Blog #4: It's Getting Real!

 

• Rate your overall experience of the week: 1-Very difficult | 5 – Great week (3)

• Seven questions to end your week:

• Observe: What pleasant surprises / accomplishments did I achieve this week?

Some of my most pleasant surprises this week would be seeing some of my students showing growth and understanding that strong new connections are forming in their brain. For example, one of my students was really concerned at the very beginning of the year. Anything that I passed to her, it seemed that it overwhelmed her. She wanted so bad to be able to figure it out, and when the pieces did not click, she would end up crying. She has really shown great growth this week. When I watch her during my math lessons, she is maintaining eye contact with me and really taking in my instructions. When I come over to check her work in between, her work shows that she is copying everything I do and trying to go above and beyond. She takes in every tiny step. She still has much growth to make, but whenever she does have to make corrections, she is now really receptive to the feedback and she only sees the feedback and the chance to make corrections as an opportunity to grow stronger and gives me a big smile with a willingness to do her very very best! 

• Reflect: What lessons did my work/experiences teach me that I will build upon next week?

Lessons that my experiences teach me for next week would be the importance of having simple and easy to follow notes during my lessons. For example, I spend a lot of time diving deep into my curriculum to write lessons that check every box and touch every component, but with having so many things to focus on and also writing these lessons and then not looking at them sometimes for a few days after initially looking over them. I get lost in what my plans were and lose track of where I am at, what I need to accomplish and also in what order to complete the tasks. I look over the plans over and over beforehand and look at them in fine detail, that I get so lost in the details and mis the big picture. I have gone through a lesson before and tried to address all these little details, but I have missed the opportunity to really hone in on and ensure the students get the objective. This week I have really tried to make simplified notes of my lesson plans to be sure when the time runs out for the lesson, that I budget the time wisely to prioritize what builds their understanding of the objective. I have also learned alot from my CE about structuring and framing your teaching to go around the assessment. Review the assessment, especially the unit one, and pinpoint what the students are not going to understand and why, and then make distinctive efforts to address that misconception.

• Focus:  How are my short-term efforts and my long-term goals still aligned?

My short-term goal would be to get my files and my folders on my computer and physical files aligned and in a system that I can function within and maintain with the scattered and craziness of the day because items have to stay so organized and recorded, but I have a hard time finding a moment to get everything organized and aligned with every minute planned. I am also trying to designate points of the day that I work on specific tasks that I need to work on continuously each day but can easily be pushed aside. Getting my lesson plans take over my time completely, and I am still not completing at nearly the rate that I need to. I spend some times 2-3 hours or more on planning lessons at time, and I only really have at maximum, 5 hours a night to really complete work, and so I have had a hard time trying to figure out a way to write more than 2 lesson plans a night, and that does not even leave hardly anytime for tasks outside of planning for upcoming lessons, such as grading, organizing, and preparing for upcoming lessons that are already planned, and then that does not include additional course assignments for specifically the course shell and edTPA assignments. I have all the records and materials collected to complete my edTPA, but I am struggling to designate time to complete them. My long term goal is to develop a functional system that will allow me to keep a steady and consistent track of what I have completed and what I have left to do with designated times to do them in. This will also contribute to my long term goal of being faster and more effective with designing lesson plans and also submitting and passing edTPA.

• Be Productive: What could I have spent more or less time doing?

I could have spent less time writing and recording the lesson plans in the curriculum pacing guide. I end up spending full nights sometimes recording, some times verbatim, what isin the pacing guide to help me think through the plan, but often times, though I promise I will, I do not return to those notes when I officially write up my lesson plans into the edTPA templates or whenever I am reviewing the plans the day before teaching them. 

• Have Courage:  How did apprehension and indecision impact what I did and didn’t do?

Apprehension and indecision always impacts my lesson planning. It is always what makes my lesson planning a long and strenuous process because I always read the lessons and I am always indecisive on what strategies and activities to implement. Sometimes the scripted lessons can limit this problem from happening as much, but I am always indecisive too on what the next course of action is the best whenever I run into a crossroads. 

• Begin Anew: What is the first logical step(s) for next week? What mental clutter can I clear? 

The first logical step for next week would be catching up edTPA and organizing my files and catching up on grading. I also must figure out a schedule for ensuring completing all of my lessons and ensuring that I am well prepared for the next week. 

• What were some data you analyzed this week and how did it help guide your decisions?

Some of my data that I analyzed this week was on the student’s performance with a Wit & Wisdom test, and this gave me some feedback on how the students were taking in my instruction. I think the most beneficial decision I made was being sure to review with my students before assessing them formally and being explicit with the misconceptions that I could predict students would have on their assessment and addressing them. Another item I assessed was their math skills with applying the distributive property during our math lessons, and I concluded that the students were still not performing on an independent level and were not yet ready for the upcoming module assessment, so I decided to slow the pace of the wrap up of the module and implement some review days next week. 

• NC Professional Teaching Standards (be sure to reference activities from your lesson plans to solidify your answer)

• Pick an element from standard one of the evaluation tool and explain some activities/strategies you implemented this week to increase your rating for the element.

I displayed leadership this week with my students during many periods of time this week when my CE had to step out of the room for lengthened periods of time, and it took away that safety net. Though I was in charge of the lesson and the room, I always knew she was in the room and if things really went wrong or I was going too far over their heads or not managing them well, she could let me know and advise on what I might need to adjust. During these points when she stepped out of the room, I knew that leading and managing the room was really up to me, and I had to take full reign and control of giving the students clear instructions and behavioral expectations. This occurred Friday morning during morning work testing because a teacher in another 3rd grade classroom was out sick and she was having to help the sub set up and align the plans for the classroom. 

• Pick an element from standard two of the evaluation tool and explain some activities/strategies you implemented this week to increase your rating for the element.

For establishing a respectful environment for a diverse population of students, this week I made adaptations to the quantity of the number of questions that students had to complete for an assessment. Also, students this week worked with me in my teacher center and in their morning work, on improving their skills with 3 digit subtraction with regrouping, my students were grasping the concept at varying rates for independent application of the skill. To help accommodate the needs of my students with their varying performance levels, I first say students in groups based on their academic performance measured by the Starr Reading, Starr Math, and their BOG scores. The students in each group, still were performing at different levels within the group. I always started off the lesson doing problems together with the students. I always did at least one, even with my high performing students to check for understanding, and usually I did at least 1-2 more to ensure they understood. My lower performing groups were vary different in their performance levels. My EC student needed step-by-step instruction, whereas my other students in the group could still perform some independently. I started the students with a few problems together, and then the students worked in partners that were performing at a similar pace, and then I worked one-on-one with my EC student, and my other students, I checked on them intermittently to ensure conceptual understanding. 

• Pick an element from standard three of the evaluation tool and explain some activities/strategies you implemented this week to increase your rating for the element.

For teachers to know the content they teach, I have been exploring different strategies and approaches to how to review with students for their upcoming math test. I have learned this week the importance of in many ways, teaching to the assessment, and the assessment in turn should be aligned to the north carolina standards. When planning my lessons, I always try to simplify the scripted plans as much as I can to identify the objective, map it to the standard, and then map the assessment or activity to applying the skills related to the standard. 

• Pick an element from standard four of the evaluation tool and explain some activities/strategies you implemented this week to increase your rating for the element.

I facilitated learning for my students this week with a re-engagement lesson for math. The students were being taught the distributive property with division, and I knew that this lesson would be a challenge for them, and after the lesson, I knew that they were not at the right level of understanding. I re-taught the concept the next day, but I used a different strategy where the students worked on the whiteboard more to give them a change of setting, and I focused on which number is being distributed and broken apart. The students still did not grasp the concept to the level that I would like after this, so I re-evaluated again and I implemented a back up plan. The students seem to facilitate learning best with interactive videos. I decided to have the students watch a Zearn video on the concept where the video stops intermittently to ask a question that requires the students to apply the skill, and it is slow at an extremely scaffolded pace. The students loved getting to walk up to the board and type in the answer, it made them excited and try really hard. It also simplified a rather complex concept and procedure. 

• Pick an element from standard five of the evaluation tool and explain some activities/strategies you implemented this week to increase your rating for the element.

Standard five is reflecting on your practice. I reflected on my practice with my students and their performance with the math practice, and I made the conclusion that the students were not performing at an independent enough level to take the end of module test as soon as it was scripted to take place, and the students were not ready to move to a new skill, so after reflecting on student performance, I decided to implement 2 review days next week and review at my teacher center to ensure the students have a strong grasp of the concept and are well prepared for the test. 

•  Other:

• What components of your portfolio have you started to complete?

I have completed a solid foundational website for my portfolio. I have also worked on organizing folders for documents that I plan to work on to design my portfolio. 

• What support does your clinical educator need from your University Supervisor?

• What support do you need from your University Supervisor

My university supervisor and I both can simply say that the workload is overwhelming sometimes for us. I know that the lesson plan formats are very strict, but that is typically a hardship for us is getting the lesson plans formatted to the edTPA template and drafted with the necessary detail in time.