Engineering Lesson

Tuesday was our last day working with the students at Brigham Elementary, which was rather bitter sweet because I have grown to truly enjoy interacting with them and learning so much from these students! Our engineering lesson focused in on the building of towers and problem solving how to create a tower that was as tall as possible but did not fall down.

Gaining more experience with the English language learning students proved to have its learning moments for us, as well as, showed me where I had grown since entering the clinical site however many weeks ago.  One accommodation we were able to make for the students was to present them with multiple images of towers so that there was a clear understanding of what a tower was and what we were trying to recreate. In reflection, I believe there are some other things we could have done to better scaffold the learning of these young English language learning students. They had never had experience in building towers with pipe cleaners like we had simply assumed, having had these experiences ourselves. Some of them wanted to lay it on the ground and not create a tower that went vertically instead of horizontally. Because of this, I believe a model tower would be most beneficial for the students. We also did not take into account the fine motor skills of our kindergarten students. To create these pipe cleaner towers, we had it set up in a way that required the students to twist the pipe cleaners together in order to construct their building. This proved to be very difficult for some of the students which only required the teachers to help them more than should have been necessary for a problem solving activity such as this. It is possible to have used different materials that would allow the students to not have to twist the materials together, instead stick them together with materials such as marshmallows and dry pasta. This would make it easier for these students to work with. We also should have more explicitly stated that their goal was to create a tower that could stand on its own. They were all competitive and wanted to build the absolute tallest tower, however, the students did not take into account that adding pipe cleaner after pipe cleaner would be unable to stand on its own, which they did not care about in the slightest. Their only goal was to make their tall, which pretty much missed the whole point of the lesson. By more clearly stating this goal and posing the problem in a way they could more clearly understand, I believe we would have witnessed a higher success rate and the students would have been able to work on problem solving toward creating a tower with these goals in mind.

            Overall, I found this clinical experience to be helpful in allowing me to reach my goals of gaining more experiences working with students who are English language learners. Seeing them interact with their peers and other teachers allowed me to reflect greatly upon their specific needs that may differ from a general education student when out in the field. I found their excitement to be just as encouraging as any other young mind I have come into contact with and I appreciated getting to work with them on a biweekly basis!

Exceeds: Over the 500 word count! :)  

My Clinical Science Lesson

On Wednesday, November 12^th, I completed my science lesson in my clinical placement in second grade at Prairieland Elementary School. The science lesson centered around the teaching of what landforms are and the different types that exist to my students. As a class this semester, we have been learning about habitats and climates and the next step was to cover landforms that are found both in and outside of our country. I had set up five different centers for the second graders to rotate through over the span of five different days. The first day was to be the introduction to the centers and then the beginning of the first center rotation with the students.  This lesson was set up to support the gradual release of responsibilities from the teacher to the student. We begin in whole group instruction, with me modeling what will be happening, we have shared practice on the carpet, and then the students broke into small groups to explore on their own. The introduction lesson began with connecting what we will be learning to what we have already explored in our science content area. We then created an anchor chart in which the students can refer to throughout the lessons on landforms. We discussed what a landform is which would be a natural feature (such as a mountain or valley) of the Earth's surface.  The students showed great excitement for the topic of discussion and wanted to share what they already knew about landforms, as well as, what they wanted to learn more about. To continue our exposure to the different types of landforms, I conducted a read aloud that covered all of the different landforms the students would be exploring in the centers. Finally, I introduced what each center would entail by showing them the materials and giving them explicit directions, I then divided students into groups of mixed ability levels, and they began with their first center.

                Students were able to interact with the learning of landforms in a number of different ways. We had a game that tests them on their knowledge of landforms and the placement of landforms on a map. They put together a series of puzzles with the picture, name, and definition of what each landform was. This generated discussion among the group, as they took note of any new or interesting landforms. Once they completed that, they were able to play a memory game which would be matching all of these newly learned landforms. The next center was the writing center that included prompts for them to write about one or more landforms in a creative manor. The next center required them to become an expert on one of the landforms, exploring books on the specific landform, writing down their findings and sharing with the group. The final center combined the creation of maps with landforms and asked them to include at least seven different types of landforms on their fictitious map and to include a map key. The students all seemed to take away a lot of great new information on landforms from their first day of centers. Centers have a heavy focus on students exploring materials and information at their own rate and I believe my class was very successful in being able to take away a new understanding of landforms.

                After we finished our first set of centers, we came back together on the rug to discuss what they had learned, enjoyed, or had questions about thus far. I was very pleased to hear that many of the students enjoyed their particular center, explained what they had worked on in their individual center to their classmates, and were able to share many new facts they had learned about during their center time. Having the class come together to debrief after the completion of a lesson should always be included in your lesson time. I find it especially important during centers, in order to see where everyone is at and if any questions, comments, or concerned need to be addressed at that time. While I circulated the room while students participated in their center, I was not able to work in depth with any one student. Because of this, I believe coming back together at the end is beneficial for both the students and me as the educator.

                There were many things I was able to reflect upon when it came to the creation and implementation of the lesson and the centers.  This being my second set of centers in which I have created from scratch in my clinical placement, I am beginning to learn that creating centers for students is very much an art form. Not only must you create meaningful centers that all of the different types of learners in your classroom can find success in, but you must also make sure that each center would take about the same amount of time to complete. Creating extension activities that will push your students’ learning further but are not essential to the center is also an important component to consider.  You must also make sure that each center can be easily understood by the students without needing your one on one explanation, because being in five places at the same time is pretty unrealistic.  This week, I created centers that are both user friendly and meaningful for the students and I have found them to be much more successful than the last set of centers that I created. Directions were clearly stated on a bright green sheet of paper, along with the clean-up directions for the end of the center time. Rules have been set up to ensure that students raise their hands in order to receive my help and it is known to not simply run up to the teacher with a question because that will cause chaos. Being able to reflect upon your own teaching and implementation of your lesson is vital to improving your lessons and working to make them more meaningful and successful as you continue to work with your students. Overall, I felt that I had a successful lesson and look forward to implementing more science lessons that can build upon what we have explored thus far this year.   

EXCEEDS: I went over 1000 words :) 

My Lesson at Brigham

Today I taught my science lesson, alongside my co-teacher, Kalya. Our lesson was a review of all five senses, which the students have been learning about throughout the duration of our time at the elementary school.  I was very pleased to realize the excitement many of the preschools had about learning the five senses, which became very evident when they all cheered at the fact that we would be working at stations to practice all five of our senses. In previous visits, the preschoolers were quieter and less responsive. However, their growth truly showed as many of them raised their hands to answer questions and responded correctly for the most part! Leading the lesson went smoothly, as we broke the students into pairs and had our assistant teachers run each of the stations. Students had four minutes to interact with each activity and were successful in visiting each station. Each assistant teacher had a checklist to fill out which assessed the learning that took place in each station.  Because this was the wrap up, or review of the five senses, we considered these checklists to be a summative assessment to find out what the students knew or would require further practice with! We walked around and facilitated the station work and prompted students with questions to check for understanding, clear up confusion, and push learning further!

                I had two main goals going into this clinical experience. My first goal was to gain experience working with children who are considered English Language Learners. This is because before this experience, I had limited experience working with ELL students and I feel that simply working with them is one of the best ways to improve your own teachings. This lesson was the first time I was able to lead a class and I was able to reflect on a lot based off of it. I lead the beginning discussion, introducing the topic for the day and interacting with the class as a whole. I found that the students were extremely energetic, which made me even more enthusiastic. I made sure to speak clearly and at an appropriate rate for both, preschool age students as well as ELL students, as well as used hang motions and facial expressions. One thing I experienced was that at times I was unable to understand some of the student responses. In my own experience, this can happen in any early childhood classroom for a number of reasons, accents or the learning of the English language is another reason this can occur. This is something that one could expect when interacting with someone else who may speak differently from you.  In the moment I politely asked the student to respond again to see if I could understand them more clearly. Sometimes this will work, other times teachers may have to ask them to reword it, explain in a different way, or ask them to show you. The use of visuals for them to point at and state is something else that may come in handy in future instances such as this one. I continued to gain more experience in working with ELL students from this lesson, as I paid closer attention to one student at random in order to collect anecdotal notes for our assignment. I was able to observe her interactions with a peer and with all of the assistant teachers. I also interacted with her, prompting her with questions and listening for her responses.  I will discuss more about her struggles in the following paragraph, as it contributed greatly to my second goal.  Overall, this lesson found great success in helping me work toward my goal of gaining experience with English Language Learners and I felt that today was one of the most successful days in respect to the self-growth I experienced as an educator.

                My second goal centered around the fact that I wanted to observe some of the difficulties that English Language Learning students experience in the classroom and use these observations to reflect upon later and think about what I could or would do differently in order to improve their experiences in and outside of the classroom to better their education. My focal student during this lesson was a little girl who was considered to be an English Language Learner. I observed her at each station and interacted with her periodically.  She showed many signed of struggle throughout the lesson that allowed me to reflect on!  At most of the stations she appeared confused as to what was expected of her for a number of reasons. One instance in particular showed that she did not have the vocabulary necessary in order to be successful at that station.  Because of this, it would be the teacher’s job to define those words in a way that she would be able to make meaning out of them. The words she struggled with were “hard” and “soft” which took place at the sense of touch station.  One way to do this would be to have the student physically interact with one or more of the “soft” objects and one or more of the “hard” objects. As she does that, should would state the word and ask the student to repeat it! She would put it in a sentence saying “This ball is hard” and “This toy is soft”. After gaining scaffolded practice with each of these terms, then they could attempt to move forward and allow the student some individual practice. I now realize that this type of direct instruction could have been beneficial to many of the ELL student’s learning during this lesson. I strongly believe in the important of including hands on learning and exploration for all students, but especially those who are new to the English language. 

                This experience has allowed me to move closer to my two main goals that I set out with at the beginning of the semester. It has amazed me that with the small amount of interactions I had with these students, the amount of growth I have experienced as an educator. Pairing these experiences with the learning that has taken place in our college courses has caused me to realize the importance of applying what we have researched about into your classroom, as well as, being extremely mindful and intentional in your teachings. Overall, I felt that this experience has helped me to improve my overall professionalism in the field and made me feel strongly in the fact that I wish to always improve my teaching practices.

EXCEEDS: I went over the word count of 1000. J

Kindergarten experience!

            Today I had my first experience in the kindergarten classroom that we are working with at the elementary school and it turned out to be an extremely positive experience! Walking in, I could tell we were entering a very diverse classroom, full of possible English language learning students which was very exciting to me! The sheer size of the class was a big difference from the preschool room, having many more kindergartners to work with, in comparison to the small class size of the preschool.  I was able to work closer toward my first goal which is to simply gain more experience working with English language learners in the classroom. I followed a group of seven boys through the three different stations they worked in for the lesson.  While I observed and took notes, I was able to talk with them a little bit, ask questions, and see them interact with their peers. I felt that these boys were extremely energetic and excited to learn, due to their talkative nature and attentiveness to the teachers! They were able to communicate with the teachers with ease and contributed to the learning with full enthusiasm. This is a pretty substantial contrast from the preschoolers because they are much quieter and are more difficult to have constructive discussions with.  In comparison, these students were much more talkative and naturally had a larger vocabulary, making it a much more interactive experience. Looking around the room, I saw strong evidence of it being a classroom with English Language Learners with in it. The walls were covered with visuals and any time something was labeled, it was labeled in both English and Spanish! Something I noticed while speaking with some of the students was that they spoke in both English and Spanish throughout the class period. One boy drew some grapes and pointed to them and said “Look! Los Uvas!” which is Spanish for grapes! I, in turn, decided to speak in both languages to the students as well, seeing that they were comfortable using both!

                My second goal states that I would like to discover the struggles of English Language Learning students in the classroom and work to reflect upon how I could improve their educational experiences. While I felt the lesson taught today went exceptionally well, there were some occurrences I witnessed where certain students struggled. It is never a good thing to let a student fall through the cracks and have their difficulties go unnoticed. As the teacher, it is important to make sure to have as much one on one time with your students as possible. During the lesson, there was so much enthusiasm from most of the students; I almost missed the one male student sitting quietly with the large group of boys. When addressed he struggled to answer questions correctly or at all and other students would chime in for him. I feel that if the student is experiencing a language barrier or finds him or herself confused, they tend to stay quiet and not ask for help.  As the teacher in the room, in order to prevent this from happening I think multiple checks for understanding need to happen throughout the days that are attending to each student individually. Especially when working in these groups, a student who is struggling may easily fall to the way side without being noticed by the teacher.  To avoid this, I would also be extremely mindful when giving directions and making sure they are clear and easy to understand, I would offer visual supports or even the inclusion of sign language to help all learners in understanding what we are discussing, and I would make sure to have individual conferences with students, formally or informally, to check up on how they are doing in the classroom.

                Overall, I was able to get so much out of the classroom experience today and felt that I was able to gain some great experiences with English Language Learners which I have been able to reflect on!

EXCEEDS: I went over the word count!

Assisting in Pre-K!

             Today was my second time in the preschool classroom, this time as one of the assistants to help facilitate and take notes for the two head teachers as they conducted their lesson. This week the lesson was on the sense of smell, which I found to be very interactive for this group of students. Looking back at my goals for this experience, I wrote that one of my main goals with ELL students is to simply gain experience working with them, because my experience has been so limited throughout my teaching experiences thus far. I feel that the best way to learn about teaching and working with students is to actually have those hands on experiences and make sure to reflect upon them before, during, and afterwards to ensure that I grow as an educator. This week I was able to interact with the students in a small group, as they worked at tables and held discussion about the mystery bottles and their different senses. I participated in small discussions with them while I simultaneously took notes for the head teachers. One thing I found interesting was the two girls who were sitting side by side. The first girl appeared to be very outgoing and forward, as she stated her thoughts and made connections out loud during the activity. I believe she is not a student who would be considered an English Language Learner. In comparison, the girl next to her was slightly unsure of herself and a little more quiet. The first girl was able to help this girl participate in the activity, asking her questions, helping to explain the directions and encouraging her, telling her that "she did it right!" I believe that the girl who was quieter was an English Language Learner. I felt there was a sense of community as the girls worked together to understand the lesson and had fun while participating in it. I believe creating that sense of community is very important in any classroom, but especially with students who don't have English as their first language. This girl was able to receive support from her peers while the teachers were helping others and I found that to be a beautiful thing! I believe learning is a social experience and saw the positive effects of that in class today.  

            My other goal for class was to discover the struggles ELL students face while in school and work to improve their experience. While this was only the second time in the classroom, I feel that some inferences can be made and allow me to reflect on how I would help improve the children's educational experience in the future. One little girl did not verbally contribute to the lesson and showed signs of confusion in what was expected of the students during the smelling small group activity. She was unable to answer whether it was a good or bad smell or predict what object was in the bottle creating the smell. When presented with crayons she was able to proudly state their colors. This led me to believe that her English vocabulary was very limited, but seeing her face light up when she spoke the colors of the crayons in English showed that she was proud to have some vocabulary in which she was able to contribute to the conversation. Because of this, I think I would have modeled the activity in depth and provided her with new vocabulary to use during the lesson. I would give her pictures of options of what could be inside the bottles with the names of those objects in both English and Spanish. She would be able to point to and practice saying these words before had so that she would become familiar with the vocabulary. Then she could refer back to these cards during the activity as a support. 

            During our short time spent in the classroom today, I was able to take away a lot of new experiences to reflect on and look forward to the next time we step in that classroom! I always feel like a giant when we first step in to the preschool, with all of the little faces peering up at us. However, as soon as the learning begins and we start to interact with the students I feel at ease and ready to learn more about working with a diverse group of students!

EXCEEDS: I went over 500 words :) 

Preschool Lesson- Getting to know the students

          Today we went in to meet the preschool class at Brigham, which was a very exciting experience since I love any chance to work with preschool students! Before entering the classroom I had made some goals to help guide my experience.  My goals include simply meeting and talking with students who are English Language Learners in order to gain insight on what it would be like to teach them. I also hoped to observe signs of struggle or discomfort when students were listening or speaking English and to take note of this. I was able to get a quick glimpse at this today as I worked with the very diverse classroom we have! Our preschool class turned out to all speak English, therefore I believe the students' hesitations during the lesson had to do with shyness. As I continue to work with these students I will be able to work on my goals of gaining experience with a diverse group of students
There is much to reflect upon based off of the short time we were able to have with them. Obviously the first thing that comes to mind is what could have been improved upon, being our time management.  Planning for this experience, we were expected to engage the students in a get to know you activity and introduce to five senses. We planned it out and discussed with our instructor, however we were unprepared for how quickly all three of the activities would go. I believe this is because all of our activities were verbal and did not require any sort of a transition or for the students to work on something individually.  This is something we could have reflected on prior to entering the classroom, however now we know this was one of those classroom situations where we needed an extension activity.  Another thing that could have gone differently (and added to the time) would be pausing during the read aloud and prompting students with questions and prompting them to give examples from their own lives. In the future we would have made sure to receive the text ahead of time in order to do a read through and pre-plan where the reader would stop and prompt students with questions and making connections! I also believe that we could have worked on our enthusiasm level, which is always a little difficult the first time walking into a new classroom and feeling as though we are towering over these tiny people! I think next time if we were to show more excitement, the students would come out of their shells a little more quickly and the educational conversations will follow!

          In regards to the overall class, there are things I was able to notice about the students and the environment they are in. I loved seeing the mixture of Spanish and English! They have Spanish words posted next to any English labels throughout the room, which I believe benefits all learners! I learned that all of the preschool students do speak English however knowing that some of their home languages are being celebrated and utilized in the classroom is a very positive aspect of this particular class!  While this classroom was small it was very diverse with what appeared to be Caucasian, Hispanic, and African American students which is very exciting!  The students appeared to be shy and quiet at first, but each student was able to contribute, whether it was with a quiet voice or a nice and loud one! An example of something else I took note of about the class during our lesson was when conducting our get to know you activity; I was pleasantly surprised to see that almost all of the students choose to bring along either fruits or vegetables on our hypothetical picnic! It appeared that they were aware of what a healthy diet consists of and may have had positive experiences with fruits or vegetables in the past!

Exceeds:

I thought of a couple of extension activities we could have done to further the learning of our preschool students.   One activity we could have done with the children was to play a game of eye spy to model the sense of sight. We could take turns guessing what each student sees.  We could also go around the circle and describe our favorite smells! The teacher would model saying what her favorite smell is and we would popcorn around the circle sharing different smells.  We could have broken into small groups and play a game of memory; where each group got a stack of cards with pictures depicting either a smell, taste, touch, sight, or sound. They would take turns matching them up and saying which sense it was! 

(Went over word count for exceeds as well)

My Science History

              One of my first memories of science during my school aged years was in the third grade. One of the third grade teachers loved amphibians and reptiles and kept many of these animals in her classroom, which all of the students loved! I loved to peer up at the different tanks in the classroom to see what animal was living in there and she would incorporate her animals into the lessons. Her enthusiasm for animal science caused me to become excited about it as well! I also recall a time in middle school when we were learning about space and the solar system. One day in particular stands out to me when we had a giant blow up igloo set up in the gym, when we crawled inside as a class, you could look up and see all of the consolations lit up. Our whole class laid on our backs as our teacher discussed the stars with us and asked us to point out the consolations that we knew! Another aspect of my life that shaped my science background was moving to a neighborhood that was directly across from a forest preserve.  Starting in first grade, my father would take us on walks and bike rides through the woods, observing the animals and plant life.  We learned about deer and different types of trees while on our walks.  We learned about erosion, as the paths would slide away after a big storm. Throughout my upbringing, any given day was a learning experience full of science.  

             All of these experiences stand out in my mind because I was able to get up close and personal with science. I believe science is a subject area in which you cannot simply read about but must experience. Because of this, I want my students to realize that science is all around us and can be incorporated in different subject areas, such as literacy or social studies. In my classroom, science will be student centered and focus on their interests.  While I have warm memories of science in my younger years, as I reached high school, science became less interesting.  I believe this is partially because I am a female and I fall under the female stereotype that I prefer literacy over the math and sciences. I tended to gravitate towards my more creative and artistic side and it is possible that my teachers saw that and encouraged me toward those subjected areas instead of helping my math and science skills develop further.  At first, I was intimidated to know I would be teaching math and science to many of my future students, I feel that my outlook has been altered having had my education courses at Illinois State.  The professor that taught our math course was full of enthusiasm towards math and whole heartedly wanted us to feel the same. This has made a huge impact on how I hope to influence my students’ math and science experiences as well.  I plan to put forth a positive attitude toward every subject area taught in my classroom, math and science included!