To Teach or Not To Teach...That is the question?

 I have thoroughly enjoyed my opportunity to blog my Service Learning journey.  Looking back over the blogs now, I remember concepts and experiences that had slipped my mind, and I appreciate the reminder of things I need to know and remember.  I believe I will continue to journal in this blog as I continue my education journey, just so I can look back on topics I want to remember and use in my future classroom.   I believe that with each module I have been able to make connections between my course work and what I am seeing on a daily basis in the classroom.  In fact it has been my favorite part of this course.  I am fortunate to have a very responsive cooperative teacher, because I often barrage her with questions on why she has done things a certain way, or if she is trying to acheive a specific outcome?  These questions have always stemmed from my coursework and something new I have learned.  She has also been patient with me and allowed ...

     For our class Halloween party this year we spent a great deal of time doing science projects.  The students were fascinated.  I can honestly say it was the longest I've seen my class ALL sit in their seats and pay attention since school began.  Today, I was talking to my cooperating teacher about how great it was and asked her why we did not do more science projects since they were so engaged.  Her reply was simple, and sad, "Because they're not tested on it."  I use this story to introduce my introduction to standards and how they are effecting curriculm.  Now, I know that my view on this will be askew because the class I am observing has a 50% special needs presence, so the way we look at standards is different.  I know in my daughter's 2nd grade class they are doing language arts, math, science, social studies, etc etc.  With my class though we emphasize math and language arts.  In fact many days will go by in a row whe...

 As in any classroom, we have a diverse group of students with many different individual needs.  The two biggest that stand out to me are our multiple ESL students, and our group of special needs learners.  This makes for an interesting day, where no single lesson plan is going to support or help our general ed students, or ESL students, and our students with special needs.  Instead I am pretty sure that my cooperating teacher makes no less than four separate learning plans for each day.  Before I discuss these differences though, I do love that she always starts the day with commonality (which in usually music based).  I think this is so important to find teaching moments that appeal to ALL the students so that "groups" are not formed and that they continue to feel like a classroom community. We are lucky in our class that we have three aides as well as the teacher.  I know that this is not normal and most classes are lucky to have one aide, but three...

 How grateful I am for the rulings of the Supreme Court in the landmark case of Lau vs. Nichols.  Without this judgement I would not have some of my favorite students in my class.  We currently have four ESL students and they are just delights.  All of them are native Spanish speakers, who are at differing levels of understanding with English.  As a result I have watched my cooperating teacher make changes to her lesson plan to accommodate their needs.  The first thing she has done is obtain  software that helps the ESL students learn English.  While other students work in the writing program Lexia we help our ESL students with their program.  I also enjoy the fact that she has learned that these four students love music, and will learn English quickly through song.  Every morning we sing the same songs over and over that give the days of the week, months, and counting and these four students sing the loudest of them all.  She will ...

       This has been the perfect week to study this subject!  I have had the opportunity to see so many examples of engaged learning, and it is exciting!  I love that moment when you see all the students completely transfixed, and thoroughly invested in what is being presented/taught.  It's those moments, when everyone is happy and engaged that you know EXACTLY why you want to become a teacher.     This week my teacher introduced "word wall."  Since trying to get the students to work on writing, and their spelling words was becoming a challenge, (mainly because they were bored to death, you could tell) she made it a fun interactive game.  She gave each student several pieces of paper, with multiple pictures on them, only they weren't complete pictures they were blown up sections of other pictures.  All these pictures related to their spelling words, but you honestly couldn't tell by just looking at the blown up fragment.  ...

 I had a wonderful experience last week while observing Ms. Jordan.  One of our fourth graders struggles so much with Lexia (a reading app on the IPad), and is constantly trying to get an aide or the teacher to help him, even though it's suppose to be "self-learning."  I've noticed that when the students think Ms. Jordan isn't watching is when she is watching the most.  At one point our student conquered a really hard section for him and yelled out in triumph "Look at how big and smart my brain is!," then he went on working.  The next day when he was struggling again he went to Ms. Jordan ;after she gave him some helpful nudges and he solved it, this time Ms. Jordan exclaimed, " Look how big and smart your brain is!"  Our little fourth grader was over the moon, to hear his same compliment given back to him, 1) reinforced his own belief in his ability, and 2) showed him that his teacher cared enough to watch him and be aware of what he was sayin...