Week 17

   My final week of student teaching was a great week, though it was a sad week of course as well. I started off the week observing in second grade, which was great. I was able to observe the male teacher I observed last week who I really enjoyed watching teach as his style was much different from many of the female teachers who I had seen teach in the previous weeks. During this week I was also able to observe some of the Special Education teachers at my school as well which was a great experience. I have never been able to observe Special Education teachers in a general education setting before so the opportunity to do was great and allowed me to see what another type of really great job looks like in a normal setting.

   Throughout the rest of the week I was able to observe in some other classes such as fourth and fifth grade while also still spending some time in my own room in the afternoons, so that the students would not completely forget about me :). Friday we were able to have a bit of a party for my going away, which was really great. I was given a scrapbook, pictures, school supplies, and some other great things with my students. I was able to take pictures with each of my students which I really enjoyed and it was great to see all of them one more time. I also was able to give them each gifts, including notes that I wrote all of them which they greatly enjoyed seeing. Friday my school also needed to use me as a sub for their P.E. classes during the day so my last day of student teaching was actually filled with P.E. classes and a Skype interview for a district about thirty minutes away. So my last day of student teaching was one of my most crazy days at school, but still a great day.

    This placement was so great, I enjoyed so much each of the days and all of the students as well as the many teachers I worked with. I cannot believe that student teaching and my time at Trinity is completed, but I look forward to the future and to finally becoming a full teacher, instead of just having student or aide status!

Week 16

   So, one more week remains in student teaching, it is remarkable to me how normal and routine student teaching feels now as compared to the start of this semester. At the start of this semester, the idea of teaching all day was frightening and hard to comprehend. Now, even after full-time teaching is over it's hard to think of those times and remember how ridiculous it seemed to go all day, every day, to student teaching and to eventually be completely in charge of a classroom. Now, after I am finished with my teaching, (this week I'm just observing and assisting), it feels strange to not teach and to not be in charge of what is happening in the classroom. I suppose that is the point of student teaching though, to take students with small amounts of experience in the classroom and give them a whole load more of experience while also mimicking what having a real job will be like in the future.
   This week was a really good week of student teaching. Each morning I observed in a different classroom or a few classrooms, then, in the afternoon I taught math and literacy, so it was a nice transition out of full time teaching while also a great opportunity to see other classrooms and other styles of teaching. On Monday I was able to go to the other two third grade classrooms so that I could compare how my class did things compared to these classes. There were quite a few differences even though we teach almost exactly the same content. So it was interesting to see how these different learning styles worked and looked differently from teacher to teacher and classroom to classroom. I definitely found some things that I liked, especially some classroom management techniques, while also some things that I did not like, also classroom management techniques. One thing that I observed in each classroom relatively easily was the atmosphere of the room. One of the other third grades had a very almost stagnant and sleepy feel to it. There was almost no noise in the classroom and even though the room was the same shape as my own classroom, it felt very empty and almost dark, it was not a good feeling. The other third grade had a good feeling about it, but I still think that my classroom has the best atmosphere and the best feeling about it :). Tuesday I observed in first grade, the first time I have ever worked with first graders. This classroom was crazy, some would possibly describe it as chaos. The teacher did a good job and I think she was an effective teacher, but wow, what a morning that was. This observation helped me to decide that I don't think I will attempt to be a 1st grade teacher! Wednesday the school needed me to be a paraprofessional in the morning for one of our students with special needs because the normal para was out sick. This was an interesting experience and allowed me to see a little of what the life of a paraprofessional is like. It was fun to work with this student, but I did not like that I couldn't really help out in instruction at all as the paraprofessional, especially after I was so used to teaching all of the time.
     Thursday I observed in a second grade class and I loved it! The teacher is a man and it was great to see another man teach younger students. His classroom management style was super and definitely what I hope to emulate when I teach. It was a really great experience for me to see how he taught and how a male teacher can really thrive teaching younger students. I think that it was helpful to see how he interacted and taught students differently than many female teachers do and I really saw a lot in how he taught about respect in the classroom and a solid work ethic that I really hope to also teach to my future students, so this was definitely my favorite observation time.
    Friday I observed my own cooperating teacher and just watched more closely how she taught after not seeing her teach for a few weeks. It was interesting to see how the students reacted differently to how she taught compared to when I teach, that was something that I did not expect, but it made sense as well just based off of our different teaching styles.
   I was really pleased with this week and I look forward to the coming week where I will be able to more observing and spend a final weeks with my students. Now of course comes the tough part of student teaching as well, the job search. I have been applying for months already and have submitted probably about 40-50 job applications, if not more. I am worried in a way about not finding a job but I think that that is also a pretty normal worry for seniors about to graduate! I can't wait to start interviewing and at least making some progress in this job search!

Week 15

    This week of student teaching was my last week of full time teaching during student teaching. We had Monday off for Easter break so it was a shorter week. Though this week wasn't as crazy as last week (because of the MAP testing), it was still a week filled with a number of different events and themes happening. On Tuesday we had Earth Day, meaning that a number of our activities were based around Earth Day and conservation overall. We were able to fill some pots and plant some flowers as a class and the students really enjoyed learning more about plants and about how planting works. I was very surprised at how little many of the students knew about gardening and really outdoor skills at all. I think that in an area such as this, outdoor skills are something of a forgotten art, mainly because many students no longer need these skills in their lives.
    My teaching this week went well overall. I think that sometimes when I am teaching it is easy to get caught up in the students' misbehaviors and to just constantly be reprimanding students or discipling them, because often some days there are just a lot of behaviors. But constantly reprimanding students is not fun for me or the students and not a good use of time either, so that is something that I feel that I must be careful about in my teaching. It is important to make sure that I am keeping a fair record with students, but also praising them throughout the day, making sure that they know that I am proud of their success and hopefully helping them achieve success in their lives as well. I think that it is more difficult to be positive all of the time with students, mainly because often positive reinforcement seems to reap less results overall in behavior than negative behavior management may. But, I believe strongly that positively encouraging and working with students is so much more powerful than negatively working with them. Also, it seems that often the culture in schools is to be negative with students, to yell at them, and to reprimand them often. That seems to be what many teachers rely on, but I strongly believe that positively working with student will work well much better for everyone involved.
    On Friday, we had Grandparent's Day at school. Many of the teachers at my school were dreading this day and I was not sure why, but I realized why once the day happened. The day was quite chaotic. Grandparents were walking around the school all day and the school was packed with students and grandparents alike. Transitions were very difficult to make happen as the hallways were so full and there were so many people around in the school. It was enjoyable to see some of the students so proud of showing their grandparents our school and our class and I enjoyed meeting all of them. But whenever routine goes out the window, often so does students' focus and behavior in the classroom. Because of this, it was more difficult to help students focus on the events of the day, but overall it was still a different day which can be fun to work through as well and learn about another aspect in the lives of teachers.

Week 14

   This week of student teaching went well overall, this was my third week of full time student teaching. One very interesting factor that was thrown into teaching this week was MAP testing. MAP testing took place for three days last week. MAP testing is achievement testing that takes place three times a year in many school districts, it also takes place exclusively on computers. This testing happens three times a year so that students and teachers can track their progress through the year and see where they grow and hopefully what areas they need to improve on. The students seem to enjoy this type of testing more than ISAT testing, maybe just because it is viewed with less pressure than ISATS and they also get to do this testing on the computers which they often feel more comfortable with. Many of the students did really well on the testing and almost all students improved in their scores from their previous tests that they did during the Winter. This was encouraging to see in the students and they also enjoyed seeing their improvements.
   Teaching this week went well overall, I think that with each week of my student teaching I am able to grow in my confidence in my teaching abilities, and improve in some of the tools and techniques that I use. Of course, there are days where lessons do not go as planned or do not go well, but I think that as I have been teaching a little longer, I have also been able to have more patience with students, but also learn how to problem solve problems that come up while I am teaching and while I am in the classroom. I think that I have also been able to improve in my relationships with the other teachers in my building as well as they get more used to my time in the classroom and get used to my contributions in the classroom. I enjoy the feeling of being a real teacher and being used in the classroom, of actually being useful and being in charge of my students learning, that is a great feeling and one that I am excited to get used to as well.
    Of course, being a student teacher I can be difficult as well as students are not used to the student teacher and are not quite sure how to interact with student teachers all of the time. I think this comes out in my students respecting me at times. Almost all of my students are really great with respecting me and respecting what I ask them to do, but a few of the students who are a little more rebellious, even in third grade, sometimes need reminders that I am a teacher and that I am not just a college student learning to teach, though that is true. Because of this, I had a few moments last this week where I asked the students to do a certain action, or to follow certain instructions and they struggled in respecting what I asked them to do, instead they did a little of the eye rolling or a little of the attitude often seen in older students. I definitely talked to them and to the class right away, relaying to them once again that they needed to respect me and respect what I asked them to do.

Week 13

    This week of student teaching was my second week of full-time teaching. I would say that overall the entire week was a success, but there were definitely bumps along the road as well. At the beginning of the week I had a job interview which was my first real job interview, it went well, and it was exciting to have a real interview and have a school actually interested in me. So overall that was a very exciting event that took place besides my teaching. My teaching went well this week too. I was able to teach about area and perimeter for most of the week in math, do a large amount of science experiments in science, and teach the kids about poetry. This all led up to Friday where we had three assessments in different subjects for the students. The assessments did not go well overall. The social studies assessment was open book so the students that did poorly on that assessment really just have themselves to blame, considering all of the answers were in just a few pages, but most students did well on that assessment. We also had a math and a poetry assessment. The poetry assessment was a very big deal in our class and we had been telling the kids for two weeks to study, had given them a review guide, and had reviewed with the students exactly what they would need to know for the assessment the day before. Yet, many of them still failed or go D's on this assessment. That was very difficult for me as I had taught the entire poetry unit to them. My teacher assured me that I taught it well and that she would not have taught it differently, it was just a matter of the students not studying for the assessment. But even after hearing this, it was still tough for me to see my students fail in this large assessment. Many of the students also did poorly on the math assessment on Friday. I had only reviewed with them these concepts so my teacher and I shared the blame a bit on this, but we still felt as if the students should have done better, just judging by how much time we spent going over concepts and teaching these concepts in what I thought were interesting and engaging ways. So overall Friday was a rough day, because of the pretty poor results from the assessments that our students took part in.
    I think that something difficult for me in this process was just the fact that in my experiences thus far I have never had students really do poorly after learning something that I had taught. I know that it is something that must happen at certain points in a teacher's career, but it was still very difficult to handle. Teaching after finding these scores was also difficult. I knew that I needed to stay upbeat and excited but that was very hard after seeing those discouraging results and knowing that the students could have done much better, but also that I could have likely taught in a different way so that they would have learned more effectively and remembered more of the information overall. Because of this I think that I really went through some new experiences this week related to finding out some new things about the hardships of teachers and maybe one of the more difficult times that teacher's go through, when their students do not do well. We sent the scores home and asked the students to study over the weekend and we will be re-testing them on Monday and Tuesday to hopefully better scores. The plan is to average out the two scores so that hopefully we can get a idea of what they really know  and how well they know the material overall.

Week 12

    Our Spring Break being finished, I came back to school to start my full-time teaching. Of course I had done full-time teaching before at my first placement, but full time teaching in general education is so much different than teaching in special education. Full time teaching in third grade requires much longer days, much more preparation, and being able to work through many more transitions and events each day. This being said, I have been really enjoying my time in 3rd grade and maybe even more importantly I have been feeling that I have really been growing in my teaching and improving in my teaching skills overall. I would say that I've especially been learning more in the areas of classroom management, time management, and just being able to explain concepts well to my students. I think this is because my first special education placement did not have as much teaching as we usually think of teaching (where the teacher explains concepts to the students and teaches them as a large group). Because of this, my teaching has been more difficult and definitely tiring (those are long days) but definitely rewarding and enjoyable.

   This week the most difficult part of my days has been in the afternoon. Our schedule is set up so that we teach a higher number of subjects in the morning for shorter amounts of time, as well as having a break during which the students go off to gym or music. But in the afternoon, we only have two subjects, math and literacy. These subject are each an hour and fifteen minutes long which can really take it's toll on both me as a teacher, but definitely also my students. So often our time in the afternoon is the most difficult part of the day, but I have found that by bringing in more creation based projects in math or just movement-oriented activities the afternoons can be much more enjoyable for both my students and myself. 

   Another enjoyable part about this week was our school's talent show. Our students were able to participate in this talent show on Thursday and Friday at our school and as a school body we were able to watch the talent show on Thursday. I was so impressed with the students in my class and the great talents they and to share. I always enjoy seeing my students participating in things that are not directly academic related, as it shows another side of our students and who they really are and what talents they really have besides those related to the classroom. 

   Friday was also a really constructive day for me. I asked our principal if he would work through a practice interview with me so that I could have some experience and know-how for upcoming interviews that I have. This was a really great experience and very helpful for me as well. We did an interview where the questions are all written out for the administration and then the answers are scored depending on certain words or ideas the candidate uses in their response, kind of like a rubric, I think the system was called Ventures or something like that. Anyways, it went well, there were really a high number of questions, it took over an hour. But I think that this practice interview gave me some important experience with interviewing, interview questions, and hopefully helped take care of some of the nervousness that usually comes along with interviews. It also let me interact with my principal and he was able to get to know me a little more which was great. 

   Overall I would say that this week went really great for my first week of full time teaching. I really enjoyed being in control of the class all day, it was really tiring, but still a really great week that I think was definitely a success as well. I will be full time teaching for all of April so I have a lot of teaching to look forward to, but I think that it will go well and I look forward to it as well overall I would say. 

Week 11

    Week 11 has came and went, but another solid week of teaching has also came and went. Monday I was not at school as I was at my grandma's funeral in Wisconsin so I was at school for four days this week instead of five. This week I taught all of the morning subjects, which includes Daily Language, Social Studies, Science, and Literacy Studio. I would say that I felt pretty well prepared for each day of my teaching as most of these subjects have been mostly straight forward to teach. We have a curriculum that we follow for Science, Social Studies, Daily Language so for these subjects I basically follow our curriculum which makes preparation for these classes straightforward. Literacy Studio is kind of a cool idea in my opinion. Basically it is an hour and a half of students independently working on reading and writing goals. Students make reading goals with the teacher about once a month which is recorded in a binder by both the teacher and the student. Then, during Literacy Studio, students work on these reading goals, do independent reading, and work on other writing and reading activities such as blogging on the class blog or writing stories. I really like this activity because it gives the students a lot of choice in their work activities and also encourages them to get large amounts of reading in, which really helps with their love of reading and their concentration on these reading goals. The students really focus well on these goals and usually get a lot of reading and goal work done in this time, which would be surprising for some third graders, but these students really can focus and work well on these goals. Students also receive incentives for finishing their reading goals, such as class cash, and pizza certificates to Pizza Hut for each goal they finish.
   On Wednesday I was able to teach completely independently in the class again, my teacher was called over to the fifth grade classroom to sub for an hour and a half so I was able to teach without my teacher in the room which as Dr. Snoeyink said last week is really a great opportunity whenever it happens and I think something that is constructive to my teaching. This week I have continued to work on my behavior management with the students. I think that it is going well, but a large part of that is also because of the routines and procedures that have been laid out by my teacher. I have been attempting to keep track of these procedures and routines in order to use them in my future classroom as well.
   Thursday was an interesting day at school as well, the choir was going around to all the schools in the district putting on a concert so all but one of the girls in our class were absent all day, meaning that we only had 8 students! At the end of the day we were able to go to our choir's concert which was really great. I was so impressed by them and really felt so proud of my student's work in choir and their great talent. Friday Mrs. Hysell was able to come and observe my social studies lesson which I think went well and I enjoyed meeting with her. My hope is that you will now be able to understand a little more about my class now that you have met them and seen them in action Mrs. Hysell. This week really helped me in my confidence to begin full-time teaching which begins next week (this week is Spring Break). Full-time teaching will of course lead to a large amount of preparation each day, but I think that it will be very rewarding once I get into the swing of teaching. This week has also been filled with job applications as so many job opportunities have been coming up as of late. Job applications really get tedious after awhile but it feels good to at least get my name and information out into the job world.

Week 10

   Wow, week ten already? How has this happened so fast? It's been a great ten weeks thus far though. Week ten was a really great week. This week I was teaching all but one of the morning subjects and this coming week I will be teaching all of the morning subjects. Monday was a normal day in which I was able to teach my normal subjects. I have been pretty happy with how teaching has been going lately. The students seem to be respecting me more as they get to know me more, they come to me with many more concerns and questions than they used to and they overall just seem more comfortable with me. One thing that I do need to work on is to transition them from seeing me as the kind of cool college kid who does a little teaching and a lot of helping, to a more teacher figure. I think that this needs to happen because currently my image with the kids is pretty casual just because I started out having a lot of time to talk to them and to see what interested them, which was good at the time because I needed to build relationships with them.
   Tuesday was the day where we had a bunch of snow, but we still had school. My teacher who lives an hour away did not come into school because she did not want to risk the drive (a good idea considering I was almost in two accidents). Because of this we had a substitute and I was able to teach the entire day. I really enjoyed teaching the entire day, I was able to take a lot more control of the classroom and try to implement some of my thinking in the class. The kids also did really well! They focused so well and really worked together well, I was so proud of their work and what they did together. But teaching all day was a really great experience and I enjoyed it, I'm secretly hoping that my student teaching placement will have some job opportunities coming up in the next few months because I think it is a great school and I really admire how the school is run overall.
   Later in the week, on Thursday we had a bit of a problem with our service dog, Logan. Logan has been doing pretty poor in his job responsibilities lately. He has been wandering around the room, trying to get kids' food, and really just not paying attention to the student he is supposed to be working with. Anyways, my teacher was joking around with a student because he was whining and Logan came over and nipped the student, which is obviously the last thing that a service dog should do. He didn't draw blood, but he did leave a mark. Logan is now going to be leaving for awhile to get re-trained, but thankfully the students' parents handled the incident well because this is something that cannot happen. The next day we had Logan's trainer come in and observe him and the decision to re-train him was made. So this was a side of having a service dog in the classroom that is usually not talked about and usually (hopefully) doesn't happen. But it's something that nevertheless we had to talk about. But overall it was a great week of teaching and I am really grateful for the opportunities I had to teach, considering that I was able to teach for an entire day as well as the mornings of many other days in the classroom.
-Nate

Week 9

This week was the first week of ISAT testing for Memorial School. Since I am placed in third grade this meant that my students were taking ISATS for the first time. The students were quite nervous during the week for the tests, but after taking the first one on Tuesday they came to realize quickly that they were well prepared for the tests and from then on there was very little talk of nervousness about these tests.

This week I started teaching social studies daily in our class as well as our Daily Language segment of the day. Both of these segments usually are the first two activities are class does during the day so it was enjoyable to get back into teaching and go back to some real teaching activities as opposed to just observing all day. My teaching went well all week, it took me a few days to get into the routine of how specifically certain activities during the day went. But overall I really enjoyed teaching again and I think the students enjoyed the fact that I was teaching some.

One thing that I found out today about my school is that the school has gone through a lot of heartbreak this past year. Early last fall I student passed away after getting a severe case of the flu and late last fall one of the fifth grade teachers committed suicide. My teacher brought these facts up to me today while talking about some of the anxiety that she sometimes has in the classroom and it really hit me hard that the school has gone through so much that I had no idea that happened. I think that the teachers are really doing well in coping with this now considering that I had no idea what happened, but still what a few horrible months last fall that this school went through.

On a more positive note I was very excited with the progress I was able to make with my students this week and in growing in my relationships with them. I think that I really got to know more of them better this week and I think that they feel more comfortable with me as well. It’s definitely easier to get closer to students more quickly when there is only sixteen students, but it also helps when I am taking on more responsibility as this leads the students to be able to trust me more quickly and realize that I can also instruct them and help them in their work.

            I think that one area of my teaching that I’m always looking to improve in is classroom management. This is an area that my cooperating teacher seems to be such a natural in. I think that my teacher is so respected by the students yet she gains this respect from treating the students’ fairly not by yelling at them like some teachers do. It seems that this skill comes so naturally to my teacher but I’m sure that it has been learned over the years as well. Sometimes when I am teaching I feel that I am somewhat in control of the class, but that the students just don’t do as good of work or are as focused as when my cooperating teacher is in control of the classroom. I think that I usually am pretty decent at classroom management, but if a class is super chatty or they are just super loud I feel that I struggle sometimes with keeping them in control. I think this is a pretty common problem to have as a student teacher, but still an area that I really want to improve on and that I hope to do better in as I continue in my teaching.

Week 8

    So, the start of a new placement, and a goodbye to my first placement. What a week last week was, learning another set of student names, getting to another teacher, and re-learning procedures once again in the classroom. I was quite unsure of what this new placement would look like and whether it would be another good placement after having a good first placement. After this week I can say that I am really excited for the next nine weeks and what these nine weeks hold for my teaching and for my time in the classroom.
   I am placed in a third grade classroom at Memorial School in Tinley Park, Illinois. There are two other third grade classrooms in our school and our school is made up of K-5. Our classroom currently has 16 students. There is such a low number of students because there is a service dog in our room. His name is Logan and he works with one of our students who has spina bifida. This student is very independent and in the opinion of my teacher really does not need a service dog as she is able to move around on her own and really tries to a lot of things on her own. But we do have a service dog so any kids in the class at the beginning of the year who were allergic to dogs or scared of dogs were moved to other classrooms. I have really enjoyed getting to know my students this week, they've really been enjoyable getting to know. I've also really enjoyed getting to know my cooperating teacher. She has been teaching at Memorial for 13 years and is a very experienced teacher, but still a teacher who really is a great educator and tries her best to bring a great education to these kids. I have been very impressed with how the school is run and how effective the procedures that happen in the school are. The school is very well run overall and I have been impressed by how the school works overall. We also have an aide in our classroom in the morning and an aide in the afternoon, both whom are tasked with working with our student with spina bifida.
   Throughout this week I was able to learn about the students in our classroom and their backgrounds and where they come from. I also was given the opportunity to teach a bit of social studies and a bit of language arts when my teacher needed to step out of the room or talk to someone else so it was a bit of a small transition which was nice. I also really enjoyed getting to know my students, my teacher uses a lot of games in the classroom which I was able to take part in at times and I really enjoyed working in my relationships with the students and getting to know them better. One big change from this placement from that of my first placement is that the school dat is about an hour and fifteen minutes longer, so that was definitely something that I need to adjust to as the day is quite a bit longer than I got used to with the first seven weeks. Overall, I am very excited for this placement and I can't wait to get to know my students better and to improve overall in my teaching this semester.

Week 7

    Thinking back on my last week of my first placement, I think that it was a very full week, but definitely a good week as well. This week I was able to teach my edTPA lessons during reading throughout the week, so that led to large amounts of preparation and planning for these specific events and the lessons that went along with reading during this week.
    One event that really made me re-think about the medical fragility of some of my students this week was the fact that one of my students, who has spina bifida, had his first seizure of his life last week. This led to a stay in the Children's Hospital, but also the fact that he did not return to school at all this week. This was sad for me as I was not able to see one of my students for my entire last week, but also just a reminder about how medically some things can change very quickly with these students.
    One positive this week was in my interactions with the student who has been very defiant this placement. This week he has been so much more respectful and willing to talk to me, which has been really enjoyable and nice in the classroom, he has also just been much more compliant overall and has just been much more eager to work hard and do his work in the classroom. Part of this is that my cooperating teacher called his mother on Monday after he had a very bad day during Valentines Day with being defiant, but also I think he has grown a bit to respect me and get used to me teaching him in the classroom, too bad that this is happening in the last week, but still something that I was glad to see. Of course there were still moments where his behavior was not good, but I was so pleased to see improvements at least.  
    I was pleased with my teaching this week overall, I think that I have seen my classroom management skills improve and some of the fruits of this labor come to bear this week, finally. I think that my style of management may take awhile to implement and to make work, especially when I am coming into a new placement where the kids need to adjust to me. I think that classroom management is still an area I really need to improve on and do well in. I think that this is such a hard area to be proficient in as well so it's just something that I want to do better in and get better at. But going back to my teaching at large, I think that my lessons were very engaging for the class and that they enjoyed learning. I think looking at this week once again that I really enjoyed teaching full time once again and having the full control of my class. I have noticed as well though, just how beneficial it is to have good aides in the classroom. My aides were so helpful this week in a number of ways so that was just a thing that I thought about.
    On Friday I had to say goodbye to my class, which is always a sad experience, but something interesting that I have noticed is that goodbyes never go the way you think they are going to go. In this case, the goodbyes were quite anti-climatic. I brought snacks and little gifts for my students as well as gift cards and cards for my teacher and aides. My teacher had to leave early because her daughter was throwing up at school, so my goodbye with her was last minute, only two of my students said goodbye/really noticed I was leaving, and there wasn't really anything to commemorate me leaving. I may be sounding selfish with this, but I was definitely hoping for a bit of a different goodbye with a note or something from my teacher, but I guess that it's not good to dwell on these things either. So it was a bit of a disappointing day to say goodbye to my class but I'm still really glad about this placement overall and the last seven weeks I was able to spend at my school. I feel that I was very affirmed in my decision to be a teacher and that is something that is very worthwhile to me and very valuable as well. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to my first seven weeks at student teaching and this first placement, I have greatly enjoyed your input and your help in this placement.

Classroom Confidential
1. Reading through the sections on history and art are very beneficial, just for the amount of strategies and ideas they give both for those specific discipline areas but also just for teaching in general. A number of the activities that are given would be useful in any discipline area and can be used across a wide variety of subject areas. For example, one section talks about the importance of independent investigation. This strategy is being talked about in the book specifically for history, but could also be used for really any subject area as I believe that it is important for students to work independently but also to use investigative skills as much as possible. I think that besides the specific activities, there area just a number of solid topics and underlying ideas that are important as they just make it so that the teacher is viewing student learning in the right light and in the right way.
2. I think authentic assessments that I have seen are related to group work usually where students are asked to create something real or work to make something new that they are not used to working towards or creating. I think that these type of assessments are easiest to to do in social studies or english classes, but overall I really enjoy teaching these type of assessments as well because I think that they are extremely helpful to the students, but also enjoyable to teach. Other example may be students working on assessments that relate to the real world or use real information from the world, or also assessments in which students can create something that can also be use in real life or for it's really purpose, which I think is often very beneficial to them.
 

Week 6

    Week 6 started my first of two weeks in complete control at my placement. This was the part of my placement that I was really worried about before I started student teaching, just because I was quite sure that having that much responsibility would be a lot to handle and would be really tough to deal with overall. But, after going through my first week I can say with confidence that it went well and that I really enjoyed having a lot of control in the classroom, it actually was really nice and enjoyable for me and it affirmed in me my desire to be a teacher.
    The week started out well, with starting another new story for Reading, but staying in the same unit in Math for the most part since our students are still at the same point that they were at. Mrs. Greene was able to come observe my reading lesson on Monday and I think that it went really well. I was pleased with the students work as well as my teaching and I was happy that she could come visit and see me work on a real lesson. She also gave some helpful ideas about teaching phonics to students and teaching reading in general. The rest of Monday went normally, which is a good thing in my placement. I have noticed that the other teachers in our building definitely trust me with more responsibility if they need something from the classroom or need something from one of my students. The students in my class also have continued to respect me more and come to me with their concerns instead of my cooperating teacher. Part of that is my cooperating teacher telling them to come to me with everything, but I think that I have also done a good job of supporting them where needed and also answering questions they may have.
    Wednesday, Professor Harkema was able to come and observe my reading lesson. We were reading a story about pancakes so our class was able to make pancakes, which the students really enjoyed and I would like to think was helpful for them in the life skills department. Even though they are only in middle school, or younger, life skills are also helpful to be learned and can never be learned early enough in my opinion. I really liked how the lesson went and it was enjoyable to teach this lesson for me and I know that the students enjoyed themselves as well, I mean who doesn't love pancakes in the classroom?
      On Friday, we had our Valentines Day Party in the afternoon, which was a blast. A few of our students who are very quiet really came out of their shells and were so excited to be taking part in the party. The party did get a little crazy at the end, with one student becoming quite defiant. I talked to him the hallway, he was also talked to by another teacher (my teacher was at parent/teacher conferences for her children in the afternoon, and by his paraprofessional but he was just really defiant. He comes from a pretty difficult home situation so he usually struggles with transition at the end of the day and leaving school because he doesn't want to go home. But overall the party was really fun and it was great to see the children enjoying themselves so much. We also finished our chapter book, Runaway Ralph on Friday which we had read for almost the entire time I was at our placement, so that was a big achievement for all of us.
     This week was a busy week in which I taught all day everyday and saw a little taste of what is going to be like to be a real teacher, but I definitely enjoyed it, even though it was very tiring. Being responsible for every period of the day seemed to be quite the process, but it still went well and I was happy with the week overall. I was able to make some cool lessons throughout the week relating to the Olympics which I think the kids enjoyed and which were something that was definitely different for them. Next week I am teaching my edTPA lessons so hopefully those and my last week of student teaching at my first placement go well!
-Nate

Week 5

   If I was to give this week of school a title, it would be the week of meetings. Both Monday and Tuesday I attended IEP meetings for two of the students in my class and on Tuesday I was even able to actually participate in the IEP meeting and read about the Present Level of Performance (PLOP) for our student. These experiences were very interesting for me and helpful to my development as a teacher. The meeting Monday was very interesting as one of the parents became very angry with some of the staff at the IEP meeting even though they had done everything right in their work with this student. So it was beneficial to see both what parents look like when they are angry with the teachers and when they are happy with the work that the parents are doing. 

   This week I taught all of our subjects except for Math. This meant that I was able to take more and more control of the class which I enjoyed. I think that my Reading lessons especially went really well. For the initial reading lesson I was able to incorporate some learning activities that I did not at first intend to include, but that I feel really were beneficial to the students so this was a time that I was able to adapt and it worked well, though I wish that I always could come up with ideas to add to my lessons in a snap like I did for that lesson, but hopefully that will grow with more practice as well. 

   Last week I talked about how I was struggling a bit with having one of my students, who is very defiant, respect me. This week I have really been working on doing what I can so that the student is respectful and follows my instructions. It's been a bit of ups and downs which is to be expected I think. At some points the student will follow my instructions, though grudgingly, while at other points the student will blatantly disregard what I say, or just not follow my instructions and instead just laugh. So this part has definitely been an exercise in patience, but probably a good exercise because I am sure that I will have similar students in the future. 

   I think that I have definitely grown in my relationships with my paraprofessionals and my students this week as well. Students are much more apt to come to me with their problems and questions instead of my cooperating teacher so that is really great when it happens. I also have established a bit more repertoire with other teachers in the building as well so that is something that I have enjoyed doing and something that I am happy to see as well. My teaching has been pretty successful. One thing that I have noticed that I struggle with again is how long lessons are and making sure to have enough content to fill a time slot. Over planning is important to this as well, but sometimes that may difficult as my students' attention spans may not be the longest. One thing that my teacher does is just give the students free time for the last 10-15 minutes of class or have them read or something like that, she says it is because it is important that they have breaks, so it really is just a matter of whether I want to do that or just have them do other activities. I think I would prefer to do other activities instead of giving them free time, but I do agree that sometimes their attention spans are not the longest. 

Classroom Confidential

1. I think that after reading this chapter on communication I thought about how important it is to be aware of cultural differences related to communication. I think this is an aspect of communication that is often overlooked. If I was supposed to meet with parents, I would be more worried about the content of what I had to say instead of thinking about what I was saying and what I was saying meant to those around me. I think that this is an area of communication that many people think will not really apply to them but so many schools are very diverse in the modern educational setting, that this is just not true. Teachers need to be aware of cultural customs and what customs they may need to follow in their communication with parents! 

2. I think this chapter really gave a lot of really helpful information related to parent-teacher conferences. One piece of information that I found helpful was to have students' evaluate themselves on their work in the class and how they think that they are doing. In my novice placement, my teacher did this even more so. He would have conferences with students first and plan goals with them so that when the conference came around the students would basically run the conference, telling the parents what their various scores and grades meant as well as where they hoped to be and why they set goals where they did. I really like this format and I think that this chapter also aligns with this practice so I think this is something that I will work towards in the future. 

Week 4

    Wow week four already, this has gone quite quickly and I'm sure it will continue to! This week was a week that started off with two snow days so it was quite a short week, but definitely still a fruitful week. The interesting thing about snow days at my placement is that it seems whenever students are out of school for any period of time, even two snow days they seem to forget a lot about how they are supposed to act in the classroom and what is expected of them. Some students especially will just lose some of the independence that they had previously in the classroom when they are at home for extended periods of time. At first when my teacher mentioned this, I really didn't believe her that it happened, but after seeing this firsthand I can say that this happens for sure. Some is for sure related to these students just not being very independent at home and their parents doing too much for them so that when they get back to school, they just do not know how to act independently any longer.
   As far as teaching this week, I had quite a few opportunities to teach especially later in the week. This week I continued teaching the RAP period, but I also added on our Reading period which lasts for over an hour so that's a pretty lengthy class period to teach. But Wednesday, I was not able to teach my Reading lesson as two of the teachers in our building were out. Meaning that we did not have enough subs to cover those rooms, meaning that our class also took on another class. So all day we had a double class in our room, plus double the amount of paraprofessionals, which leads to chaos! So for a lot of the events on Wednesday, my teacher decided that we would do more craft and group related activities just because of the sheer amount of students in our room. The principal also decided that we were not going to have math and reading on Wednesday because the teachers were gone and switching for these classes just would not work. So we did not teach those subjects on Wednesday. So finally on Thursday I was able to teach my first reading lesson, it really went well. I made sure to ask quite a few comprehension questions of the students during our reading and I also had the students act out the story after they read it, which they loved and had never done before. The only problem I had was that the class period goes for over an hour, so it was tough to teach about a short story for an entire hour. I feel that stretching content to fit into time frames is a very difficult aspect of teaching and something that I need to work at and practice more at.
    Thursday I was also to work on some discipline problems in our classroom. One of our students can be quite disruptive at times in that he doesn't really care what teachers say or listen to them at all depending on how he is doing that day. Thursday was a day where he was very defiant. The student did not listen to my instructions a few times, said very mean things to a couple of other students, and then clearly defied a paraprofessional and called her a name. My teacher was not really in the same part of the room and really did not witness what was happening so I was able to step in and I talked to the student very sternly about respecting his teachers and his peers. I think that it went well, but there is still a ways to go in making sure that the student respects me and follows my instructions. This student really takes quite a while before he respects people in authority over him so I'm hoping that we can work together on this in the future. It was also interesting because my teacher usually yells at students when they are not listening or doing something wrong, but that's not really how I deal with misbehavior, I'm not really a yeller. So instead I just basically sat down the student and got down to his eye level and talked to him sternly about what he was doing, I think it was effective but I guess to see that for sure it'll just take time. To my readers: Any other ideas as to how best work with this student in his behaviors and in this area of classroom management? I think that this can be linked back to standard 4A of the IPTS standards. This is that "The competent teacher understands principles of and strategies for effective classroom and behavior management." This relates back to my discipline decisions with my specific student. I think it is very important that I realize how to use behavior management effectively, but also how to vary it from student to student so that I can be the most effective teacher possible for all of my students, but also keep the classroom running smoothly.
      Friday my teacher was gone for the entire day so we had a substitute, but I really was able to take over the class and I taught the entire day which was really a great experience, I loved it, which speaks well to becoming a teacher I think. It was really great to finally be in charge and not have my cooperating teacher around, just because I felt more in control of the classroom and the proceedings inside the classroom. My teaching for the day went well, in reading we finished a packet of worksheets that the students had been working on and in math we worked on putting together a craft that dealt with counting the numbers 1-5. Another question I have for readers is this: What is a way to  still teach and follow my teacher's guidelines in reading, but not use worksheets? Worksheets are an integral part of the weekly reading program and I don't know if I would even be allowed to get rid of them necessarily, but I kind of think it would be a good idea, any thoughts would be great. Anyways, teaching went well on Friday, I was able to take charge of the discipline and the proceedings in the classroom with newfound freedom now that my teacher was not in the classroom so that was really a great step for me. I think that my classroom management is also going well for the most part, I still need to work on my repertoire with my students to make sure that they know where I'm coming from in my discipline and know kind of how I would like to run the classroom as well.
   
Classroom Confidential
1. Through this chapter I learned about eptness and what this concept really means, it basically refers to a classroom environment in which student learning happens in a number of ways and that students feel comfortable to learn and also that they are able to learn in a number of ways and in a number of roles as well. Eptness also is related to students learning in a number of ways and taking upon a number of roles in the classroom so that they are able to learn in a number of ways and are able to take upon a number of jobs for themselves in the classroom so that learning can happen in multiple ways.
2. One teacher behavior that I hope to use is encouragement. I think that encouragement is something that comes relatively naturally to me but also something that many of the students in my class really need and would really grow from in the classroom. I think that many of the students in my class do not receive too much encouragement in their home lives and even sometimes in their school lives, they may just be told over and over again that they cannot do something or they are not doing something correctly, so it is very important to be encouraging students and empower them to do well in their schoolwork and their lives. Another behavior is that of challenging old habits. I think that this is important especially for some of the students in my class to challenge their old habits because many of them have been very dependent on others for a lot of their lives. I think that helping students challenge these old habits and work towards doing new things and doing better habits that are based around independence would be very helpful to these students and beneficial to them. Finally in special education I think that the behavior of never doing anything for students that the can do for themselves is ESSENTIAL. This is because many of these students, as I have said, have become so prompt and assistance dependent through their lives and their educational careers. Because of this, these students need to work on their independence in order to be ready for higher education and for the higher world. I think that I will use this by just doing the hard thing for students sometimes and making them do a task that may be very difficult for them, but would be very helpful in the long run for them as well.

Week 3

    Week 3 started off with no school since it was Martin Luther King Jr. day. As a class we went over quite a lot of information to prepare for MLK day which was beneficial for the students I think because surprisingly our students really did not know much about the holiday at all. Even more surprising to me was that even though our class is very diverse, very few, if any, of the students understood what it meant to have a different skin color than someone else or what being treated differently because of skin color looked like.
   The rest of this week went well overall, the days seem to go by very quickly which is something that surprised me at first, but something that is definitely a good thing as well. Throughout the week I was able to teach the R.A.P. class period which is just the time each day where the entire school is supposed to be reading so I have been reading a book to the students and asking them questions as they read, currently we are reading "Runaway Ralph" which is definitely above the reading level of my students, but I would say that they still definitely enjoy it. Tuesday, Mrs. Greene was also able to observe me teaching a lesson for this class period. I would definitely say that it went well, the students seemed engaged and she also had some good comments for me relating to my teaching.
    Tuesday after school I was also able to go to a meeting of all of the teachers and support staff for the whole Developmental Learning Program. This meeting encompasses teachers from three separate buildings, all whom are apart of the DLP. Of the 50-60 teachers and therapists who were at the meeting I was the only male which I found humorous. It seems that the ratio of guys to girls from my education classes carries over to the working world as well! The purpose of the meeting was to learn about a new assessment which is supposedly supposed to take over in place of the IAA, the Illinois Alternative Assessment. It was an interesting video but what is really cool is that my school is one of the few piloting this new assessment before it is used next year or at the latest in a few years. The DLP regularly pilots new assessments and methods so this is something that is really exciting to be able to see and to observe happening in the classroom. The teachers weren't overly excited by some parts of the new assessment which has a few names but I know it as KITE. We will be learning more about the new assessment this coming week at another staff meeting.
    I feel that in the classroom I have been slowly gaining more respect with the other teachers and staff as well as with the students, it seems to be a slow process at times but it is definitely improving as more students feel comfortable with my presence in the classroom, but more importantly as they learn to listen to what I have to say and to follow my instructions. I think that taking over all discipline in the classroom may be a bit of a difficult task as my teacher has a very certain discipline style which is not similar to the management style that I use, so that may be a rough transition depending on how the students react to my management style.
    Later in the week, I was able to teach a full reading lesson as my teacher had to run out to her daughter's school to drop off medicine, this went well and it was really enjoyable to teach in front of the whole class (4 kids). The more I teach the more I am more comfortable in the classroom and with the kids, which is of course understandable but still something that I think that I should state. I was also able to work with a math small group for part of the time in math class. The classes get split up by ability level for reading and math. The group that my teacher and I have is one of the lowest achieving ability groups for math so teaching them is sometimes a practice based in much patience. The students have a very hard time remembering from day to day what we learned and progress is very slow. We have been working on distinguishing the differences between numbers and number words for two weeks already, with small amounts of progress in most of the students. A few of the students have made progress though and are doing well, I was able to work on reviewing some material with these students on Thursday. Another interesting aspect of the DLP is that if one teacher goes home sick or needs to leave for a bit (like bringing their child medicine), the other teachers are really great at taking the other teacher's students for a while. For example on Friday, a teacher went home sick so her class came with ours and we did our afternoon activities. This meant that we had around 16 kids in our classroom along with 5-6 aides, which made for a crazy room and a crazy afternoon!

Classroom Confidential

1.  I think that my understanding of culture was enhanced through the reading of Schmidt. My class is one of much diversity, no two students come from similar backgrounds and for only having eight students we have students from many different backgrounds. I think I big part of this is because the co-op services 9 districts, but anyways, looking at my students through their cultural backgrounds is important and I think that I have learned a lot about them and their cultures, just through their actions, what they say, what they know, and their interests. It is very interesting to see where these students have come from and how different many of these backgrounds are from my own. For example, one students' mother recently lost her job and the teachers were worried that the student would not have food for awhile since the mother is the only source of income in the household. This is a fairly common problem in this school, but a problem that I never thought about back in my school or in the area of my hometown. So looking at this culture gives me a whole new perspective on where my students are coming from and what they are going through as well.
 

Week 2

     Looking back at this past week at student teaching, I can say that I learned huge amounts about my classroom, about teaching, and in my interactions with the other teachers and aides in the class. Starting off on Monday, I was able to do some helping out with small group instruction in our reading class. This reading group only consists of a few students, usually about 3-5. I found out on Monday that one of the students in my reading group had recently been evicted from his house, while another's mother had lost her job which was the only source of income in the household. This is an example of some of the socioeconomic situations that some of the students in my classes need to go through and what happens in some of their daily lives. These situations were surprising to me, even after getting to know the students. I think it's very important to notice that sometimes the teachers in the classes need to focus on whether the students in the classes are eating and getting nutrition over whether their academic pursuits are going well.
    I was also able to teach a reading lesson this week on a last-minute basis as my teacher was suddenly called to go pick up her daughter from her school because she wasn't feeling well, because of this I was able to take over a lesson last minute which was really sudden but it went well and it was nice to teach a lesson, even if it wasn't one that I was able to make up.
    Tuesday I was able to go to an IEP meeting and a re-evaluation for one of my students after school which was quite a long process but it was really constructive for me in my learning to see an IEP meeting happen in person and see how the parents reacted to that and to that process. I was surprised by how many people attended the meeting but also just how well they worked together and what their interactions together looked like.
     Throughout the rest of the week I was able to learn about how to interact with paraprofessionals more and how to interact with aides. I think that I learned more about the paraprofessionals and about their lives and backgrounds with the students as well. I think that I also have been growing in my respect in the classroom with the students and other adults with each day, which is important as I get closer to more and more teaching.
    Friday my cooperating teacher was gone for the entire day as she was at an inservice to learn about a new alternative assessment that will soon be used. Because of this, we had a substitute teacher but I was able to teach two lessons during the day which my teacher prepared for me. I was able to teach a reading lesson, which was basically just review and worksheets on a story that the student read earlier in the week, give a spelling test, and then do our daily reading time, where I read the students a few chapters from the book "Despicable Me". These lessons went well and I think that I was definitely helpful for the substitute to have in the class as I knew the students well and some of the daily functions in the classroom.
   Classroom Confidential
1. I think that I have definitely learned about behavior in my classroom thus far, mainly that behavior changes happen each day and that behaviors may be classified in one way one day and completely different the next day. This happens in my students as I may hear very bad things about their behaviors, but then not see those behaviors at all for a few days, then all of a sudden the next day see those behaviors manifest themselves. I think that I knew already that it is important to be proactive with behaviors, but I have learned how to apply this a bit more and the importance of this.
2. Eptness is the capacity for students to be interested and excited in what they are learning and to work in what they are learning about. I have learned about some ways to use eptness in the classroom, this may be encouragement, as well as the importance of a positive demeanor in the classroom. Often, it is easy to start getting negative with the students in the classroom and feel that nothing you do will work with them but it is important to stay positive and to work to incorporate encouragement into your practices.
3. I think some behaviors I will use will be using cooperation in the classroom between students, classroom work, and responsibility for actions. The first two will be used because there does not seem to be much interdependent work between students in my classroom from my point of view and I think that they could work together more readily in many ways. It may be difficult for some students to communicate with one another and interact with one another, but I think that it is very important that students work together and learn some collaborative skills. I think it is also important that students get some jobs in the classroom and take some responsibilities in what they they in the classroom and in their work as well.

Week 1

This past Wednesday started the first week of the first of my two student teaching placements. This placement is at the Developmental Learning Program, part of Eisenhower Cooperative. My placement is in a 5-7th grade self-contained special education room. The students in the room come from a very wide variety of backgrounds and make up a population of cross-categorical students with special needs in the school. My classroom has 8 students with a variety of disabilities, though over half have been diagnosed with some form of autism. The seven special needs classrooms in the school switch around for reading and math so we actually see more than 8 students throughout the day. My cooperating teacher's name is Mrs. Peggy Earll and she has been teaching at the school for fifteen years, there are also three paraprofessionals in the classroom.

Our day starts off with meeting in the front entryway of the school and getting the students off of the buses. There are 6-7 buses that come each morning with the students so it takes quite some time for all of the students to arrive. When each bus pulls up, we go outside and walk the students in. This is an enjoyable part of the school day for me as I get to greet the students first thing in the morning and also work with teachers and paraprofessionals and I do not usually have opportunities to interact with. Next we go to Calendar time, gym, reading, lunch, another reading time, math, and then either science, library, computers, or news time. This is what our day usually looks like.

Going into the first day of student teaching I would say that I was definitely nervous about my placement, mostly just because I was not sure about what the teaching would look like and what they interactions in the classroom would be like. I quickly learned a huge amount of information in the three days I was in the class this week. I have learned mostly about the students, but also the teaching strategies of my teacher and the paraprofessionals, the daily routines, and what interactions look like in the classroom. Throughout this week I have been able to spend some time working with students in small groups or 1 on 1 interactions as well as briefly teaching a reading lesson while my teacher talked to a social worker who had recently walked into the room. I think that one thing that I have already learned about my classroom is that there are high periods of activity and very low periods of activity. There may be a time when there are more adults in the class than students as specialists, therapists, and support staff are always walking in and out. But, there may also be a time when the students have gotten iPads or books as rewards and are basically focused on those so the classroom is much quieter.

Looking both at my classroom and at IPTS indicators, I think that one of the first indicators really hits home with my classroom. Indicator 1A says "The competent teacher understands the spectrum of student diversity (e.g., race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, special education, gifted, ELL, sexual orientation, gender, gender orientation)  and the assets that each student brings to learning across the curriculum." The classroom is so varied but so great in those differences between the students. Each student brings so many different things to the classroom, but also has learning needs that may be very individual and specific. Because of this, this week was constructive for me in learning about the students in the class and learning about their different learning styles and needs.

This week was also constructive in making me trust the Lord in my teaching and in my entire life. Early on in the week I realized that there is no way that I am able to do well and succeed and glorify the Lord in my teaching on my own strength. Only through his work in me can I succeed in the classroom, more importantly impact my students, and overall glorify Him through my work in student teaching. Also, if you are wondering about the blog title, it is a reference to the last minute in a soccer match, the 90th. I think this relates well to my student teaching as it is the last part of my college career, but like the 90th minute in soccer it can be the most essential and game-changing.

Classroom Confidential

1. Looking at the list of intelligences that are listed by Schmidt, I think that obviously all of the intelligences have some usage in the classroom and should be used at times so that all sorts of learners will be engaged in the classroom and will be able to use their learning style to learn effectively. That being said, I think that some intelligences can be used more effectively in my classroom. I think these would include Kinesthetic Intelligence as many of the students in my class learn well from touching things, from exploring the classroom with their hands and from learning by doing. I think that visual and spatial intelligences are also important as the students in my class benefit from concrete instruction and learning much than abstract learning and instruction.
2. I think that I will use full brain learning in my teaching through activities that allow students to be moving around the classroom, to do new activities that they have not tried before, and to even work with their peers. In my short observations so far it seems to me that most of the time in the classroom the students learn in ways that are receptive and do things over and over again in their learning. Because of this, it is my hope that we can work on activities that really stimulate their minds and help them learn to work independently and to work in new ways as well.