Intern Year

During this past week I taught straight from my teachers lesson plans on everything but written language and math with one student. I began to see how time management can become an issue because there is so much amount of work you need to fit into a 30-45 minute time block. I found myself going over a few minutes and targeted on that to be something I work on this coming week. Well two days. I need to learn to use my time wisely and plan accordingly. If I have a big activity I need to plan on it taking at least two class sessions to complete. This is just being realistic. I think I tend to try to plan for more then I have time for. In the weeks after Thanksgiving break I will work on that with my time left.
I also learned during this week of really teaching, is that if time gets out of hand in the students general education classroom then everything in the special education classroom gets out of whack. I have students come in late because they are doing work in their classroom, which is great, but it makes my time with them shorter and harder for me to work everything in. I need to work on being more flexible and just working with the time I have.
I would like to add in here the two day I have taught during Thanksgiving break, since Mon county had school. These two days I have been teaching from lesson plans I created for the whole day. This I thought would be hard but they more I get used to their time schedule and the level of the students, its not that difficult. I think I struggle most with figuring activities to do with so many different levels and grades during the day. This special education room, and any other special education room, has different students coming in at all times. As the teacher you must learn to teach to all of these different groups. I think in all I am going to walk away from these special education classes I have been a part of with a more in depth knowledge of how to plan for such different students, and how to differentiate instruction. I am glad I have had these experiences.

Intern Year

This week I began to take on some more responsibilities. I now teach from the teachers lesson plans on a few of the reading skills groups. I am also still doing written language and math with one student. We began touch math for addition which he seems to be responding to. Its interesting to watch how be begins to count or which number he begins with. I like to see if he remembers where to touch and how many times. Touch math is such a cool idea for kids who have trouble in the area of math. It gives them a visual of what each number means. This student struggles with knowing what number is which so I think next week when I write my own plans I will focus on some number recognition.
This student is also the same student I work with in written language and we have been working on our lower case ABC's. I am seeing great improvement in his ability to recognize the letters. I feel satisfied when I see him learn new letters and be able to recognize them, when before he couldn't. It makes me think I am doing something right.
With this student I am learning how important drill practice is for those basic facts that we think are so easy. Flash cards or some way to math and drill what letter or number we are working with gives them a chance to work on fluency but learn at the same time. Those daily drill practices is how I believe the students will learn a new basic fact. I plan on doing some drill practice with this student when we work on number recognition. I am excited to see how this practice will help him!

Intern Year

This past week has been more of an observation time for me. Since I just started in Mrs. Davis's class I wanted to take a little time to get to know her schedule and students. I did start participating with one student in math and written language. This student is in 2nd grade but doesn't know his lower case ABC's. I have been designing activities so we can work on these lower case letters. It has been a lot of fun working with him however he does lose attention on a task kind of easily so constant reinforcement has to be done. He seems to like working on his ABC's however when he doesn't know one he just tries to tell me a story instead of the answer. At that point I always know its a letter he doesn't know.
I also work with him in math. I am doing something with him that my host teacher is new to and that is 10 frames. I am teaching him to see hey there is 5 then two more instead of counting all seven of them. This is hard for him but with practice he is getting better at it. He also likes to play matching games with it so I think in the next week to come I am going to create a matching game where he matches the capital letter to the lower case letter. I think he will really like this and also learn at the same time. I am excited to work more with this class and eventually with time take over all the groups that come into the classroom.

Intern Year

This week I finished my time in Mrs.Nowak's MI classroom. I finished with doing pretty much all the groups during the day. I didn't do 3 groups I believe. On my last few days there I did a math assessment for the charts and graphs we had been working on. This assessment was an interview with each student where they told me what they saw in each graph and answered some questions I asked. The students did alright. I actually thought they might do a little bit better. One student in the group got all the answers correct. I did a lesson with my reading group with two 3rd graders by making a Venn Diagram of how they were the same or different from the main character in their story. He was from Porto Rico and had some differences from them being from America. It was interesting to see how they made connections. I am really going to miss Mrs. Nowak's class and hope I can make it back down there to visit and do my contract hours. They are wonderful kids!
Also this week I began my time with Mrs.Davis. It was hard to go into a new classroom and new schedule. Thursday and Friday are the only days I spent in there and it was kind of hard because there were meetings on Thursday and Friday was the Halloween party so I don't really know much about the classroom. I am hoping I can jump right into things and enjoy this time in a new classroom. Hopefully I can collect enough data and enough experience. It should be interesting!