Student Teaching

Week 4

I rate this week a 4. While it was a short week with Martin Luther King Jr. Day and orientation, I had a great time in the classroom teaching. This was my first week where I have taken over full time. I'm working on management for the last hour and a half of the day because that is when students are antsy about going home and I haven't taught in the afternoons until this week. I am also getting used to this schedule! I'm slowly working on lesson plans, reflections, edTPA, my portfolio, and sleeping at some point!
Observe:
I learned a lot this week. I saw that what I was teaching students was actually clicking for them. We are doing a new unit on reading like an expert, and the students have grown in reading out loud with expression. I could tell they were all really trying! It felt great that I was successful.
Reflect:
What I'm going to build on for next week is teaching in the afternoons. It is after lunch, then recess, then specials, so students aren't always in the mindset to sit back down and do more work until it's time to leave. I will do some breathing exercises with them to slow down their heart rate and help them focus on the last tasks of the day.
Focus:
I have been working on building up my confidence as a teacher, and after observing so many students understand my lessons and progressing through, I have built on my long term goal of being a confident teacher.
Be Productive:
I could have spent more time spreading out when I plan my lessons for the next week and less time "taking a break". I could also spend more time giving students a brain break to help them refocus.
Have Courage:
I apprehended my lesson plans because I was fearful of them not being up to par.
Begin Anew:
The first logical steps for next week is get a head start over the weekend in lesson planning, and spread out when I do what instead of cramming doing everything all at once. I need to clear my head of outside distractions and focus more on my lessons, edTPA, and portfolio.
I analyzed a lot of data about the different sounds students should know how to produce, yet we have some students not able to produce these sounds, such as th, ch, wh, ck, op, sh so I have taken this group of students and helped them during intervention with these sounds and sounding them out in words.
One piece of advice I can share for student teachers and anyone else is that it is quite easy to become jealous/envious of another because they may excel in areas you do not. Instead of being hateful towards these people, become insightful. Ask them their strategies and their advice for how they have been doing well in these areas. This will help you as a person become more confident in your abilities.
NCTCS
1a - I was able to lead in my classroom all week.
2a - I have treated each student as an individual and let them know I am emotionally there for them. I have had a few students open up to me and many come to me whenever there is a problem.
3c - I have connected reading and writing with a different areas such as science and social studies.
4e - I helped students learn new strategies in reading and helped them think of new goals for when they're writing.
5a - I analyzed a lot of student learning this week. Some students struggle in  different areas whether they have been labeled high, medium, or low they can all have the same misconceptions
For my portfolio, I have almost completed my classroom website, I submitted in my resume, created a PDP and am working towards my new philosophy of education.
My CE has a few questions about differentiation. We know that differentiation is important, but when we differentiate in intervention centers it singles students out because the work for the lower students is obviously much below the work for the higher students, and we don't want any student feeling singled out.
Right now I am just trying my best at making great lesson plans with the scripted lessons we have in my school system.