Reflecting on Winter Quarter

                I have been at the University of Washington for 5 years now. I knew from the beginning of my college career that I wanted to be a teacher. I was finally able to start that goal last spring and each quarter I have grown as a learner, a teacher, a classmate and an individual. The past few months have been pretty overwhelmingly with classes, lesson plans, work, school, and a never ending amount of homework. This quarter is finally come to a close, and it is time to reflect on what I have learned and how I have grown as a teacher. I think this quarter I have seen my confidence rise when it comes to my place in the classroom and especially in teaching lessons in my main placement. When I first came back to working at my main placement I was extremely nervous because I had only taught one lesson in my dyad and getting in front of students and my master teacher terrified me. I taught a science lesson for my first lesson in my main placement and let me tell you, I was nervous but I felt prepared because I knew the lesson and what the students needed to know. After I taught the lesson, I was hot, sweaty and overwhelmed but since teaching that lesson I have grown so much when it comes to teaching lessons. I now teach lessons almost every day when I am in my placement and have tried to take on teaching different subjects. I have noticed that every time I teach a lesson from a specific subject that it gets better. I have been able to take constructive feedback from my master teacher and field instructor and use that feedback as I prepare other lessons.  For example, in my first observation my field instructor gave me a goal to use more think time for students when questions are asked and to use some kind of self-assessment for students. 

                I just had my third observation and took my field instructors feedback into account as I planned this math lesson.  I made sure to always ask questions and allow my students time to think in order to get more participation from different students. Once I started using think time/wait time for my students I got so many more hands up instead of the same students every time. I have also realized the importance of student self-assessment and voice in their learning. I taught a lesson on square numbers and had my students self-assess their learning at the end of the day by asking questions about what they learned and if they would be able to teach it to someone else. My field instructor also told me that a great way for students to self assess is to allow them to assess one another by asking each other what they learned and to explain what they learned. I am very much enjoying getting feedback during my lessons because it allows me to constantly reflect on what I could do differently or how I could change the lesson in the future.

                My course work this year has really helped me to grow as a teacher because I have learned many methods to help me in the classroom. Specifically, I learned how to use talk moves in the classroom and I have been using re-voicing, rephrasing, repeating, and other talk moves during my lessons. I want students to interact with one another and to be able to explain their thinking and their reasoning for answers and thoughts about subjects. I have really enjoyed using talk moves in the classroom and I know it is a skill that will be important to use in the classroom to help my students learn from one another and for me to learn from my students.

                When I first started at my placement, I was a little disappointed because I was placed at a school that had an extremely high socio-economic status and did not have a diverse population, but I have come to learn that all students need to be taught no matter what gender, socio-economic status, or race they are. Students are students and deserve the same equal chance for education and be able to learn from a teacher who wants to be there and who has passion for what they are doing. I have come to be so passionate for my students and have tried to get to know each and every one of my students the best that I can and I continue to learn from them. It has been very eye opening to be able to work with students I have never worked with; it is amazing how much they have developed over the year of being with them from the beginning. 

Reflecting on Different ways of Teaching

I have been volunteering or working in schools since I was a senior in high school. I did most of my volunteering in a Title 1 school in both a 1st grade and 5th grade classroom. It was a brand new building just like other schools in the district. I volunteered with the same teacher for almost four years and really learned a lot from her, and her way of teaching. She also went through the same certification program as I did and uses many of the same philosophies I have been studying and plan on using in my own classroom. Over the past seven weeks I interned in a 2nd grade class in a different city/district than my main placement. This school was extremely different than the school I am at for my main placement. 

I am growing so much as a teacher because of the experiences I am having in the classroom working with different teachers who have very different teaching and classroom management techniques. In my main placement my teacher uses a flip card chart/stars for her behavior system. The flip card chart consists of different cards for each student and each card has 4 colors. At the beginning of class each student starts on green if they are off task during the day or misbehaving and do not stop after one warning than they are told to turn their card to yellow, if they are told a second time they turn their card to orange, if they are still misbehaving the teacher will have them turn their card to red and if they go to red they must fill out a red report telling their parents why they went on red that day. I really like this system because it holds the students accountable for their behavior. Another management piece my teacher uses is that each student has the opportunity to earn a star for good behavior or going out of their way to be nice or do something nice for someone else. Once a student gets 10 stars they are allowed to pick from the treasure chest for a prize.  One final piece for her classroom management is she also gives PAT minutes to the class if the whole class is on task. PAT stands for "preferred activity time" the class can earn up to 20 minutes to have this activity time on Friday. I have seen PAT in many classrooms and I really like this management technique. 

In the dyad placement my teacher used a different management technique instead of using a card chart she used a clothespin behavior chart. Each students started on ready to learn and could move up or down depending on their behavior. If the students clothespin moved up it would go to great job and then outstanding for behavior like helping others and doing what the teacher asked. If their clothespin moved down it moved to either slow down or parent contact. If a student moved down it meant they were not following directions, or they were misbehaving in other ways. I really liked this system and the students really loved it as well because they were able to decorate their own clothespin and they were able to hold themselves accountable for their behavior. Part of my dyad teacher's classroom management consisted of a lot of positive reinforcement for each student. She made sure to tell each student how proud she was of them or how wonderful of a job they were doing. In her classroom there was such love and warmth in the room and it was extremely enjoyable to work in that environment. I could tell that my dyad teacher has been in this career for a very long time. 

I do believe that teaching does differ from one school to the next because each teacher has their own classroom management and ways of teaching curriculum. I have been very lucky to have seen two different literacy programs, and two different ways of creating a classroom library. During my years of volunteering and working in my main placement I have seen a classroom library that is categorized by genre and students take the books whenever they want for silent reading time. There doesn't seem like any rhyme or reason why students pick the books they do and if they are to easy or to hard for the student.  In my dyad placement, the teacher set up her classroom library based on levels of books because the literacy curriculum she teaches uses just right and leveled reading books. During her literacy lessons she would teach a skill and students would need to apply that skill to their own reading. I would love to see this done at my main placement because it is extremely beneficial for students. 

These are just a few things I have seen that are different from district to district, school to school and teacher to teacher. I know that I will not be cloned to teaching a certain way but I am very blessed that I have had the opportunities to work with some great teachers and see what they do in their classrooms, so that when I am in my own classroom I can adopt some of their techniques and use them in my own classroom. 

Writing Lessons 101

            This week I have really figured out that writing lesson plans can be extremely time consuming and there are many pieces to writing a good lesson plan. I do understand that teachers have teacher guides that they use in order to teach lessons to their students but how do teachers know if they are direct or inquiry based lessons. I never knew there were different types of lessons until we learned about direct lesson plan, inquiry based lessons, and concept attainment lessons. I know that these lessons are embedded in curriculum that we will be teaching and that teachers can create lessons based on these specific models.
             When I first started to write my lesson plans for my unit it took me a very long time to complete my first one but after getting back I did a pretty good job on it, so I continued to complete a few more and it got easier as I did my second one and then on to my third lesson plan for my science unit in the spring. Writing these lessons have been such great practice into exactly how I would teach something to my group of students and I am actually enjoying myself as I am writing them because I don't look at it as school work but as something that I need to do for my job which makes is more enjoyable to do than look at it as an assignment. I am feeling more and more like a teacher everyday which is such a rewarding feeling because I know that this is what I want to do with my life and I am enjoying learning all that I can.

Always Learning

              I realized today that I only have about four more visits at my dyad placement. I think it is going to be very hard leaving the second graders that I am working with right now because I have connected with some many of them. But I am looking forward to returning to my main placement because I can't wait to see how much my 3rd grader have grown in their learning. I feel way more confident after working in my 2nd grade class because I am growing as teacher and I have had opportunities to be able to co teach with my master teacher and lead small groups.
              My knowledge about the education career and what it entails has exploded over the past few weeks because I am learning so much about how I would want to manage my classroom and what would or would not work for me as a teacher. I am growing as a teacher in so many ways, I am learning that there is so much work that the teaching profession entails and that in order to be a teacher you have to love it because you need to have all the patience in the world in order to get through the day. Each week,  I feel that I am learning more and more about my self as a learner and a teacher.My master teacher gave me so many different resources she uses for teaching reading and allowed me to take any copies I wanted to build my own knowledge base for my future classroom. I need to get organized because I do not know how I am going to remember where everything is. It is amazing to think that we are half way done with this program and I am realizing now that this is what I am meant to do. I am meant to make a difference in all my student's lives. I am meant to make sure that every student in my classroom succeeds and feels successful in their education. I am always growing and will continue to grow as an individual and as a teammate for my professional community.