans we finally worked out a plan and a time frame.  

                On the 1^st of November I decided that the students would write a constructive response. After I modeled how to write one most kids did very well. They were able to take the ideas that we came up with in class and put them in their own words to answer the question. Some also did a great job taking details from the text to support their answer. There were a few students who struggled. They would find anything they wanted in the book and add it to their writing even though it had nothing to do with the question that I asked. After this lesson I was a little nervous to teach them how to write a summary.

On Monday we did a review for the test that we would have on Monday. I decided to switch my plans around and have them write a summary of the beginning, middle, and end. I figured this would be a good way for them to remember important details from the text and it was a great way to model how to write a summary. Some students did very well with this. They knew they had to put the main points of the story in their summary and leave out the juicy details. Other students really struggled. They kept putting detail after detail and their writing was getting too long. It was not until after they started writing that I realized that I should have told them they had to pretend they were telling their friend about this book. They do not need to tell them every bit of the story they just need to give the basics.

On Tuesday the students did not have school so on Wednesday they took the reading test. A few did very well. Most of the class scored a 70% or above. This was a real tough story for them and I am proud of how well they did with a story that is way above their reading level. The main thing they had trouble with was the vocabulary. Reflecting back on it now that should have been something that was included in the review but we just did not have time for it. I would rather have them comprehend the story than memorize a few vocabulary words.

We started our new lesson on Thursday which was a half day so I had to cut parts out of the original lesson. We started a new story and the kids were very excited to finally be done with the previous story. I started reading part of the story with them and drawing upon their background knowledge. We also went over the new vocabulary words. Afterwards, when we were playing the vocab game, I could really see that the kids were struggling with these words. Again this story was way above most of their reading levels. The kids loved the game but I think it would be better if I used it a couple days after learning the words. After one read and review of the words they were not ready for this game.

On Friday we had a half day so I had to cut my lessons down to fit the new time frame. We read through the story and I had the kids answer some comprehension questions. I felt a little more confident with this story. They seem to understand this story way more than the previous. I actually had kids raising their hands to answer questions which was a rarity before.

Week 2 Reflection

• • What students learned and which students struggled with the lesson.  
• • What are alternate interpretations of your students’ performance or products? 
• • What did you learn about your students’ literacy practices that extend beyond your objectives?
• • When and how will you re-teach the material to students who need additional support? 
• • If you were to teach this same lesson again, what would you do differently and how do you think the changes would improve students’ learning?

What did you learn so far about implementing your ‘core practice’ and what do you need to do to continue your professional learning? 

My unit plan required my students to work with their partners a lot.  So, I chose to focus on shared writing as my core practice. However, I felt that the more we started to work with the same partner, the worse the workshops went. All of my students started with great small moment stories, once we began to introduce their blue writing pens, and the red editing pens, their stories began to take a turn for the worst. Students began crossing off every part of their story, adding in words, punctuation, and random things that did not go along with their story. 

The first unit of Writer's Workshop has students writing small moment stories, and then towards the end (the lessons I taught) had the students editing their pieces. We have been editing everything from spelling, punctuation, readability, capital and lower case letters, spaces, etc. However, many students who really didn't have problems with their stories ended up assuming they needed to be fixing something in their story and ended up ruining it.  There were very few students who did not completely destroy their stories. I think many of them got excited about the blue pens and red editing pens that they wanted a chance to use them any way they could. 

After looking back at the last few lessons as a whole, I am starting to think that the students should have only been given one story booklet to write on and edit. I think having multiple stories distracted them, and didn't give them the opportunity to focus on perfecting one. They almost seemed to race each other to see who had the most stories written. 

I was very frustrated because I felt that my teaching was the problem. However, my MT kept reminding me that they wont always get the concept the first time around. They are very young and very immature. 

Another thing I would like to change if I were to re-teach this lesson again, is to change partners every day. I know that they want students to get comfortable working with the same partner, but many students complained every day saying "I've already read their story so many times" or "I don't like hearing their story anymore." The students began to get too comfortable with one another and instead of giving compliments and positive suggestions they were giving rude comments. It was very upsetting and it was difficult to keep everyone positive. However, I asked my MT about switching partners and she didn't seem to agree with me. 

My lessons weren't ALL bad. I had a few students who wrote very detailed stories and seemed to understand the objective everyday. These students worked well with the blue pens and red editing pens because they have worked with them before. However, I think we should introduce the pens before the students even begin writing. I think this will allow them to grow comfortable with them and not be so distracted by them by the time editing comes around. 

I would like to look more into mini lessons for editing. I don't really like the writer's workshop lessons very much and would like to research different ideas for implementing these concepts into younger classrooms. 

Week 2 Reflection

This past week was interesting, with Halloween and half days school work and calm kids were harder to find.  I have had some difficulty trying to finish our SCARED STORIES since everyone writes at different paces, as well as having different strengths and weaknesses.  Some students finished with time to spare while others are still working on them.  We have started a new type of writing now, How To.  We are using the words first, next, then and last to guide our stories.  We were able to practice together by writing how to get ready for recess and how to go trick-or-treating.  The kids were engaged and interested in writing these how to stories because they were things they love to do!  This coming week each student will write a how to story about doing something.  In the end of this lesson we compile their story into a book and each student will have the opportunity to share their story to the class.

During writing there is still a LOT of chatter and unfocused students.  Before writing everyday I reiterate the "rules for writing time"  but they never seem to oxide by them, this is becoming frustrating for me.  This week I will be implementing 2 maybe even 3 differ ideas for classroom management:
Making writing rules with the class, they will come up with the rules, I will write them down and I'll have everyone sign it.
A tattle box where students can write or draw a picture of something that happened that they really want/"need" to tell me about
Classroom dojo
I think with these new ideas the students will see me as a teacher more, challenge me less and focus more during work time.  I see improvement in my students writing and in my ability to wander around the room and check in with more students.  I am very happy since in the beginning I would get stuck with one student or one table during the whole writing time, but now I can conference with more in the same amount of time.

2nd Reflection (Week of Oct. 28)

This week we finished our “spooky stories.” Overall, I think my kids really liked the idea of the story, and I got some really creative and interesting stories out of them.  My fear from last week did happen—I had a handful of students finish their stories at the beginning of the week and the rest finished at different a different pace. I still have 2 students who need to finish because of the interruption of Halloween, a half day, and a fireman visit earlier this week. The first time I conference with my students, I sat at one table and had them come to me. BIG MISTAKE. This made the kids think that they had to come to me for every spelling question, conference question, and every thought that popped into their mind. I found them to be distracted, constantly coming up to me, distracting others while waiting in line, and generally unproductive this day. So, the next day I said that I would go from table to table and they were to stay in their seats and keep writing until I came to them.  I also reminded them that I wanted them to sound out their words for these first few days—we wouldn’t worry about spelling until the final paper. This worked much better. There were still a few that would come up to me, but a quick few reminders is all it took to get them seated and working again.

Overall I think writing went well this week. I think editing their own work is something that is still a bit beyond them. They were very frustrated by it, and right now correct spelling just isn’t something they are ready for developmentally nor is it an expectation in my classroom. I would like to revisit this in the spring and work on it then once they have become more comfortable with sustained writing.