Last Reflection :)

This practicum class has been a wonderful experience. I was very nervous upon beginning this class because of my lack of experience working this group of children. I have mentioned this in other reflections that I have never worked with this age in a classroom setting and being assigned a group that had a middle school child scared me. I discovered while doing this practicum while the material may be more advanced than what I teach my sweet little babies, but like my sweet little babies the older students just want to feel loved and accepted. I have enjoyed being able to plan lessons that cover more advanced materials. I am hoping that my degree from Furman will open the door to work with older students.

During this program I really enjoyed teaching the multiplication lesson and thought it went really well. My students enjoyed the lesson and were really engaged in the whole time. I also enjoyed working in small groups for math in the morning. I work with small groups with my students but this was challenging for both them and me.

Overall this experience has been a wonderful experience. I felt very nervous but now feel confident about the things that I can handle in the classroom as far as material goes.

7/25/12 Lesson

Most of my students needed to work on multiplication skills. I had taught a lesson before during my undergraduate experience that allowed me to work on this skill and I thought my students this time around would like it as well. I gave my students twizzlers and skittles and had my children make the groups of with twizzlers and put the skittles in for each group. I gave the students some guided practice to make sure they understood what they were to be doing and then had them do some independent practice as well. I was happy with my lesson overall but there are a few things I would change if I taught the lesson again.

What I Liked About My Lesson: One of my children that never enjoy whole group instruction seemed to really enjoy himself. Also all of my children were engaged in the lesson and seemed to be really enjoying themselves.

What I What Change Next Time: I wrote the problem two different ways so if I were to teach this lesson again I would write the problems the same way the whole way through the lesson.  I would also try to make the independent practice more structured to so all of the children were not calling out the answers.   One way to have made it more structured would have been to have them write their answers down instead of just calling out. This would also allow me a better way of assessing the lesson afterwards.

Lesson Reflection 7/16/2012

My reading lesson, that was taught on July 16^th, 2012, was about using punctuation when reading aloud. In the beginning of the lesson I put examples of on the board of four basic types of punctuation. I read the examples aloud and asked the students if I had read the sentence correctly based on the punctuation at the end of the sentence. We discussed what each piece of punctuation told what to do or how to read the sentence. I then gave each student the short story, The Fox Show. I had each student read aloud part of a passage from that story. Once we had read the story all the way through together in the group, I then had the students come to myself or Miss Self and read part of the story to us. This was part of an assessment to determine if the students were meeting the fluency goals that had been set for some of them. After having one-on-one time with each student we then as group reviewed the punctuation one more time to touch on the concepts as we were wrapping up the lesson.

                I enjoyed using the sentences at the beginning of the lesson. I enjoyed being able to model for them how to use some of the punctuation as well as to allow them to give their input on the pieces of punctuation and what each one had meant when reading. I also enjoyed being able to hear them read aloud to me in the group setting as well as one-on-one. It gave me a great opportunity to see where the students were in their ability to read aloud. If I were to teach the lesson again I would have numbered the paragraphs beforehand making it easier for the children to follow along as well as giving them the same amount of material to read. I would have also had the children write some sentences of their own after we had read my sentences aloud. I would allow them to pick one of the punctuations from the board, write their own sentence and then read it aloud. This would tie in writing to the lesson as well, while also giving them the opportunity to read aloud more in class.

7/12/12

Today I had a really neat moment with one of my kids. He is so smart and wants a challenge, so I had him work the math problems I gave all the other children and then gave him some that would challenge him more. He needed help but wanted to learn, it was just the coolest thing in the world to watch him today.

Day 2 in Practicum

Well I began this week of teaching very nervous and scared because I have never really had a lot of work with older kids and the stuff I have done I have not really enjoyed all that much. I was very nervous because I was really scared I wasn't going to be able to teach stuff on their level. I was scared I would make stuff to easy and on my lesson today I feel like I did a little bit but going off the math assessment I did with them yesterday I felt it was need although after my lesson today I feel a little bit better about where they stand and how I need to approach them in their learning. I am very excited now and cannot wait to see what the outcome for my students is at the end of the program.