One area of my teaching in which I am confident is informal
assessment. I feel very comfortable taking anecdotal records, doing student
interviews, observing, etc. When I use these kinds of informal assessments, I
feel like I can gather a complete picture of a student’s strengths and areas
for improvement. One area of my teaching
in which I can improve is management. I need to be more consistent in managing
behavior and stopping disruptions before they escalate.
I think I will definitely learn a lot this year. Given the
diversity of academic needs in my classroom, I think a learning opportunity
this year will be differentiated instruction. We have learned about
differentiating in the past but I think this year, I will really be able to put
that idea into practice. I will learn to
differentiate lessons for each of my students’ academic needs. I think I will also try to learn more about
autism this year. On my class roster, I have
one student who is in a self-contained Autism Spectrum Disorder room full time.
I want to learn more about this student, her strengths and needs, and autism in
general. I think this will be an
opportunity for me to learn more about autism, special services, and the
complexity of self-contained and mainstreaming situations.
I enjoyed the Kersten and Pardo article about finessing and
hybridizing. I think it presents a more
realistic picture of the challenges that today’s teachers face. Many articles contain great research and
theory but the translation to practice is lost because today’s teachers are
facing so many restricting policies and standardized assessments. However, this article demonstrates how
teachers can comply with these strict policies but also incorporate what they
believe is best practice.
I think I will be able to hybridize my literacy practices
with respect to basal readers. According
the article by Kersten and Pardo, hybridize means blending two approaches. For example, my school uses basal readers to
test students’ reading and assign their reading level. However, I think basal readers leave a lot to
be desired, especially in regard to student interests and comprehension. I think allowing students to choose “just
right” books that they are interested in is a better way for students to
practice and be motivated by reading. I
also believe that basal readers aren’t great for assessing or practicing comprehension. According to our textbook, Strategies That Work, active readers
interact with the text, read with a purpose, and respond to reading. Basal readers provide limited opportunities
for these activities. However, I can hybridize these two practices by complying
with district and school policies regarding testing with basal readers, but
also providing time for students to access the classroom and school libraries
to check out books for independent daily reading. In this way, I can incorporate both practices
into the literacy curriculum.
I think at this stage in our careers, finessing is harder
than hybridizing. According the article,
finessing means manipulating policies so that some aspects are attended to but
others are ignored. While I agree that
this seems like a successful way for teachers to negotiate competing policy and
practice, it seems like a safer task for teachers who have jobs and are
somewhat established. For new teachers,
and especially teacher interns, I wonder if “finessing” would be judged more
harshly by other teachers or administrators since we are not as
established. Do you have ideas about how
you might “finesse” your literacy practices? Are you concerned about the
tenuous balance of attending to and ignoring some aspects of policies? Do you agree that this might be more
challenging for us, as interns, than established teachers?
Over the course of my classroom experiences, I have gained an understanding of my strengths and areas of improvement. I am confident in my abilities to manage a classroom, from transitions to the occasional chatter that takes place between students. I know when to pause to regain attention and focus as well as implement attention-grabbing strategies depending on the age of the students. One of my favorites is "Hocus Pocus...now we focus." This is a great way to use a call and response technique while incorporating rhyming into the strategy. I am in a first grade classroom and have found that with time, the students are forming close friendships and gaining the same confidence I am experiencing. I also feel I am able to tune into individual student's interests and provide them with the resources necessary to explore those interests. An area, I believe I need to improve in is my ability to relate individual lessons to each other and interconnect the subjects.
ReplyDeleteI believe it is important to incorporate interest into the curriculum to be taught. I am finding that teachers are bound to the curriculum, but have some freedom to differentiate instruction based on student interest level. For example, we have been talking about school and classroom rules and responsibilities in our social studies unit. Be safe, be responsible, and be respectful are the three main rules of our school. In order to practice these rules, we have had school wide fire drills in which the first grade students were very curious. We had a mini-lesson based off of this student-driven interest to demonstrate their responsibilities to keep safe in our school and classroom.
In the Finessing and Hybridizing article, the author speaks to the teaching dilemmas teachers face on a daily basis. They are bombarded with curriculum, national standards, and parent concerns in which they must balance in a short 9 month teaching year. I am already observing the stress in which assessment and instruction must be completed. I had the opportunity to sit in on DRA and DWA testing and noticed how much time it takes to assess properly. I plan on incorporating differentiated group literary instruction based on individual student needs in order to improve their reading ability. This is another area I am excited to develop further.
What can I do? I can motivate students. I can manage a classroom. I can encourage students to explore ideas further whether that is through the writing process or i choosing a just right book. I feel that I can answer questions to the best of my abilities.
ReplyDeleteIn terms of readiness, agency, and action, I will be assessing students as often as possible or when necessary. I will be teaching students to the best of my abilities, trying to further their thinking through specific concepts of writing models and reading models.
The writers workshop and readers workshop model will help me distinguish between teaching to the two areas, but my challenge will be connecting the two. How can I help the students relate to both workshop models that will be beneficial for their learning? Also, how can I incorporate writing into reading and reading into writing to show students that both require a balance of each literacy topic to create a more concrete understanding of language arts.
I think also in terms of language arts, a challenge for me will be introducing and utilizing various teaching strategies to encompass both verbally speaking and listening to the language in a consistent manor. This for me means there needs to be a balance of both student and teacher sharing out times, instructional times need to be short and to the point, and students need time on their own to also explore a balance between speaking and listening to language arts related topics to further their writing and reading comprehension.
I do feel confident in my abilities to manage the classroom whilst guiding the students to my intended end goal for the unit. I also feel apt to grade writing assignments based off of a specified rubric or writing scale. I would hope to give students feedback but also gain some feedback myself on what they would like to see in the future or what they would prefer seeing more or less of in the future.