Our main purposes for this field visit were to see the fruits of the students’ labors in working on their PowerPoint presentations we had instructed on in our second lesson. The work put into these took much longer than we had intended, as the students were near completion at this point, but as we would see, still needed a bit of refining. We worked through each presentation, with the students discussing each of their own slides. There were many proud moments as we saw how the successful completion of the project demonstrated their understanding of our instruction on both simple machines and PowerPoint construction. While there were of course a few things off (e.g. incomplete slides, or answers copied from the graphic organizer we had distributed), the presentations on the whole were quite good.
As each group finished, Mrs. Garcia demonstrated how to incorporate new effects into the slides (namely sounds and transitions), and students were able to field more in depth questions from Deborah and I, which were intended as round-about assessments. The students seemed to really enjoy working on the slideshows, and were excited about learning how to make their presentations even snazzier with the new effects. Being able to see how they synthesized all of the instruction we had provided served as a great sending off present! Working in their classroom has been a great experience, and I look forward to returning in the spring.
Tuesday, December 4, 2007
Field Visit 4
Field Visit 4
As we had been able to cover the different subject blocks of instruction thus far in our visits, Deborah and I decided on checking out the Extended Learning Time (ELT) portion of the daily routine. ELT serves as a place to play catch-up for each student individually. With this, Mrs. Garcia is able to spend more time with a particular set of students, and allow the class to practice independent work. Students were mainly working on their Alphabet Books at this point. The books are based on a template, where the students were able to determine their own theme (such as sports teams, animals, cartoon characters, etc.) in order to complete these books, which would later be presented to the pre-school class.
After a bit of time spent on this, three students who had been absent, Alex, Tommy, and Keiyanna, returned to present a Reader’s Theater performance of an adapted play. The teacher they had been working with transformed the book Wolf into a dramatic piece, which the children read/acted out for the class. Mrs. Garcia was sure to address the class beforehand, letting the audience know that the three performers had been working hard, and that they could be very nervous, and to make sure we were all being respectful and attentive. The students did a great job of supporting their fellow classmates.
At the conclusion of the Reader’s Theater, Keiyanna, Tommy, and Alex re-joined the rest of us in ELT. Mrs. Garcia provided instruction on various activities that people should be attending to, including letter-writing about a book they were reading at home, the alphabet books (of which she modeled a completed version from a past year), and work from a previous unit that had not yet been turned in. Students who were working on the alphabet books were allowed to access the internet to do research on their subjects, if they were having difficulty finding matches for all of their letters. Deborah and I assisted students in their work on the computers, mainly with typing, but also with some brainstorming as to what they could look for in regards to specific letters.
Towards the end of our stay, we began to chat with Mrs. Garcia about a general outline of what we would be preparing to teach. We were able to work our lessons in with what she would be teaching, so that while we would be the ones to begin the lesson, Mrs. Garcia could pick up where we left off, and allow us to transition from simple machines to technology instruction using PowerPoint.
As we had been able to cover the different subject blocks of instruction thus far in our visits, Deborah and I decided on checking out the Extended Learning Time (ELT) portion of the daily routine. ELT serves as a place to play catch-up for each student individually. With this, Mrs. Garcia is able to spend more time with a particular set of students, and allow the class to practice independent work. Students were mainly working on their Alphabet Books at this point. The books are based on a template, where the students were able to determine their own theme (such as sports teams, animals, cartoon characters, etc.) in order to complete these books, which would later be presented to the pre-school class.
After a bit of time spent on this, three students who had been absent, Alex, Tommy, and Keiyanna, returned to present a Reader’s Theater performance of an adapted play. The teacher they had been working with transformed the book Wolf into a dramatic piece, which the children read/acted out for the class. Mrs. Garcia was sure to address the class beforehand, letting the audience know that the three performers had been working hard, and that they could be very nervous, and to make sure we were all being respectful and attentive. The students did a great job of supporting their fellow classmates.
At the conclusion of the Reader’s Theater, Keiyanna, Tommy, and Alex re-joined the rest of us in ELT. Mrs. Garcia provided instruction on various activities that people should be attending to, including letter-writing about a book they were reading at home, the alphabet books (of which she modeled a completed version from a past year), and work from a previous unit that had not yet been turned in. Students who were working on the alphabet books were allowed to access the internet to do research on their subjects, if they were having difficulty finding matches for all of their letters. Deborah and I assisted students in their work on the computers, mainly with typing, but also with some brainstorming as to what they could look for in regards to specific letters.
Towards the end of our stay, we began to chat with Mrs. Garcia about a general outline of what we would be preparing to teach. We were able to work our lessons in with what she would be teaching, so that while we would be the ones to begin the lesson, Mrs. Garcia could pick up where we left off, and allow us to transition from simple machines to technology instruction using PowerPoint.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
When we arrived this week to Red Hill, the students had already separated out into their groups for Social Studies. The children were focusing on three ancient civilizations—Mali, Rome, and Greece. It seemed like each teacher was responsible for one of the three, which seemed like a great idea, so they could go further in depth on their specific subject. Since the children had been working on this unit for some time now, the introduction to the lesson was more of a refresher, referring to what they had been working on last time, and transitioning into a new project. The students would be creating a museum book, a very novel idea that I was intrigued by. Mrs. Garcia demonstrated a finished product, a four page book that converted into a pop-up, self-standing display. The “pages”, which became walls, were covered with exhibits and mosaics. After describing what the students would include on the walls of their museum, she distributed packets from which they would create the book. It came with detailed instructions, as well as lines and folds for how the more intricate parts of the design would come together. The students began working on this project as Deborah and I monitored their progress and assisted in helping the students determine what they wanted to include.
Once the students worked on this for about 15 minutes, then Mrs. Garcia had them gather at the meeting place, where she introduced the next part of the lesson. The students would now work in their interactive journals, pulling information from these to create summaries on the student computers. The interactive journals are used specifically for social studies; the students paste worksheets, articles, diagrams, and pictures into a notebook, so that they can have an organized compilation of the studies they have done in the class. It was an interesting concept, in that the students could be held accountable for having prior work, as everyone pasted their notes into notebook. Also, since a lot of the information was typed, it was neater and easier to read, and students could share their notebooks with others easily, if need be. In addition to working from their notes, the students could access a website on ancient Rome, looking up historic figures, maps, and information about all things Roman. Between this resource and their notes, they were given plenty of material to synthesize. Mrs. Garcia, remembering how I had mentioned last class that I enjoyed typing, suggested for Deborah and I to assist the children with their keyboarding. With this we could practice some guided learning, asking what kind of information they wanted to include, and helping them find it in the sources provided. We worked on this with kids, moving around to make sure everyone was making progress, until the end of the class period.
The children’s behavior had been impeccable—until the final minutes of the day. Mrs. Garcia had to run to the office to pick up Chik-fil-a family night vouchers for the students to give to their parents. She initiated a game of “BUZZ” for them to play while she was gone. The way “BUZZ” works is students are given a prompt—this one was multiples of 3—and they go around the room, taking turns going through numbers 1 to whatever. Whenever a person gets to the specified prompt (in this example, 3, 6, 9, 12, etc.), instead of saying the number, they say the word BUZZ. This seemed like a great idea to me, having the children work together, while reinforcing multiplication tables. However, the game quickly got out of hand, with children not paying attention, and others butting in, and scolding classmates for getting one wrong, when really they got it right—I tried to intervene, reminding them that no one should be talking unless it was their turn. Mrs. Garcia returned in time to “save” me, rounding up the kids and distributing the vouchers on their way out. We saw them to the bus, and talked up Mrs. Garcia, getting feedback about her students’ typical behavior, which, as we agreed, was generally very good. It’s easy for anyone to see why they would be a bit rowdy at the end of the day.
Once the students worked on this for about 15 minutes, then Mrs. Garcia had them gather at the meeting place, where she introduced the next part of the lesson. The students would now work in their interactive journals, pulling information from these to create summaries on the student computers. The interactive journals are used specifically for social studies; the students paste worksheets, articles, diagrams, and pictures into a notebook, so that they can have an organized compilation of the studies they have done in the class. It was an interesting concept, in that the students could be held accountable for having prior work, as everyone pasted their notes into notebook. Also, since a lot of the information was typed, it was neater and easier to read, and students could share their notebooks with others easily, if need be. In addition to working from their notes, the students could access a website on ancient Rome, looking up historic figures, maps, and information about all things Roman. Between this resource and their notes, they were given plenty of material to synthesize. Mrs. Garcia, remembering how I had mentioned last class that I enjoyed typing, suggested for Deborah and I to assist the children with their keyboarding. With this we could practice some guided learning, asking what kind of information they wanted to include, and helping them find it in the sources provided. We worked on this with kids, moving around to make sure everyone was making progress, until the end of the class period.
The children’s behavior had been impeccable—until the final minutes of the day. Mrs. Garcia had to run to the office to pick up Chik-fil-a family night vouchers for the students to give to their parents. She initiated a game of “BUZZ” for them to play while she was gone. The way “BUZZ” works is students are given a prompt—this one was multiples of 3—and they go around the room, taking turns going through numbers 1 to whatever. Whenever a person gets to the specified prompt (in this example, 3, 6, 9, 12, etc.), instead of saying the number, they say the word BUZZ. This seemed like a great idea to me, having the children work together, while reinforcing multiplication tables. However, the game quickly got out of hand, with children not paying attention, and others butting in, and scolding classmates for getting one wrong, when really they got it right—I tried to intervene, reminding them that no one should be talking unless it was their turn. Mrs. Garcia returned in time to “save” me, rounding up the kids and distributing the vouchers on their way out. We saw them to the bus, and talked up Mrs. Garcia, getting feedback about her students’ typical behavior, which, as we agreed, was generally very good. It’s easy for anyone to see why they would be a bit rowdy at the end of the day.
Tuesday, October 23, 2007
Reflection # 2
Field Reflection #2
Daily Schedule
7:45-8:15 Arrival/Morning Meeting
8:15-9:45 Language Arts
9:45-10:45 Math
10:45-11:00 Recess
11:00-11:45 ELT (Extended Learning Time)
-This time is given for students to work on things that they may be behind on, or need additional instruction in a particular area.
11:45- 12:15 Lunch
12:15-1:15 Essentials (e.g. art, music, computers, etc.)
1:15-2:15 Social Studies/Science
-From our observations, students are split up into different groups and go to different teachers at this time. They have been on a rotation, learning about Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and Mali.
2:15-2:30 Pack-up/Dismissal
Today we arrived early, as we are trying to hit each of the instruction blocks, and were ready to grab hold of a Language Arts lesson. The first thing Mrs. Garcia had the students do was gather themselves at the meeting area to watch a Spanish video that focused on parts of the body. The woman on the screen spoke quickly, probably too quickly for them to understand, but a song came on, accompanied by a dance, that the students were definitely familiar with. They sang and danced along, motioning to each part of their body that corresponded with the word in Spanish.
The class then transitioned into a relatively short practiced reading time. On Thursdays, the class reads stories to the Pre-K kids--each of Mrs. Garcia's students are paired with a younger child for a read-aloud. Deborah and I monitored the students' progress and helped them with trouble words. After practicing for roughly 10 minutes, we followed the class over to the Pre-K room. Mrs. Garcia placed an emphasis practicing inflection, demonstrating how to read with expression. The students did a great job of captivating their younger audience, though some had trouble with the idea of making sure their audience was seeing the pictures!
On returning to the classroom, Mrs. Garcia got right into the grammar lesson, using what she let us know was a "Caught Ya" lesson. These lessons are comprised of sentences without capitalization/punctuation, where the students are able to work as a group to correctly re-work the sentence, as well as explain why changes are made.
Here's the example that was used:
wow chorused sullivan kevin and alex three boys in the class
and the corrected answer:
"Wow!", chorused Sullivan, Kevin, and Alex, three boys in the class.
Sullivan, Kevin, and Alex are actually three boys from the class. The class worked individually as Mrs. Garcia went around the room, letting students know when they completed it or were close. Then they took turns correcting the sentence in order, from left to right.
From grammar, the students moved to working on a "Folk tale, Myth, and Fable" unit, where they were separated into groups to work on one of three tasks--comprehension of folk tales, creating their own fable, or designing a story-book layout for their favorite myths. At this time, Mrs. Garcia rotated from each group to have them come have a mini-conference with her at the meeting area. Here she provided constructive feedback on their progress in the work thus far. The other students worked in their groups, Deborah and I navigated the classroom to give additional help to students.
The last component of the lesson had Mrs. Garcia explaining the "Idiom of the Day", a phrase that had been written on the board since before we had gotten there. Today's idiom was "Crocodile Tears". She used the example of crying to get what you wanted, joking with the class that she knew everyone here had done this before. The practice for this was to have students write about a time when they or someone they knew, used crocodile tears to their advantage. The other option, for students who couldn't think of a time, was to make a connection to a book they were reading, or to further explain the meaning of the word. Then several students were asked to share what they had written. This concluded the Language Arts block.
Weinstein, p. 197, #1
Time not utilized to maximize classroom efficiency:
8:10-8:20 Upon arrival, students coming in late, organizing students over at the meeting area, finishing up breakfast (which some students purchased from the cafeteria) *2 minutes
8:20-8:30 Transition from meeting area back to seats, retrieving books for practice reading (one student was missing their book, had to get a new one) * 2 minutes
8:30-8:35 Students lining up, walking over to Pre-K class, getting assigned a partner, finding a space in which to read *4 minutes
8:45-8:50 Returning to class *2 minutes
8:50-8:55 Transition to grammar lesson *1 minute
9:15-9:20 Transition to literature lesson * 1 minute
9:35-9:40 Transition to idiom of the day *1 minute
Total: 13 minutes from a 1 1/2 hour block
Daily Schedule
7:45-8:15 Arrival/Morning Meeting
8:15-9:45 Language Arts
9:45-10:45 Math
10:45-11:00 Recess
11:00-11:45 ELT (Extended Learning Time)
-This time is given for students to work on things that they may be behind on, or need additional instruction in a particular area.
11:45- 12:15 Lunch
12:15-1:15 Essentials (e.g. art, music, computers, etc.)
1:15-2:15 Social Studies/Science
-From our observations, students are split up into different groups and go to different teachers at this time. They have been on a rotation, learning about Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, and Mali.
2:15-2:30 Pack-up/Dismissal
Today we arrived early, as we are trying to hit each of the instruction blocks, and were ready to grab hold of a Language Arts lesson. The first thing Mrs. Garcia had the students do was gather themselves at the meeting area to watch a Spanish video that focused on parts of the body. The woman on the screen spoke quickly, probably too quickly for them to understand, but a song came on, accompanied by a dance, that the students were definitely familiar with. They sang and danced along, motioning to each part of their body that corresponded with the word in Spanish.
The class then transitioned into a relatively short practiced reading time. On Thursdays, the class reads stories to the Pre-K kids--each of Mrs. Garcia's students are paired with a younger child for a read-aloud. Deborah and I monitored the students' progress and helped them with trouble words. After practicing for roughly 10 minutes, we followed the class over to the Pre-K room. Mrs. Garcia placed an emphasis practicing inflection, demonstrating how to read with expression. The students did a great job of captivating their younger audience, though some had trouble with the idea of making sure their audience was seeing the pictures!
On returning to the classroom, Mrs. Garcia got right into the grammar lesson, using what she let us know was a "Caught Ya" lesson. These lessons are comprised of sentences without capitalization/punctuation, where the students are able to work as a group to correctly re-work the sentence, as well as explain why changes are made.
Here's the example that was used:
wow chorused sullivan kevin and alex three boys in the class
and the corrected answer:
"Wow!", chorused Sullivan, Kevin, and Alex, three boys in the class.
Sullivan, Kevin, and Alex are actually three boys from the class. The class worked individually as Mrs. Garcia went around the room, letting students know when they completed it or were close. Then they took turns correcting the sentence in order, from left to right.
From grammar, the students moved to working on a "Folk tale, Myth, and Fable" unit, where they were separated into groups to work on one of three tasks--comprehension of folk tales, creating their own fable, or designing a story-book layout for their favorite myths. At this time, Mrs. Garcia rotated from each group to have them come have a mini-conference with her at the meeting area. Here she provided constructive feedback on their progress in the work thus far. The other students worked in their groups, Deborah and I navigated the classroom to give additional help to students.
The last component of the lesson had Mrs. Garcia explaining the "Idiom of the Day", a phrase that had been written on the board since before we had gotten there. Today's idiom was "Crocodile Tears". She used the example of crying to get what you wanted, joking with the class that she knew everyone here had done this before. The practice for this was to have students write about a time when they or someone they knew, used crocodile tears to their advantage. The other option, for students who couldn't think of a time, was to make a connection to a book they were reading, or to further explain the meaning of the word. Then several students were asked to share what they had written. This concluded the Language Arts block.
Weinstein, p. 197, #1
Time not utilized to maximize classroom efficiency:
8:10-8:20 Upon arrival, students coming in late, organizing students over at the meeting area, finishing up breakfast (which some students purchased from the cafeteria) *2 minutes
8:20-8:30 Transition from meeting area back to seats, retrieving books for practice reading (one student was missing their book, had to get a new one) * 2 minutes
8:30-8:35 Students lining up, walking over to Pre-K class, getting assigned a partner, finding a space in which to read *4 minutes
8:45-8:50 Returning to class *2 minutes
8:50-8:55 Transition to grammar lesson *1 minute
9:15-9:20 Transition to literature lesson * 1 minute
9:35-9:40 Transition to idiom of the day *1 minute
Total: 13 minutes from a 1 1/2 hour block
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