Weekly Reflections: March 15

Wow!  What a week it has been this week!  I had a teacher workday Monday where we were actually able to just work in our classrooms.  It was so nice to have this time to get ahead with my week.  I also took the time to clean as much as I could to help kill some of the germs going around.  I would say overall this week I would rate my experience as a three.  My students did well this week with their lessons and activities.  We had a new student join our group this week.  I have been a little stressed over how to help this particular student.  He has some behavior challenges that we are trying to help him with.  It is also stressful waiting to get information on your new students and not knowing more about them when they first start your class.  My pleasant surprise from this week would be how well my students are able to do with their academics when they are at school.  Many of my students go through a lot when they are at home and probably more than I will ever know about.  It is comforting to know and observe how safe and comfortable they feel in our classroom.  This allows these students to excel in their academics and perform to their best potential.  The lesson my work experience taught me this week is the importance of continuous assessments on the students understandings.  You also need to recheck their understandings from previous assessments to make sure they still understand.  I will build upon this next week by continuing to assess students and making sure each student is receiving the support they need.   I would say my short-term efforts this week are to continue to focus more on giving very clear and specific instructions for activities.  I even want to take time to have students model the correct way to act during the activity and how not to act during the activity.  This way students will have a visual on how they are supposed to act and what they are supposed to be doing during the activity.  This short-term goal aligns with my long-term goal of being successful in my student teaching and as a future teacher.  I could of spent more time preparing my lessons then cleaning.  This week I wanted to clean and get the germs out of the classroom.  My first steps for next week are to collect all of my materials I will need for next week.  I will also make sure to fix all of my centers to match the students needs.  The data I was able to analyze this week was our students phoneme segmentation data.  I will use this data to help me plan which students need more interventions.  I also reviewed the students sight word data.  I will use this data to guide the intervention groups I plan for sight words.  One piece of advice I would give other student teachers is to keep your head up and just keep swimming and swimming, we are almost there!  
NC Teacher Candidate Standards  
 Standard 1a- Teachers lead in their classrooms.  I was able to be a leader in the classroom by leading the students through their day, no matter what came up or erupted.
Standard 2a- Teachers treat students as individuals.  I was able to treat students as individuals by building on the relationships with each student.  I created a stronger relationship with a few of the students who felt comfortable discussing their situations at home.  These students opened up to me more this week and felt comfortable to talk with me about why they were sad and what they were feeling.  
Standard 3d- Teachers make instruction relevant to students. This week we talked about physical properties.  We were able to relate to the objects and examples discussed to our everyday lives.
Standard 4d- Teachers utilize technology in the classroom.  I was able to use the smart board activity games for subtraction.  
Standard 5b- Teachers link professional growth to their professional goals.  I was able to see where my students are and I am able to see how I need to change my goals and teaching to help the students be successful in all subject areas.      
I am double checking my edTPA task.  No support needed at this time.