Week 4 Reflection

I have finished my lessons based on telling time and finding elapsed time. I decided to give a formal assessment format because there were so many aspects of time covered throughout the past weeks. The day before the assessment, I had a discussion about time and practice work to see where my students were in their understandings. I also gave them a few worksheets from the math workbook provided by the school to practice at home, but not for a recorded grade. The students needed so much help on their problems before the assessment. I was still reminding students what the start time was and to add minutes by five after numerous days of practice. I told my teacher of my concerns and she assured me that I had covered as much as I could and spent enough time on the topic.
The assessment I made for my students had 28 questions. It covered reading analog clocks, finding elapsed time, adding multiple times to a start time to find the end time and vice versa, drawing hands to show a given time, different ways of writing time (2:45 or quarter to three), and AM/PM. Although only one student received 100 on the test, the class had a high C average which was affected by an outlier and I was pleasantly surprised by. I realized that part of the reason students needed so much assistance yesterday is because I offered it. Also, I believed many students practiced the night before and recognized that they needed the extra practice. This shows me that they care about their test scores, or they have parents that do, and that a majority of my students likely get help from their guardians.
Another thing I would like to note from this week was a spur of the moment idea I had that I plan to use again. After handing out work or practice problems, students have difficulties paying attention to instruction. They want to finish their work and do not pay attention to the next subject being taught or the next activity being done. To prevent this, I had my students stand up and switch sides as the classroom desks are split into two large areas. The students loved being in a completely different seat and were not tempted to finish someone else's work. My mentor teacher noticed this and told me she would be using it as well. I believe this really resulted in much more energy and attention from the class as a whole.

Week 3 Reflection

During week 3 I taught my third grade students about telling time. I remember teaching this subject last year in the fall and found it equally difficult. I was surprised, however, by where I found the difficulties. The previous third grade class had difficulty with minutes. They would often forget to count by fives or be five minutes over or under, because they did not count accurately. They also had difficulty with elapsed time. My current placement classroom seemed very prepared in telling time and could read clocks quickly. Their problem was in telling time to the quarter, like for example saying 3:15 is quarter past three or 5:45 is quarter to six. This class also had difficulties with elapsed time. This reminded me that although I can anticipate reactions and misunderstandings from past experiences, every class is different even when they come from the same past educators. I realized that the past educators may have realized where struggles were and made lessons for the following class more directed towards that past struggle. This can result in other areas of understanding weakening. I had created a weeks worth of lessons based on the anticipation that my students would have been instructed the same way as the past class and would have similar strengths and weaknesses. I quickly recognized that I was wrong and made adjustments to my lessons, but it was a wake up call. I had always assumed that most older teachers stick to the same lessons if they seem to be "working" and the upper classes will have to fill the same "gaps" repetitively.
I had never before had lessons feel so unsatisfying as my time lessons during week 5. I asked my mentor teacher for advice, which she gave very willingly. She supplied endless amounts of materials and gave me following lesson suggestions. She also helped me with elapsed time in a simplified way that the students seemed to better understand. I was very appreciative of her support and explained that I had not expected such confusion and bewildered looks from the students. My mentor teacher explained that time is a cognitive understanding some students are just not capable of fully understanding yet. And I can see that in my students' eyes that some of them, it clicks. They understand time immediately and can solve any elapsed time problem with just a few moments of thinking. Others, were given multiple styles of instruction, walked out hours and minutes on a huge outdoor sidewalk clock, and were provided individual instruction by myself or my mentor teacher and still only got a 35% on the assessment. If this topic requires high cognitive understanding, why is it in the third grade curriculum? Who really decided third graders should be able to tell time, when most teachers I know can see that time is a difficult subject for these young minds. It frustrates me knowing that as a teacher I will be forced to teach students things that I know will be too difficult for some and will make them feel bad about themselves or helpless possibly. I never want my students to feel this way. I want my students to feel they have conquered everything I put in their path and feel confident about themselves. As a student, I always felt I already knew everything and my teacher just helped to me find it inside myself. I want my students to feel that way. I want confident, curious students and I worry the standards and tests will stop that out of them. I will do my best to give them the armor they need.

Week 2 of Internship

This week has been more of a struggle for me as an observer. I am anxious to teach and implement my own ideas in the classroom. I feel I know the students better and am not observing them individually as I was during my first week of teaching. The students seem to be getting into a routine, but are still showing lack of interest and focus in the classroom during most subjects, but especially the first two subjects of the day. I have discussed students' lack of interest and excessive time in completing work with my mentor teacher. We notice students not labeled ADD or ADHD with attention problems and feel that their inability to stay on task is more than expected from an average student. Therefore, we believe there may be students in the classroom that have attention disorders that have not been recognized or treated yet. I am really excited to start my inquiry research, but realize that I must teach without implementing my brain development and attention improving strategies until I have collected enough data to compare my results. The students have done some assessments this week on subjects that have been covered for two weeks. The language assessment was done informally with a scoot activity that was done quickly and simply. Some students did fairly well on the activity and I felt there was less tension and stress on this final assessment because it was done as a game rather than a written formal assessment. Some students did poorly on this final assessment, but they have done poorly with past work on the topic. This shows that the style of assessment cannot be directly linked to these low grades. I am collecting more resources and ideas for my exercise inquiry research based on the articles I found to support my research. One article discusses technological exercise activities and how they effect students with hyperactive and attention disorders. This is especially connected to my students as a large number of them have attention disorders. My placement has supplies for Wii Fit and I am interested in using this as an additional resource to differentiate the kind of exercise my students will experience during my research. I really want to implement new activities each time to keep students interested and eager to see what is planned for each day. I hope by having exercise in the morning and by changing the form of exercise frequently, my students will come to school more anxious and prepared as my research progresses.