Those kids say the darndest things

Today my supervising teacher sent me a link an article for which the students in her second grade class were interviewed. For the most part I found myself giggling at their silly remarks as I have seen this behavior from them before. I thought I would share it with you because it not only highlights the sheer genius of these students, but also sheds some light on what it means to be an adult (to find the story click on the title of this post).

Creative use of Graphic Organizers

Here are some pictures of the various types of Graphic organizers Allie uses in her first grade classroom. The 'Apple Dictionary' was great! They keep it up for the week or month and fill it in over time. The 'Aquarium/Zoo' organizer arose from a teachable moment when one of Allie's students shared that she had been to the aquarium that weekend. Allie felt it would benefit the group to talk about, and visualize the similarities and differences of animals at a zoo and an aquarium. Allie really takes advantage, and is not afraid of teachable moments. This is a skill that I think comes with time because as I am now, my lesson plans are my best friend. (Allie teaches 1st grade and is my elem methods teacher as well)

Practicum Experience

This year is almost over! I cannot believe how fast it has gone by and how close I am to having a masters in teaching. I wanted to share an update about my current progress because I think I am learning a lot right now about who I want to be as a teacher and who I want to be as an individual. As I begin the process of learning how to structure lesson plans I realize that it is so much more than one might think. Embedded within my struggle to construct well thought out lesson plans, is a sincere and tireless desire to create a fascinating and exciting learning environment. This is much easier said than done! I am told again and again that as you grow as a teacher, this process becomes much easier. I imagine it is much like driving a manual car or riding a bike. However, the time in between being good at your job and being a beginner seems endless.

For my practicum I will be teaching a 2nd grade some in depth mapping skills. I will keep my site updated as the experience progresses.

The power of the whole

INTASC Evaluation

Here is a link to my INTASC evaluation. As you will see, I have including various links which will help to see how these standards were met during my educational technology class.

http://tinyurl.com/yh2t83g

Sample Media Presentation

For my media project, I decided to do a short presentation on Art in the 20th century. I found this to be a very exciting activity, as art is my subject area that I will be working towards. As well as using iPhoto and i Movie, I also used Online Video Converter to export the Phillip Glass song as an audio file to my iTunes (it was very easy and a wonderful resource to add to my growing list of Web 2.0 tools at my fingertips) I can imagine that I would use a clip like this on the first day of class. It is so important that the first few days of school draw students in. The images in this clip touch on a number of different movements in art history, and I hope that what my students see excites them for the future of the class. Clips such as this can also be used to introduce a new unit, and can also be used by students as review for tests. I would definitely make these clips accessible to students on our class website, and invite them to comment and suggest additions or changes.

Analyzing Student Data in a Spreadsheet

The first spreadsheet shows the test scores from the 6-10th test, the test averages, and the student averages, as well as an overall testing average. You can see by the variation in color that the students have been organized according to their test score average. The top half are the students whose test scores were below average, and the lower half are the students whose test scores were above average. I enjoyed this activity, I found it interesting and whenever I was faced with a challenge I persevered because I enjoy google features so much!



The first chart illustrates the overall test averages for all tests 1-10. This is a great reference for gathering where your students learning is progressing to and where it has come from. It is important to be reminded of the progress of learning. being aware of this information can also provide important clues about what material is sticking and where there is room for change.



This final chart shoes the test scores of the below average portion of the class. I think these graphs are so important when assessing student growth and understanding. I like this graph because it is colorful and easy to read, and it was not as complicated to construct as I had once thought. Just as a side note, I would never have known how to do this before this class. The whole world of google has expanded my concept of internet to a place that I never thought I would go!




Here is a link to the hard copy.
http://tinyurl.com/yz6d3nc

Also, yesterday while working on this project, I skyped with my dad while he was flying. Yes, flying. He was somewhere over Idaho, 30,000 feet in the air, and I was here in Salem Oregon about 2 feet in the air (I was in a chair). Needless to say this was AWESOME. We also did some file exchanges and he edited my class Mgmt paper and then sent it back to me right before he landed. WOW, so so cool.