Final Self Assessment
Collection
Useful chapter – Chapter 3 in Keene was very helpful for me. It’s titled Not So Gradual Release and is written by Debbie Miller. I liked it because it gave specific examples of what the dialogue between teachers and students would be when teaching these skills. All of the techniques mentioned were things that could actually be used in the classroom and would hold the students’ attention. It also talked about the importance of independent practice. All of the strategies used were pushing the kids to think deeper and to take an active part in their own learning. It wasn’t all teacher led, the kids were responsible for the work too. This is definitely a chapter I will look back at during my teaching when I get “stuck” while trying to figure out how to help a student.
Poem – Wild Geese by Mary Oliver was a favorite poem of mine. The thing that really hooked me was the first line “you do not have to be good”. My first thought was, “What is good?” Who decides what “good” is. The next part that was meaningful for me was “meanwhile the world goes on”. I took it to mean that while you were worried about doing good things and asking for forgiveness for things done wrong, that everything else in the world was still going on. The world didn’t stop for you. Whatever you think you did wrong wasn’t that big of a deal and no one was as concerned about what you’ve done as you. You’re probably the only one who noticed and most people are their own worst critic. I liked the way the author kept using the word “meanwhile”. To me, it implied that things kept going on no matter how caught up this person was in their own life or own world. It made me stop and think about how we are all just part of a bigger picture.
In-class Project – The in-class project that I learned the most from was when we were given the folder with a scenario and had to come up with a plan for teaching. I tend to work better under pressure, so the time limit gave me the push to just get the work finished and didn’t give me time to second guess myself like I always do when I have extra time. I worked with Arwa and we decided how we would teach those students and then set to work making the powerpoint and writing the story. I learned that I do know how to help kids with reading and have a lot of ideas of things to do with them. I also learned that I can turn an informational presentation into a story to make it more interesting. I enjoyed working with Arwa and listening to her ideas. I liked this assignment because I felt very accomplished when I was finished. It helped give me confidence and forced me to put everything I had learned to use.
Out of class assignment – I read Stop Pretending and learned a lot from looking at it from different perspectives. Each character in the story had a different outlook on things and it made me pay more attention to the details to gain insight into what these characters might be feeling and thinking. As I was doing this I started thinking about how to teach different perspectives in my classroom. This is something I want to try to focus on more next year to try to deepen the students’ understanding of stories.
Writing – My reflection of my reflective essays I think represents my deepest thinking. It gave me a chance to look back and find themes in my thinking throughout the semester and I learned some things about my beliefs of reading. It’s tough to figure out what I really believe and is a common thread in all of my teaching because I’m always reading about new things and hearing about new things and I usually want to try them, but that doesn’t always mean that I view it as a core of reading. It’s tough to question or disagree with something an “expert” has written, but when I looked at what I had written, I could see what was important to me and what had stuck with me through time.
Response – The response that stood out to me was the card that you gave me at the last class. I agreed with what you had said about becoming a leader and speaking my mind. Some days I am more outspoken than others, but I have learned a lot from my master’s classes and always try to think of how best to use the information in the classroom. It was very reassuring to have someone tell me that I’m on the right track and making appropriate choices for my students.
Class session – One thing that stands out to me was the time we spent discussing The Arrival. I know we did this over several class sessions, but this was really helpful to me. I always learned new things from what others had to say. I was amazed that there were so many different ideas to be taken from a book with no text. It also helped me see the importance of graphic novels and how powerful of a tool they can be. I plan on using a lot of these with kids next year to get them focusing on meaning instead of just decoding. I had never spent much time on this genre and didn’t know much about it, but learning about it in class has influenced my teaching a lot.
Blog post – There was a comment that I noticed as I was rereading my blog that I wanted to expand on. Angela mentioned that social/emotional teaching is often overlooked because of the pressures we face to teach other things in the curriculum. I agree with her. It’s so important for kids to learn how to get along with others and work together, but a lot of kids miss out on this. In Kindergarten the focus is on reading and learning math and less time is spent on social and emotional learning than there used to be. Kids are expected to get this in preschool, but we still have kids who don’t go to preschool. They’ve stayed home with a family member and only been around a few other children for any extended period of time. When they come to Kindergarten, we expect them to have social/emotional skills and they get thrown into being a part of an unfamiliar group. As they go through school, more and more things just get piled on them and teachers often don’t have time to teach basic social/emotional skills. I think a lot of issues my students experience in school are because they lack these skills. Here we are in third grade and they still can’t seem to get along. Some of them have no trouble with this at all, but it only takes a couple to stir things up and create problems among the class. So how do we fit this in and where do we find time? Some classes have a higher need for this than others, but counselor time every week learning about character traits isn’t enough. I wish the workload for Kindergarten wasn’t so heavy, so that more time could be given to things like this that will stick with them throughout school.
Collection
Useful chapter – Chapter 3 in Keene was very helpful for me. It’s titled Not So Gradual Release and is written by Debbie Miller. I liked it because it gave specific examples of what the dialogue between teachers and students would be when teaching these skills. All of the techniques mentioned were things that could actually be used in the classroom and would hold the students’ attention. It also talked about the importance of independent practice. All of the strategies used were pushing the kids to think deeper and to take an active part in their own learning. It wasn’t all teacher led, the kids were responsible for the work too. This is definitely a chapter I will look back at during my teaching when I get “stuck” while trying to figure out how to help a student.
Poem – Wild Geese by Mary Oliver was a favorite poem of mine. The thing that really hooked me was the first line “you do not have to be good”. My first thought was, “What is good?” Who decides what “good” is. The next part that was meaningful for me was “meanwhile the world goes on”. I took it to mean that while you were worried about doing good things and asking for forgiveness for things done wrong, that everything else in the world was still going on. The world didn’t stop for you. Whatever you think you did wrong wasn’t that big of a deal and no one was as concerned about what you’ve done as you. You’re probably the only one who noticed and most people are their own worst critic. I liked the way the author kept using the word “meanwhile”. To me, it implied that things kept going on no matter how caught up this person was in their own life or own world. It made me stop and think about how we are all just part of a bigger picture.
In-class Project – The in-class project that I learned the most from was when we were given the folder with a scenario and had to come up with a plan for teaching. I tend to work better under pressure, so the time limit gave me the push to just get the work finished and didn’t give me time to second guess myself like I always do when I have extra time. I worked with Arwa and we decided how we would teach those students and then set to work making the powerpoint and writing the story. I learned that I do know how to help kids with reading and have a lot of ideas of things to do with them. I also learned that I can turn an informational presentation into a story to make it more interesting. I enjoyed working with Arwa and listening to her ideas. I liked this assignment because I felt very accomplished when I was finished. It helped give me confidence and forced me to put everything I had learned to use.
Out of class assignment – I read Stop Pretending and learned a lot from looking at it from different perspectives. Each character in the story had a different outlook on things and it made me pay more attention to the details to gain insight into what these characters might be feeling and thinking. As I was doing this I started thinking about how to teach different perspectives in my classroom. This is something I want to try to focus on more next year to try to deepen the students’ understanding of stories.
Writing – My reflection of my reflective essays I think represents my deepest thinking. It gave me a chance to look back and find themes in my thinking throughout the semester and I learned some things about my beliefs of reading. It’s tough to figure out what I really believe and is a common thread in all of my teaching because I’m always reading about new things and hearing about new things and I usually want to try them, but that doesn’t always mean that I view it as a core of reading. It’s tough to question or disagree with something an “expert” has written, but when I looked at what I had written, I could see what was important to me and what had stuck with me through time.
Response – The response that stood out to me was the card that you gave me at the last class. I agreed with what you had said about becoming a leader and speaking my mind. Some days I am more outspoken than others, but I have learned a lot from my master’s classes and always try to think of how best to use the information in the classroom. It was very reassuring to have someone tell me that I’m on the right track and making appropriate choices for my students.
Class session – One thing that stands out to me was the time we spent discussing The Arrival. I know we did this over several class sessions, but this was really helpful to me. I always learned new things from what others had to say. I was amazed that there were so many different ideas to be taken from a book with no text. It also helped me see the importance of graphic novels and how powerful of a tool they can be. I plan on using a lot of these with kids next year to get them focusing on meaning instead of just decoding. I had never spent much time on this genre and didn’t know much about it, but learning about it in class has influenced my teaching a lot.
Blog post – There was a comment that I noticed as I was rereading my blog that I wanted to expand on. Angela mentioned that social/emotional teaching is often overlooked because of the pressures we face to teach other things in the curriculum. I agree with her. It’s so important for kids to learn how to get along with others and work together, but a lot of kids miss out on this. In Kindergarten the focus is on reading and learning math and less time is spent on social and emotional learning than there used to be. Kids are expected to get this in preschool, but we still have kids who don’t go to preschool. They’ve stayed home with a family member and only been around a few other children for any extended period of time. When they come to Kindergarten, we expect them to have social/emotional skills and they get thrown into being a part of an unfamiliar group. As they go through school, more and more things just get piled on them and teachers often don’t have time to teach basic social/emotional skills. I think a lot of issues my students experience in school are because they lack these skills. Here we are in third grade and they still can’t seem to get along. Some of them have no trouble with this at all, but it only takes a couple to stir things up and create problems among the class. So how do we fit this in and where do we find time? Some classes have a higher need for this than others, but counselor time every week learning about character traits isn’t enough. I wish the workload for Kindergarten wasn’t so heavy, so that more time could be given to things like this that will stick with them throughout school.