Greg Mortenson...inspirational

Last night, my husband and I met up for dinner after seeing Greg Mortenson speak. I told him a little bit about his background and the amazing accomplishments he has made. It got us talking about what Mr. Mortenson closed his speech with... What mark are we making on the world?

My husband is a public defender and while he was in law school is was very active with the crisis ministry on meeting street. To my knowledge, the law school requires everyone to do a certain number of hours in the field doing work such as this. I am in graduate school helping to teach students in public school, many of which live in poverty. Both our careers are service jobs helping those in need. Before teaching, I worked at an Advertising Agency who one day a year had who ever wanted to go out to a site and help build a house for someone in need through United Way. I jumped at the chance to get out of the office and to do some manuel labor.

Despite this, I feel we need to do something, not because its our job or an excuse to get out of the office, but because we feel very passionately about a cause, such as education. We started talking about some ideas and are really going to try and volunteer in our community. With the mid-term elections just finishing up, it makes me think about all the people, myself included, who "bitch" about the economy, education, health care, etc, but who really are not out in the community physically trying to do something about it. We might start small, helping out at a soup kitchen around the holidays or adopt a family to give Christmas gifts too. My hope is that the satisfaction we get out of helping others will drive us to want to do more.

This weeks field...

Marisa taught her last lesson this week. While helping and observing her, I was reminded of a very important aspect of being a teacher, particularly a kindergarten teacher, and that is... thinking on your toes.

She had the class broken into centers. I worked at a table with students who each had a bag of cheerios and a number card. They were to read the number on their card and count out that number of cherios. We did this several times and I consciously gave each student single and double digit numbers. After about 7 minutes of this I could sense the children knew what they were doing and were loosing interest. I leaned over into a bucket near me to grab a white board. We started writing the numbers and talking about the different properties (i.e. an 8 is like an s that's closed...Lydia). I also had them do some addition and subtraction, asking them questions such as "if you have 7 cheerios and you want 10, how many more do you need?" Most were able to do this and were happily surprised when I told them "do you know that right now your doing addition and subtraction! " I was also reminded that we need to set high standards for our students and give them the encouragement and scaffolding to think beyond what they think they can. Marisa's lesson ended early and she came up with an activity using a pocket chart and numbers.

A little boy in one of my groups is an ESL student. It was clearly visible that his language was acting as a barrier in learning his numbers. Also, rather than knowing them from recognition, he would look at the number line and count up from one. I tried to work with him more closely and I also had his classmates help him. When he didn't know a number, I would ask the 3-4 other students, what number is this? Then I would turn to Andres and ask him what number is this, and he would repeat what his friends just said. When I first read this technique in Lemov, I thought that it would make a student feel insecure and "called out", but that was not the case. I kept the pace of doing this moving quickly which I also think helped. I think its important to teach students that their classmates can also act as teachers and support when they have confusion.

Final Lesson Taught

This morning I taught my final lesson on phonemic awareness and the letter Ff. I was happily surprised that the students were extremly well behaved, especially for it being the day after Halloween. Mrs. Hearn, the teachers aid, told me that this particular class gets incredibly chatting in the afternoon, around the time that we usually come. I really enjoyed teaching the phonics lesson where I had the students identify the beginning sound in words I said orally. I tried to call on all students at least once which was challenging with 27 students, but from those that I did call on, it was very obvious who struggled with this and who could easily attest to the sound. When I asked for the beginning sound, the students often told me the letter. It's great that they could tell me the letter, but they have to distinguish between sound and letter. I was consistently having to remind them of this, but by the end of the whole group lesson, they seemed to have gotten it.

I worked in small reading groups with the children reading their My Ff Book. First I worked with the lowest students in the class, which includes 3 ESL learners. I enjoyed working with them to decode unknown words and consistently reminding them to use their reading hand and finger to ensure that they read each word on the page and in the appropriate order. The children usually have to circle the letter that the book is about, for example all the B's in their My Bb Book. I had them circle all of the F's and underline the words in the book that began with F. I am really glad I added this on because many still have confusion between a word and a letter. Being able to break paragraphs into sentences, sentences into words, and words into letters is a skill that children need to have. I also got to work with the highest students in the class. It was pretty intersting to see how large the gap is. They could easily read all the pages in the book and they were also writing extra words with their pictures, such as the color that they were using to color in their pictures. This lesson definitely reminded me of the importance of differentiating your teaching techniques.

I really enjoyed reading Chapter 10 of the Grant book. Alot of the chapter discussed that the family and the community are the child's first teacher. We have discussed how many parents don't know how to work with their children to enhane skills they are being taught at school. I think its so important to educate your parents on small things they can do at home that are fun activites for both the child and parent. Some examples might be talking about your favorite part of the day during dinner, or having the child work on counting by setting the table. Because the community and family are the child's first teacher, we as teachers need to know as much as we can about them since they effect what the child is like.

Field Update...

This week I primarily worked on our advocacy project during our class time, but I was able to sit with Mrs. Patterson during leveled reading groups. Each week the students get a book that concentrates on one letter and a few high-frequency words. Our class is on the letter "Gg". I was really surprised to see that the font they use in the books is typing text, not the way in which the students would actually write the letters. I think this has to be really confusing to the students. They are told to write lower-case 'g' a certain way, but when they read words that contain it, it looks completely different. I really enjoy working on literacy instruction with the children and using various techniques such as choral and shared reading, helping them to make predictions by looking at the pictures or reading around a word they don't know to see if the rest of the sentence will give them a clue. It makes me think that if I continue with my education after graduating, I would like to talk additional literacy courses.

The topics covered this week in the Grant book really interested me, primarily because I think we are all going to encounter students who are either homeless, experience violence or neglect, or have or are living with someone that has a chronic disease. Every situation is different, but its really helpful to discuss hypothetical scenarios in class. It reminds us that we really have to take into account what is going on in a students life or what a parent is dealing before we place blame on them. Many times people are justing trying to survive, especially in an economy like today.

1.5 Hour Lesson

This week I taught my hour and a half lesson. I was really excited about teaching this lesson because I created four centers in the classroom where the students got to sort various objects by attributes. One center the students were independently sorting cylinder and squares by color, at another they sorted various sized and colored attribute shapes, with the lead teacher they sorted coins, and at my center they sort all different kinds of buttons. I remembered sorting the buttons in Dr.. Nabors class and was lucky enough to borrow them. This week I read about Lemov's technique, "Change of Pace". This is such an imperative technique to use with young children as their span of attention is so short. The way I set up the lesson was for the children to concentrate and work on one skill, but it various formats. My hope was that the transitioning between centers would feel like starting something new although they were still practicing the same skill but with different manipulatives.

I think the activities themselves were good, but I felt the lesson did not go smoothly because the classroom was so chaotic. 27 kindergarten students in one room! Unfortunately, that is many teachers realities in public school. I really needed to create tighter transitions, which was hard to explain given the 1.5 hour time frame. I haven't observed any routine transition behavior in the classroom, otherwise I would have used that. It got me thinking, what might I use in my classroom to help transitions between activities run smoothly. Each table that the students work at needs to clearly be marked. I have seen colored chair covers, which I love. Other ideas I though about were adhering colored shapes to the chairs of table (one table would be the triangle table, one could be the circle table). Identifying the tables by a skill the children need to learn, such as shape identification, is a great learning tool. You could switch it up periodically throughout the year. In my lesson revision, I created specific instructions for when the students are doing activities where they have to move from table to table. I though it seemed a bit "strict" while writing it, but my hope is that it would become a habit over time for the students. I would have a wind chime, bell, or some sort of noise making device that the students automatically associated with changing tables. As soon as the students hear this, they put what ever they have in their hands down, stand up, push their chair in, and quietly move to the next table. I've been reading a book on classroom management and I think its really important to establish these habits with your students at the beginning of the year to help class run more smoothly and create an atmosphere that is easier to learn and teach in.

Observing Running Records

This week I was given the opportunity to see my professor perform running records with some of her students. We haven't talked about them too much in our classes, so it was really nice to see how it is done (or have a refresher) because it is something that all teachers do. I saw this done last year in a first grade class, but I found it very interesting to see how it was done in Kindergarten when the majority of the class can read very few words. From what I could see at this point in the year, the teacher is really looking for the students' understanding of concept of word and the decoding skill of looking at the illustrations to help identify words. Mrs. Patterson explained that most of her students currently are at a level one, some are at the very beginning stage of level 2. By the end of kindergarten, all students are "supposed" to be reading at a level 3. What she told us next shocked me... at the beginning of first grade students are suppose to be reading at a level 8! So somehow between the end of one school year and the start of another, the students reading ability is suppose to rise by 5 levels. There seems to be a loop-hole here. Many of these kids regress during the summer too. I selected Kindergarten as my grade level for clinical practice in the Spring. Although I will be be other students, I feel it will be very useful to me to see what students start off knowing at the beginning of the school year and what they know by the end.

The technique I read about that I tried to use often in my 30-minute transition lesson was technique 48, Explain Everything. I can remember being in school and my teachers giving me short answers like "put your hand down", or "don't do that", which made me feel they didn't value what I had to say or that they didn't like me (I think 5 years olds feelings are very sensitive and they can pick up on negative energy). By explaining everything students learn what behavior is appropriate, what is not, and WHY. As Lemov says, "students understand the logic behind decision making and will be more likely to both believe that the systems are in their best interests and make rational choices on their own."

First Lesson Taught in the Field

This week I taught my first lesson.  I kind of felt silly, like I wasn't really teaching a lesson, because it was just a transition.  I got the kids lined up and took them to music and picked them up and brought them back to class.  However... I really learned a lot!  Rather than just having the students line up, I created a learning experience.  I told the students I was going to create a pattern as I tapped students lightly on the head to line up.  Once they were all lined up, I asked them to identify the pattern and what type it was.  Patterns are something that the students have been working on and this little lining up activity helped the students to practice the skill and allowed me to talk to them about it.  

Mrs. Patterson just got two new students.  She now has 27!  She explained that it happened unexpectedly and that you need to "just roll with it".  You can't stress out about having more students in the classroom, but rather make the appropriate adjustments and get them up to speed.  I have planned my lesson around 25 students and had to adjust it based on having two more.  I think being flexible and accommodating is an important skill to have as a teacher.

The other lesson that I learned through teaching my lesson is how difficult it is to watch an entire line of 27 students.  At one point we had made it to the end of the hallway and students were still coming out of the classroom.  I was really proud of the students for behaving well in the hallway and doing just as I asked... quite mouths, hands to yourself, and stay in a straight line against the wall so that other classes can pass.  I now realize how critical it is to have an aid in Kindergarten.  You really have to keep an eye on all the children and continually reiterate appropriate behavior.  Having one teacher at the front of the line and one at the back really helps.

I used some of the Lemov techniques that we have been reading about in class.  I used Call and Response and Pepper when talking about patterns.  I asked quick questions that built on each other, and alternated between asking specific students and the whole class.  I repeated the appropriate behavior I expected from the students while walking to music demonstrating the Tight Transitions technique.  Rather then telling the students "don't touch him" or "behave", I have specific directions and comments on how I expected the students to act with comments such as “remember, Emily, we are quiet when we walk by other classes so we don’t interrupt them” and "Quincy, we are walking in a straight line against the wall so that if another class needs to pass us they have plenty of room.”

I felt really good about my short lesson and am looking forward to teaching an hour long lesson next week.  From what I'm observed in the class, independent practice takes place in small groups, which rotate between the lead teacher, the aid, and working independently.  I think this will make the lesson planning challenging, but as a kindergarten teacher you have to be responsible for planning what all the students will be doing, even when they are at various stations.