PDS Clinical Lesson Reflection (11/12/14)

For my clinical science lesson, my cooperating teacher and I decided that it would be best to continue finishing the unit we have been working on thus far this semester. In our kindergarten classroom, we have been discussing the difference between living and nonliving organisms, the necessities all living things need, the anatomy of plants, and how different animals move. For the lesson I implemented on Wednesday, November 12, I selected the following standard to guide my lesson: K-LS1-1 Use observations to describe patterns of what plants and animals (including humans) need to survive. I came up with two objectives for this lesson that include: students will be able to distinguish between the different life stages of a plant, and students will be able to identify the different parts of a plant. These two objectives correlated with the science workbook pages completed during this class.

At the beginning of my lesson, I asked the students to recall what we talked about during the last science lesson. Students were very attentive and told me how we talked about what plants and animals need to live. I applauded the students for remember what we did a week prior to this lesson implementation and related this information to that day’s goals. I briefly recapped what the students said and played a kid-friendly video explaining the life cycle of a plant. I paused the video a single time to ask children a question on what happened to the seeds once they were “hidden” underground. The students were able to tell me that the seeds started to grow into plants. I praised them for coming to that conclusion and continued the video. At the end of the video, I asked the students what happened. All of the students looked at me as if I had a third eye, but told me from beginning to end of what happened throughout the video. I was very pleased to see how the repetition of this standard has paid off. The video was then related back to the day’s objectives. Before moving into the next section of my lesson plan, I went over some crucial vocabulary with the students.

Even though our class has discussed what plants need to grow and survive, labeling a diagram of a plant was a new concept to these kindergartners. I had the students help me sound out each of the following words: flower, stem, roots, and leaf. This was the integration of literacy into my science lesson (letter sounds/phonemic awareness). I recapped where these parts were found on a plant and continued on with completing our large group activity. For the first workbook page, we, as a large group, completed drawings of the different life stages of a plant. I selected students to help generate ideas of which illustration would be listed there; I also tied this into the growth and development of humans, and similar activity we completed a few lessons prior. Students were able to come up with three main life stages for the plant, including the seeds being planted, a baby plant emerging, and finally, a full-grown adult plant. I made sure to walk around the room and ask students explain to me why we went in this particular order. Many children referred back to the video we just watched, while others remembered talking about the different plant stages from previous science lessons.

                After I made sure that everyone correctly drew in their plant life stages, we continued onto the shared practice. During this time, I felt very confident that I was doing a good job with my passing, checking for student understanding, and activating the student’s prior knowledge. Just from looking at their work samples, I could tell that even some of our struggling students were understanding this concept. Seeing these results boosted my confidence in knowing that I was effectively teaching the material correctly. As we moved onto the shared practice, students were told to work in their table teams on the new vocabulary introduced at the beginning of the lesson. Before the students started to work in their groups, I made sure that each child pointed to each word as we read it together. We did this for the following words: flower, stem, roots, and leaf. We have discussed different parts of a plant before, but listing these terms on a diagram was unfamiliar to the students. I wanted to use this as a shared practice activity so that the children could help one another out. To show me when groups were done, I told them to put their pencil on their nose. As I was observing the children work, I saw how everyone resorted to me for questions rather than each other. These students have never participated in a share practice, so this made me question my teaching abilities. Even though I reminded the students to work together, they only wanted my input, which defeats the purpose of having a “shared practice” section in a lesson plan. After constant reminders, the students finally talked amongst themselves to go over which word they connected to each part of the plant. As a group, we went over the answers as I called individual students from each table team to draw a line from a word to the corresponding image on the SMART board. All students did this activity correctly, too. I made sure to walk around to each table and check their worksheet pages before moving on to the independent practice portion of this lesson.

                My checklist to assess the student’s individual practice was utilized during this final activity. We went over the life cycle of a plant via the introductory video and by completing illustrations as a class, but now it was time to see how many students were able to complete this task independently. The children were instructed to label four images using the numbers 1, 2, 3, and 4 to indicate which picture came first, second, and so on. While each child was filling out their worksheet, I was walking around to each table recording whether or not they were accurately able to label these images. Of the 22 students I had in class, four of them were not able to effectively label the life stages of a plant independently. I saw that all four students mixed up the second and third illustrations, which could be challenging for a young child to detect. Overall, there was an 82% objective success rate in the lesson I taught. I was happy with these results, but was disappointed that four students did not meet this lesson’s objective of distinguishing between the different life stages of a plant.

                Overall, I feel that I did a successful job in assessing the students throughout the lesson. I documented their individual work as well as checking for understanding through the use of gestures and questions. When looking over and consulting my CT on my performance, she told me that I did a good job activating the children’s prior knowledge, that I grasped their attention with the video, that I paused to ask a question, that I utilized good visuals to indicate when the children completed an activity, and that the behavior of the students was good, which translated to an appropriate paced lesson. However, not everything I did was sunshine and rainbows. A few areas of growth my CT noted included pausing an additional time during the video to explain how the day and night scene indicated time passing (this concept may have been lost on a few students), having the students working independently during the “shared practice” aspect of my lesson and then having the students share their answers with their teammates when everyone was completed, and going over how different numbers represent a sequence, as seen in the independent practice portion of my lesson (1 means the first, 2 means the next, etc.). Overall, I would say that I am proud of how far I have come with teaching in front of my kindergarten students. I was pleased to see the enthusiasm and excitement presented on their faces, as well as how engaged each student was. Although there are areas of growth I will improve upon, I am proud to see my CT’s observations and strengths I exhibited during this time. This was a very atypical lesson plan setup, but I wanted to set it up this way to help with the overall organizational flow of the lesson. I wanted to be ambitious and try something new, such as the “shared practice” to see which students responded well to this adjustment. Although this did not go as expected, I do not regret organizing my lesson in this way. I feel that the change in format helped keep the student’s attention, as well as introducing a new grouping strategy to this classroom. I am excited to take these criticisms and improve upon them to exhibit more positive outcomes for the next lesson I teach at my clinical site.

Exceeds: Went over the word count and included a synopsis of the lesson I taught in my overall reflection. 

Post 5 Reflection (Preschool)

Last week was my first week in the preschool classroom at Brigham. I was pleased to finally experience the other classroom for the first time this semester. It was my job as a “TA” for the other two teachers to work the “tasting” table. I had between two to three students at a time who had to taste salt and sugar. I would ask them descriptive questions, such as, “Does this one taste like a cupcake?” or “Does this one taste like potato chips?” I could usually tell which substance the students would taste based on their facial expressions (which was hilarious, by the way). I noticed when making observations, however, that many of the children seemed overwhelmed with everything they had to do in such a short amount of time. I don’t blame them because I honestly felt the same way. After the children tasted the salt and sugar, they had to categorize different foods that were either salty or sweet. Based on their decisions, I would record if the children were able to differentiate salty and sweet food items. Unfortunately, I only had five minutes per group so trying to get the  materials ready, ask the children questions, explain the rules of the sorting game, and assessing each child, I barely had time to reach my goal, which is to “learn more about each student’s personality and interests. I hope to accomplish this by knowing the strengths and struggles each ELL student endures.” With such little personal interaction time, I feel like I neglected to move towards my goal working with English language learners. I did, however, find out that one of my kindergarten student’s, from my clinical site, has a younger sibling in the preschool class I assisted in! Talk about a small world. From the interactions I had with these preschoolers, I did enjoy spending the time I did with them. We shared laughs, but I also noted some major confusion they experienced with differentiating the difference between sweet and salty.

                This being my first time in this classroom, I felt that I was almost starting from square one with my goal. Not only were the children younger, but different challenges arose. There is a tremendous difference between the kindergarteners and the preschoolers. For starters, I have been in the kindergarten classroom every time since we started teaching at Brigham. I became familiar with their strengths, personalities, and interests just from the amount of time I spent in that class. In preschool, however, I felt as if I was starting all over. I didn’t know any of the children by name, I was unsure of the languages spoken in this setting, mainly because this classroom seemed more diverse in cultures than the kindergarten class, and the children seemed overwhelmed with the amount of people and activities that needed to be completed in such a short amount of time. I wish that I was able to bond with the students on a personal level before implementing my section of the lesson so that I would be able to detect which students required additional language support, as well as the degree to which each student understood English. When assessing the children, I noted that many children struggled with categorizing sweet and salty foods. I think that reviewing the five senses is imperative, but I think the sections should have been spread out because at that pace, I don’t think any of the children were able to process the material being taught to them. If I were to be placed in this classroom again, I would want to allot the appropriate amount of time to consult with the teachers of the classroom about each student, as well as observing the children in their natural environment before teaching them about a topic that may be especially difficult for any preschooler to grasp, let alone an ELL student. Even though I feel as if I didn’t move towards my goal this week, I feel that this experience just shows me how each student poses new advantages and struggles when teaching in different environments.

Exceeds: Went over the word count and added an article pertaining to different preschool learning styles for all children.

 http://www.abilitypath.org/areas-of-development/learning--schools/learning-and-teaching-styles/articles/childrens-learning-styles.html

Lesson Implementation Reflection Post 4

                Although this week was full of preparation, stress, and fear of the unknown, I feel that our lesson implementation went well. Alaina, Megan, and I worked well revising and preparing for overall class and individual success for our lesson. We had three stations during our lesson, I was in charge of the writing “station.” Our lesson talked about the different needs that plants, animals, and humans need to grow and survive. At my station, I had the children help me develop a list of things that helps people grow and survive. I related this material back to our opening activity, (reading about the life cycle of a bean) and had the students activate their schema to make connections to the components humans need to survive. As a group, the students listed off food, mainly fruits and vegetables, water, and exercise that helps all people grow. Based off of the students’ responses, I would ask the students how humans lived compared to animals. For example, “Do we live in the ground like plants?” The students would laugh and tell me that people lived in houses. I took advantage of talking with each small group to work towards my goal. As stated in previous blog posts, my goal for working with English Language students is as follows: “My goal is to learn more about each student’s personality and interests. I hope to accomplish this goal by knowing the strengths and struggles that each ELL student is faced with.”

                After writing my previous reflection, I kept the main points mentioned in that blog post in mind when talking, teaching, and interacting with the students. I remember thinking of how important it is for me to be clear and concise with my expectations in order for each student to obtain individual success. At first, I could remember certain students who struggled understanding English more than other students. In order to make sure that all students understood the instructions for my table activity, I tried pantomiming the vocabulary/academic language that was prevalent in my lesson (i.e. growing). I noticed many students laughing when I asked silly questions about what people need to survive, such as, “Do we have roots like plants?” The children would giggle, which told me many things. For starters, I’m obviously hilarious and that they actual understood when I was talking about! Many kids looked at me like I was a complete and utter nincompoop. In this case, this was wonderful! This was an indication that they were understanding what I was saying. I knew that I must have been doing something right because we were all laughing, having wonderful conversations pertaining to my station, and were engaged in the material.

                I not only feel as if this experience has helped me work towards my overall goal, but I feel as if working in my PDS cite has also helped me immensely when progressing towards this outcome. I am currently placed in the ELL cluster of the kindergarten commons. I have been fortunate enough to work with children who are from India. Although these students speak a different language, I have learned many strategies from my cooperating teacher as well as the speech specialist at the school I am student teaching at. From both of these role models, I have been implementing the strategies they have taught me when I have been working with the English Language learners from Brigham. One example I made sure to utilize in my teaching practice was the informal assessments of asking questions to see if the students were comprehending my questions. I have found that asking simple questions, asking for a ‘thumbs up or thumbs down’ approach, and even looking at the students are wonderful indicators of if they are able to follow along with what you are saying.

                I have noted in previous blogs how I felt nervous when trying to teach the students and some of the children responded to my question in Spanish. I can’t lie, I was exceptionally nervous and did not know what to do. However, when working with ELL students multiple times a week, I felt more confident in my teaching practices when I implemented this lesson with Megan and Alaina. I feel that I verbalized my expectations in a clear, concise way. The students seemed engaged, motivated, and eager to answer my questions as we formulated a list of objects people need to survive. I also honed in on their drawings. After we reviewed the class list we created, it was their job to draw a picture of themselves and one of the items we wrote on our checklist. Another piece of advice I received from the language specialist at my clinical placement is the importance of helping ELL students make connections with illustrations. I wanted to use their drawings as an indicator of A. if they understood the material that was being taught and B. to use their illustrations to help them make connections with the lesson. Many students were disappointed when it was time to switch stations, but we were able to talk about their ideas as they were beginning their drawings. Knowing the tips that I have learned at my clinical placement, as well as the material we have been taught this semester in this class, has helped me tremendously when planning, implementing, and reflecting upon working with English Language learners.

                Even though I implemented the strategies and practices I have learned over the course of the years I’ve been here at ISU, I can’t help but remember what I wrote about in my last blog. I think the strategies I have learned to use when teaching ELL students should be applied to all students. Visuals help all students, not just those who are learning English. I also don’t want to have lower expectations for these students. These are smart, capable children! They were able to communicate and process the learning material with little instruction. I don’t want to unintentionally treat these students different from their peers. Regardless if they are native speakers or ELL students, it is my job to make the appropriate accommodations/modifications to ensure individualized student success. I don’t want to make any students, especially ELL students, to feel that they cannot achieve success in my classroom based on a language barrier. I think I did a great job utilizing prior information I have learned, as well as my own outlook on this topic, to teach this lesson in a developmentally appropriate way. I feel that each week, I am closer to getting to know each student based on their interests and personalities. As long as I remember to meet each child’s instructional needs, regardless if they are an ELL student or not, then I am doing my job with challenging, supporting, and guiding all children towards success.

Exceeds: Went over word count, included student work samples from my lesson, and included an article on how to teach ELL students.

Article: https://www.teachingchannel.org/blog/2013/10/25/strategies-for-ell-instruction/

Student Work: