Journal 13

Well let's get started shall we? Now what are formative and summarize assessments? Formative assessments are given through the learning process and gives you better insight about how your students are progressing and how they are doing when it comes to trying to meet their goals. Summative assessments I'm the other hand are given at the end of a unit or year and assess how they are progressing to achieving mastering a certain topic. You can use a formative assessment by doing something as simple as a q&a session with students at the end of a lesson. Summative assessments can be done by giving quizzes as final exams. I can tell if they are valid and reliable by keeping track of both my results and my progress charts. Finally I can tell if my sources are reliable by looking at the .edu,and .org websites for checking their reliability.

BPH is FINALLY done!!!

Praise the Lord Hallelujah we are finally done with our BPH! Lord knows that we put a lot of blood, sweat, and tears into this project and it has finally paid off. I can't be 100% positive about the number but I'm almost positive that it's Standard 4, which is where we have to know what we are going to be teaching and honestly I think that there is no better example of this Standard. I mean honestly we have to be a jack of all trades when it comes to finding and using strategies that will be successful in the classroom. I definitely learned a lot about some great resources that I wouldn't have otherwise and call me crazy, but in the end I am very glad that we had to do this project

Teacher Interviews

I think that I definitely should have done ALL of my work for my Teacher Interview during Easter break because if I had I wouldn't have had to worry quite as much as I did when my iPad decided to self-destruct on Tuesday. I know that this ties in with the standard that Shaquavia mentioned in her blog, 4a, especially because as I think we have all discovered at one point or another that technology tends to have the uncanny ability to malfunction right when we need it the most. It's also so hard to believe that the semester is almost over. Good luck guys, let's push through this shall we?

Teaching our lessons: Practice makes Perfect

So today a lot of us got to teach our lessons along with Dr. Parker's class, which I think was great and a very beneficial learning experience. I definitely was able to think of some adjustments that I can make to my lesson before I teach it in the classroom because as Standard 3b1, which is knowing our content. Even though I definitely felt comfortable knowing my content, I feel like I could have done better with conveying that to my class. For example, in the beginning I think that it would have been better if I had handed out my "rice balls" before the story and then asked the class if they thought that it would have been possible to kill a snake with it. I think that would have made my lesson flow better or have a better hook in the beginning. I also think that would have given me more time to talk about sequencing so we would have had a chance to do a guided practice where we were going to draw a fairy tale hero or villain and a wacky location and then use those to do group re-tellings of Li Chi. In the end I think that having us practice our teaching like this is enormously beneficial. Now, I don't know about you but, let's get ready fo Easter break now shall we?

Week 9: Spring Break is over and it's out of the pan and into the fire. Yikes!

SoI think that it would be fair and safe to say that I am officially not the only one sweating, stressing, and also running around like chickens with their heads cut off, since it would seem that the Universe is throwing us a curve ball, with what seems like every assignment you could possibly think of is due this week or shortly after. I guess that this is going to be useful to us as future teachers and if that's the case, I don't know about you, but for me personally I'm going to need all the coffee and Monsters I can get. Personally for me the main focus for is this BPH and the 6 point lesson plan. Which, honestly, I feel more confident with the second time around and I think that working on the Best Practice Handbook has helped me do and I think that also ties in with standard 3a2, which says that we must use literacy instruction with all grade levels. Which don't get me wrong, these assignments are helping with that, but it just seems like we're in an endless project and homework tailspin right now.Easter Break is right around the corner and I do indeed plan to take full advantage since I'm no longer dealing with strep throat. Fun times right? Lol stay strong people remember we can do this!

Almost Spring Break and we're half way there. No pressure right?

Okay so nobody panic, but in case we failed to realize this semester is half way over already. Where in the heck did the time go? Like many of you I have yet to receive feedback on my six point lesson plan which gets my nerves mor than a little stressed, especially considering that I will be filling out my student teaching application this week so writing lesson plans should be a piece of cake right? Now to this week, this is the first time in a week that we have all met in the classroom, but I, like many of you have certainly not been lacking in having plenty to do. I can probably say that it is safe to say that we have all been meeting with our BPH groups to knock this beast of a project out and try to come out of it in one piece. I have to be honest, I have not been able to watch all of these Teachscape videos and with all of the classes and requirements there are a few things that are bound to slip through the cracks unfortunately. I do think however, that so far in this class that we are getting  more comfortable, and closer to accomplishing standard 3b1 which is knowing our content. Also, after today's lesson I think that we are getting more comfortable with standard 3b2 where we have to encourage our students to learn WITH each other and basically collaborate and build a stronger community for academic support within our classrooms. Which Shaquavia and her group did a fantastic job of teaching by the way. However, let's face it, in the real world some students might not be comfortable coming to us. Although our intentions as teachers are good, we should be prepared for handling situations like this, and in the meantime, it would be a great reassurance knowing that should something like this happen they have classmates that they can work, collaborate with and feel comfortable in doing so. That was a mouthful so, let's all take a deep breath, get through these projects one day at a time and take some time to try to gain some semblance of our sanity back shall we?

LEARN and BPH part 2

I know that in the last class period I definitely learned in a much more beneficial by dividing up the parts of the LEARN plan and then teaching each other about it. This really helped us develop standard 4g: Teachers communicate effectively which we had to do in order to teach each other. Also when meeting with my group this week, we were able to collaborate and work together to try to really hash this thing out and really get it figured out. I also found that this BPH also works well with standard 1c: Teachers leading the profession. I think that we could all use a breather soon though, heck I found out this week that my teacher could be testin till as late as April 4th so I still haven't had a chance to get into the classroom yet. Talk about no pressure sheesh.