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TWS#8 Reflection, Self-Evaluation, & Professional Development

Whole Class reflective discussion: When planning lessons for my class, I tried to think of the best possible ways to teach my students. I tried to think of some way to include hands on learning and teamwork. I believe my decisions impacted my students in a positive way because together we had fun and learned so much during my time as their teacher. I also did pre- assessments before each lesson to see what students already knew or needed the most teaching on. Twice this semester I had to re-do a lesson because of confusion with directions and because of students still needing to review material. The first time was during my science unit when the students were graphing their groups of rocks by size. I had only the odd numbers on the graph and even though I told the students to fill in the even numbers like a number line, some still did not, which caused their graphs to be wrong. Once I saw that this was happening to a lot of students, I stopped the lesson and re-did the whole activity the next day with a new graph that had all of the numbers filled in and the students just had to re group their rocks and shade in the appropriate boxes to match how many small, medium and large rocks they had. The students did much better the second time. Another time during the semester I had been reviewing nouns, adjectives, and verbs with the students for at least a month. I did one per week and I thought it was time to see if the students could group all of the nouns, adjectives, and verbs together when they were mixed up. I gave each student a piece of construction paper and then a sheet full of the nouns, adjectives and verbs printed on pumpkins. The students

were to place all of the nouns together, all of the adjectives together and all of the verbs together to make a grammar pumpkin patch, but during the activity I could tell that a lot of the students kept getting them mixed up, so I decided that I needed to go over the individual parts again with the students. Other times during the semester, I ran out of time doing my lessons, so I finished them the next day by reviewing what we did the day before or sometimes days before and finished where we left off. My students were actively involved in the classroom this semester. They were engaged in learning at all times and were always doing things to spark their interest. To engage my students in learning I had hands on activities for them to work with and a lot of times they worked with a partner or in a group. The best way for my students to learn was by doing something and even though they got a little rowdy at times, I know they were learning and they were having a good time. Although a lot of my lessons were hands on activities, I still used instructional aids to help my students learn. I used BrainPop videos for several of my science and social studies lessons, which interested the students because they were cartoons, but they taught real true information and the students loved doing the quizzes at the end to test what they learned. I also used the smartboard and whiteboard when writing examples on the board. I also posted spelling words on the whiteboard and goals for each day. During math, I pulled up the same exact sheet on the smartboard that the students saw in their notebooks, which made it easier to go over material and for students to stay on task. The students also used number lines, counting cubes, dice, dominoes, and many other

manipulatives in math to help them understand and solve problems. All of these instructional aids were effective resources that helped my students in the lessons I taught this semester. During my lessons, I presented information as clearly as I thought possible. If my students were confused or had questions, I thought of ways to reword my directions and made sure that my students knew exactly what to do before I let them start working. Sometimes I had to ask my students to freeze while I reminded them of what they were supposed to be doing or to remind them to use their quiet, whisper voices. I did not mind my students talking quietly to their neighbors, but when it got too loud, I gave them two warnings before I asked them to work in silence. During my lessons, I never had any major discipline problems with my students. Sometimes students did not follow directions, but usually if I reminded them to do the right thing they would get back to work. If I had trouble with a student multiple times, they would be asked to pull their card and get back to work. If a student has to pull a card, he or she receives a note in their folder and he or she also misses part of their recess. If my students became too loud or if a lot of students seemed confused about a task, I would get their attention by raising my hand, asking them to freeze, or by saying1,2,3 eyes on me and they knew to stop and listen. If I noticed a few students working quietly I would hand out paws to them and thank them for doing the right thing. The students that earn enough paws by the end of the nine weeks get to go to a school wide celebration. If a whole table were working quietly, then I would give the table a tally. The table with the most tally marks at the end of the

week gets to choose a prize from the prize box. These techniques worked well for my class and I never had any major problems. The best way to relate lesson material to the students lives is to figure out what exactly they are interested in. I knew that most of my students enjoyed active and hands on activities so a lot of my science lessons involved those types of activities. But some of my students were not that type of learner and I had to change up the way I taught different things. Some lessons involved going out side and exploring new things while other lessons were still hands on, but students stayed inside at their seats to do the activities. When teaching about verbs, my students got to show the class what they could do and we had to guess what the verb was. My students really liked this activity and I did too. My students are all very talented. I got to see handstands, dances, cartwheels, and a lot more. We ended up creating a huge list of verbs. My interaction with my students was very positive. I treated them all the same while being respectful and fair. They knew that I cared about them and that I was there for them when they needed me. I enjoyed talking to them and getting to know them better and encouraging them to do their best! Top Student: Elizabeth is a white female student. She comes from a very nice family and her mother works in the school. Her parents are involved in all of the school functions and look for ways to help in the classroom. Elizabeth is very bright and always tries her best at everything she does. She is reading at a level of 20+ and in writing, her stories are usually twice as long as the other students. She is also

above level in math and works ahead of the other students in the math workbook. For homework, she receives more challenging math sheets and completes them all in one night. Elizabeth never has any discipline problems in the classroom and is very respectful to her classmates. She likes to be silly with her friends, but knows when it is time to be serious and do class work. Average Student: Jaquelin is a Hispanic female who does fairly good work, but because of her language barrier, she has a hard time following directions sometimes. Jaquelin sits next to another Hispanic student who helps her a lot when it comes to explaining information. She does good work, but if she had a stronger English vocabulary, she could do better. She is a very sweet girl and always tries to do her best. She never has any discipline problems and does what she is asked the first time. She reads on a level six, which is at the expected level for the first grade and she can write, but it usually is off topic and sometimes very hard to read. At the beginning of the semester she was very shy and hardly ever spoke a word, but towards the end of the semester, she came out of her shell and became more talkative. Low Student: Tyrees is an African American male. Tyrees comes from a different home life where his mother does not discipline him and she does not come to parent conferences or other recommended meetings. She calls and cancels meetings and never shows up to the school when she says she will. This may be one reason Tyrees has a very big behavioral problem at school. He does not do his

work when asked and does not follow school rules. He sits at a desk away from the other students in the classroom and usually stays at his desk when others come to the carpet, because he cannot sit still without disturbing others. Because of this behavior problem, Tyrees walks at recess and sits beside the teacher at lunch. He was seeing the reading recovery teacher for more help, but was very disrespectful and was taken out of the program. He also did not receive enough pride paws to attend the Zumba dance party, which was an incentive to those who showed good behavior. He needs someone to sit with him and make sure that he does the right thing and that he stays on task. When I was just part time in the classroom I had the chance to do this, and he does good work, but still he needs to be able to do his work with out being told to constantly sit down. Because of his many behavioral problems, I am still not sure how to help Tyrees. I think it would help a lot if his mother disciplined him some at home so that he would know how to treat people with respect. Mrs. Ellis and I have tried several different techniques in the classroom that may work for the moment, but that same technique never seems to work again.

During one of my math lessons, we were learning another way to add and I noticed that the material was way too easy for a majority of my students. I continued on with the lesson, but instead of doing the problems together, I let the students work alone while I went and helped those who still needed help. After a few minutes of them working alone, we went over the answers to make sure that there were no more questions. Because I knew we had to continue on in the

chapter, I ended up combining the next three sections for the following day and allowing students to use their manipulatives. After explaining the directions, I allowed students to work independently on each of the three pages from the different sections. We went over these answers together and I answered questions to make sure all students understood the material. After we finished the workbook pages, I planned on playing Around the World, which is a math game that the students enjoy playing. It was important for me to notice the learning of my students during these lessons, because if I had not realized that the material was too easy, I would have lost the interest of my students and would have ended up wasting time. Reflection on possibilities for Professional Development: Two goals in which I wish to work towards as a professional teacher would be behavioral management and assessments of learning. I learned a lot about management this semester as I controlled 26 students on my own and one being a big behavioral issue, but I know there is so much more room for me to grow and I will be researching and observing ways in which I can improve. I know there is no one way to solve all management problems, but I feel like I need more practice with this. Another thing I wish to improve on is assessments for my students work and improvement. I think I made good assessments this semester and I think they did a good job measuring the improvement of my students, but I would like to know ways in which I can show better results from my lessons. I also need to work on using my assessments to see what I may need to re-teach

or review with students. I will work harder to try and do a better job at this in my future experiences.

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