A Comprehensive Reflection - Assignment #4

Assignment #4 Google Document Link




I had several goals at the beginning of my student teaching that I would like to review. A few include:

Goal One: Get along with the cooperating teacher and his/her teaching style even if I dont necessarily agree with it.

I was lucky in my student teaching to find a teacher who I could relate my teaching style to. I was plesantly surprised on how well we got along. I think that I will miss her a mentor/role-model. I owe her so much thanks that I cant even put it into words. She even helped me get a full-time position at the school.

Goal Two: Memorize all the students' names and get to know something about them other than if their penmanship is horrific.

It may have taken a week or two to master all the students' names, but I did it! I was so proud of myself because I knew I would have a difficult time with it. I made it a habit to read all the students' journal writes to get to know them. I also forced myself to respond with more than just a smiley face to the students' journal writes too. I think that jesture alone helped the students feel more comfortable with talking and sharing with me.

Goal Three: Learn how to be firm and professional but still a friend and helping hand to a student.

I have to admit that this is a toughy for me. I find myself being a push-over sometimes but I am way more comfortable with saying "no" now than I was throughout my education and practicums at BSU. I think that Kellie was a great mentor for this. She taught me how a little threat can make all the difference (at least for seventh grade). For example, telling a student that their name will be put on the board can make all the difference.

Goal Four: Survive parent/teacher conferences without having a parent make me cry.

Kellie gave me the whole responsibility of taking over student teaching. I was very nervous. There were a few parents that were pushy and defensive, but overall it was a positive experience. No crying. : ) However, I know that there will be that one parent someday that will.

Goal Five: Be outgoing and not nervous when teaching (master the idea that I am in control; this is my class).

I am typically a quiet person so overcoming nervousness to be outgoing is something that I am still working on. I had an image in my mind at the beginning of student teaching that I would be nervous and that the seventh grade students would notice and take advantage of me right away. I guess I was just over-reacting. I think that the students were very kind (at least most of them) and they really had no idea what a student teacher was. Maybe, I was just lucky. But after I realized this, I was comfortable in front of the class. The students looked up to me as a intellectual person who was confident, not someone struggling with control and I thank them for that.

Overall, I accomplished all of my goals. There were a few areas that I havent quite mastered yet but I am going to continue to keep learning for years to come!

In the final part of this assignment, I need to describe a meaningful experience that I had during my student teaching and discuss why this experience was meaningful to me and how I was changed as an educator.

I had a few of these experiences but the one that I will remember most is with one of my autistic students. He was struggling with the journal writes in class. Students in class are handed a writing prompt and are asked to write as much as they can about the subject in ten minutes. The length of the writing determines the students' grade (the longer it is, the higher the grade). This student knew that the length of his writing determined his grade and knew his own weaknesses in writing would affect his grade. He decided to give up and not write. I approached him because he was not doing his assignment and asked him why he decided not to write. He claimed "I am retarded and cant write as fast as everyone else. I cant do this and get a good grade." I was somewhat shocked when he told me this. I was surprised that he actually thought this about himself. I responded by saying "I know you are not retarded. I know you are smart and I know you can do this assignment. I would rather you try and complete half a page of writing than do nothing at all and fail." When he turned in his assignment he had wrote about a half a page and the content of his writing was great. Even though a typical "A" grade would require him to write a full page, I believed that he deserved an "A" because of  the hard work he put into it. So I gave it to him. In addition, I marked on his paper the different lengths of "F" which is nothing to a few lines of writing, "D" which is a short paragraph of writing, "C" which is about a half a page of writing, "B" which is three-forths of a page and "A" which is a full page of writing.

The next day when I returned all the papers, he asked my why he deserved the "A" I gave him and I told him, "I seen you working really hard and you deserved it." He was smiling and excited to complete the next journal write. From then on, he always marked the different lengths and grades on his paper so he knew how long to write to recieve the grade he wanted. He wrote full pages without any complaints for the rest of the quarter.

LAST DAY!!!

My student teaching experience ended on November 24th, 2010. It was a long but exciting 12 weeks! I have loved almost every minute of it. And great news, I was offered a job to teach in the district where I student taught at. I am so excited. I start January 3rd, 2011. What a wonderful Christmas present. Yeah for me!

Assignment Number Three - Analysis

Here is the goolge document link for this assignment:
Assignment 3


For assignment number three, I need to analyze my teaching and instruction by using the artifacts that I identified in assignment two & respond to the following questions:


1. How does your unit contribute to the curriculum goals of your teaching assignment?


Lesson plan #1 (Click to view the "Analogy Practice" Lesson Plan)
This "mini unit" was about introducing analogies to the students in preparation for their spelling and vocab test at the end of the week. The test that  the students would be taking had analogy questions on it and I wanted to make sure that the students comprehended the process so that they could get the highest grade on the test as possible. The practice on the board through a PowerPoint and also practice on a worksheet that was done in class was a quick review on the basics and fundamentals of analogies. My goal was to help the students prepare for the test using a fun and different way of learning the words and definitions that was unlike the common matching or fill in the blanks that most spelling/vocab tests consist of.


Lesson plan #2 (Click to view the "Tom Sawyer Chapters 10-12" Lesson Plan)
This lesson plan on chapters 10-12 of the book "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer" was a part of a 35 chapter book. Once the chapters in this unit were completed, the students would complete a corresponding worksheet that was in a packet handed out when the book began that included worksheets for all the chapters. After the worksheet is corrected and graded, the students would take a quiz on those corresponding chapters. Then, the class would move onto the next few chapters. Once all 35 chapters were completed, a final test was given and students were given a "Tom Sawyer Project." In this project, students were asked to use their creativity and imagination while portraying any scene of their choice from the book. They could use any means of portaying this scene, some common examples were paintings, drawings, shadow boxes, wood carvings/burnings and one student even created a puppet show. Lesson plan #2 contributed to large unit plan that took almost one whole quarter of school to complete. My goal in this unit was to have students understand the plot and storyline of these chapters so that they do not get left behind half way through the book and get lost. Not only are these students given time in class to read these chapters, but we also discuss the chapters in class and correct the worksheets together. The overall goal was to get students reading a classic novel that really related to their same age group and get students interested in reading.


2. Describe the learning expectations that you had for your lessons. What aspects of the lesson were successful and why? What aspects of the lesson where not successful and why?


Lesson plan #1
I expected that my students follow along with the worksheet and fill in the answers that the class discussed. I wanted to give all the students an opportunity to answer a question and even though I understand that not all students wanted to answer out loud, I liked the aspect of learning the concept of analogies in class. I think that this lesson was successful because of the results on the quiz that was at the end of the week. Most students scored high on this section of the test. I that by discussing the questions and answers in class as a group, all students were able to actually complete the worksheet. This also allowed students to think as a group to find the answers to questions rather than struggle at home with a parent(s) who may not know the concept or the correct answer. Completing the assignment in class lets me answer questions that students may have too. A aspect of the lesson that was not successful is seeing some students who chose not to complete the assignment even though we are discussing the questions and answers as a group. The students that refuse to work even if the answers are right in front of them is really some thing that frustrates me. I know that there will always be that one student  who truly doesnt care and I need to get used to it, but dang it, WORK! 


Lesson plan #2
For this lesson, I expected that students listen and follow along in the book to the audio recording of "Tom Sawyer" chapters 10-12. I told the students that if they did not follow along, than their action would affect the whole class and we would have to read aloud as a group and go around the room person-to-person reading. We did not have to go-around-the-room for any of the 35 chapters in this book. I think that this was a success because all students at least pretended to read the book and had it in their hands during the playing of the audio. Using the audio recording to read the book really helped enforce the visual and audio learning of all the students. It also kept all the students at the same pace so that one student wouldnt be really behind and the other wouldnt be all done with the book a week in. A part to this lesson that is not successful is that some students need to have the book literally put into their hands by me in order for them to have any motivation to read. It seems like most students have no interest in reading which is a bummer for me because I majored in English. I either have these students or the students who want to rush ahead and read the whole book over the weekend.


3. Analyze one of your instructional materials and discuss its effectiveness.

For this analysis, I will be using the quiz that the students took in lesson plan #2 on chapters 10-12 of the book "Tom Sawyer." This is a photo I took of a high quality and low quality quiz. The quiz on the left is of a low quality student. This student continuously recieves low scores and doesnt complete any home work. He is currently at 49% in the class. On the right is a quiz of a student who is at an 81% in the class and did very well on the quiz. Overall, I think that this quiz was effective in testing students on the plot, characters and other facts from this section of the book. I think that by providing multiple choice questions on the quiz, there is no contraversy of which answer is correct and I do not have to correct fill in the blanks or essay questions objectively. On the other hand, having multiple choice questions allows students who do not know the question, guess and potentially get the question correct. The questions on this quiz were important and significant to the plot rather so I think each question was a benefical one.

4. Analyze the student work you provided. Describe why one example is an illustration of quality work and why one is not. Discuss what steps you took to support the student that did not produce quality work.

If you look back up to the picture in question number two, you see that the student that I described on the left received a score of 9/20 on this quiz. On the other hand, the student paper on the right is 19/20. Both students are in the same class. The student who did not produce quality work I have been trying to encourage all quarter long. As I stated above, he failed the first quarter of class. I have sent home four grade sheets for the parent to sign and return for extra credit, I have given the student a list of the missing work that he decided not to turn in and the cooperating teacher and I have offered to stay after school to help him complete his work. He did decide to come in one day to complete work but then decided it was "not worth it" to come in anymore after school to try to make up his missing work.


5. Provide an argument for why the assessment instrument that you developed was the best strategy for determining student achievement. Include a discussion of how the instrument addressed the lesson objectives and provided concrete evidence of student achievement.

The assessment instrument allowed all students to have an equal chance and was objective, not subjective in the answers it provided. This quiz, tested students on the basic parts to these chapters and tested their knowledge of the book. My goal was to have students understand the plot fully and not be confused about the events in this book. It addressed my objectives because I offered the students many chances to succeed and master this section of the book. The student above who is currently at a "B" in my class is proof of student success and achievement beacuse he scored an "A" grade on this quiz. From the grades on the final test and Tom Sawyer Project, most students had fun learning about the mischievous boy named Tom Sawyer.

Assignment Number Two Cont. - Lesson Plan

The second lesson plan that I am going to post is one part of a Unit Plan about a book that we are reading in class by Mark Twain, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer." This lesson plan covers chapters 10-12. Here is the link to this Lesson Plan and the SNR that I created for it:

Lesson Plan Three: Tom Sawyer Chapters 10-12

Standard Narrative Reflection of Lesson Plan Three

In this lesson, students read chapters 10-12 in class following along with an audio recording, then students completed a two page worksheet that went along with these chapters, followed by a quiz. Here is the objectives that I have for this lesson:

• Students will successfully read and test on chapters ten through twelve of the book.
• Students will learn about the era in which the characters in the story and author lived.
• Students will be prepared for worksheet and quiz that follow the reading.

The quiz is shown in two pictures below; the quiz on the left is of a high achieving student and the picture of the quiz on the right is of a low acheiving student:

Page One

Page Two

Some of my helpful resources...

There have been some really helpful sites that I have found throughout my education at BSU and through my student teaching, so here they are:
- National Council for Teachers of English
- Readwritethink.org
- Web English Teacher
My cooperating teacher's blog is apart of the Hibbing High School Website at
Kellie Bungarden's Blog and the Hibbing High School's website is Hibbing.k12.mn.us