Van Poperin-Noticing

 This week in my kindergarten classroom, I noticed the effects of new students being added and the accommodations teachers must be ready to make any day.  In the the first two days of this past week, we were joined by three additional students than we were expecting.  These additions effected everything from the way our classroom desks are set up, to the students' mailboxes and coat/book bag hooks, to the way our centers flow and I think it was a really good lesson for me to see.  My mentor teacher was well prepared to welcome these new students.  She had spare seats ready to add to tables, she had extra homework packets, seat sacks, name tags, and additional mailboxes that were easily set up.  When I think about welcoming a new student into my classroom, I want it to be just as seamless as I saw in my class this week.  I think Meghan and I both felt a little caught off guard, but it was awesome seeing Meghan greet these shy five-year olds into their first classroom.   And having them know that this was a friendly not a scary place. 

Noticing Blog: Final Week

         This week, I have started an investigation in math with my students. This high-level math task asks students to evaluate paper towels and decide which would be the "better picker upper." Students have to make predictions, calculate the area, and graph their results based on three trials. When I introduced my students to the experiment, my students responded "We're doing an experiment in math?" This was a completely new concept to them. They did not associate mathematics with experimenting and investigating mathematical tasks. This made me think about the ways in which I can incorporate more math experiments in our daily lessons. Encompassing experiments into mathematics will allow students to see how mathematical concepts are related and should be taught in a cohesive way. I am excited to do this experiment with my students tomorrow and am interested to see how my students discuss the experiment and respond to the mathematical content in the lab.

Maria Ricchio

This week in our professional development we talked about how we structure independent reading in our classrooms (i.e. how much time per week, how do we group our students, how do students choose books, where do they sit etc) As a warm up we also came up with a list of reasons why we read as teachers and reasons why our students read. This was a valuable activity because it showcased the importance of wanting to make students life long readers.  We want students to read for pleasure, inspiration, relaxation,  knowledge etc. and not just think it is as something you do for school.  To conclude our session, the principal read a chapter from the book called 26 Fairmount Avenue by Tomie dePaola which centers on the author's memory of his childhood in Connecticut during the late 1930s. The part that really left an impression on me was how much he still remembers about being in kindergarden.The author recounts his first day of school when he couldn't wait to learn to read, but the teacher discouraged him by saying he would have to wait until 1st grade. This was obviously a terrible response to a student who was excited and willing to learn. This part left an impression because it made me think how much I can influence my students. This teacher obviously left a strong impression on the author if he wrote about it his memoir. It reminds me of the quote "With great power, comes great responsibility" Teachers can make huge impacts on their students and even a short conversation could be something they remember for years to come. Because it is the end of the semester, I've noticed that my patience has been wearing thin and my students are ready for a break. Even though it's that time of year when teachers are stressed and the workload is piling on, I need to make sure not to show my frustration to students. I want them to leave 2nd grade with positive feelings toward learning, school, and their experiences in the classroom :)

Marie Lewis noticing blog week 14

Tonight our fourth grade team of teachers held a student parent workshop for our students. The goal of the workshop was to give the parents and scholars the tools needed in order to be successful with homework.  We had four stations that were made up of two math stations and two literacy stations.  The groups of students and parents rotated in fifteen-minute intervals to each station, meeting with each fourth grade teacher for a mini tutorial about the different subject areas. 

            I ran a literacy station, which focused on independent reading and reading conferences with students.  I showed the parents the difference conference sheets we used during literacy workstations to assess the student’s progress and performance in reading.  During reading conferences we assess their fluency based on their intonation, stress, pronunciation, and expression.  We also observe the different strategies they use when figuring out the meaning and pronunciation of words.  Next, we talk about the book they are reading and either summarize, visualize, predict, or go back and reread.  These strategies help the students recall and make inferences about what happened or what will happen. 

            I talked to the parents and students about talking about the story as well when reading.  I provided the parents with readers response questions, which serve as great writing or discussion prompts.  I also gave them the rubric in which we grade the students on their writing responses, helping them to assess their own child’s work.  We talked about their different lexile scores as well and ways to find just right books for each student.  These tools were helpful to parents because they could help monitor their own student’s progress and performance in reading and comprehension.

            Although the turnout was low, the parents who did come to the workshop were very receptive and open to learning different strategies to help their children.  They valued the tools we gave them and looked forward to better helping their scholar at home. Raising a child really does take a village, and it is important as a teacher to stand united with the parents, having the same goal of success for the student in mind.  

ERIN MAXWELL noticing blog

Today my students learned about Hanukkah, as the next couple of weeks of school we are reading about Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanza and using our reading strategies such as compare and contrast to gain deeper meaning of these holidays and those who celebrate them.  One of my students asked if he could share with the class what he knew about Hanukkah.  He told that class that Muslims celebrate Hanukkah.  My MT and I quickly corrected the student’s misconception and explained to the class that Hanukkah is celebrate by Jewish, not Muslim, individuals. I was shocked that one of my student’s was so misinformed.  I believe that this misconception is an unfortunate result of some of my student’s upbringing. 

The majority of my students live very close to my school, which is located in a predominately African American community.  This is not to suggest that there are not African Americans who practice Judaism, however, there is a much stronger Christian population in my school.  Many of my students have likely had minimal opportunities to experience cultures and religions other than their own in an authentic or significant manner.  I am excited that we will be studying three unique holidays, as it will provide insight (even if it is minimal) to other cultures.  

Final Noticing Blog

This week I noticed how important it is to allow students to celebrate in their own successes and those of their peers. It is so easy to lose sight of the "little" moments when standards and pacing guides seem to dictate our every move in the classroom. My students finished their final pieces of writing on Friday and over the weekend I assembled them into a book. On Tuesday, students had the chance to gather on the floor (which is a special treat) and participate in Author's Chair. They were so excited to be able to share their finished products with their peers and to compliment each other, since they all know just how hard each of them worked during this expository writing process.

As I introduced each child to share their piece, their peers clapped and cheered for the author until he or she was seated in the Author's Chair. With their peers gathered at their feet, the authors' faces lit up and their eyes twinkled.  They beamed with pride as I handed the book to them and their peers listened intensely as the author shared his/her animal essay. At the conclusion of each reading, audience members clapped furiously and shouted out compliments and remarked about the interesting facts they had learned.

This activity was multipurpose; it allowed students to complete the writing process by sharing a published piece of writing with an authentic audience, as well as practice oral presentation skills. However, most importantly, this activity united students and provided them with the opportunity to share in the accomplishments of one another. Each student completed the same writing assignment and no two were the same. Instead of seeing this as students not achieving at the same level, it was seen as a celebration of the uniqueness of each student and the writing process itself. It allowed students to take pride in their work and receive the admiration and validation from their peers in the form of applause and praise, not just from teachers in the form of grades.

Our Author's Chair might have been the most rewarding and most powerful 25 minutes I've had in Room 203 thus far...

King Final Notice

Since the beginning of the year one of the boys in my class prefers to complete tasks at his own rate and when he is told that a task needs to be completed immediately or at a rate that is faster or slower than his rate he has a meltdown/temper tantrum that halts the rest of the class's learning because he is so vocal during his meltdowns.

Lately when this happens I ask him to move himself to the hallway to calm down and return when he is ready to learn or I ask him to go into the hall and talk to me about why he is upset in an attempt to give him some strategies to not get as upset when the same or similar situations happen in the future. I have also realized that I cannot make him, or any other student, learn if they do not want to. I can only keep them from stopping other students from being able to learn.

Since I began starting to talk to this student about changing his behavior so that his actions only impact him, he has been doing better. He's not perfect, but he is better. He has not had as many meltdowns the past few weeks as he did at the beginning of the year and the outbursts he does have are more easily corrected most of the time. The fact that he is showing growth in his maturity tells me that he is responding positively to the time he spends with me one-on-one related to non-academic contexts, which means that I'm doing something right for this student.

Final Notice- Kayleigh Robb

Noticing Blog

I've grown to like the way that people look at me when I say I'm a kindergarten teacher. Whether it be the CEO I am bar tending for at a 50,000 dollar holiday party, or just some sweet, lonely woman on the subway, I almost always get the same look, and then the same response. The look, well, that is this wide-eyed stare, the "taken-aback, oh my goodness are you completely sane?", look. And then I typically get this, "God bless you, that's a job I could never do."

But as I pound out this, my last noticing blog, I have to
disagree. I think that, as my first four months in kindergarten come to a close, more people COULD do this job. Of course, I am biased, but I will tell you what I have "noticed" about kindergarten, this semester, through the words of those I have spoken to about my profession:

-"It is complete chaos!"
One of the highlights of my teaching experience this year so far has been introducing centers into my classroom. My MT and I have spent a lot of time perfecting and getting some sort of routine into the several "center times" we have developed (BURST, Literacy, Math and Open center times). It is a highlight not only because I get to work one on one with a small group of students but also because my students get time to work truly independently, or with partners. It is also a great time because the classroom is loud, it looks like chaos at times and yet I know the students are still learning. They're in kindergarten and developmentally these little munchkins are not completely able to sit down and work silently to always stay in their seat, to not ask their friends for help or to show interest in what they are doing.
-"The kids can't even tie their shoes. I'd just feel like a babysitter."
No, most of my students cannot tie their shoes. The individuals who usually say something of this nature when trying to fathom why on earth I love teaching this grade are not really talking only about the matter of tying shoes. When students enter this grade, they're not used to all day school life. They cannot read, they cannot write and they can't tie their shoes. This leads many individuals to believe that as a teacher, I have to do everything for My students, they're basically helpless. This is a misconception.
If anything, I have learned that my students can do so much more than I could imagine. They are growing exponentially; emotionally, socially and intellectually . It doesn't matter to me that I have to zip a jacket or two and tie a shoe here and there when I get to witness a year of such great growth and change. When in four months you see a student who was struggling with basic English utterances when she began, write and illustrate beautiful compound sentences and sit at the head of your class, eyes bright, hand raised, no longer shy, you can't help but think, every little shoe print on my new dress is so worth this!
-"I just don't have the energy."
And I don't. It's not me who walks in to class every morning with a smiling face, greeting the new day. It's the students. Their smiles bring my smile. They have the energy and the drive to get through a dynamic three hours straight of language arts and an hour of math. They have this fresh passion to learn that students so often lose as school goes on. Kindergarten and kindergarteners are the epitome of energy, but it is absolutely contagious.

Jones- Week 14

Recognizing Student Achievement

            As this year has progressed, there has not been a large display of student achievement outside of the classroom for other students, teachers and administrators to observe. I know that it is hard to grade and choose which work is appropriate to be displayed however, students work must be displayed because it will instill a sense of pride in students. In my classroom students often have homework but they are simply worksheets and often do not require much thought. These worksheets are not an appropriate display of what students can do. There has been work that is displayed outside our classroom however it was on students writing and my MT basically told them what they should change in order for them to have  good paper. In order for them to be a good display of student work, we should have put student writing up at the begining of the year and as the year progressed put up different displays of student writing to show student growth. The important thing here is that students need to be able to see their work displayed. This not only instills a sense of pride in their work, it also helps to build a strong classroom community. If a student sees that another student is good at a particular subject, they may or may not ask this student for help. This will in turn help small group work and help students to feel comfortable asking their classmates for help. I can understand what is happening here. By not displaying student work for students to see, students may not know where they stand as an achiever in my classroom. If students have a constant reminder that they are on the right track, they are more likely to stay on the right track. I feel that students need to be reminded that they are smart and kind. For the month of December, I have decided to have student post random acts of kindness that they see their classmates doing. This will not only show students that they are capable of helping each other, but they can do it all the time. I think that by displaying the kind things that my students do, this will also build a stronger classroom community. This is a case of making sure that students understand where they stand as achievers and doing all that they can to help each other achieve.

Jones- Week 13

Understanding Students' Spoken Language and Body Language

            I can tell when something is wrong with a student not only based on what they say but also based on how they sit and where they choose to sit. Students do not always want to tell me or my MT when something has happened such as name calling or bullying. However, when a usually chipper student is no longer active or puts their head down on their desk, this is a sign that there is something wrong. There has been a lot of instances of bullying in my classroom this quarter. Students seems to not care how another student feels and often does not care about the repercussions that come behind name calling. Students just say what is on their mind and rarely thing about the consequences of their actions. Noticing and understanding students spoken language and body language is also important in noticing if students are understanding material or if they have questions that they are afraid to ask. During my Guided Lead Teaching, my 3rd graders would often respond with “yes I understand” when I asked if they understood what I had just explained to them. However, the frowns and the heads down, told me something different. Knowing the gestures and behaviors of students not only help with behavior management, but it also helps to clear up misconceptions during whole group discussions. This is a case of students not wanting so say they don’t understand something. When students speak up and say that they do not understand something, they are not only helping themselves, they are helping other students as well. The important thing here is to note specific actions of student either in anecdotal records or in students file. This will help me become aware of students normal behavior so that as I teach and plan lessons. I can make sure that I can make sure that I am tending to students individual needs when possible.

Jones- Week 12

Common Sense isn’t common- Focusing on the Respect issue in my classroom.

            When I was in 5^th grade, my Math Teacher always said that “Common Sense isn’t common” when a student would do something silly and could not explain why they did it. While I laughed at the saying then, as an educator, it makes a lot of sense now. A handful of my students are very disrespectful. They are very bright students but when it comes to listening to the teacher and following simple directions such as not talking in the hallway, they cannot do it. There are four particular 4^th grade boys in my classroom who are very disrespectful. I bring this up because the time that these students take to go back and forth with the teacher or do something that  they are not supposed to be doing takes away from their learning. My MT makes it very clear that the times it takes to calm students down and for students to stop talking takes away from their learning. This is a particular interesting thing to notice because students need to be aware of their learning. It is important for teachers to be aware of what the things that students are doing but it is also important for students to understand what they are doing. Another thing that I have noticed is that when students do not want to take responsibility for something that they did and I ask the student why they did what they did, the student simply replies “I don’t know.” The student assumes that this statement will get them out of trouble and what they did will be forgotten. As a teacher, this is very frustrating because I feel that if you do something, you should know why you are doing it. This is where the saying ‘Common sense is not common” comes in. Although I may think that a student should always be aware of what they are doing, sometimes, they are not. This is the case for adults as well. Sometimes an adult will do something as will quickly say, what was I just doing or why did I do that. Adults will admit to this however, some students will not. This is a case of, as I mentioned before, students not wanting to get in trouble or own up to something they have done. When students are disrespectful by talking back to the teacher because they need to “explain what happened” students are trying to keep themselves out of trouble. When students are out of their seats and something happens, students are quick to say “that wasn’t me”.  Students do not want to get in trouble at school because they do not want to get in trouble at home which is understandable. However, students cannot raise their voices and think that this is a common thing that will happen. I demand respect from my students as they demand respect from me. I can understand what is happening here. Some students do not really understand what it means to be disrespectful and the definition that I have for being disrespectful and the definition that they student have may be completely different. It is important to be clear and use language that students can understand when setting expectations for students.