Week 1: Goal-Getters

At 7:30 on Wednesday morning I sat in the newly constructed library of Stony Creek Elementary for an early morning faculty meeting. It was the first meeting of the year, so the administrator talked to us about making goals for 2019 (as is fitting in the new year). As an optional activity, we could record those goals using an Adobe Spark slide, and had the option of posting it in the staff room. The goals that were voiced ranged from spending more time after school to drinking more water. I chose to participate in this activity and created the following slide:

Although these goals are a little broad and simple, it is also important to make specific goals in my journey towards becoming a teacher. Last week, I had the goals of pacing and learning more about the curriculum. I was able to teach three more lessons, during week 1, and I feel as though I improved slightly on pacing. I have realized that there are specific pieces of my math lessons in which I need to improve a lot more on in terms of pacing. For example, when we discuss "I can" statements and evidence for learning targets, I need to keep things moving a lot quicker than I have been. As far as my curriculum goal, I have learned a lot more about math and reading curriculum.

I am not the only one setting goals lately. My students have also been creating goals for themselves and then continue to follow up with those goals every few months or so. It has been encouraging for me to watch them set and reach goals this past week. For example, one of my students is an ELL and she had set a goal to speak and write English better. Another one of my students had set a more specific goal to improve on a standardized test by a certain amount of points. He got the results back on Friday and had surpassed his goal. This particular student is one who has a lot of behavior issues and rarely gets excited about anything. Yet after receiving this score, the smile could not be wiped of his face for the rest of the day. If he had not set that goal, I do not think this meaningless number on paper would have mattered to him in the slightest. Because of this, I can see that there is something special about being a goal setter and a goal-getter.

In watching my students meet their goals, I have been encouraged to continue both with setting goals and continuing in the goals I have set. This week, I hope to specifically learn more about social studies and science and the lack of curriculum for these subjects. Another specific goal I have for this week is to find new ways to differentiate instruction in the classroom in a way that is inclusive towards our new ELL student (who I will tell you about right now) and even welcoming to her.

This week, our 6th grade homeroom class got a new student from Yemen who speaks no English aside from a simple hello. This student is a small and spunky girl who shrugs at about anything you try to tell her. She does not even know how to say or recognize her own name. She is also learning social behaviors as well. The first time she saw me, she gave me a huge hug, which was sweet, but as she continues to do that, we are trying to teach her that this is not particularly acceptable on a professional level. There are a handful of other students in our homeroom who speak Arabic who have been helpful to her in telling her simple actions like "now we are sitting down" or "go get your stuff from your locker" or "we have recess now." However, for social studies, we are still trying to figure our how to include her. Last week we were talking about Mesopotamia, so we gave her a map of the Fertile Crescent and then I had her color in specific regions a certain color. During reading, I also had her practice writing her name, as she does not know how to write since the last time she was educated was 1st grade. As stated in my previous goal, I want to find new ways to include her this week. This connects to Standard 3 of the Illinois Professional Teaching Standard about differentiating instruction. By learning about this student's diverse characteristics, I can help her towards growth, and even meeting her own goals! Not only do I hope to include her more, but I also want her to feel welcome. I learned the Arabic greetings Asalamualaikum and Salam (which also happen to be Indonesian greetings!). I plan on using these in the morning and at the end of the day so that she may hopefully feel a bit more comfortable and welcome!

Week 1 also consisted of lots of meetings, essay writing instruction, and math instruction. I feel more like part of the teaching team now as I have gotten to sit in on a variety of meetings ranging from faculty meetings, 6th grade math intervention meetings, and technology meetings. These meetings have also helped me to gain a fuller understanding of what it is like to be an actual teachers.

In addition to these meetings, I got to help my students in writing what for most of them was their first essay ever. They focused on specific parts of an essay such as the hook, the thesis, the introduction, the body paragraphs, and the conclusion. I enjoyed helping them with this process more than I expected. Because they each have their own unique ideas, each essay is a little bit different and brings out the uniqueness in each child. I was pleasantly surprised by how clever and creative some of the students were with their hooks! I was not-so-pleasantly surprise by the amount of grammatical errors that were found in my students' writing samples. Being a bit of a grammar-nazi myself, I enjoyed pointing out the errors and explaining the why behind certain grammar usages, but it made me realize how little English instruction they are getting from the Reading curriculum. It leaves me with the question: How can I incorporate and encourage more English instruction within the limits of the Reading curriculum that I am given?

The last commonality of this week was the math instruction. I taught three lessons, was observed for one of them, and have now taken over this subject. With both failures and successes, I am confident that I am learning and growing, and that my students are learning and growing as well. I am getting used to navigating the curriculum, and even taking notice at the ways that the curriculum is lacking.

In math, we set goals for every lesson in the form of "I can" statements. Sometimes it takes us one day to reach that learning target and sometimes it could take up to four. This reminds me of the importance of goal setting no matter how slow or how speedily you work towards reaching them.


Classroom Confidential: Great Teachers are Equal Opportunists
After reading this chapter, there were so many things that I could relate to, even in this short time of student teaching thus far. "Covering" the material simply so that the students are exposed to it is something that I have already felt the pressure to do. Yet as page 2 of this text says, "Learning is sacred. Curriculum is not." If I rush through the curriculum, authentic learning will not take place, and there are so many ways to do that. Schmidt outlines a few of those ways in the various intelligences that he writes about. Some of these intelligence struck me as particular ones in which would greatly benefit my teaching that I hope to use. The first one is Picture Smart-- Visual and Spacial Intelligence. This would be helpful with the English Language Learners in my classroom, particularly the new student. I also think it would be great to incorporate Body Smart--Kinesthetic Intelligence, into my lesson. My students do a lot of sitting down all day, and I think getting up and moving would be highly beneficial to their learning experience. People Smart--Interpersonal Intelligence, is another one that sticks out to me and one I hope to use because of what I know about my students. They are a social bunch, and communicating with each other is something that they value.

In this chapter, Schmidt also talked about "full brain learning." I have seen and used this in my classroom in a few ways. First of all, "give students the opportunity to develop individual projects tailored to their own interests" is something I have observed in a variety of projects. For example, we just completed a class project about endangered animals. Each student got to choose an animal that was interesting to them, and they also got to choose their preferred method of presentation. This piece stood out to me as well: "prompt students to constantly assess how various activities help the learn. By evaluating their strategies, students ideally become experts at learning." When we come up with "I can" statements, students look back at their activities to find evidence of meeting that "I can" statement, which helps them to evaluate their own learning.