This was my last week of student teaching! I cannot believe it!
I have been so blessed with my placements this year. God put me in places where I was needed and places where I could learn more than I have ever imagined. From teaching in Kenya, to teaching in Cal City, this experience was not what I had expected, but has changed and shaped me as a teacher and person.
This week in school we were doing Science Fair. Most of the days we gave them a chance to work on their project in class. One thing that I am really grateful for is how well my teacher and I work together. If I need to do something like enter grades or finish up testing, she can do whatever else with the rest of the class. If she needs to handle another situation or work on the assembly for next week, I can do any part of the teaching while she works on that. We work so well together and it has started to be to the point where I know what she is thinking. Its weird, but great! I love coteaching and I think that I would love to be in a classroom with two teachers if it went like this placement! :)
So the Science Fair projects were supposed to be done at home, but that didn't quite happen. My teacher bought poster boards for everyone. Less than half of the students did their project at home. We gave them plenty of time, and the final product really paid off. On Friday, my last day, the Science Fair was great. All of the fifth graders got to set up their boards in the lunch rooms and other students came by to see the work they had done.
One thing that really meant a lot to me was one particular student. He has been a bit of a problem in the classroom, only when I am teaching, throughout my time there. I was not in school on Wednesday because I had class and commencement at Trinity. This student was on negative two points for a long time. When I came in on Thursday, he ran up to me before school and said, "Miss Schaap! Guess what? I got 20 points!" He had done his entire science project and it was so good! I was so happy and excited I gave him a high five and he was the best student in class for the next two days. He wrote me a letter and gave it to me on Friday. It said something along the lines of I am sorry for putting you through that, I didn't mean to, and I am sorry. It just made me smile and the whole 9.5 weeks were worth it for those two days!
As I graduate, I feel like I am ready to be a teacher! I can't wait to start and learn even more. I love that we have the summers off to learn more, travel, and become interesting people so we can share this with our students. I look forward to being a teacher. I can't believe its here! :)
Sunday, May 19, 2013
Monday, May 13, 2013
Week 17
Second to last week of teaching! I cannot believe it has gone by so fast!
This week was definitely a good week. We are looking forward to the end of the year and getting the students ready for junior high. In our weekly meeting with the principal, she said it is time to sit back and enjoy the time with the students. The relationships are what matter at this point, but still continue to teach. We have given the students a couple projects to work on and we can help them individually so the class is less structured, but they are still being assessed on "on task work" and on their projects.
This week we started something new with behavior management. We use classroom Dojo, which is excellent. This is an online tool where you can type in all the students names and then they come up as little boxes with a monster in it. Each student can gain points for on task behavior, participating, helping others, etc. They can also lose points for being off task, disrespect or other negative actions in the classroom. This system is awesome. The students love to watch their points go up, and you can put it on the smartboard so when they answer a question in class, they can go up to the board and click their name for a point. It is a great visual reminder to be doing what they should be doing.
Also this week, the students earned the Fun Friday. Mrs. Wiora brought in her Wii and they had a dance party. This was one of the funnest things I have done since being at school. I checked in their homework packets, and if they were completed they got their usual bag of chips. The last forty five minutes of Friday were spent eating chips and dancing. They loved it! The order of who got to go was determined by the amount of dojo points. The highest people got to chose a friend to dance against and we went through until the time was up.
Even though they still had a little bit of the way before earning a total fun friday, Mrs. Wiora says that sometimes it is good to give them a taste of what is to come. This way, they can know how fun it really is and work harder next week to get the rewards from doing good and responsible work.
Overall it was a fun week and now only 5 more days till graduation!
This week was definitely a good week. We are looking forward to the end of the year and getting the students ready for junior high. In our weekly meeting with the principal, she said it is time to sit back and enjoy the time with the students. The relationships are what matter at this point, but still continue to teach. We have given the students a couple projects to work on and we can help them individually so the class is less structured, but they are still being assessed on "on task work" and on their projects.
This week we started something new with behavior management. We use classroom Dojo, which is excellent. This is an online tool where you can type in all the students names and then they come up as little boxes with a monster in it. Each student can gain points for on task behavior, participating, helping others, etc. They can also lose points for being off task, disrespect or other negative actions in the classroom. This system is awesome. The students love to watch their points go up, and you can put it on the smartboard so when they answer a question in class, they can go up to the board and click their name for a point. It is a great visual reminder to be doing what they should be doing.
Also this week, the students earned the Fun Friday. Mrs. Wiora brought in her Wii and they had a dance party. This was one of the funnest things I have done since being at school. I checked in their homework packets, and if they were completed they got their usual bag of chips. The last forty five minutes of Friday were spent eating chips and dancing. They loved it! The order of who got to go was determined by the amount of dojo points. The highest people got to chose a friend to dance against and we went through until the time was up.
Even though they still had a little bit of the way before earning a total fun friday, Mrs. Wiora says that sometimes it is good to give them a taste of what is to come. This way, they can know how fun it really is and work harder next week to get the rewards from doing good and responsible work.
Overall it was a fun week and now only 5 more days till graduation!
Sunday, May 5, 2013
Week 16
This week was a good week!
Monday started out very well. I have been noticing that Monday's are usually pretty good because they have had time to cool off and take a break from each other. By the end of the week the students are ready for another break and to do their own thing.
The biggest thing I learned this week was that when you're working in a school, you have to be flexible. I thought we had RTI this week, and we did on Tuesday, but none of the other days. No one was really sure what was going on and since RTI is right in the beginning of the day, we had to skip half of it before we figured out whether or not we actually had it. The reason why they are not having it is because of MAP testing, which our 5th graders will be doing next week. It is difficult when we do not know because that is a half hour of our day for which I did not have anything planned, only plans for our RTI group. On Monday, we read Zach's Lie, the novel we are reading together as a class. The rest of the days, we started by doing vocabulary for a novel we are going to be starting next week, and each student will have a copy.
My cooperating teacher taught me so much this week. She says you just have to go with whatever they tell you and have enough ideas and backup ideas to make it work. I think that is the hardest part of teaching for me. I am not really sure what I can do, or what I should do when we need to vary from the normal. She is really good at coming up with activities or time fillers that aren't meaningless. They always have a point and further student learning. I hope that I can be a teacher like that someday!
Something that I need to work on is classroom management. The students are good whenever the cooperating teacher is in the room, but as soon as she leaves, they seem to go a little bit crazy. I think this is because when I started out, they were ok so I was a little bit relaxed with it. When my teacher needs to leave to help with another class or situation, then they think it's not so serious anymore and that they can do whatever. We talked in our class on Monday about this and it is so true! My teacher can be more relaxed with her students because they know they cannot mess around when she is in there. This lets her be more personable with them, but also to get them right back on track when the time comes.
Monday started out very well. I have been noticing that Monday's are usually pretty good because they have had time to cool off and take a break from each other. By the end of the week the students are ready for another break and to do their own thing.
The biggest thing I learned this week was that when you're working in a school, you have to be flexible. I thought we had RTI this week, and we did on Tuesday, but none of the other days. No one was really sure what was going on and since RTI is right in the beginning of the day, we had to skip half of it before we figured out whether or not we actually had it. The reason why they are not having it is because of MAP testing, which our 5th graders will be doing next week. It is difficult when we do not know because that is a half hour of our day for which I did not have anything planned, only plans for our RTI group. On Monday, we read Zach's Lie, the novel we are reading together as a class. The rest of the days, we started by doing vocabulary for a novel we are going to be starting next week, and each student will have a copy.
My cooperating teacher taught me so much this week. She says you just have to go with whatever they tell you and have enough ideas and backup ideas to make it work. I think that is the hardest part of teaching for me. I am not really sure what I can do, or what I should do when we need to vary from the normal. She is really good at coming up with activities or time fillers that aren't meaningless. They always have a point and further student learning. I hope that I can be a teacher like that someday!
Something that I need to work on is classroom management. The students are good whenever the cooperating teacher is in the room, but as soon as she leaves, they seem to go a little bit crazy. I think this is because when I started out, they were ok so I was a little bit relaxed with it. When my teacher needs to leave to help with another class or situation, then they think it's not so serious anymore and that they can do whatever. We talked in our class on Monday about this and it is so true! My teacher can be more relaxed with her students because they know they cannot mess around when she is in there. This lets her be more personable with them, but also to get them right back on track when the time comes.
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