Growth and Goals!
Hello everyone!
I hope you all had a wonderful week! It was the second full-time teaching week for me, and it went a lot more smoothly than the previous week. Despite extra events and a special day on Thursday (100th day of school), this week would be rated with a 4. I was pleasantly surprised with how well I adapted to changes in schedule and behavior issues, so this aspect of the week was pretty encouraging. Additionally, I learned to use the laminator effectively on Tuesday (whoop whoop)!! However, I accidentally caused the entire thing to get jammed today - so if I become blacklisted from my school, at least it was a good run.
On Thursday, I had an unannounced observation for Literacy Stations. During this observation / reflection period, I learned ways to keep students engaged during guided reading, while also managing groups at other stations. This conversation with my supervisor led to my exploration throughout the grade level to observe other teachers teach guided reading. On Monday, I will observe another Kindergarten teacher perform a lesson and on Wednesday, I'll watch a 1st grade teacher teach guided reading as well. This initiative allows me to continue pursuing Standard V.b and I.c. I want to continue working collaboratively with other teachers so I can grow and become a better students teacher / future teacher.
One major goal I have for next week is to watch my patience. Towards the end of the week, I noticed my nerves becoming more and more frazzled. This developed into situations where I should have been more patient with the students. I am working on following through with behavior and classroom management plans, but there is a way to go about this without demeaning the students. So, I definitely could have spent more time assessing why students were being disruptive and implemented strategies to fix these issues. On the other hand, I should have spent less time snapping at them.
Another issue I have faced is communication with parents. For some reason, this terrifies me to no end! I am so passive and my anxiety gets the better of me whenever communication is needed. However, I wrote my first 'negative' note in a folder today, and while I hated doing it, I'm proud of myself for following through with procedure (Standard II.e). This is another goal I want to work on next week and on further.
In order to continue growing with Standard III of the Professional Teaching Standards, I focused on integrating Science within several literacy standards this week. I chose new informational texts for students to work on within their guided reading groups. Almost all of those texts aligned with a Science standard. So, whenever these lessons were being taught, the emphasis on science instruction took place! I utilized this same practice in Reader's Workshop, and had students focus on the book Clouds. We discussed parts of the story that related to our topics in R.W (informational texts), as well as content related to weather standards (III.c).
Standard IV.b was addressed throughout my lessons this week. I am becoming better with this standard more and more. This is because I know the students more every day, and I am receiving a lot of practice. It's so gratifying to see a student truly engaged and excited to learn a new skill! I hope this continues to progress.
For my portfolio, I have almost completed the parent website, except for one section. I have also continued to work on my PDP, collecting artifacts showing growth towards my goal, and have been working with the behavior student with his management plan. After edTPA is over, I hope to dive deeper and focus on this portfolio.
If you taught edTPA this week, I hope it went really well (I'm sure it did)!! If you're teaching next week, like me, good luck!! We got this!
Have a wonderful weekend,
Gabrielle :)
I hope you all had a wonderful week! It was the second full-time teaching week for me, and it went a lot more smoothly than the previous week. Despite extra events and a special day on Thursday (100th day of school), this week would be rated with a 4. I was pleasantly surprised with how well I adapted to changes in schedule and behavior issues, so this aspect of the week was pretty encouraging. Additionally, I learned to use the laminator effectively on Tuesday (whoop whoop)!! However, I accidentally caused the entire thing to get jammed today - so if I become blacklisted from my school, at least it was a good run.
On Thursday, I had an unannounced observation for Literacy Stations. During this observation / reflection period, I learned ways to keep students engaged during guided reading, while also managing groups at other stations. This conversation with my supervisor led to my exploration throughout the grade level to observe other teachers teach guided reading. On Monday, I will observe another Kindergarten teacher perform a lesson and on Wednesday, I'll watch a 1st grade teacher teach guided reading as well. This initiative allows me to continue pursuing Standard V.b and I.c. I want to continue working collaboratively with other teachers so I can grow and become a better students teacher / future teacher.
One major goal I have for next week is to watch my patience. Towards the end of the week, I noticed my nerves becoming more and more frazzled. This developed into situations where I should have been more patient with the students. I am working on following through with behavior and classroom management plans, but there is a way to go about this without demeaning the students. So, I definitely could have spent more time assessing why students were being disruptive and implemented strategies to fix these issues. On the other hand, I should have spent less time snapping at them.
Another issue I have faced is communication with parents. For some reason, this terrifies me to no end! I am so passive and my anxiety gets the better of me whenever communication is needed. However, I wrote my first 'negative' note in a folder today, and while I hated doing it, I'm proud of myself for following through with procedure (Standard II.e). This is another goal I want to work on next week and on further.
In order to continue growing with Standard III of the Professional Teaching Standards, I focused on integrating Science within several literacy standards this week. I chose new informational texts for students to work on within their guided reading groups. Almost all of those texts aligned with a Science standard. So, whenever these lessons were being taught, the emphasis on science instruction took place! I utilized this same practice in Reader's Workshop, and had students focus on the book Clouds. We discussed parts of the story that related to our topics in R.W (informational texts), as well as content related to weather standards (III.c).
Standard IV.b was addressed throughout my lessons this week. I am becoming better with this standard more and more. This is because I know the students more every day, and I am receiving a lot of practice. It's so gratifying to see a student truly engaged and excited to learn a new skill! I hope this continues to progress.
For my portfolio, I have almost completed the parent website, except for one section. I have also continued to work on my PDP, collecting artifacts showing growth towards my goal, and have been working with the behavior student with his management plan. After edTPA is over, I hope to dive deeper and focus on this portfolio.
If you taught edTPA this week, I hope it went really well (I'm sure it did)!! If you're teaching next week, like me, good luck!! We got this!
Have a wonderful weekend,
Gabrielle :)
Wow, it sounds like you have had an eventful week! We celebrated our 100th day on Tuesday and while my third graders didn't do anything special, we got to see all of the kindergartners dress up like they were 100 years old. It was so funny to see! It seems like you have really started aligning all of your goals and I like the idea of observing other teachers. I'm sure that will be greatly beneficial! Good luck next week with edtpa!
ReplyDeleteSounds like you had a busy week! Unexpected observations can always be nerve wracking, but I'm sure you did excellent! It's great that you have the opportunity to go observe some more teachers during than guided reading groups, this can be a great way to grow and learn from your colleagues. Best of luck this week with edTPA!!
ReplyDeleteGabrielle, It sounds like you've learned a lot this week. It's great you had the opportunity to observe other teachers and their students. I think it's great you celebrating the 100th day of school. So far our school hasn't mentioned it. I will ask my CE when I return. As for your negative note home to a parent. Maybe include something positive in the note for next time. This would be a good practice and show the child's strengths as well.
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