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.

Week 6 Reflection

     In small groups this week, my fellow interns and I showed each other videos of ourselves teacher and evaluated each others lessons, instruction, emotional support, and other areas of our teaching. I orginally thought that I would not like this activity, because I am always nervous when the eyes on me are not those of smaller, curious students. I also cannot stand to hear my own voice on recording. During my instruction, I was thinking of the video tape and stumbling over my words not wanting to mess up and wondering how annoying I would sound. The students were able to focus although I was not. I eventually pulled myself together and forgot that the camera was on me. My lesson went fairly well and I was as happy as possible with my product to show my peers. Once we were in small group, I heard other people talking about how nervous they were to show their videos. Some would say things like "Oh! I didn't even notice that kid jumping over there!" or "Just ignore this part, I was nervous and didn't make sense." I immediately felt at ease. As I watched my partner instructing her class, I realized that this activity is not as much for us to assist each others teaching and work together to better ourselves, it is also helping us to realize that good teachers are nervous. Good teachers realize that they can't know everything and that sometimes things don't go as planned. Good teachers do not feel superior to other or flawless. Good teachers are human and don't take life to seriously. As I listened to my peers discussing all the positive things their partners did and built them up to be positive role models, I noticed we all acknowledged are differences, potential, and passion. Good teachers are kind and supportive and maybe, if we are really great teachers, our students will also learn to be kind and supportive.
     I have video taped myself teaching a few more times after the small group analysis time and now feel more comfortable infront of the camera. I still make mistakes and wish I had practiced before I turned the camera on, but I know that my peers will not judge me and that they will see the good in what I am doing. I have more confidence during my video taping now, and I hope that will show in my videos used for my final portfolio.

Week 5 Reflection

     During my fifth week of my internship, I have tried to take on many responsibilities and observe the students and teacher with an open mind. I am trying to forget past assumptions and discoveries that may cloud my reflections and observations with this fresh start. Now that I am teaching more subjects and creating the lessons, I am finding it difficult to group my students and decide which students will work well together and which will clash. I also am unsure who the leaders of the classroom are and those that need to develop their leadership skills by taking on that role more often and being given more responsibilities. In the past, I was able to group my students effectively and quickly. I tried to think about why this class was so much more difficult to analyze for me than my past students. I quickly realized that one difference between this year and my past years was that I started later into the year after my mentor teacher in those past years. In those situations, my mentor teacher had already made conclusions and generalizations about the students. My past mentor teachers had already experimented with grouping and seen the characteristics of students put in those grouping situations. This time, I was using trial and error to better understand my students alongside my mentor teacher. Also, I was making conclusions and generalizations about the students on my own without my mentor teacher's influences.
     I also noted that my mentor teacher had discussed her future students with their past educators prior to starting the school year. Before she organized the seating in the classroom, my mentor teacher took note of the students with ADD, ADHD, Autism, and other learning disabilities. She also had heard stories about bullying problems and behavioral problems from the second grade teachers. This is how she started to understand her students. Although I believe it is necessary to communicate with your students' past teachers, it is also important to make your own opinions about your students without bias influences. I do not believe my teacher was pushed towards skewed views of her students because of this communication. I believe she keeps this information in the back of her mind to help her recognize any patterns or difficulties that are repeating throughout the grades and may need some special attention.
     Throughout the weeks of my internship, my views of my students have constantly changed. I feel myself getting closer to the students and accepting their differences and behaviors. I also feel myself being stricter on the students, because I know what they can achieve and I've seen good things from each of them. I am still trying different grouping and pairings and reflecting on the results. I have changed classroom seating a few times to fit my grouping based instruction and to test relationships between students. I think it's important to always start fresh with few expectations as a teacher each year, because each group of students will change and those early assumptions can limit or stress students. A classroom should be a place for various ways of unexpected growth, not fitting in already designated areas.