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.