Katie's Blog Post #1

I've been in the classroom for 1.5 weeks now and I'm very excited about my placement!  I was nervous at first, because my class does not have their literacy block until the afternoon, when I'm not there.  But, my cooperating teacher is a quick-thinker and is going to have me and my partner do read-alouds in her science and social studies blocks.  The teacher is friendly, welcoming, and very knowledgeable. 

I'm in third grade and the students are very friendly.  We have two students who have full-time paraprofessionals in the classroom with them.  We have 22 students.  They are diverse in terms of ability and economics, but they are not a racially diverse group of students.  When we're all there, there are 5 adults in the classroom.  There are many pull-out services while we're there, which can disrupt the flow of the classroom as well as causing those students to lose instructional time.

My cooperating teacher uses her Promethean Interactive Whiteboard a lot!  She said she likes it better than SMART boards--the programming and board itself are easier to use.  The media specialist encouraged her to write a grant last year and she got it.  They got a large amount of money, some of which went toward purchasing Ozo Bots.  The Minnesota Department of Education is coming the week after we're done in our field experience to come watch them use their Ozo Bots, so we get to be part of prepping the students up to that date. We had a Google teacher come in and do an "unplugged" lesson that taught about persistence.  The activity involved creating a foundation with 20 candy dots and 25 tooth picks.  There were multiple teachers, including the media specialist, that came in to watch this guest teacher during this lesson.  It peaked my curiosity in Google teachers.  How does that work?  What do they have to do to be a Google teacher?  It was enlightening watching the students do this unplugged STEM lesson--some of them worked very well together, while others just messed around.

It's been a positive experience so far!  While we're there during official hours, we do a very short morning meeting, the students go to specials while we do a planning period with the teacher, then students come back for math.  Some days we stay "late" for science/social studies.  I've gotten to put up a morning meeting twice, helped with individual assistance, gone on a field trip, led a half-class lesson in math, and I've learned a lot about classroom management and the flexibility teachers need to run a classroom smoothly.  My partner and I have decided to adjust our time for when we're there so that Monday/Wednesday/Friday we're there from 7:15-10:15.  Tuesdays and Thursdays we'll be there from 10:15-2:00 so we can catch their all-afternoon literacy block.