307 & 435 Blog 2

This month in my clinical placement, I learned more than I have probably ever learned throughout my college career.  I am realizing now just how blessed we are to have the pre-student teaching semester out in the schools!  My favorite part is the relationships I have already been able to create in my classroom and around my school.  My school's community is absolutely incredible! I have never seen a group of office staff, janitorial staff, cafeteria staff, and teachers that work so closely with so much collaboration and encouragement. My classroom environment is also one that I have found to be quite unique.  My students absolutely adore my CE and TA, and I believe they are beginning to feel the same way about me! My students are constantly presenting me with big smiles, warm hugs, and beautiful drawings.  My favorite hug yet, was from one of my first graders.  She hugged me and said "Miss Lowman I just love that you always smell like coffee and flowers."  I guess that means I have already made an impression on her, even if just on her sense of smell!
This month, I have learned how to manage a classroom, how to win the respect of students, how to help students achieve confidence in their work, how to collaborate with other teachers in my school, how to analyze data from testing and provide support accordingly, and how to encourage so many different kinds of students.  This month, I have been fortunate to spend three full days a week with my Clinical Placement and have spend a few Fridays at a middle school observing and even sometimes assisting in the EC inclusion classes there. 
There have been several days this semester where my CE has had to abruptly leave the classroom.  I have been able to take on literacy lessons, math groups, whole class "carpet time," and guided reading centers in her absence.  I will say that the best way to learn is to be thrown in "head first," and that is exactly how it has felt!  I have also found that when I am confident in my ability to manage a classroom, the students follow my lead and also have faith in me.  The more timid I am and the more I depend on my CE, the less students will see me as a teacher and the less they will respect me.  When my CE has had to abruptly leave to take care of things elsewhere, I have had to step into the role of "teacher" very quickly and very confidently.  The professional teaching standard "Teachers lead in their classroom" has taken on a whole new meaning to me this month.  There have been times when the whole class was looking to me to make decisions of where to "go next" with our day or our lesson.  The TA has even looked at me before, when my CE was not in the room, and said "What is our next move?"  It was strange to step into leadership over sixteen little bodies and one TA who is great at what she does and has been doing it for 17 years.  I was nearly thrown into this role of leadership, but I am so glad that I was.  The moments that pushed me out of my comfort zone made that role of leadership become my new comfort zone.  I will say that in these situations, I can see how much students respect me as one of their educators.  I had no problem at all with the welcoming me with literal open arms into their classroom.  I had no problem making them smile, and I had no problem being their friend.  The challenge came when I was asked to step into leadership over them and maintain a class environment that was respectful to everyone and conducive to learning.  I now have found that when I am confident, set expectations for my students, and show them that there are clear repercussions and rewards for meeting or not meeting those expectations, the students have respect for me as a leader and as an educator.  We are moving away from the "Miss Lowman is my friend" mentality to the "Miss Lowman is my teacher" mentality.
As far as encouraging students goes, I have found two students in my classroom who entirely lack confidence in their school work.  I have been working with a small group of students that these two students are a part of.  I pull them during math journal time(which follows morning work every day), and I guide them through the math journal then do some extra guided practice with them while my CE discusses the journal with the rest of the class. There are two students in this group, who I also pull out during guided reading groups, who completely lack confidence in their school work.  I have found that one of them likes to "play dumb" because she is so scared to get the answer wrong.  She would much rather say "I dunno" or "Mmmmm (then the shoulder shrug)" than take a shot at possibly getting the answer wrong.  It took nearly all month of me encouraging her that it is okay to be wrong and that it is not the end of the world to get a wrong answer.  I am not sure what caused this barrier in the students' mind.  It could have been a teacher or parent in the past who has scolded the child, or perhaps she is just naturally timid.  I believe I made a lasting impression on her last week when we were working on a number line with the terms "greater than" and "less than."  We were in the work room across the hall that day, so I had a bit more freedom with the group.  I asked her a question directly and she looked down and shrugged.  I then said "____ do you think I am going to do this if you get the problem wrong?"  Then I (very jokingly and with a grin on my face) stood up and shook the papers and my marker around in the air and said "Ahhhh my goooodness I can't believe you got the answer wrong.... how dare you?!?!"  The whole group nearly fell out of their chairs laughing and one student said "Miss Lowman wouldn't ever do that!" From that point on, the students in that group were actually excited to come work with me, whereas they were reluctant the first few days.  That particular timid student is still not quick to raise her hand in a whole class setting, but she is confident in her answers in our small group.  It really took me being a little silly and being extremely encouraging to get that particular student and several other students to be confident and not be afraid of being wrong.  This was an interesting way that I found I had to facilitate learning for that group of students and that one student in particular.  I am thankful to have such diverse needs in my CE's classroom this semester, because it will really prepare me for whatever needs I have in my class this fall for student teaching.
One of my favorite things about the first grade at my clinical school is that they meet every Wednesday during planning for grade level collaboration.  I have learned so many ways to delegate tasks and use coworkers' strengths.  Another reason I believe my school's community is so strong is because they collaborate often and delegate tasks based on teachers' strengths.  Every teacher has things they are good at.  For example, we planned an olympics day rotation for last Friday.  One station, we designed our own skates - they were to be pretty and functional (we gave the "artsy" and inventive teacher this station.  Another station involved relays that mimic the olympic games - we gave the teacher who has the highest energy this station so she can motivate the students and make it fun.  We also had a cookie creation station where students learned about what the olympic rings mean and decorated cookies accordingly - we gave this station to the teachers who enjoy baking.  Our final station involved students creating their own athletic event - naturally, the most athletic and sports-loving teacher got this station.  Every teacher has strengths and every teacher has areas where they are not the strongest.  I believe that an important idea to grasp during collaboration is that not every teacher will thrive in every area, but every teacher does have something beneficial to bring to the table.
During a Wednesday grade level meeting this month, we discussed test scores from the MOY testing, we planned for groups to be pulled based upon the areas they performed the lowest in.  I am not sure exactly how, but our grade level ended up with extra funding and we chose to hire a tutor to come once a week and pull students every day.  We worked all through one Wednesday meeting deciding what the focuses of each group pulled needed to be.  We decided that some students may need to be pulled more than once in a day in order to receive all the help they need.  The only negative part of only getting a tutor once a week is that the students who need to be challenged more will not be pulled. There is not enough time to pull every student, and we decided to pull only the ones who need extra support.
The most beneficial learning experience I had this month as far as course work goes was the Leadership and Collaboration project.  I also simply enjoyed it because I loved seeing the statistics of my county and my school.  It really gave me an idea of what advantages I can see in the county and what disadvantages students may be facing.  After discussing the information I gathered with the teachers of my grade level, I learned even more about the demographics of our school district.  Quite a bit of the information I gathered, though it was only gathered about a year ago, was out of date.  The information regarding students who are facing economic disadvantage shocked me.  However, the other first grade teachers informed me that those percentages were actually low in comparison to this year's statistics.
This month, I have been researching ways to keep ADHD students on task and focused.  I have one student in my classroom who is a challenge for my CE and I daily.  She struggles with her ADHD in class and also has many behavior issues that cause disruptions during lessons and tasks.  I have been researching methods of motivation to keep her focused and behaving well.  One tactic that I have found to be beneficial to this student is to always have something for her to do.  Most of my students are content to finish their work early and then grab a book and read silently.  However this student does not respond well to that.  She only is content when she constantly is told what to do.  The only way I can keep her focused all the time and keep her on task is to always have something to do laying in front of her and to constantly give her reminders to focus and work.  If she is given any free time or "self time" as we call it, she can not handle herself and finds a way to get herself into trouble.  I have tried to use the sticker chart method with rewards at the end of the week, but she was not receptive of that kind of encouragement.  We then discussed with her that since she has such a hard time focusing, if she could "clip up" to blue, she would receive a prize from the prize box.  Most students receive a prize when they clip so far up that the teacher has to wear a clip, but we gave this particular student the opportunity to get a prize when she was on the clip below that. We encouraged her with this throughout the week and reminded her that she would be happy if she got to clip up all the way to blue! However, this intervention was also ineffective.  Our goal now is to find something she is very passionate about and use that for encouragement somehow!