Week 8: Flying Solo

As I am writing this, I am on a plane on my way to Indonesia. I have traveled to pretty far places before, but never by myself. I am quite literally flying solo.

I did a lot of flying solo this week, both figuratively and literally. As it was my last week at Stony Creek Elementary, so I had the opportunity to travel around from classroom to classroom in order to observe different ages and types of classrooms. It was really nice to just do my own thing and gain all of these beneficial experiences. I also had the opportunity to solo teach once again as my teacher subbed in another classroom.

In each of these classrooms, I had very different experience, and had various insights and reactions. In my first observation, I went to a 5th grade classroom to observe math. One thing that was really surprising to me was the great difference in maturity, behavior, and interest in learning between 5th and 6th. Despite there being only one year difference between these grades, there seemed to be a huge difference. The 5th graders seemed so young compared to the 6th graders. During the math class, the teacher I was observing used PearDeck as an entrance and exit ticket for her students. I have learned about PearDeck in the past, but I had never actually used it in the classroom.

This week I changed that.

For one of my reading lessons, I created a PearDeck game to review vocabulary. Although the students had fun with it, they did not take it seriously enough because their sentences were horrible (and my cooperating teacher let them know that). However, I am not going to be discouraged by this because this specific class really struggles with vocabulary. With a different class (such as my next placement) I think this tool would be greatly beneficial.

On Tuesday morning, I got to observe three out of the four 4th grade classes. Things did not go as planned and one class had to end up testing, causing all of the other classes to change their plans. The three remaining classes were all doing Junior Scholastic articles about Pandas. It was interesting to see that even though they were all doing the same topic/resources, they used different teaching methods. Some had worksheets, some had online magazines, some had the physical magazine, some used BrainPop, some were independent, some were in partners, and so on. This simply shows how there are endless ways to structure activities, and that it will vary depending on your students and how they work best.

During my observation, I was also surprised by how (inwardly) critical I was when observing certain classes. Yes, I am just a student teacher, but I can also tell when something is being taught well or not so well. In one particular classroom, I felt like I wanted to jump in the whole time. I didn't of course, but the students all seemed to not be listening, and the teacher did nothing about it. The style of classroom management did not seem effective, the students were not speaking/reading loud enough, and the whole lesson just seemed a bit disorganized. There was also a lot of students that ended up of the ground during this class, which I was super confused by. If that would have happened in my class, I would have told the students to get back in their seats, but the teacher did not even acknowledge it. In another instance, the teacher was showing a math problem incorrectly, or at least I thought it was being computed incorrectly. If it were my cooperating teacher, I would have spoken up, but I did not want to do that in a classroom that I was in for the first time.

Although some of the classroom management styles were styles I do not want to repeat, I also picked up a few strategies that seemed beneficial along the way. In one classroom, the teacher used was a super clap to quiet her students down, two if needed. One teacher used a "clip down" method similar to the card flipping method in my homeroom. One teacher let her students show their work on their laptop by "doing a lap" around the room with their laptop so that the other students could see their work. In another classroom, the students began reading in British accents (it was a British story) and they seemed to have fun and stay engaged with that. I realize that some classes would not be able to handle that, but this one was.

The 2nd grade teacher/classroom that I observed was great! The teacher had an entirely different demeanor than that of, say, a 6th grade teacher. Even I changed the way I talked to them than I would for my 6th graders. 2nd grade is a bit younger than I would like to teach, but it was good for me to have the experience of observing this age level. These students were very young, but I they were able to do more than I expected. I was observing during a reading lesson, and then after that they broke off in centers. I asked a few of them questions about what they were working on and had them read to me out loud while some were doing independent reading.

Another experience I enjoyed during my time flying solo this week was observing a 6th grade Two-Way Immersion (TWI) classroom. It was interesting because many of the student in that class are either in my math or my science class, so seeing them speak Spanish sort of showed a completely different side of them. They started doing their reading lesson in English, and then did the second part of it in Spanish. I was able to understand most of what they were saying, and I even tried out my Spanish speaking skills a bit!

Lastly, I really enjoyed the experience of observing and getting involved in an ESL classroom. I didn't realize it until then, but I really enjoy teaching in and ELL resource room, and it is not something I have been able to do since last year. One of my students was in room while I was observing. I got to work with her a bit and we even walked around the school, pointing out different objects and how to say them. That student talked more than I ever had heard her talk. The ESL teacher said that this was the case with many of the students in her room. This room created an environment for the students were they felt comfortable to learn and speak out when they had questions or when they had anything to say at all, which is important to do in any classroom.

I learned a lot while flying solo in both my teaching and observing from class to class. In my teaching, it allowed me to be more comfortable and do my own thing. In observing, it allowed me to see different places, and observe differences between both students and teachers.