2017 Year in Review

Tools for Teaching Chapters 1-4

In response to Mrs. Kallas' blog post on Fred Jone's Tools for Teaching book study here are the answers to a few questions.

Chapter 1
I think that the quality of teachers has some factor in the students, but it is not the single most important factor in a student's success. A child could have the best teacher in the world, but without the support at home, ability to focus and basic background information on the topic they would not be able to succeed. A child's success begins at home. I have seen this play out over and over again with my kids in my site school.  You can typically tell which kids have a good support system and which kids don't. On the other side, just because you are an A+ mom doesn't mean you are going to have an A+ kid. One of my favorite after-school care families has a daughter who is struggling with reading because she is dyslexic. Her mom is one of the best moms that I have seen and she is doing everything she can to make sure her daughter can succeed. I have no doubt that with the support of her mom, this child will succeed.

Chapter 2 

As an adult, you see a child struggling and sometimes you forget how it was to sit in that chair and learn all of this information for the first time. When I help a kid the first thing I do is see how much they know. Right now in third grade they are learning about time intervals, so like "Sally got to school at 8:05. She has a 10 minute bike ride and it takes her 37 minutes to get ready for school, what time did Sally wake up?" My third graders are really struggling with this concept, but for me its not that hard. The first thing I would say would be, "how do you think we should start this problem?" They either know how to start it or they don't know. From there I watch them do it and give them guidance from there. When they get stuck sometimes all they need is just the question to be reworded. Many times after reading the question out loud I say, "so basically what the questions is asking is....." and that is normally good enough to get them to finish the question.

Chapter 3 
In Mrs. Nickell's class, there is a round wagon design. She has here students at tables of four and the tables kind of like the picture to the right. The main obstacles that are in that design is when the students sit and they have their chairs all the way pushed out. Other than that, her room has a nice flow that isn't hard to move around.

Chapter 4
In the back of the classroom so that the students can be closer to the board. The teacher really should rarely be sitting down, she should be up and roaming the classroom so that the students don't get distracted.

Post Field Trip Post

This past Thursday my class and I took a trip down to Southern Methodist University and the George Bush Library. Pictured to the left is a picture on the steps of SMU's education building. We got to go in and tour the education facility. I was really cool and they had new state of the art technology. One of my favorite things that we got to do at SMU was their Virtual Reality Classroom Stimulator. They had a classroom of five virtual students, each with different personalities for aspiring teacher to practice teaching. The students were controlled by the people upstairs and could talk back and move. I like it because it gave a feel of a real classroom without even being in a real classroom. 

At the George Bush library we got to see his famous education initiative, the No Child Left Behind Act. He believes that every child can read and write and it forces teachers to teach every single student how to do those basic things. 

In the library, we also got to see a replica of his Oval Office. Pictured is a picture of me in his chair sitting behind his desk. It was pretty cool to see what the Presidential Office looks like. There wasn't much personal stuff inside of the office except for the table behind us, that table has pictures of his family. Other than that is was mainly white couches and books. 

My Skills

As I am preparing to enter into the adult world it is time to asses myself and what skill I have or what I need to work on. This website has 28 skills that define student readiness.  Here is what I've concluded.

Skills I Need to Work On:

Self-Directed- I get easily distracted, especially when doing homework. I'll be sitting there doing it like I'm suppose to, then all of the sudden I get a text asking for homework help. I'll respond and help them, then I get a twitter notification so I have to look at it. After that I have to check Twitter and everything goes down the drain. So the easy fix is don't have your phone next to you when doing homework, but then I have a question and I'll text a friend for help or I'll need to look something up. It is honestly just easier to have it close to me, but upside down so I can't see all of the notifications.

Self- Management- I don't control my emotions to well in situations. That is a big issue I have. When I get mad, like really mad I'll lash out and say things I don't mean. I cry, a lot, when I get upset. I need to work on controlling my emotions. But hey, I am a work in progress.

Nimble- I think that I am okay with this one. There is definitely room for improvement, but it's not something I completely lack. I like to study and learn in quiet environments. I like there to be lots of light and I like to have room to spread my stuff out. When I don't have these things my learning doesn't stop, it just takes longer for me to do things.

Skills I Posses: 

Communication- I am a good talker. I can't tell you in clear sentences how my day was yesterday or how to do double digit multiplication. I can do the same with writing, you've read my blog haven't you? I think that I have communication pretty much mastered.



Flexible and Adaptable- I am a mover and a shaker and I enjoy change. I am super flexible and am good at squeezing things into my schedule. When I get asked to babysit I normally get asked the day of so I am good at adjusting my schedule likewise.

Resourceful- I am full of idea and am always open to learning new ideas to share. I can look at how to do things differently.

The Teaching Channel

The Teaching Channel is a website with many free ideas for teachers, or future educators, to find valuable information on. I found a great video about presenting information on a bookmark for students to use. Above is the video I used.

This strategy of putting information on a bookmark both me and Mrs. Nickell
have previously used in the classroom so I think it is a great way to present information. I use it in my small group so the students can have their name on the book and have a small space to write quick notes. Mrs. Nickell used it when they did a book report project, she had a list of things they were looking for on the bookmark so that the students could quickly locate basic information about the project.

I think the video showed a great example of how you can determine how major an event is by answering the simple questions. This helps break it down for the students and keeps it simple. I also liked how at the end she said it is also good to take work up that way because its a different format. Students are always looking for a new way to be presented information and putting a quick reading assignment on a bookmark could be easy and more fun for the students to do.

Video Questions:
Why give students reading tips in the form of a bookmark?

Students always need something to keep their place in a book. I have personally seen students use anything from a tissue (unused thankfully) to  a pipe cleaner. Giving them a bookmark with information on it helps them be able to quickly find information. Having things like a definition of character trait on a bookmark can help students when reading to go "hey I think that's a trait" then be able to look at their bookmark and see that they are right.

How could you use the bookmark to differentiate instruction?

This is a great tool for visual learners so that they can look at it and see what they need to be looking at. The audio learners can whisper read this to themselves and hear the tips on the bookmark and the kinetics learners can hold this small sheet to help them with their movement.

How could you use this strategy with younger students?

With younger students like kindergarten or first grade you could put the students sight words on it so when they're reading they can see "hey these are words I already know." They can also just have a blank bookmark and be instructed to write down words they struggled with while reading so the teacher can asses their reading levels and strengths.

Absences Add Up

Absences do add up quickly, many students fall behind in work and have trouble catching up. As a future educator this will be an issue I will have to face everyday with my students. To learn more about absences and the importance of children in school click here.






Some ways to help combat absences would be to implement a Big Brother/Big Sister program, enrolling them in an afterschool care program, and to do a word revel.

Big Brother/Big Sister programs are great to help boost attendance because the children get bonded and don't want to miss a day of seeing their "sibling". Last year, when I was a first grade intern, a child in my class had a Big Brother that would come on Thursdays. This student rarely missed class, especially on Thursdays, and he was also so excited to see his brother.





Afterschool Care Programs can help attendance because the student look forward to coming everyday afterschool, hanging out with their friends, and doing fun activities. As an afterschool care worker I see how excited the students are to come into the cafeteria and to do fun activities. If they miss a day of school, they miss a day of fun.

A word revel is helpful to make the whole class accountable for attendance. My fourth grade intern teacher does this with her class. She writes on the window with a marker and draws out spaces for letters. Everyday that there are no absences, tardies, or early dismissals the class earns a letter. Eventually they find out what it spells and it is a fun way to keep the kids in school.

TAFE Region Results

This past weekend my chapter and I competed in TAFE competition. I competed in three different events and I was lucky enough to advance to state in all three competitions.

I competed in the Chapter Scrapbook competition with Jessica F. and Skylar W. This year we did the scrapbook online on mixbook.com. Here is a picture of us with our award.








I also competed in Impromptu Lesson with Taylor King and we got 2nd place and are advancing to State. In Impromptu Lesson we have a propmpt and twenty minutes to create a lesson then fifteen minutes to deliver that lesson. It is a fun and exciting challenge.








The final thing I competed in was Ethical Dilemma and we placed 1st in that we are also advancing to state in that event. I competed with Ajmal M. Rachel S. and Taylor K. In Ethical Dilemma we are given an issue and we come up with solution, we then present our solution to the judges in a ten minute presentation.