Observation #2

This past week I was in the preschool room at Brigham Elementary. The students focused on the sense of taste. This lesson was a little difficult with the small groups since students were not able to taste some of the food due to allergies in the classroom. I think the teachers did an awesome job of being flexible. I worked towards my goal of interacting with diverse learners this week when I led a small group on cocoa powder. The students were not able to taste the cocoa powder so I had the students describe the powder instead. I provided the students with words too to help describe it and then we had a conversation on what the powder might be. A lot of the children said chocolate which I said was correct because without being able to taste it the kids did not know it was bitter. I explained further that it was something that is put inside chocolate. This small group really helped me think on my toes and come up with some out of the box ways to relate this object to the kids. I had to kind of reach and find out where their knowledge was at and see how I could relate it back and make it relevant to the object they were tasting. I think this is a skill that we as teachers will continue developing as we go along but it was extremely helpful to practice it. I think this really helped me move further in my goal because although I may not have had to speak a different language with these students I was still able to come up with diverse topics and sentences to keep the students engaged. One thing I will say that makes this goal rather difficult to work towards is that fact that we are not in the classroom on a regular basis. We have been teaching in pre-k twice and now we are going to move into the kindergarten classroom where kelcey and I have to teach our lesson and we do not know any of the kids. I think a huge part of what makes lesson successful is knowing the learners you are trying to reach with that lesson. I think most teachers in our class are frustrated with this as well. Its hard to know what the kids already know when you barely know the kids yourself. Then you are trying to make sure everyone is doing something in the lesson so that can at least take one thing away from the lesson before we have to leave. I think that although this goal is challenging, it is not impossible. We will use these skills that we are learning now throughout our career and life. This is a skill that will develop throughout our entire lives so it is ok to only have taken baby steps in the long run. I think its just hard to convince ourselves that these baby steps are ok because we really just want to have great improvement.

Exceeds: Over word limit.

Observing/Goal reflection

This past week I was in the Preschool room with Becca and Kacie teaching. There were some challenges but I think the teachers really pulled through the best they could without ever having met the students before. It’s really hard to plan a lesson for a group of students with whom you have never met and it really keeps you on your toes. I worked more towards my goal this past week of working more students of diverse backgrounds and students who are English language learners. The students Kelcey and I took into our small groups were able to fluently speak English. The students, one in particular, was very forthcoming with answer to our questions and very eager to participate. The students were also very engaged with the activities that were planned. I think this really helped keep me on my toes and try to think of interesting new things for the students to concentrate on or answer new questions. I really want to continue working on this goal but the struggle I am having with it right now is that I am not in control of whom I am working with during the school day. It’s hard to try and interact with as many students as possible when you are not the teacher teaching. The students also are not interacting with the other teachers as much but you can tell they are eager to talk to new people. I think the more we teach in the classrooms the easier it will be. For now, I have not had much practice speaking in Spanish with the students or really bringing any of their culture in the classroom and it is starting to make me wonder if I will be able to interact with the students in that way. The students are really awesome during the activities and have gone above and beyond my expectations. I think another thing I have learned from my goals is that we cannot always expect our students to be that different from us. I think we all knew we were going into a school that has a lot of ELL students. So to me I may have stereotyped or assumed that all the students were going to be harder to teach and they were all going to speak in different languages but that is not always the case. I think it’s really important that I saw this assumption now. If I kept these assumptions up I would be assuming way too much during my lesson that I would not really be planning for the actual students. I really enjoy a quote about students that I found on pinterest. “No matter how excellent a teacher you become, you will reach only about 80% of your students. Don’t ever become so arrogant as to think you know who the 20% will be. You will be wrong every time.” By Dr. Lenny Curtis. I love this quote because it reminds me that we do not know exactly who is taking in what we are teaching despite what appearances may be. This is a constant reminder to me to think about my students to try and make sure to accommodate each and every one of them.

Exceed: Over the word requirement and favorite quote integrated.