Week 13 Reflection

This week is the final week of inquiry implementation, but I will continue to collect data for a week post-implementation. During my first week of exercise implementation, I believed that video tape recordings would be the most useful and versatile data I collected over the weeks of exercise implementation, however, I found that my notes and reflections were equally or possibly more valuable in my research. Although my opinion of the classroom energy and involvement are not measurable, the changes and new results I notice are valuable to my research and reflects the individual attention I give my students. After looking at the data of comprehension test scores and energy rating charts, I notice that the data does not show consistent or great changes before and during the implementation of exercise. I reflected on these test scores and wondered what I can collect from these scores and any patterns I can find. I decided to turn to my notes about positive changes I am noticing after the implementation of exercise. One thing I noted was that morning work seemed to be completed more quickly on days that we exercised. I had warned students the first week of exercise implementation that we would not exercise if there was too much morning work to be completed, but never reiterated this requirement during the rest of the weeks of the implementation. I decided that I wanted to keep a numerical record of the percentage of morning work completed on days we did and did not exercise to support my noticing and provide quantitative data to show positive results linked to the implementation of exercise. I created a simple chart where I record the date and whether we exercised that day or not, how much work as assigned, and how much work was completed by 9:00 AM when we start morning routine. I have just started using this chart for this week and I'm already noticing a drastic change in the percentage of completed morning work comparing days we exercise and days we don't exercise.

Week 12 Reflection

This is the 12th week of my internship and the third week of my inquiry research implementation. Students are already in the routine of exercising three days a week, taking energy rating surveys, and myself leading instruction all day. Students really seemed to transition well. I'm feeling great about my instruction, because assessment scores for each subject are great and the class got a B average on their science test. For this chapter of science, I implemented a little more exercise through kinesthetic learning activities.  Students made up dance moves and presented them to show understanding of the different traits of animal groups in the vertebrate species. Also, during morning exercise activities, we moved like animals and shouted out whether animals we were moving like were vertebrates, invertebrates, and what animal group they belonged in. I wonder if the results on the final assessment test for this chapter are a result of exercise being implemented in the morning over an extended period of time or the exercise based lessons I've implemented during science instruction. I used a variety of instruction and assessment methods with this chapter, including having students observe and journal the different class pets in the room (turtles, hermit crabs, worms/vermicompost, iguana, and gecko), showing videos of different animal groups, and creating a movement demonstration of the animal group traits. All of these factors could be a contributor to why the students did so well with this lesson. They really showed understanding throughout the weeks of this instruction and paid close attention to every activity. It is hard to relate this attention, comprehension, and involvement with this lesson to my research implementation, because of all the other differing factors in this chapter's instruction compared to past science chapters taught this school year. However, my mentor teacher taught a science chapter a few weeks before my research implementation. In her lessons, she lead a hands-on activity, art based lessons, and open discussions. These varied instructional formats did not result in high scores from the overall class. Therefore, it is not as if past science lessons implemented only written or lecture format instruction. I like to think my exercise implementation has made some impact on keeping students alert and involved in regular instruction. I also think that by tying the science lesson done late in the day to the early morning exercise routine helped information to stick or become more memorable to some students who seem overexerted towards the end of the day.

Week 11 Reflection

     It is the 11th week into my internship experience and it is the second week of my inquiry research implementation. The students seem to be very receptive of the inclusion of exercise in their morning routine. Thus far, I have only had one student come dressed inappropriately. Students often greet me the mornings of work out days excited, asking what kind of exercise we will do today. I thought that by having different exercises each day, students would be more likely to participate because they wouldn't know if we were doing a kind of exercise they would not be interested in. It turned out, they were more eager in the mornings just to find out what we'd be doing, let alone excited to exercise each day. Throughout these two weeks of implementation, I have lead a variety of exercises. Some have a "girly" stereotype while others are typically considered "masculine" activities. I decided to implement a variety of exercises styles so that the students in my class would not feel that the exercise activities were dominated by a particular style or type of exercise like dance themed or sports themed. I expected that during the dance style exercises, many boys would not participate and during the sports themed exercises many girls would not participate, however, after implementing Zumba instruction and football drills instruction, I observed my video tapes of the activities and found that both sexes were equally likely to participate in either exercise. In fact, some boys were more active in Zumba than football drills and some girls were more active in football drills than Zumba. I wonder if students liked having a chance to participate in an exercise activity they are usually not given a chance to participate in. For example, football drills are done during football practice outside of school and it is uncommon for girls to be a part of a football team. Likewise, Zumba is an activity often done as "mommy and me" or girl dominated activity that boys would not have the opportunity to participate in without feeling surrounded by females. Also, I implemented some exercise activities that did not have a gender bias like warm up exercises and cardio. I felt the participation in these exercises was limited compared to Zumba and football drills. I believe one cause of this could be that these types of exercises are often done in the physical education classroom and therefore dull or routine to most students. After talking to other teachers in my school, I found that the physical education teacher does not typically implement activities that are considered male or female dominated. I assume the physical education teacher does this to not leave out any students in the activity, without realizing that students may be open to all types of exercise, especially at such a young age as they are eager to be active and have fun, whether it be a "girly" or "boyish" activity. As a result. I wonder if we the adults are to blame for these biases and judgments around different forms of exercise.

My Research Thus Far

I have been implementing exercise activities in the classroom for one wees now and collecting data for my research for over two weeks. Before starting my research, I believed that the most difficult part would be making time for exercise in my third graders' busy school schedules. Because my students are becoming more independent and working at a faster pace with each day, the exercise has not cut any activities and seems to be increasing their completion speed for other assignments. The students really seem to look forward to exercising every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and I've explained to them that if we can't get our other work completed, the exercising will end. It turns out that the most difficult part of my research is video taping two or three times a week. I thought this would be easy, I would just turn the camera on and do whatever I had planned, however, uploading and transferring videos takes a lot of time and can throw off my schedule if I haven't uploaded a video when I had planned to. Also, I have two memory cards and they fill up very quickly with videos. I have to upload the videos on the memory cards, before I can delete them to make room for new video recordings. Also, my flash drives are completely full after only three weeks of video taping and with four weeks left. I realize that this data collection was a high expectation of mine, but I find it to be my most useful source thus far and want to continue collecting this data.

Week 9 Reflection

     This week I started teaching science. I do not have much experience teaching science and was a little intimidated by this subject. I also feel like there are so many things to think about with science after the methods course I took, that I am worried I will forget an aspect or contributing factor that could really help my students to better understand the concept. As I planned my lessons for basic animal needs, I started to get excited about the lessons. I realized that science has so many resources, hands on opportunities, art integrated areas, and a great ability to connect to real life of my students. I plan a class discussion for many of my lessons as I really feel open discussion is beneficial for student confidence, student informal pre-assessment, and collaboration. After leading a class discussion on science with my students, I realized that they were very excited to share what they know about science. The students are confident in their random fact knowledge and observational abilities. I have not gotten as much out of my students in whole class discussion than I did from this science discussion. I'm not sure if they were so excited because the discussion was about animals, or because they are excited about science, however, a majority of my students are often trying to share random bits of information and findings throughout the day.
     So far, I have taught four science lessons and have already integrated art, technology, small group collaboration, open discussion, journaling, note taking, and hands on experience. It was surprisingly easy to include so many methods, tools, and assessment formats with science. After only one week of teaching science, my confidence in the subject has increased dramatically. I have realized that the only area I feel uneasy about teaching now is Mathematics. I believe the reason this is such a difficult area for me to teach is because math comes easy to me and therefore it is more difficult to explain. The lessons that I have to work harder to understand like social studies and science are easy to teach to students as I am teaching myself.
     I am starting my exercise inclusion for my inquiry topic next week and I may make changes to the schedule to include some exercise activities prior to science later in the day. I feel it would be easy to include exercise in science as it integrates with so many things fairly easily. I do not know if this would relate to the goal or main interest topic of my study. It might be a good idea to integrate exercise multiple times throughout the day rather than just once in the morning three times a week.

Week 8 Reflection

This week, I am teaching 75% of the day. In the past, I have taught techonological lessons a majority of the time and found that using computers, mimeo boards, videos, and computer game format activities involved my students most. This year, however, I have noticed that my students fall asleep during videos and do not pay attention when I am showing a powerpoint presentation. They are less likely to pay attention when techonology is involved unless it is hands on or inclusive technology use, like having students use the mimeo board. I assumed that with this generation, a majority of students would learn best through technology use and presentation. Now, I feel that so many teachers are using technology regularly to instruct students, it is becoming boring or repeatative to students. When I am teaching without any technology, students are more attentative. Also, I often have little problems or glitches with technology. For example, I often have to sync the mimeo board multiple times before the pen will click the correct area. Also, videos have so many codes and adds, we have to wait a few minutes before we can even start the instructional video. Students are losing attention and getting off subject when problems like this arise. There is less room for unplanned time when I am the instructional video or the white board and pen is being used in place of the mimeo board.
     Technology is great and I know numerous ways to use in the classroom, especially because my generation has always been familiar with the constantly changing technological tools. I feel that it may be overused in some circumstances and it's important for teachers to recognize when students are not responding well to these great new methods of instruction. Most of the students typically go home to tv, videos, computer games, etc. We need to change what students are exposed to throughout the day to get them interested in the information. Also, for the few lessons that I did plan using technology resources, the power was low, the internet went down, or the mimeo was uncooperative. As a teacher, it is more important for my generation to learn to teach with tools that are not technology related as we are already fairly familiar with technology and it's uses in the classroom. Although, teachers are often not allowing students to use technology in ways to show comprehension, gain technology skills, and assess in various formats. I would liketo implement teacher directed technology use for students to improve their abilities to use technology in ways besides games and videos. Teachers may find this difficult, because they themselves are still learning how to use technology in ways other than for instructional videos, games, and presentations. I would like to implement this type of instruction more throughout the remainder of my placement.

Week 7 Reflection

     East Dale's liaison observed my lesson and instruction this week. I created a lesson for estimating three digit numbers in memory game format that I thought would be fun and stimulate fluency and frequency in rounding. I have worked with students with rounding for the past week and felt this would be an easy review activity. I have never had a lesson fail so miserably. I anticipated this lesson to be fun and more of a refresher to show my liaison what the students have learned and how quickly they can use the skill. I was so shocked by my students' misunderstandings and difficulties that I had to make complete changes to the lesson and go away from my original plan that my liaison had already evaluated. When I met with my mentor teacher to discuss my strengths, weaknesses, and noticings, I was surprised by her reaction. She felt that the lesson went really well and that my adjustments only showed that I was an effective educator, because I could make changes quickly without it upsetting my whole lesson. Before the liaison had came into the classroom, I had a discussion with my students about my teacher coming in and grading me just like I grade them. I asked them to be respectful, ignore her presence, and be extra attentive during the lesson. Two students acted out during my instruction and had to be reprimanded in front of my liaison. I was so embarrassed by their behavior, but my liaison stated that she felt the class was very behaved and that I handled the slight misbehavior quickly and smoothly. I had thought that all the faults in my lesson would make me look like an ill--prepared teacher, however, my adjustments to the difficulties seemed to only strengthen my appearance as a teacher.
     My liaison asked my to state what I felt were my strengths in this lesson. In doing so, I was able to recognize the good that came from this activity and how I still showed my abilities while my thoughtful plans were lacking. She reminded me that although it is necessary to plan carefully and thoughtfully, we cannot expect every result and must be able to quickly respond to those unanticipated reactions. It is quite intimidating being observed by people who have much more experience and education on the subject than yourself, but I'm glad my liaison was able to help me find positive in one of my biggest fails thus far in my teaching experience.