Weekly Reflections: January 11th

    I have had a great first full week in the classroom with the students!  I have learned the importance of getting adequate rest the night before, so I am recharged for the next day.  Teaching is not only physically demanding but also mentally.  I worked really hard on improving my classroom management techniques this week.  I am remaining strong with the students and using the rewards and consequences appropriately.  I have to gain the students respect and trust again since they have been out on break.  I would rate my week this week as a four.  I would say a four because I am learning my place in the classroom and trying not to step on any toes.  In the past, when I came to work with my CE the TA was out.  Therefore, I have not been able to work with the TA very much until this week.  My CE had to be out of the room to assess students, so the TA and I worked together to teach the class.  Also, our technology was down so I had to come up with other aspects to use for my lessons.  Lastly, the students were very energetic and were testing me to see what they could get by with.  My accomplishment this week would be successfully teaching a full week of reading lessons to the students.  A pleasant surprise from the week would be that most of the students were fully engaged in the lessons I taught, despite not having technology incorporated.  This week taught me the students and the classroom environment is continuously changing.  For instance, kindergarten has had at least six new students transfer to the school since the students have been back from Christmas break.  Our classroom received two new students since we have been back from break.  The students grow/progress in their understandings or some students regress in their understandings of the standards.  Also, students become friends with other students and form groups, this causes some students to become sad and act out.  Next week, I will build on the fact that change occurs continuously and will plan accordingly to meet the needs of our students.  In my future classroom, I will be prepared for changes to occur continuously in the knowledge of my students, the friendships made between students, and in the amount of students I may have.  I will assess as much as possible to keep track/data of the students changes in understandings of the standards.  I would say my short-term efforts for next week and the remaining of student teaching is to really focus on the blooms taxonomy and asking the higher level questions to students.  This is one of my weakness when I am teaching.  I forget to incorporate the higher level questions and build off of students responses.  This comes from not being taught in this manner when I was in school.  Also, I let my nerves take the best of me sometimes and forget to include the higher level questions I have planned on including when I actually teach the lesson.  This short-term goal aligns to my long-term goal of being successful in my student teaching and as a future teacher.  By including the blooms taxonomy in my teaching I will be able to push my students to take their understandings even further with the content.  This week I could of spent more time teaching my lessons then trying to figure out how to fix the technology aspects.  I could of spent less time messing with the technology for each lesson trying to get it to work.  I would say for the courage aspect, I was apprehensive about being more animated during some of my reading lessons.  Therefore, I held back being more animated and silly during some of the reading lessons.  I believe if I am more animated during some lessons, I will be able to hold the studentes interest longer and they will be more engaged.
      The steps for next week are to create the higher level questions from blooms taxonomy to match the lessons I am teaching.  I will print these off and have them with me while I teach so I do not forget to include them.  I will also practice being more animated with the stories this weekend so I feel more comfortable when I am in front of the students.  The mental clutter I can clear would be getting the next weeks lesson plans done so I do not have to worry about it during next week.  I was able to review the mclass dibles data with my CE and this helped me to plan the standards to focus on during letterland.  The students are sturggling with identifying the plain letter.  We were also able to determine a group of students to start remediating with certain standards.  I will use this information to guide me in my teaching next week.  I also was able to review the updated math task data.  I was able to determine the math standards we need to focus on this week to help the students grow in their understandings with some of their math standards.  One piece of advice I would share with other student teachers is that the students understandings change on a daily basis.  Therefore, you should assess the students understandings as much as possible. (individually).
NC Teacher Candidate Standards  
Standard 1b: Teachers demonstrate leadership in the school.  
I was able to observe the school improvement plan group meeting this week.  I was able to determine steps I can take to help them reach their goals.  I was also able to observe a meeting for mentors and see how they are able to contribute to the success of a new teacher in the school.
Standard 2e: Teachers work collaboratively with the families and significant adults in the lives of their students.  
I was able to observe my CE working collaboratively with the family of a student to determine strategies we can use to help him focus at school.  I also was able to see my CE communicate with a parent about giving their student some shoes that were donated to the classroom, before just sending the shoes home.  I feel like this is a great way to give the parents a voice and create a positive relationship with the parents between the teacher.  Having a positive relationship with the parents will  help the student to be successful.
Standard 3d: Teachers make instruction relevant to students.
I have observed and been able to include leadership ethics into our lessons for the students.  We relate the content to the seven habits the students school-wide learn and focus on.  The seven habits relate to the leader in me.  I have found the seven habits to be very helpful to refer to when teaching the students about leadership ethics and global awareness.
Standard 4f: Teachers help students work in teams and develop leadership qualities.  I was able to observe and have students to work in pairs and teams for some of the lessons this week.  I feel like the students are able to learn a lot about the content when they are able to work with their peers.
Standard 5a: Teachers analyze student learning.   I was able to sit in with a MTSS meeting where the team discusses the students who are on the tier plan.  I was able to see how they analyze data of student learning and determine what strategies they need or if the strategies are working to continue.  This was a very interesting and helpful meeting to attend.  This meeting helped me to understand the tier process even more.
Other 
I am working on updating my philosophy of education for my portfolio.  My CE and I had the pleasure of meeting my university supervisor this week.  We do not need any support at this time from my university supervisor.  I was able to receive some very helpful feedback thus far and look forward to receiving more feedback as the semester progresses!