Sunday, November 10, 2013

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. 

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