Concerning the Special Ed students in my classroom (there are three with IEP's), I reviewed the students' IEP's at the beginning of the school year when I got them, and I keep in mind necessary accommodations when I am teaching a lesson. For one, it is just that she needs extra time (and a quiet place) to take tests. Others need accommodations just in math or reading, and I make sure they know to take assignments to the resource room. I have not been required to make up assignments especially for these students, because they (and their parents) want to be fully included, and it makes them uncomfortable to have a "different" paper than everyone else. If they are unable to complete this work in class, they go to a resource room for half an hour a day and there they can get special one-on-one help and I am also available to help students after school. All of these students also go to "intervention" in areas where they struggle for 45 minutes each day where they receive instruction with several peers who do not have IEP's, but who need extra help.
As far as low performing students go, I have a few who I work with after school and during recesses so they can get one-on-one time with me and I can explain in different ways so that hopefully one of them will "click". Sometimes it is just a matter of instructing in a different way (they are more hands-on, so manipulatives rather than it being seen "on the board" helps), and sometimes parents or grandparents need to be enlisted to give further assistance at home. Some of the struggles in school stem from chaotic family situations where there is no quiet place to study or nobody willing or able to help with homework that students don't understand (or no one at home if they need help, anyway). Attitude about the importance of school plays a part as well. Some parents can't help themselves, but will ask their student to stay an extra half an hour because they want their child to succeed. Some parents just want me to give their child a passing grade whether the child has earned it or not so it won't hurt their "self esteem". I give students the grade s/he earned, whether accommodations were necessary or not, period! I have not referred any students to the special education program people so far, but I have sat in on several IEP meetings and I am getting to know the director and special education teachers well!
Saturday, October 19, 2013
Blog #2
All right, I am playing "catch up" today!
I am reflecting on what has and has not worked so far this school year.
The "Prize Wheel" is definitely a hit with my students, and I can use it as positive reinforcement to encourage them with schoolwork or to remind them it is a privilege and not a right when they start misbehaving. I let them spin the prize wheel if they score 100% on tests or if they have not missed turning in an assignment all week, and every day I randomly select a student who may or may not get to spin the prize wheel. I call this "I've got my eye on you" and if I do not have to "get after" the selected student all day to stop messing around or to get to work, the student will get a spin on Friday. I don't tell students who is "it", because it COULD be any of them, and I'm hoping that leads to all of them behaving appropriately! It's been pretty effective so far. I had a student who earned a spin on the prize wheel for getting a good grade on his vocabulary test, then while he was in line for his turn, he poked another student with a very sharp pencil. He has been warned about consequences for doing this, and the consequence yesterday was his prize wheel turn was forfeited. He was VERY upset about it and begged to have "one more chance", but I thought if I wasn't firm this time, his behavior would reach epidemic proportions. The students know that if they misbehave, they might get their prize wheel turn taken away, and they do not want that! So I am really pleased with the prize wheel, and I plan on continuing its use!
What hasn't seemed to work how it's supposed to is "bell work" to get students in the classroom and going. They seem to think that when they come in in the morning (though we have done bell work since the 1st day of school), it's "chat and play around time". Maybe this is because I don't always greet them at the door, or maybe I haven't been explicit enough in what is expected of them upon entering the room. Another complication with this in the morning, anyway, is that we have "outs" first thing in the morning, and different students go to different outs depending on whether they are in band or orchestra. Those teachers seem to let students out at different times every day, so I'll have some students wander in at 8:40, while others don't get back until 10 minutes later, so the ones that came back earlier are done with bell work and are ready to have conversations with those who come back later! Maybe I should make them all stay outside in the hall until the whole class gets there. I'm going to try that this week, in fact!
I am reflecting on what has and has not worked so far this school year.
The "Prize Wheel" is definitely a hit with my students, and I can use it as positive reinforcement to encourage them with schoolwork or to remind them it is a privilege and not a right when they start misbehaving. I let them spin the prize wheel if they score 100% on tests or if they have not missed turning in an assignment all week, and every day I randomly select a student who may or may not get to spin the prize wheel. I call this "I've got my eye on you" and if I do not have to "get after" the selected student all day to stop messing around or to get to work, the student will get a spin on Friday. I don't tell students who is "it", because it COULD be any of them, and I'm hoping that leads to all of them behaving appropriately! It's been pretty effective so far. I had a student who earned a spin on the prize wheel for getting a good grade on his vocabulary test, then while he was in line for his turn, he poked another student with a very sharp pencil. He has been warned about consequences for doing this, and the consequence yesterday was his prize wheel turn was forfeited. He was VERY upset about it and begged to have "one more chance", but I thought if I wasn't firm this time, his behavior would reach epidemic proportions. The students know that if they misbehave, they might get their prize wheel turn taken away, and they do not want that! So I am really pleased with the prize wheel, and I plan on continuing its use!
What hasn't seemed to work how it's supposed to is "bell work" to get students in the classroom and going. They seem to think that when they come in in the morning (though we have done bell work since the 1st day of school), it's "chat and play around time". Maybe this is because I don't always greet them at the door, or maybe I haven't been explicit enough in what is expected of them upon entering the room. Another complication with this in the morning, anyway, is that we have "outs" first thing in the morning, and different students go to different outs depending on whether they are in band or orchestra. Those teachers seem to let students out at different times every day, so I'll have some students wander in at 8:40, while others don't get back until 10 minutes later, so the ones that came back earlier are done with bell work and are ready to have conversations with those who come back later! Maybe I should make them all stay outside in the hall until the whole class gets there. I'm going to try that this week, in fact!
Blog #1
Hello!
I'm Amy Jarvis and I'm new to this whole blogging business. The purpose of my blog here is to keep advisors and other Rio Salado students and supervisors informed of my progress in student teaching while I am in the Teaching Intern Program. This program allows me to teach in my own classroom (while I'm getting paid!) and earn my teaching certificate at the same time. I am already a certified teacher, but I am certified in Secondary Education, and I got a job teaching in a 5th grade classroom, so I need to be certified in Elementary Education as well.
So my first assignment is to write about a few things that are going well in my class and a few things that I might want to change.
First of all, I am falling in love with 5th grade and the kids in my class! I thought I really loved high schoolers, but these kids are stealing my heart! I am enjoying getting to know the students in my class and their different personalities and the whole world of middle school. I work with some really great, fun, experienced teachers who I can go to anytime I have a question or need an idea on how to teach a certain thing or how to control a situation or if I have a difficult parent to deal with. So far, I feel like I have been able to establish a good rapport with my students, their parents, and the other teachers at my school, as well as with the administration in our district. We are a small district, consisting of only three schools, and as I have substitute taught at every grade level in the three years I substituted before getting certified as a "regular" teacher, I am comfortable at all the schools and with all of the other teachers! This feeling of comfort within the district probably has something to do with going to school in St. Johns myself when I was a kid, and with now teaching in the same classroom that was my former 7th grade classroom! I am personally acquainted with many people in the district as well as being professionally acquainted with them, because we went to school together or they were my teachers in the past.
I think things are going well because I survived the first quarter and my first solo go-round with parent teacher conferences unscathed! I love going to work every day, and I especially love when we have been working on something (usually it's a math concept) and all of a sudden one of the kids will pipe up, "Oh, NOW I get it! It's EASY!" and that just makes my day! I feel like we have a pretty good handle on routines in the classroom and we have a "reward" system that the kids get excited about every week (we do a "prize wheel").
One of the things I would like to do better with is consistency in regulating noise level. Some days I allow the students to get a little noisy because I am busy entering grades or something, and some days I will really crack down on them for complete silence, and I just need to be firm and consistent with them so it never gets to where I have to raise my voice a lot to be heard over them. We need to find a happy medium where they are allowed to communicate, but where I don't have to whistle when I need them to pay attention to what I'm trying to teach!
So to re-cap, I think communication with parents and other teachers is going well, I think we are good in our classroom about having the same routines, and I think we are good with our reward system. I would like to change the noise level consistency and explore different ways of getting students' attention instead of having to talk over them or repeat instructions. I will try to really stick to the hand-signals method for the students to get my attention that I read about in Wong's "The First Days of School". We are supposed to be implementing it, but I haven't been as consistent with it as I should be!
I'm Amy Jarvis and I'm new to this whole blogging business. The purpose of my blog here is to keep advisors and other Rio Salado students and supervisors informed of my progress in student teaching while I am in the Teaching Intern Program. This program allows me to teach in my own classroom (while I'm getting paid!) and earn my teaching certificate at the same time. I am already a certified teacher, but I am certified in Secondary Education, and I got a job teaching in a 5th grade classroom, so I need to be certified in Elementary Education as well.
So my first assignment is to write about a few things that are going well in my class and a few things that I might want to change.
First of all, I am falling in love with 5th grade and the kids in my class! I thought I really loved high schoolers, but these kids are stealing my heart! I am enjoying getting to know the students in my class and their different personalities and the whole world of middle school. I work with some really great, fun, experienced teachers who I can go to anytime I have a question or need an idea on how to teach a certain thing or how to control a situation or if I have a difficult parent to deal with. So far, I feel like I have been able to establish a good rapport with my students, their parents, and the other teachers at my school, as well as with the administration in our district. We are a small district, consisting of only three schools, and as I have substitute taught at every grade level in the three years I substituted before getting certified as a "regular" teacher, I am comfortable at all the schools and with all of the other teachers! This feeling of comfort within the district probably has something to do with going to school in St. Johns myself when I was a kid, and with now teaching in the same classroom that was my former 7th grade classroom! I am personally acquainted with many people in the district as well as being professionally acquainted with them, because we went to school together or they were my teachers in the past.
I think things are going well because I survived the first quarter and my first solo go-round with parent teacher conferences unscathed! I love going to work every day, and I especially love when we have been working on something (usually it's a math concept) and all of a sudden one of the kids will pipe up, "Oh, NOW I get it! It's EASY!" and that just makes my day! I feel like we have a pretty good handle on routines in the classroom and we have a "reward" system that the kids get excited about every week (we do a "prize wheel").
One of the things I would like to do better with is consistency in regulating noise level. Some days I allow the students to get a little noisy because I am busy entering grades or something, and some days I will really crack down on them for complete silence, and I just need to be firm and consistent with them so it never gets to where I have to raise my voice a lot to be heard over them. We need to find a happy medium where they are allowed to communicate, but where I don't have to whistle when I need them to pay attention to what I'm trying to teach!
So to re-cap, I think communication with parents and other teachers is going well, I think we are good in our classroom about having the same routines, and I think we are good with our reward system. I would like to change the noise level consistency and explore different ways of getting students' attention instead of having to talk over them or repeat instructions. I will try to really stick to the hand-signals method for the students to get my attention that I read about in Wong's "The First Days of School". We are supposed to be implementing it, but I haven't been as consistent with it as I should be!
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