Introduction:

I was assigned to Pittsburg Community Middle School in Pittsburg, Kansas. I was

assigned to a sixth grade English classroom with Mrs. Hayden. The classroom I was in

was very conducive to learning because of the community my cooperating teacher had set

up. She had posters all over the walls that dealt with the subject matter. The desks in the

classroom were set up into groups of four or five, so that the students could be social with

one another. The student population in the class period that I had seen over the time of

the project was majority Caucasian with some African American and Latino students in

the classroom also. I could see that some of the students in the classroom were from low

socioeconomic status backgrounds. In the English classroom that I was in, students were

beginning to develop their comprehension skills and writing skills. Sixth grade English is

that crucial step for students to continue on to the more difficult English classes in their

later years of school.

Building Report Card:

The demographics of Pittsburg Community Middle School are 4.4% African

American, 16.7% Hispanic, 67.5% Caucasian, and 11.4% other. The socioeconomic

status of Pittsburg Middle School is that 64.3% economically disadvantaged and 35.7%

noneconomically disadvantaged. Most of the students that attend this middle school are

economically disadvantaged. 20.33% of the student populations are classified as having a

disability. The last statistic surprised because I did not think that one fifth of the

population of the school building that I have been assigned to could be classified as

having a disability. That percentage is huge to me, that one in five students in a classroom

could have a disability.

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 I am going to further reflect and examine the assessment data for English

Language Arts, because the classroom that I was assigned to was an English classroom.

About 31% of the students that attended Pittsburg Middle School were considered Level

1, which means that they were below the expectations that the State had made. The state

data shows that the state of Kansas as a whole was 33% at Level 1. The two percent

difference is close enough to show that this is about average. Levels 2 through 4 show

that students have met the state expectations for English Language Arts or exceeded the

expectations. Pittsburg Middle School had about 80% of their sixth grade population

meets or exceeds the expectations that state has put in place. The State as a whole was

about 67%, which means that Pittsburg Middle School was above average in this

category.

This data and information is useful for teachers because they can see how

effective they are at teaching what the state of Kansas would like them to teach and this

can help teachers want to improve students’ state testing scores. This also is useful for

new teachers, who want to get an idea of where their school building is at compared to

the state and past years. To families this could be useful see how the school is doing for

their child’s education and if it was a new family to the school district or school then they

could where the school is at to see if it the right fit for their child. For communities this is

useful information what their schools may be like and could be how they monitor for

more funding for schools around the state in general. States this is useful information for

the federal laws that they have to comply with such as No Child Left Behind. This data

can help students reach potential because it allow the educators to look at where the

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students are at and see if they are able to develop even more effective teaching strategies

to help their student reach their potential.

Target Student Profile:

The student that my cooperating teacher had assigned me for this project was

Caucasian. He was 11 or 12 years old and has moderate to severe Attention Deficit

Hyperactivity Disorder. As that I worked with this student for the entirety of the project,

which allowed me to learn more about him. He was very nice and greatly accepted my

assistance with his English assignments. He had trouble with reading, writing, and

spelling and I assisted him with all of those areas of struggle. I think that his struggle was

due to hyper activeness. This student was very excited to work with me once a week for

the whole class period. The student was never reluctant to work with me. Since the

student has ADHD, I knew that he would be very hyperactive and would get distracted

pretty easily. Just about every time, I worked with him on English he would want to get it

done as fast as possible and when I would make him slow down he would get frustrated

because it was more difficult for him. He became more reluctant to slowing down

because he would want to finish the assignments as soon as possible, which affected his

comprehension of what we were working on. Motivation for getting the assignments

done was never a problem for this student. The slowing down unfortunately made him

realize how much he struggled, but increased his comprehension. Getting this student to

focus was difficult because he would get distracted easily by fidgeting with whatever was

in front of him. His strengths were having the motivation to do the assignments and

wanting to learn even though it was difficult for him sometimes to do the assignment or

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understand the lesson. His willingness to learn and motivation for doing whatever task he

was assigned to this was helpful in assisting him.

Time Log:

February 28, 2018, 12:00-1:30

March 7, 2018, 12:00-1:30

March 14, 2018 12:00-1:30

March 28, 2018 12:00-1:30

April 11, 2018 12:30-1:30

April 18, 2018 12:00-1:30

April 25, 2018 12:00-1:30

Journal Entry#1 February 28, 2018, 12:00-1:30

I was a bit nervous about being out in the field again since my last field

experience was a year and half ago. I think that adapting to the new environment that I

would enter was making me nervous. After entering the classroom, I became more

comfortable with the surroundings. I was placed in a 6th grade English class, which is

different than my area of content, but I’m open to new experiences.

My cooperating teacher wasn’t familiar with the diversity project, so

unfortunately I was not able to work with a student who was described under this

category today, but I look forward to next week. It was nice to be reacquainted with the

atmosphere out in the field; I wasn’t sure how 6th graders were going to act since my

previous field experience dealt with 8th and 10th graders. Most of the students were very

active in class discussion. My cooperating teacher had a system with in her classroom,

where the students were numbered and whatever number the students had was on their

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desk. The student with a certain number being called would pick up the notebooks and

other numbers would do other tasks. I thought this was an interesting system for middle

school. My cooperating teacher used proximity with a few students for interrupting while

the teacher was talking, which we discussed in class. I think that it’s an effective way to

discipline students, who aren’t doing something they are supposed to. Especially since it

doesn’t affect the other students, who are doing their work.

I had good first impressions of the classroom environment, which was positive

and most students actively participated. I have a great first impression of my cooperating

teacher, who got the students to actively participate in class. The school was more

updated on inside than it looked on the outside.

Journal Entry#2 March 7, 2018, 12:00-1:30

I was looking forward to getting in the classroom today because my cooperating

teacher assigned me to work with the student, which I will be working with for the next 7

to 8 weeks. I was excited, because I am able to apply what I have learned through college

and put it to use in the classroom. My cooperating teacher explained the items on the

agenda for the day and I met the student I was working with after.

The teacher had us go down the hall to a computer lab room, where I could work

one on one with the student. The student was clearly getting distracted quite a bit, so I

thought that the student had ADHD. I tried to ignore what he was getting distracted over

and it seemed to work for accomplishing the tasks that he need to complete by the end of

the class period.

We worked on a figurative language quiz and reading a passage then answer

questions pertaining to the passage. We would switch off reading the passage out loud. I

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was noticing that he was struggling with reading. I decided to take the reading very slow,

so he would have a chance to read and then retain all of the information that was being

read out loud. I also noticed that he was skipping words sometimes and I think that he

was rushing due to his hyperactivity.

I have some academic goals for the student, such as slowing down and taking his

time. I think that slowing down and taking his time will allow his grades to improve. The

student seems very excited to work with me and I’m glad that is the case in the situation.

I want to be more effective with working with this student and attempt to limit the

distractions. I’m pretty laid back in my approach, but I’m attempting to be effective with

keeping the student focused on the task at hand. I don’t think yelling or getting onto the

student for getting distracted is an effective teaching strategy.

Journal Entry#3 March 14, 2018 12:00-1:30

I came into the classroom, and my cooperating teacher was handing out a quiz

and explaining the instructions. The student I am going to work with for the rest of this

project got distracted and waved at me. I saw him wave, but I didn’t wave back because I

wanted to show that he needed to focus on what the teacher was saying.

We walked out into the hall to work on a quiz dealing with intensive and reflexive

pronouns. He was struggling with this concept, but he was able to understand it once we

worked through it slowly. We went back into class, so he could participate in a class

activity to learn about the quiz, we worked on. I observed him raising his hand to answer

a question that my cooperating teacher had asked about the quiz. His answer was wrong

and my cooperating teacher was nice about correcting him, but then he asked why that it

was that answer and tried to prove that his answer was right. My cooperating teacher told

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him why the answer is the way it is and complemented him on asking questions about the

answer instead of just accepting it. It was an interesting situation to watch how my

cooperating teacher reacted. Student will be ask me questions in the future like he did and

I think how she handled it was great. This gives me a reference on how to deal with a

similar situation. He was extremely excited to work with me, when he could.

We had one more activity to work on outside of class; he had cut out terms and

match the definitions to those terms then glue all of them on a piece of construction

paper. He had trouble remembering from the week prior. I think that allowing him to use

the information again as a review helps.

My goal of getting this student to take his time is harder than I thought it was

going to be. By taking the time to slow down and read everything, its allowing him to

focus on that bit of information. The student I am working with prefers to get things done

quickly as possible and I can struggle a bit with trying to slow him down more. Today, I

figured out how to help him understand by taking our time with the assignments, so he

could process the information.

Journal Entry #4 March 28, 2018 12:00-1:30

When I came into the classroom, my cooperating teacher was explaining what

assignments were on the agenda for the day. I entered quietly into the classroom and the

student, I am working with started waving at me and I ignored him so that he could pay

attention to the instructions for the assignments. Ignoring is just as powerful as

redirecting it seems like to me to get a student back on task.

I assisted him with his practice test for the state assessment, which is coming up

with in the week. He got distracted with the task on hand and I redirected him by saying

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let’s finish this up. He responded well to my redirection and went back to work on the

passage. We read the passage out loud so he could understand the plot of the narrative

and be able to answer the questions correctly. His tendency is to rush through the work

since he is very hyperactive and I try to slow him down by reading paragraph by

paragraph and asking him questions about what we just read. Then I would take it

question by question and then at the end when we finished we would review over the

questions. This helped him get the correct answers on the practice test.

I helped him with the other two assignments and we didn’t complete all the tasks

because I wanted to teach him to take his time with tests especially so he could be

reminded that while taking the state assessment. I really enjoyed working with my

student today, I felt we accomplished a lot even thought that not everything was done. I

think that I would like to teach him to slow down and take the assignments piece by

piece.

Journal Entry #5, April 11, 2018 12:30-1:30

Unfortunately last week, I was not able attend on Wednesday, because of Kansas

state testing for English. I attempted to reschedule and the only days I was available,

were both days that state testing was happening. I think today I was off because I am

beginning to feel like I am catching a cold and I was not thinking as I normally do. I

signed in and went to the classroom that I am assigned to. There was no one in the

classroom, but I noticed on the board that the schedule had changed and pushed

everything back a few minutes due to an assembly. I went back downstairs to the office

and waited until everyone was back in the classroom.

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 When I entered, the class was watching a video on a fable that they had read and

my cooperating teacher was giving out instruction to the students. There was quite a bit

of assigned work to do, so I helped the student I have been working with for the past

month and we were supposed to read a nonfiction article about a new museum near the

pyramids in Egypt. We read the article and I thought it was pretty short and we go back

to the classroom, then I saw that there was more of the article on the back of the first page

of paper. So we did not read the article entirely, which is my fault for not realizing that. I

apologized to my student for my mistake and we attempted to finish everything else on

the agenda. He had trouble focusing in the computer lab since there were students coming

in and out. I attempted to redirect him many times to focus, but it was not as affective as

it has been in past weeks.

Today was not a good day, but I learned that many things can go wrong and I

have to keep trying my best to keep my composure. I did keep my composure and I did

learn that everything doesn’t always go as planned. Sometimes the same strategies don’t

work on a different day as they did past weeks.

Journal Entry #6, April 18, 2018 12:00-1:30

I came into class, while my cooperating teacher was instructing the class on what

to do the assignments for the day. I was feeling a lot better than I was last week and so I

felt more confident about how today was going to go. I wanted to help the student, I am

working with get more accomplished. I feel like I did not do as much last week, as I

could’ve done. We had to attempt to complete reading a Greek myth and answering

questions about the myth. We had one more passage to read after that.

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 We accomplished what needed to be completed first. This time, I attempted to

have him read a few paragraphs then answer the question pertaining to that part of the

Greek Myth. I think this was a more effective way of accomplishing our tasks and he

seemed less distracted. The student I was working with, he had been wearing a necklace

and got distracted by it. I finally told him to either wear it or put it in his pocket. I said it

nicely, but firmly so that we would be able to get more work done. I was able to help him

get work done more effectively. After working for about an hour, my student was getting

tired, so I told him to stand up and walk around the table that we were working at in the

computer lab. That seemed to help him out because we were able to get twenty more

minutes of more work done. I might use this is in my classroom early in the morning,

after lunch, or at the end to help reenergize my students. From my experience, I get really

tired easily if I am sitting at desk too long. I really worked with him on slowing down

when he is reading out loud.

I think that today went a lot better than last week, but next week is my last day for

the project unfortunately. I have enjoyed this project very much and cannot believe it is

almost over. I look forward to wrapping up and reflecting on the project as a whole next

week.

Journal Entry#7 April 25, 2018 12:00-1:30

My cooperating teacher emailed me a few days before my last visit for this project

to tell me that she wouldn’t be there that particular day. Fortunately, she was kind enough

to tell me what they were doing in class and wished me the best of luck with my future

endeavors.

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 I walked into class and the substitute teacher was explaining what is on the

agenda for the day. I noticed that the students in the classroom were acting differently

with the substitute teacher. This is something we discussed in class with Dr. Flynn about

how students act in the classroom differently with a substitute teacher. The student, I

have been working with for this project was responsible enough to go tell the substitute

teacher that we were going to go work on reading the passage and answering the

questions out loud in the hallway.

Since my cooperating teacher was gone, we had to work out in the hallway, which

was really distracting for him unfortunately it was a challenge. I’ve been really trying to

suggest to my student to slow down when he is reading so he doesn’t skip over words. I

know he has a natural tendency to want to complete a task and move on to the next one as

fast as possible. When I did remind him, he read a lot better slower. We took the entire

time to complete the questions and read the passage. I implemented a break for my

student in the middle of working because he was getting restless. To me a brain break is

nice and allows me to refocus on the task. It worked for him today because being in the

hallway was distracting.

As this project comes to a close, I cannot believe that it’s over. I really enjoyed

working with this particular student throughout the project. Working with one student, let

me really get to know this student and that was positive for me during this project. Today

went well, but it was challenging due to the distractions and we accomplished what we

needed to accomplish. I felt like it was a good day to close on. It was interesting to see

how the students acted in the classroom without my cooperating teacher there. I’ve

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learned a lot in this clinical experience and I look forward to using what’ve learned in my

future classroom.

Final Reflection:

I learned a lot from this project and a lot about students as individuals instead of a

group. I took away that focusing on the students as individuals helps the teachers and the

student. The student will be able to get the best education that they can when teachers

focus them on individually. Teachers are able to get to know their students better and

help them reach their full potential when students are focused on as individuals. I learned

that working one on one with students could really help them learn, especially in my case

with this project.

Working with the student I was assigned to, really helped me work on how to

redirect students. I began the project with some idea of how to redirect, but this student

made me think about how I needed to redirect him to get back on task. Instead of pointing

at a passage after he gets distracted, I would give him a break from doing the task and

after the break I would redirect him to the task on hand. I think that I will implement

breaks in my classroom because I understand what it’s like to lose interest, fall asleep in a

class, or get distracted. I think that implementing the break from doing a task helps the

redirection have more power.

This project reinforced my decision to go into the teaching profession because of

the impact it can have on students. I am sure that I have made some sort of impact on the

student I worked with for this project and I don’t know how big or small the impact was,

but it is one of the reasons that people want to become teachers. Going into this

profession, can be powerful due to the impact it has on students’ lives negatively or

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positively. As discussed in class with Dr. Flynn, many reasons why students like or don’t

like as class are usually because of the teacher not the subject.

Finally, there are many reasons why preservice teachers may be nervous about

going into the profession. For me, I am nervous because I don’t know what to expect at

the beginning when I get into the profession. At the same time that is the excitement for

something and a change from being the student all these years into being the teacher. I

think many secondary education majors are nervous that they won’t know their content

area, like myself. I just need to remind myself that I do know my content area, but it is

getting up in the front of the classroom for the first time and actually teaching that will

break these feelings of nervousness. After being nervous, I am overall excited to getting

out into the profession after deciding to become a teacher.

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