Edited Blog Post (Holly Article Inspiration)

This week, my partner and I got to teach our lesson study.  We taught the second lesson, with the revisions that we made from the first one.  Overall, I thought the lesson was successful, although we were able to get great input from our observers.  For the next lesson, we plan to focus on the puzzle piece strategy and the importance of redirecting students' responses to the text.  We want to make sure that students' responses relate to the actual story that they are reading.  In this way they will notice that what they share has to be associated to the story in order to help them make inferences.  We also ran out of independent time.  We decided to use one story for the We do part of our lesson, which will cut down on reading time as well as picking up and passing out papers.  I am looking forward to seeing how the third lesson turns out.  I am also glad that we have had the opportunity to do this lesson study.  At the beginning of the lesson study, I was not convinced that we would learn much from the experience, especially teaching in classrooms that were not our own. However, the teachers have been exceptionally accommodating and tremendously helpful in the process. Furthermore, through the lesson study process we have been able to mimic what actual grade level team meetings may be like.  Just about all grade levels have a team that meets and discusses lessons together.  Being able to meet with my fifth grade team was an insight into what this might look like in the future.  It was also helpful to work with three people who all have different ideas and beliefs.  This is reflective of what my future grade level team may look like and therefore being able to accept each others’ ideas and roll with them even though those may not be our own ideas was great practice.  I am also excited to have a lesson that I could certainly use in my future classroom.

My partner and I also taught a reading lesson this week to the fifth graders while the fourth graders were taking the Florida Writes.  Students read a play and we assigned them roles that they read.  We were in a conference room (teacher's lounge) and also used some of the props that were around to go with the story.  The students had a blast reading the story and I was extremely proud of them.  I was also happy that we were able to keep the class under control.  We knew that we would be taking the fifth graders out to teach them the story, however the location was last minute.  We did not have a lot of time to prepare and we were still able to keep the kids on task and as quiet as possible to keep from distracting the classes that were testing next door.  Classroom management is something that I wanted more practice with this semester and this was an opportunity to practice that.  Before we did the lesson, I shared with the students that there were classrooms testing all around our room and that we needed to be respectful and stay as quiet as possible.  I also informed students that if we had to talk to them more than three times and ask them to settle down or get quiet, we would change behavior cards once we got back to the classroom.  I believe that this warning at the beginning of the lesson helped in keeping them quiet, however, there were a few students who I had to get serious with and ask to be quiet.  I even had to change one girl’s seat because she was getting easily distracted by her classmates and did not do her work.  If I was to do this again, I would probably have a sheet and add students’ names on it as I warn and talk to them, placing tally marks next to their names each consequent time.  In this way I would have known which students had to be talked to multiple times and I could go through with my rules and actually change cards for students who were not following the rules.      

Tenth Week

     We finally completed our final lesson for our lesson study.  I am extremely happy about the student learning that occurred as a result of the final and improved lesson.  After reviewing the worksheets that students completed independently during the lesson, I was very pleased with the work that students did.  Most of the students, many more than during the first lesson, understood what the strategy was about and what each piece of the puzzle was asking.  I was most concerned with the distinction between background and personal experiences, however, student work suggested that most of the students understood the difference.  This was something that our team, the fifth grade team, really worked on because most of the students were struggling to tell the difference between the two.  I also believe that using non-examples and inappropriate examples was tremendously helpful for students.  This was actually helpful for all of the puzzle pieces because students got to see what was expected from them and what was not expected.
     There are certainly a few parts that I would change if I was to teach this lesson again.  The group discussion is certainly one.  Although I love having students work in groups to help each other out, I also think that our group work was too time consuming.  Some of the groups got off task when they finished discussing their puzzle piece and we should have designated specific time for each part of the group work.  Furthermore, we asked students to sit on the ground because the mentor teacher suggested this set-up.  She stated that her students were most comfortable in that setting and that that would be the best way to organize the groups.  Therefore, we went with that set-up.  However, our observers noticed a lot of off-task behavior and this is something that definitely needs to be prevented for next time.    
     Overall, I believe that students got what they needed to out of the lesson.  Their work in groups and their independent work showed that they were able to distinguish between the four different puzzle pieces as well as between appropriate and inappropriate examples.  I was very impressed with the work that they did, however, I think that the next time I teach this type of lesson, I would like it to go a little smoother.   
     Furthermore, this week my partner and I got to continue teaching our social studies lesson.  We have been working with students on Florida history, the beginning of Florida state to be exact.  We started working on the lesson last week and students began writing plays in their groups.  We continued working with students on their scripts as well as props.  I was extremely impressed with the work that students did during their preparation for the plays.  There were a few students who had trouble working in groups and staying on task.   On Tuesday, I had to specifically talk to one of the students one-on-one.  He kept being obnoxious and was not contributing to his group.  I had to explain to him what it means to effectively work in a group and that his input matters.  He also explained to me that he felt as though he was not being heard by his group members and that this created a rift between him and his group.  Therefore, we had a chat with all of his group members and they were able to continue working on their script without any major incidents.  Students performed their plays today and I gave them a few minutes to prepare their materials as well as do a run-through of their play.  Many of the students were extremely rowdy today.  I believe that this might have been due to the excitement of performing their plays in front of the whole class.  I had some trouble keeping them on task and focused on what they were doing.  Many of them kept jumping and running around, not being able to prepare in a timely and organized manner.  I even had to threaten them that we would not be able to do any more fun activities if they were not going to act appropriately.  I think this helped, because I noticed that I did not have to tell them to settle down as much after that threat.  This also led me to try and figure out ways to get students to settle down when they got too excited.  This happens a lot with the fourth graders and this is something that I would like to improve upon as I prepare for my internship year.   
   

Ninth Week

During this week, the fifth grade team taught our third lesson study.  The lesson study went really well, with the exception of a few questions that we had and brought up during our de-briefing.  Angie and Mr. Bishop helped us tremendously in figuring our exactly what was missing from our lesson study.  While I felt overwhelmed at the amount of information that we were receiving, I am also glad that we received it.  The de-briefing session helps make the lesson a great one instead of a mediocre one.  For this reason, I am excited to teach the last lesson next week, however, I am also nervous to do so.  There are a lot of expectations for my partner and me to do a perfect job on the last lesson, so I hope that we can live up to this expectation.  I feel good about it for the most part, especially because I taught it once already, and even though there was a different focus in the lesson, I nonetheless have experience teaching the topic to a class of fifth graders.

This week, my partner and I began teaching the social studies unit that is expected of us to complete for Kevin Berry's class.  We embarked on somewhat of an adventure with out students.  We are beginning a chapter on Florida becoming a part of the US and on its way to becoming a state.  Our students use an exceptionally old social studies textbook, where Jeb Bush is still governor of Florida, which provides them with a lot of dry reading.  Therefore, we wanted to create a more exciting atmosphere during social studies.  About five of the kids also stated that social studies was their least favorite subject, so we wanted to get them engaged in the history, not just read about it.  For this reason, we decided that for the first lesson, students would read and receive instruction from us on the topic, but proceed to write their own plays and act them out based on information that they learned and understood.  We are doing this lesson with our fourth graders who are all gifted and were exceptionally excited about this opportunity.  They were even talking about their characters and what they planned to do in their plays during lunch.  I was very happy to hear them debating over what event should go where and who should say what.  I am also excited to see how students will work together, as we have them in groups, and how the plays will turn out.

Lastly, the FCAT is fast approaching and our teacher asked us to help her out in planning her math lessons all the way up until the day of FCAT.  This was the first time that we actually sat down to help her plan the lessons.  We have sat with her and discussed lessons that we have to teach for our college classes, but this was the first time that she asked us directly to help her with her own schedule.  She also treated the lessons as something that the three of us will tackle together and asked us to help her teach the lessons, especially because she will be teaching math twice a day in order to teach students all the necessary material.  I was very glad that she asked us for help and actually took our advice in planning the schedule.  Now I feel as though I have an idea of what is coming up and what lessons to expect, which will help me plan to teach them as well. 

Eighth Week

This week, my partner and I got to teach our lesson study.  We taught the second lesson, with the revisions that we made from the first one.  Overall, I thought the lesson was successful, although we were able to get great input from our observers.  For the next lesson, we plan to focus on the puzzle piece strategy and the importance of redirecting students' responses to the text.  We want to make sure that students' responses relate to the actual story that they are reading.  In this way they will notice that what they share has to be associated to the story in order to help them make inferences.  We also ran out of independent time.  We decided to use one story for the We do part of our lesson, which will cut down on reading time as well as picking up and passing out papers.  I am looking forward to seeing how the third lesson turns out.  I am also glad that we have had the opportunity to do this lesson study.  At the beginning of the lesson study, I was not convinced that we would learn much from the experience, especially teaching in classrooms that were not our own. However, the teachers have been exceptionally accommodating and tremendously helpful in the process. I am also excited to have a lesson that I could certainly use in my future classroom.

My partner and I also taught a reading lesson this week to the fifth graders while the fourth graders were taking the Florida Writes.  Students read a play and we assigned them roles that they read.  We were in a conference room (teacher's lounge) and also used some of the props that were around to go with the story.  The students had a blast reading the story and I was extremely proud of them.  I was also happy that we were able to keep the class under control.  We knew that we would be taking the fifth graders out to teach them the story, however the location was last minute.  We did not have a lot of time to prepare and we were still able to keep the kids on task and as quiet as possible to keep from distracting the classes that were testing next door.   

Seventh Week

This week was another short week.  We were only in the classroom for two days.  However, this was also the week that we got to do our first lesson for lesson study.  We were in a a 5th grade class and taught our lesson on making inferences.  I was observing the first lesson.  The lesson was interesting.  We certainly have a lot of room for improvement, which is perfect because that is exactly why we are doing a lesson study.  The fifth grade team was able to meet up later in the day and debrief.  We did not have the input of any administrators, however, the teacher whose class we did the lesson study in was more than helpful.  She actually provided us with great input that we are using to fix up the lesson.

The first issue that was apparent was that we ran out of time.  The stories that we have picked out were way too long.  We decided that we would cut these up and shorten them for the second lesson.  We like the idea of having students read mystery stories so we wanted to keep that genre.  Next, we decided, with the teacher's input, to switch up our pre-assessment.  We originally had a worksheet that students were given right before the lesson.  There were a few multiple choice questions on the worksheet about inference.  However, this was dry and boring for the kids.  It did not get them excited or talking.  We decided to change up the way we assess them and go with something more exciting.  For the second lesson, we will be doing skits at the beginning of the class, where one of the teachers actually acts our a scenario and students are asked to infer what is happening.  This is a more interactive and fun way to see what they might already know and to activate their prior knowledge.  Lastly, we decided to change the way we present.  We had an anchor chart for the first lesson.  The second the interns taped the chart to the board, I noticed that it was impossible to read and see from way back in the room.  Most of the students were sitting in the back! After talking with the teacher, she suggested that we use the overhead projector and make some type of a presentation.  This is what we have decided to do for the second lesson.  We will be making a PowerPoint presentation with all the necessary information so all of the students can see.  With the technology we are also easily able to interact with the information and transition quicker.

We look forward to teaching our second lesson next Thursday!  

Sixth Week

This week was busier due to the lesson study planning.  My group met a few times in order to prepare our lesson.  We will be teaching a lesson on making inferences.  We decided to teach this comprehension strategy because it is a strategy that students can use across subjects and content.  We are also teaching our lesson to fifth graders during their reading block and comprehension is highly emphasized in the upper grades.  We decided to use mystery stories in order for students to use inferences to solve the mysteries.  We had some trouble finding mystery stories, but eventually decided on Encyclopedia Brown.  We had to adapt some of the stories to fit our lesson, especially to fit the time allotted for the lesson.  I believe that the stories as well as the activities will be exciting for students.

During seminar we began our initial wondering for our inquiry.  My co-teaching partner and I are working together on a wondering.  Our mentor teacher has been letting us teach writing lessons more and more and with Florida Writes coming up soon, we wanted to focus on improving student writing.  There are a few students in particular who are having trouble during writing: organizing their stories, elaborating and adding details, and using varied sentence structures and vocabulary.  Even though Florida Writes is coming up in a few weeks and we probably will not get to start our research prior to the test, we still believe that all students can use frequent mini-lessons to improve their writing.  We would be working with the 4th graders and this help will be beneficial when they get to 5th grade as well.  For this reason, we decided to focus on writing. 

More specifically, we want to see how planning helps improve our students' writing.  During the past six weeks in the classroom, we have not seen our students actually use any type of planning sheets or organizers.  They are given a prompt and asked to write about it in 60 minutes. This is the practice that they are getting for the Florida Writes.  However, we believe that they need to be taught how to plan before they begin writing down on paper.  This is not a skill that will only be helpful for the Florida Writes, but it will be beneficial throughout their educational career and life.  I am looking forward to seeing how the inquiry research turns out.      

Fifth Week

This week my co-teaching partner and I planned and taught out Pathwise lesson.  We talked with our mentor teacher and decided to do our lesson during math.  The topic was prime and composite numbers.  The teacher usually uses the assigned math workbooks to teach out of, however, after previewing the lesson, my partner and I decided to make our own lesson from scratch, using the workbook only as guidance.  The workbook explanations and examples were extremely confusing and out of order.  We thought that our students would not be able to grasp and follow along with the book.  For this reason, we planned our own lesson.  We were able to discuss the lesson with the mentor as we planned it and were able to get some really good feedback.

We taught the lesson today with the 5th grade students.  We planned the lesson following the gradual release of responsibility model.  During "I do," we introduced, defined, and provided examples of prime and composite numbers.  During "we do," we went over additional examples with students' input and students also completed a number sorting activity in groups.  Finally, for independent practice we provided the students with a worksheet with problems that were very similar to the ones we practiced during the lesson. Once students had enough time to work on the worksheet, we went over it with the whole class.

I believe that the lesson was successful.  I was pleased with the input from the students throughout the lesson.  A few of the students would continuously raise their hands showing us that they were understanding the topic.  Others would occasionally share their answers, after having a light bulb go off.  This is what I enjoy seeing the most.  I loved when they became extremely excited, waving their hands in the air enthusiastically.   Even a few students who usually struggle in math would share their answers.  Of course, there were also a few students who needed some extra scaffolding and guidance.  We made sure to walk around during the activity and the independent practice to provide the students with the necessary guidance.  Overall, I was happy with the way the lesson turned out.  I certainly see a lot of room for improvement with the lesson that I would address if I taught it again, however, it being our first pathwise lesson, I was happy with the results.