Lesson Presentation:
Overall, I greatly enjoyed the lesson with the kids. I am so glad I got to go in and work with them. We planned the lesson with the span of grades 1-2 in mind so having a 2-3 group was interesting. In some areas they were able to complete some things quicker but in other ways, I found that many of the skills I expected to need support also showed up in this group. A few students did not understand that their messages were supposed to match their partners messages so in a sense we had mixed messages going on. I think this lesson taught ME as much about communication as it was to teach the kids. Amazing to observe the kids and watch how they each take in information and send information to each other. Who listens well, who pushes to have their way, who knows how to compromise, who is confident in their communication, who is not confident, and on and on. There were many levels of skills present in the room and that made it more interesting to work with them. When students were finished early, helping them extend and think about more complex tasks. When students struggled, identifying what scaffolds would help them best. A lot of on the spot intervention and extension needed to happen - to a larger extent then I had anticipated. As a teacher, I am looking at a more proactive way to plan lessons - taking into account all those levels and struggles for students BEFORE the lesson in order to better intervene right away. It was difficult in this instance since I had no idea what levels we would get. I could plan for the general English learner or low attention kiddo, but even within those groups there are so many different levels! There was also just the general background knowledge of verbs being actions and how to have collaborative conversations that we didn’t have time to build up but was indeed necessary to have a good handle on how to complete the tasks. Although we were pressed for time, I think the kids enjoyed what they were doing. I really loved when they were up out of their seats working with each other. A few started out very tentative when doing the actions but then seemed to loosen up a bit later. All I could think after was I’d really like to spend the whole morning with them! Due to time constraints and the fact that the important part for us was getting the kids to interact with the activity part, we rushed through some things that I normally would have done more with - like sentence framing for kids when they were writing, conversation stems for more turn and talk opportunities, a more complete closure of the activity and linking that back to the CTE standards. I also felt a little off kilter with the team teaching aspect of it. I could not have asked for a better partner and we work well together but I am just not used to teaching with someone else so that was a new experience for me. Action Plan: I will not be teaching full time next year. My new position as an instructional coach will have some opportunities to do lessons with kids but not daily. I will be assigned to two different school sites so my time will be split between two school cultures. Last year as a teacher, I had begun to implement a beginning level of blended learning in my classroom (I just didn’t know that is what it was called). I’d like to explore with that more and help teachers in their classroom understand what blended learning is and how to implement with their class. As a coach I will have the opportunity to provide professional development to teachers so I can see holding some PD sessions on blended learning and following up with teachers on implementing it. I also want to encourage and help teachers when it comes to building relationships with students and bring in more student choice to their classrooms. On a smaller more covert scale, I just want to be a positive voice for teachers to encourage them to reach out of what they know and try new things. When there is complaining in the staff rooms, I want to help steer conversation to a positive problem solving approach. If I can help support or lead in that kind of way, building relationships with teachers as I go, then I think we can start to make changes that will best benefit our students and teachers. CURR341 Overall: One of the articles we read in class this week by Dennis Littky stated that “the biggest barrier to change seems to be the unlearning needed to let new ideas flourish” (p. 289). This statement really hit home for me. I have experienced this in my own growth in my faith, I feel like this is what my family members who have worked on recovery from addiction go through as well. Replacing the old programming/knowledge that we have always relied on with a new way of thinking and behaving. That is so hard. I know so many people that stay in the comfort of what they know and never even try to branch out to learn something new. Learning new things can be difficult or uncomfortable at times. It can also be a little scary - you are after all, traveling into unknown territory that may completely change something in your life. That can be hard to do. In order for people to change, what often needs to occur is that the circumstances they are in currently need to reach a point where it is more uncomfortable to stay where they are then to make a change. I have experienced discomfort in this class. However, instead of allowing the anxiety of that feeling to overwhelm me and shut me down, I really tried to lean into it and learn. My whole reason for starting my masters degree program was because I knew there was important information out there that could help me be a better teacher to my students, a better colleague to other teachers, a better leader on my school site, a better overall educator. I knew that meant change in my previously held beliefs and in my practices. In just eight days in this class, I have learned so much from our reading and activities and I know I am in just the right place to continue this learning. This class was confirmation of that for me. I am so grateful!!
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Below the picture should be a link to the Google Slides Presentation and also a file to download in PPT.
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1tuR7VvS5LqySIqIogYn8vUECDak2acaDXut9SO9KSpI/edit?usp=sharing
Blended Learning
Today I learned a lot about what blended learning actually is and what components contribute to a highly effective blended learning program. When I watched the videos I realized that I had implemented a beginning version of small group rotations in my classroom during math last year! I had no idea that what I was doing had a name, I just knew that the whole class version of math was NOT working for my kiddos or myself so the structure needed to change and small group rotations made the most sense for us. We had one-to-one chromebooks in our class last year, so the technology piece was so much easier to integrate. My students and I loved the change as it made our math time so much more enjoyable and more productive. I loved the fact that I could easily intervene right away with those students who were struggling and I could quickly regroup for the next day based on needs I observed in the small group instruction. The only problem we ran into was the pacing (one of those things that they suggested in the video to let go of - I can totally see why). My higher kids could keep up the intense pace of the lessons but my medium and low kids could not. Sometimes, I had to bring them back all the way to number sense building before we could embark on the lesson focus because that was where they were at with their skills at the time. However, when you have benchmark testing due for report cards and need to be through covering certain modules of curriculum in a specific time, it can make it rather stressful and overwhelming to accomplish. I stuck with it as best I could for most of the year. Overall I found it a much more effective way to teach my students and give them that tier 1 support they need right away. I started with math last year as my focus and if I would have stayed in the classroom this coming year, I was going to work on expanding further with our ELA work as well. As a side note, I started my annotated reference project work based on my interest in Social Emotional Learning because I felt that was the most important topic to me to research (I have been begging for years for some help in the Social Emotional area for my kiddos) but now the idea of helping the teachers I will be coaching next year get started on implementing blended learning in their classroom has me fired up to research that area too! So many good things to get involved in! Integration Project:
Challenge - with this project I am finding the most difficult part for me has been matching or connecting a CTE standard (written with 7-12th grade in mind) to the tasks/content needed to teach 1st and 2nd graders. I feel like I can successfully connect and pull in standards from nearly all other areas but I keep getting hung up on the CTE career language. I think I am taking too literally or being too specific about the language they are using in the standard. Also, I am finding that although I might have a NGSS content standard that students are expected to know, that may not clearly or directly translate to a career area in the CTE standards. This was surprising to me and makes me question then the value of the content in that science standard that the students are expected to know. Up until this class, I had never seen the CTE standards. Most of my colleagues have yet to look them over either since we live in K-5 world and these “start” in grade 7. I think that looking at the CTE standards and linking them to the content area standards (especially in K-5) can go a long way to helping us decide which of our standards is really essential for students to spend time on in any unit of study. Strength - I have really enjoyed finding activities for the unit plan. My team member and I talked about we wish we could teach the kids at Sequoia for the whole week just so we could do some of these activities we have outlined for them. It has been helpful practice to also start thinking about ways to include the outside “real world” community people and places into our unit. Most of the time when I lesson plan it is only about what is inside the school (mostly our classroom) and what parts of the provided curriculum that we can use to enhance the learning. It is good practice to start to think about extending outside our classroom to include connections to learning within the community. Why UDL Matters for English Learners by Katie Novak
According to Katie Novak, UDL, universal design for learning, is the best way to improve engagement of all students. The article begins with a narrative example of her grandmother learning to speak English by visiting the local grocery store, talking to the local grocer, and exploring the items in the store through the visual signs and tangible food. Novak makes the case that by providing multiple means of representation, action/expression, and engagement, educators can better meet the needs of English Learners and make language development accessible to all. The article goes into the basis behind using UDL with English Learners (the why) but never really discusses HOW to implement. It discusses the important impact it can have on the English Learner population but not what particulars are involved. In order to gather more practical knowledge of UDL further research would be required. Shadow a Student - Sequoia Elementary
I have to be honest - this activity was hard on me emotionally and there is no way I can process this in 150-250 words - just too much emotion and too many thoughts. So warning - long post ahead! This afternoon, the shadow a student activity really brought me back to my first teaching experiences. Experiences I had forgotten about. I have been in the classroom, full-time teaching for 13 years. My student teaching experience was fabulous. A student population much like what I found at Sequoia Elementary. I loved those kids! I learned so much from them. We had fun together. After getting hired at Sylvan Union I have taught both 5th and 3rd grades. Every 5-6 years, I feel worn down, burnt up, and in need of a change for both me and my students. Recently, I was not feeling like the teacher my students needed or should have with them right now. I was tired, worn out, and getting grumpy. I did not want to be THAT teacher. Plus I felt the pull on my heart to work with and help teachers, because I know how hard it is right now and how much teachers are trying to balance and do. I want to be of service in that capacity. So now I move to instructional coaching and work with the adults. All that to say - participating in the Shadow a Student activity brought me back to WHY I wanted to work with kids in the first place! At first I was SUPER anxious about it (not sure why, I work with kids all the time). I think it was the idea of being one of THEM instead of being the one taking care of them. That shift in perspective was uncomfortable. Maybe because I was afraid that I might see things that I know I do in the classroom that are not the best for kids. I think I was anxious because it was going to force me to look at things through the students eyes and that was going to hold a big fat mirror up to me and my teaching. That is not an easy task, even for the most reflective person. After participating in this afternoon I must say that the entire experience was enjoyable, heart wrenching (found myself at the edge of tears a few times on the way home), and super powerful. I loved it! I am SO glad I was given the opportunity to do it. These kids, they were the ones I started my career with - the English Learners. My student to shadow was Miss A. She is a super chatty 1st grader to be who liked to sing and give hugs. I was then quickly adopted by her sister, Miss R as well - a mature, helpful 2nd grader to be who likes animals and drawing in her Hello Kitty notebook. Miss A accepted me in her group right away, had lots of questions for me, quietly worked with me at each station and never got mad when another student would try to steal my attention away. Miss A has a good handle on what the rules and expectations are and knows a lot about her fellow classmates characteristics and behaviors. She is very perceptive and expressed a desire to work hard to improve her behavior (she admitted she had not always follow the rules in the past). She had my heart in the first few minutes. Miss A and her sister turned out to be those middle of the road kids. Not loud enough, misbehaved enough, or needy enough to get attention but not on the “teachers” radar to get leadership jobs or stand out for going above and beyond. I noticed, we often got passed up or lost in the shuffle. We were pretty much on our own and had to help each other. Sometimes we missed directions. Sometimes we were trying to catch up to everyone else. Sometimes we were just waiting and waiting for the next step and had to entertain ourselves. This realization did not settle in at first. It was something that hit me later but made an emotional impact. Little Miss A clung to me much of the time. Taking my hand and leading me places. She seemed like she needed and searched for the attention and she took full advantage of mine. I can’t help thinking that the lack of attention she receives and her need for it would possibly later lead her to obtain it in misbehavior ways. She is perceptive. She can see who is getting attention and what actions lead to it. I do not want this for her. At one point we were working on an art activity - drawing shapes and building a Yoda figure. We had to draw two rectangles on brown paper for Yoda’s cape. Miss R and I talked about what a rectangle looked like and she drew two very strong ones on her paper. Then she helped the girl next to her who was having trouble (quite a few on that side of the table were having difficulty). The “teacher” came by and was trying to show them to use the end of the paper as a side to their rectangle to make it easier (a very useful tip). The “teacher” then drew those lines on three of the students papers (instead of having them do it and without even asking). One of them was Miss R. She turned to me confused and asked me why the “teacher” did that on her paper. I felt angry and irritated because Miss R had drawn decent rectangles and did not need the “teacher” to draw her rectangles for her. She was done and waiting on the next step. She did not require help on that part. I explained what the “teacher” was trying to show her and asked which rectangles she wanted to cut out for her project. She said hers. I thought of course you want to use yours and you should! Why would you want to use someone else’s rectangles?!?! I was still irritated. It felt like her work was not valued or appreciated for what it was. Yes, it was just a couple of rectangles but still. There was nothing wrong with her attempt. No feedback was given to make them bigger and no offer of help was made. It caused her confusion. It made me feel like she was being non-verbally told - your drawing is not good enough. That is a real emotional trigger for me. Would I have seen it that way from the teacher role? Unfortunately, I am not sure I would have. Which leads me to ask - how many times have I done the simplest thing like draw lines on a paper and sent that message to my own students without realizing it? That is definitely not sending a message of respect for them and their work. That would not be my intention but that could be the message they receive. Ouch! That reflection stung a bit. Then came the STEM constellation activity (a great idea) which actually turned into a building necklaces and bracelets activity. No one at the table understood that the beads on the pipe cleaners were supposed to be stars. However, activity at the table included people sharing beads with others, finding the right style of bead for other friends, and talking about patterns, colors, shades of color, and shapes of beads. All good topics about the materials we were using. Students had fun categorizing beads, creating patterns and working with materials. The STEM purpose was not reached but we did have some unexpected learning opportunities. Again, no one checked on our table. No one came by to explain the connection to constellations. Was it because I was sitting there? They saw an adult and just passed by thinking I would handle it? Not sure but it was concerning to me. I kind of felt ignored. In all three stations I visited with my student, noise was often a battle. The kids were constantly told to be quiet. For a good reason - teachers needed to hear the radio and be able to send students being called for check out. However, the room was full of 25-30 first and second graders working with hands on materials - I think at a certain point working quietly is not a realistic goal you will attain. Accept it and move on. Also, I understand a sensitivity to noise - I have that, it bothers me. HOWEVER, the noise happening in the room (at least at our table) was productive noise about the activity. So should that noise, that discussion, that vocabulary work, collaboration and sharing, should that be quieted down?? If so, why? To make it easier on the teacher? That discussion is great for English Learners (and Fluent English speakers). Have I experienced this problem as a teacher? You bet! It is a battle. I would often have to stop myself and ask - is this noise on-task noise? If yes, I had to let it go. How can the students be expected to process with each other if they cannot talk? Seems a bit unrealistic. Yep, there is another one of those reflections in the mirror I have not always been good at navigating with my students. At the last station, recess was threatened as a take away (unfortunately, something I myself have done in my own class a time or two) and write ups were referenced as a possible consequence (only threatened, never enforced) for the high noise level. My student, Miss A was working quietly but knew we would lose recess time and it was upsetting to her. She commented on it in despair. It immediately bummed her out and her active, smiling, fun self seemed a bit dimmed. I wanted to cry. This student was actively engaged in an activity, working hard, and respecting the rules and yet she was going to lose her recess. She was going to serve a consequence for something she didn’t participate in. Why do the right thing when you receive a punishment/consequence anyway? Doesn’t seem fair. What message does that send? It doesn’t matter if I follow the rules, I’ll be punished anyway. Might as well join in with everyone else, right? In the process of attempting to quiet the class, Miss A had her internal light dimmed. Mine got dimmed too. As I stated before - I loved this experience! I am so grateful for it! I wish teachers at my sites could participate in this type of activity and debrief after they finish. It was eye opening and so worthwhile! The opportunity to connect with a student one on one and experience part of their day, just reinforces the ideas I am reading about in the Big Picture. Every student is so individual and unique in their learning experiences. Why do we spend so much time trying to teach the masses when we can have such a more powerful impact on one or a few at a time? As a teacher, I cannot control the size of my school or class BUT by breaking down the large class in my room to smaller groups that I can connect with could be my own version of adjusting what I am given to better fit the needs of the students in my room. It can be done and it is extremely important to do it! At the end of Chapter 1 of The Big Picture, the question is asked - "What do you look like and feel like when you are really learning?" Part of my answer included that for me learning feels new, exciting, uncomfortable, active, and like a struggle. Yep, I felt all of those feelings today in class. The articles we responded to stretched my brain to think from different views. I had to examine what views I had brought in with me today and if I was still in agreement with those views after reading and discussing in class. In the class discussion portions, I really appreciated when viewpoints were added to and even challenged from another angle. That made the learning feel dynamic and active. We all come from differing backgrounds and school districts. Each district, and school site has very specific student needs. I find that when I am at one school site for a long time, I can sometimes start to see things through a form of tunnel vision related to what are the specific needs at my school. The opportunity to be in a room with an open discussion with other educators from many different areas is exciting and stretches my own views of my purpose in the classroom and what needs to be done in my classroom to create the love of learning in my students. I very much agree with a view expressed in class today - I am on board with accomplishing this for my students, now I just need to learn HOW to make it happen. What actions can I put forth to create the best learning environment for ALL the students that walk into my classroom??
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