Blog Assignment #10

Blog Prompt: How can curriculum mapping assist you? Do you have one? Does your school/district curriculum map? Where would/will you start in creating a useful curriculum map for your

classroom?  

 

Curriculum mapping would really help me navigate the digital curriculum my school uses.  As it is, the units are arranged by genre and reading skills.  It seems that we could choose any order in which to complete them.  It would be helpful to have a map laid out in some logical sequence.  We currently do not have a map of this kind.  My administrator has asked me to help create one and I plan to do so.

Blog Assignment #9

Blog Prompt: Do you differentiate instruction? Why? Why Not? What is the important for differentiating instruction?  What impact does it have on student learning? 

I always differentiate instruction because I have students that are far below grade level and content must be broken down in order for them to understand it.  If you don't differentiate, you are not effectively teaching your students.  You have to consider their strengths, weaknesses, and interests when planning lessons.  For example, if the general curriculum asks you to teach the concept of main idea and gives you an article about baseball on the seventh grade level, but your students are on a fifth grade level and you know that many of them love football, you can change the article to be something more engaging or chunk it in a way that it is not overwhelming.  Differentiating makes it possible for kids to access the content and material and engages them because material is at an appropriate level.

 

Blog Assignment #8

Blog assignment #8: How prepared do you feel in effectively teaching your students in reading?  Is this one of your strengths?  A weakness?

Have you started to plan to the Common Core Standards?  If you have, how is that going?  If you haven’t, why not?  What support do you need? 

Before I began this program I taught Language Arts for 10 years.  Because of that, I am familiar with a lot of teaching methods and strategies when it comes to teaching reading and writing. Still, every student is different and it can still be challenging to pick the best ways to go about reading a text for a student.  Overall, I am confident in my ability to teach reading.

I always use the CCSS to teach reading, writing, and discussion.  I find it to be a great support in breaking down exactly what I am asking students to do.

 

Blog Assignment #7

Blog Assignment #7: When using technology with your students, what are your challenges?  Strengths? What could be done to increase your usage of technology in the classroom?  

One of my challenges with technology is that students can easily go off task by opening up a new web page.  Often we will be talking about something relevant and then the student will say, "Let me just show you this site" and soon I am talking them out of going off task.  Of course, technology can be completely helpful as well, allowing you to easily provide some visuals to support instruction.  I currently use technology on almost a daily basis.

Blog assignment #6

Blog assignment #6: Reflect on your use of assessment in the classroom. On a scale of 1 – 10, ten being highest, how would you rate yourself. What are your plans for becoming a “10” if you are not there already? How are you using assessment in the classroom to guide your instruction?   Describe how assessment results are used to differentiate instruction within your class.” 

 

 

I would rate my use of assessment as an 8.  I use formative assessment everyday to determine whether material needs to be retaught or presented in a different way.  I look at each student's work and decide what scaffolds are needed to support comprehension and verbal and written expression.  I also notice students who can be pushed to think and work at higher levels and create opportunities for them to do so.  I also use formal assessments periodically for more concrete measurements of growth.  My weakest point is stepping back and analyzing the assessments to determine specific areas of growth and weaknesses that still need to be addressed with each individual student.  

Assignment #5

Assignment #5 - “What are you doing to meet the needs of your special education students? How are you interacting with the regular education teachers? What steps can you take to assist your students if they are mainstreamed into the regular education classroom?”  

All of my students have IEPs.  To make sure I am meeting their needs, I read their IEPs carefully and create lessons and activities that meet their specific needs.  For example, one of my students goals is to be able to identify the mood of a passage.  While we don't teach this everyday, I do make it a point to revisit this topic and assess her understanding of it regularly.  At some point, some of my students will be returning to the regular education classroom.  When this time comes, we can work on some of their executive functioning skills as they will get less support with so many more kids in the class.

  

Assignment #4

Blog assignment #4: “Reflect on your time in the classroom to this point. How are you feeling emotionally, physically? Do you feel that you are getting through to your most difficult students? What strategies are working? What strategies are not? What are your next steps with student engagement within your classroom?”

Overall, I fell strong emotionally and physically. Every day has its ups and downs.  There are some moments where I feel like I'm really making a difference and their are moments where I feel like I haven't made any improvement.  There are two students in particular that I have trouble with.  They are both labeled as having Oppositional Defiant Disorder.  I'm having trouble setting limits and following through with them.  With one of the students, we recently had an IEP meeting and decided to take a completely different behavioral approach.  I thing it is a stronger approach, but I still am unsure about how to handle him in the moment.  I am insecure about my word choice and tone of voice.  I don't want to sound to weak or like I'm coming on overly strong and unfair.  The other student has a lot of absences which makes it tough to be consistent and follow through.  I have asked the school's behavior specialist to sit down with us to create some clear guidelines for our class.

As far as next steps for student engagement, I am looking for ways to incorporate more authentic assessments that meet their IEP goals.  I feel like when kids get the chance to apply their skills in a real life situation, it reinforces their understanding of why education matters and motivates them to continue learning.  

 

Assignment #3

Assignment #3:  Go to educationworld.com and read one a  article on some aspect of Classroom Management       (type Classroom Management into the search box in the upper left hand corner).  Post a reflection to your blog based on your practice as it      relates to what you learn from the article. How effectively is your well classroom management system working at this point in the year?   What are your struggles?  What are your successes? 

Educationworld.com's article ""Five Essentials for Basic Classroom Management" gives some tips on how to bring your own personality into your classroom management style.  It can be really overwhelming when reading about classroom management, but this articles gives some strong advice and ideas to focus on.  The first tip is to connect with the parents of your students to establish a platform for communication and determine their needs and wants.  I think this is the strongest piece of advice in the article. Talking to parents can give you great insight into your students' lives and help you understand what level of support they have at home.  You can find out whether your students have homework support, emotional support, and access to technology. Talking to parents has by far been the most important and informative thing I've done.

The rest of the article gives strong tips as well- not engaging in confrontation, having strong lesson plans to preempt any behavioral problems, finding your voice, and getting to know your students.  Other than cot engaging in confrontation, the rest of these tips are things you get better with in time.  So communicating with parents and avoiding confrontation are the two things new teachers can do immediately.  

I think the hardest aspect of classroom management is creating lessons that are consistently engaging and level- appropriate so that kids stay on task, but other than that I think I'm doing well.

Assignment #2

Blog Assignment:  "In a profession as challenging as teaching, honest self-reflection is key. That means that we must regularly examine what has worked and what hasn't in the classroom…”  This year, what has worked and what hasn’t in your classroom.  What will you do differently?"  

One thing that has worked well for me is taking the time to create personal connections with students.  In the past I have taught large classes of students which made is really difficult to make connections.  I had pressure from administrators to show academic growth and often felt like if I was to friendly with kids, I risked losing order in the classroom.  Now, I am teaching 1:1 and I have the time and freedom to have conversations with kids and connect on a personal level.  This has made a huge difference.  I feel like the kids are more willing to try something new because they know I will support them and I feel like I have a better understand of my student's present levels and needs.  When I hear them talk about their home life and their family, I get a better sense of what "normal" is to them and I have more teachable moments than ever before.  

As for has not worked, my school primarily uses an online curriculum that primarily consists of video segments followed by multiple choice questions and writing assignments.  I quickly saw that this would not work for my students and had to modify the curriculum.  Fortunately, my administrators were happy with that and allowed me to do so, provided that what I created was standards based and appropriate.  I am continuing to work on curriculum changes and modifications to better meet the needs of my students. 

Assignment #1

Blog Assignment: “Write about 2 things that are going well in your classroom that you are proud of.  Write about 2 things in your classroom that you wish to improve.  What steps will you take to improve these items? 


Two things that are going well are that I feel like I'm getting a better understanding of each student's

specific needs and I feel like I'm creating strong relationships with most of my students.  The beginning of the year was very overwhelming and I was balancing all of things administrators wanted me to do, with bonding with my students and assessing them as well.  I feel like right now instruction is individualized and appropriate and I've learned about each of them on a personal level.

One thing I wish to improve is collaboration among students about what they're reading.  I want them to talk to each other more about favorite books and make recommendations.  To improve this, I am having students write book reviews about books they've currently read and creating a bulletin board to display the reviews.  Another thing I wish to improve is our classroom library.  If students are expected to read, they need high interest books.  I'm going to speak to my administrators about purchasing new books and I'm going to hold a book drive to encourage students to bring in any used, but interesting, books from home.