Apirl 7, 2008

Not teaching!
Today was one of the days I did not teach, but as I have learned that a teachers work is never done, although I didn't plan to teach I am in such a wonderful school, I teach every day almost every class. This morning I did a guided reading group, taught myself how to configure a video into a proper file and then work with a program to make it into a DVD, help with a spelling lesson, in the afternoon I aided with spelling in a science lesson, developed a center inspired by Eric Carle, and teach a Art lesson (because I had thought up the idea and was the most qualified to teach it as I had the knowlegde on how to implement it).
In my school everyday is a new adventure in which I continue to learn new strategies and ideas to teach my students. I think that today displayed my versitlity and I'm ready to learn from both my staff and my students which is a strong quality I have. I think this is one of the best experiences in my life, as everyday I become more confident in my abilities as an educator which I believe where I should be at this period in my life before internship.

Apirl 3, 2008

Not everyday is Peachy!
Everyday is different in the classroom and there are so many factors that can contribute to the students actions, and today was one of those days. No one day is horrible, but somedays it seems like its all off. The students have had a super busy week which has included so many guest teachers, oratory competions, and just over excitement left over from the Easter Break that it seems little struture has been in the classroom. As an educator I don't expect everyday to be perfect there has to be little bumps in the road, today the students weren't responding to the usual classroom cues even for the homeroom teacher, and I saw what happens when classroom management is stopped for a moment and the teacher must have a talk with the students. Our co-op has to just stop everything and give the students a stern look and change her tone of voice and the students sit up straight and begin to listen to the cues. For me as a future educator I feel its important to know that just because one day doesn't go perfect doesn't mean your a bad teacher or that you have bad students it just means it wasn't your best day and I think there are going to be lots of those days in your career but to become a great teacher you must learn from these experience to grow as you are their first for the students and their development of their education.

Apirl 2, 2008

To challenge students can expose their weaknesses and frustrations but can allow grow. This is the realization I came today as I reflect on my lesson today, many of my students are prefectionist by nature and they enjoy and strive to be right. My unit being cultural dance can become complex if I want to take it to the next level, such in the dance today I had the students work first individually, then in pairs and progressed to groups of four. Individually and with partners they grasped the concepts and were able to succeed with the dance, but as I increased the numbers within the group the dance became more difficult. The students had to really think about how the dance was to be performed, for the perfectionist it was hard to let go of some of the power to other students in order to make the dance work. I believe it was a learning experience for all, I saw growth in my students and I was proud to be there teacher as they began to critcally think and problem solve in this dance. My question for the journal asked which dance they liked better the one on the pervious day (indepentant) or the one today (groups) and then asnswer why they felt that way. The perfectionist in the class answered they like the indivdual dance as it was easy to do (they could succeed). I think by challenging my students I'm allowing growth so they realize they don't have to always be perfect they must always try and never give up. I explained to my students after the dance was complete how proud I was of there accomplishments in todays class as I wanted to let them know although the dance was not perfect it was a hard dance to do and they did a fabulous dance. By giving this encouragement I hope they are proud of what they achieved in this lesson as they are becoming critical thinkers and problem solvers.

Apirl 1, 2008

First Day Back!
Being back in the feild makes me feel excited and thrilled to be in education. This block I'm completeing a unit on cultural dance and today we just learned teh Hukilaui (Hula) from Hawaii and I think the kids loved it, as we filled out our journals as they wrote what they like and what they didn't like about the dance and even all the boys were excited about the hip motions which we were doing. The students explored the music first and were able to make assumptions about the dance and how it might look and after we learned the entire dance they were able to add their own flare to the dance, which I believed was really important as I wanted my students to take ownership of the dance so that they were able to remember it and begin to think about creating dances. Something that I'm happy I'm using this semster is dance journals where the students answer a question about the dance which they completed and think critically. This unit I wanted the students to think about themselves and how they act within dance so that if I ever used this unit I could suit the students suggestions to make it better or take the unit farther for the students, as they begin to have say (take responsiblity) in their education which is a system which we are further moving towards. One thing that I can't believe that how much the students have grown up in the past year, we have been with the students since October and they have reach a sense of indepence in a year which is amazing, I'm sad to leave these students in a week as I feel I have gotten to know each one of them on such a different level and their progress is something that is so inspiring to me, that makes me believe that I am truely in the right profession.

March 11, 2008

"IF YOU WANT TO KNOW SOMETHING YOU MUST EXPERIENCE IT"

I agree that I have always learned better by doing, by making personal connections and by actively being involved in situations which I think will better me as a person and as a professional. In Vi presentation I was actively engaged in math problem solving I saw the use within the classroom, as the activties made me think critcially about how I arrived at answers. Throughout the class she designed experiences which challenge and extended my thinking, such as with the block pattern where we were asked to make 1/3 of a triangle a certain color and 2/3 another. This made me look at the problem differntly there were two part one being how to make a triagle out of all of these shapes the other is to work it as a fraction. I was actively participating in my learning and she aided us through this discovery instead of telling us what we should know and how it will help us, she let us figure this out for ourselves. I found through this class I was given a personal encounter with fractions and I was also able to have a laugh or two. The cooperative environment where we were allowed to move freely from station to station was ideal, I no longer felt like a student I felt like a learner, within a community of learners! As we all shared what we had learned in Vi class we were able to make new applications within the classroom, such as when having groups don't have a timer have the students move freely from station to station. Something intresting I found is that when having stations each stations can be a practical application of the same concept but the learning stragety or style can chnage so that different learner have the opporutinty to advance. I took alot out of Vi one hour and fifty minute class, and with reflection and anaylsis before during and after I could see the how I would use her class in the real world of the teaching profession.

I understand that Jo's IT course was the under the experiential instruction as it was hands on and had practical use in the classroom, but I found little I was able to take away from it as I had done most of the activities or procedures in previous classes, not to say I didn't help my partner work through the cites and the breaking down of a webpage address, the assignment just didn't challenge me, the main benefit I had through this IT module was sharing my knowledge with partners and other at the table. I truly understand that lots of people don't know lots of this computer information or how to work the programs, but its frustrating for me to not learn more knowledge so that I am able to make deeper connection on a new level. I have to say I enjoyed the hotlist as I would set up a "using technology" center in my class which the students could use in center time to advance their knowledge and computer skills on a concept. I understand the importance of technology in our classroom as it seems that everyday we are advancing and we have to equipt learners with the skill to be successful in the world. But I think we have to be smart when we use technology there are so many people out there which abuse technology for a presentations, or applications within the classroom. Teachers have to start looking at the practcal application in the classroom of technology and stop doing stuff the "looks cool" or "that the kids really love". I've seen some amazing/practical uses of the technology where the students come out of the experience with knowledge and new skills through a technological process. Such as one teacher at the elementary school in my home town had his learner read then make up native legends in language transfer by having the learners record their voices on the computer then correspond them with pictures and a background song. The kids learned so much in that week assignment that I saw them apply these new findings to other subject areas, but this time they over took the project downloading songs from the cd and adding video clips, these were grade 5 learners that took what they were doing and applied it to future knowledge and now my cousin who was in this class sends me video messages with music, pictures and a voice over of her hockey tournement. This is practical these students learned by doing and exploring there options they were not limited by their knowledge they able to make something their own due to their own personal experiences, and they saw the connection and further application to the real world, which inspired more learning.

March 5, Reflection

Session with Jo

Today we had IT session with Jo, alot of the material we had previous seen in Social Studies with Marine, which made the session a little disappointing. There was some material which was new like link: funtion of google. I again liked the activities where we found math manipulatives/online resources to be used in our blocks. I always enjoy getting resources that can be helpful in the classroom. I was a little disapointed with how little we used the SMARTboard, but I am greatful for the hotlist of ideas. I also like the simplisty of making a hotlist its an easy way to keep tracks of sites that the students to use. I like the idea and I have never heard of this, and think its fab. To check out me and Kailyn's hotlist click this link

To make your own hotlist click here

Hey I think everyone would like this!

This is my webpage I created in ECMP 355! its pretty cool a little outdated but that alright, go there and learn about me!

March 3, Reflection

I love Vi, she's so knowledgeable. We had a math session with her, math not being my strong subject I find it valueable to learn different types of manipulatives to use to teach mathamatical concepts. My group actually did the fraction concept presentation for math so it was useful to look at different ideas which we could have used, like the pattern block questions where we were asked to make shapes such as a triangle using 2/3 red blocks and 1/3 blue, it made me think critically about answers which I had to experiment to get. It was also nice to see how she quickly incorportaed technology as she used the smartboard for her persentation and gave us addition resources which were electronical to use it our classroom dealing with fraction.

To find these rescources check out Vi's website.

Click this link as this video is one my classmates found to teach fractions. Thanks Katelyn!

The three A's of the day

I learned that everything stays on the internet, I had this blog set up since last year and I was easily able to log on and remebered how to use all the buttons such as changing text and such. I was thinking that this account should be long expired and not in exsistance but once you post something it will forever stay on the internet. Affirmation is the belief that technology can be intergraded into the classroom on a daily basis, by blogging I think that parents, administration and other classrooms within the school no longer would feel like outsiders but more as part of the classroom community that you are establishing within your classroom. Blogging is an enviromentally friendly way to send out newletters or other information to people in your community and its also enviromental friendly as you are not just wasting more paper. As you can see with Kathy Cassidy's blog, technology can be used to make your students feel as though they are artisit and authors as they are really writing for a purpose and an audience on their blog.