1st Full Week of Student Teaching

 Candidate Name: Xiomara Livingston

Week of Reflection: 1/29/2021

   

Rate your overall experience of the week: 1-Very difficult | 5 – Great week

This week was a very good but challenging week(4)

Seven questions to end your week:

Observe: What pleasant surprises / accomplishments did I achieve this week? This week was my first full week of teaching. It was a huge adjustment. I learned how to create assignments on canvas, create multiple breakout rooms and gave my first test. I was surprised at how engaged students were during my math lessons. 

Reflect: What lessons did my work/experiences teach me that I will build upon next week? My CE gave me some constructive feedback about my literacy review lesson. I will work on slowing down and describe test taking strategies along with modeling. Next time I will use student answer choices and model finding evidence that supports their answer choices in the text.

Focus:  How are my short-term efforts and my long-term goals still aligned? Short term goals are small steps that will allow me to meet my long term goals. My short term goal is to make every minute of instruction count. I have researched strategies to use to keep students interested and engaged in learning. I am creating a Bingo board for students who are actively engaged and participate in learning. Students will win prizes and incentives for their participation. I researched creative ways to get students interested and keep them engaged in learning. I have implemented themed  timers based on student interest such as Among Us, Star Wars, and Mario Kart. The students also responded well to me pulling names out of a jar to answer questions. 

Be Productive: What could I have spent more or less time doing? I could have spent more time modeling and checking for student understanding. There is so much information to teach within the 80 minute block of synchronous learning. Forty minutes is designated for literacy instruction and  forty minutes for math instruction. I ask my CE for feedback each day on how I can improve my teaching practice. I will work on pacing myself. 

Have Courage:  How did apprehension and indecision impact what I did and didn’t do? I had apprehension about taking full control of the class. My CE has over 20 years of experience. It is a little intimidating to think about feeling her shoes. I know that practice makes progress. Each day I feel more confident about my teaching practice. I communicate with my CE regularly, and ask for feedback. 

Begin Anew: What is the first logical step(s) for next week? I will research content  to make lessons relevant to students and review my lesson plans prior to teaching and reflect on my lesson at the end of the day.What mental clutter can I clear? I will not compare my teaching practice to other experienced teachers. I will reflect on student data to drive my instruction. I will take things one lesson at a time, one day at a time. 

What were some data you analyzed this week and how did it help guide your decisions? I analyzed literacy exit tickets this week. The majority of students were able to identify the main idea and important events. They need more practice identifying key details in the text.

NC Professional Teaching Standards :

Standard 1: I established a safe and orderly environment this week by implementing breaks and activities that were based on student interest. Students were eager to participate. I also began using proximity praise and celebrating students who completed their work with a fun activity in a breakout room.  

Standard 2: I encourage an environment that is inviting, respectful, supportive, inclusive and flexible. I modeled respect by speaking to students in a respectful tone and called them by name. I was reminded of classroom expectations. I supported students when answering questions and reminded them that it is okay to make mistakes. We all make mistakes, that is how we learn. We come to school to learn. Practice makes progress. We learn something new each day. Thursday was the 100th day of school. Our virtual celebration consisted of various activities such as “Name something you have heard 100 times from your teacher or parent. What would you do with $100? 100th day of school read aloud.

Standard 3: Develop and apply strategies to make the curriculum rigorous and relevant. This week during math I modeled how to solve addition and subtraction with mixed numbers and improper fractions. I called on students to take turns explaining how they solved the problem. We discussed each step and students made up their own problems for the class to solve. 

Standard 4: Collaborate with colleagues. Every Thursday the 4th grade team has PLC. In honor of African American History Month and to build background knowledge for our next unit in literacy we each picked a person who we would introduce to our students. We disgusted different activities and incentives to increase student engagement. I also collaborated with the EC teacher about ways to provide modifications and accommodations virtually.

Standard 5: Participate in continued, high quality professional development. This week I continued the 21-Day Racial Equity Challenge that was suggested by the school principal. The daily lessons that I read this week helped me to be more aware and understanding of student backgrounds and experiences.

This week I added to the globalization piece of my portfolio.