For my coaching cycle, my preparation definitely paid off by timing out every minute of the lesson and it really helped me prioritize what I wanted students to do and learn from the activity. The lesson included students making predictions about the function of a leaf, gathering leaves from outside, creating a leaf rubbing in their notebooks, reading from their textbook and taking notes, as well as completing an exit ticket. It was a jam-packed 30 minutes, but I really did my best to make every second count. My students made me so proud with how attentive and mature they were as we moved through the different parts of the lesson, especially with the out-of-the-ordinary experience of bringing their science materials to MTSS so we could start the lesson outside right away once we left the computer lab.
If I were to do the lesson again and have a bit more time I would have liked to have a discussion after the students read in order to make the connection between the leaf rubbings and the content of the leafs function for a plant. We were able to do this at a later day and the students really seem to understand how important this particular plant part is. I am looking forward to the following lessons in this unit and watching students learning…grow. (get it?)
Another resource that I found particularly useful for this lesson was a simple template I created inspired by a speaker at last year's inquiry conference. By going over the components of CHAMPS (including directions for the activity, noise level, and participation) the students knew the expectations for them to complete each part of the assignment. By review this with the students, it really seem to streamline the process of delivering directions, which always seems to get me caught up and take extra time. The students are really holding themselves and each other accountable to listen and to understand what is expected of them. As I take the lead this final month of nearly all operations in the classroom, this will be particularly useful to me and I believe the students will benefit from the consistency it creates. I would love to incorporate it into my classroom in the future.
For my math lesson this week, we were reviewing the concept of telling time and determining elapsed time. We had worked on this skill before spring break, but it was important for the students to get extra exposure before our FSA assessment. As much as it was a pain to have to structure the review, I was very impressed with how much my students have retained about the topic. I like having the opportunity to incorporate some Promethean technology into the delivery of the lesson and I felt that the timing of my lesson was responsive both to the amount of content to be covered and the level of understanding that my students demonstrated. Even having students do things as simple as dragging events of the day into a.m. or p.m. categories really seemed to engage them. Again I tried to pay special attention to the amount of time not only spent for student work, but also on each portion of the lesson in general. By timing out each question and incorporating a variety of ways for them to share their learning I felt as though the lesson was a success.
For literacy my management skills were also put to the test as I facilitated students rotating to different text dependent questions that were located on posters around the room. Though this is not a new strategy we've used for students to apply their reading, it is still an approach that I am getting the hang of. The challenge comes from the time spent between rotations and holding all students accountable for responding in the amount of time given per rotation. On the first rotation I encourage students to move on although many were not finished, but was more flexible as we moved through the following rotations in order to give all students the opportunity to work through the questions. This week we focused on two texts that were about the purposes of masks in different cultures. It was really exciting to see students engage in the study of other cultures and connect with their own experiences with masks.
I am still working to find the best way to incorporate Daily Oral Language instruction into small groups while still setting goals for each student to improve their writing conventions. I have started conducting individual writing conferences to remind students of the conventions that they are expected to include in their writing, especially now that we have had time to work on them explicitly. Though the process has been slow, I was able to meet with the student on Monday and Friday and we review the goals we had set. I was impressed to see how his use of capital letters at the beginning of each of his sentences has improved with only a few days time. As I continue to check back with the students who I have set goals with, I hope to have a clearer idea of how to best meet the individual needs of my students in the area of writing conventions.
As it was the last week before our FSA testing began I can certainly say I am looking forward to having less pressure and more opportunity to engage the students in learning and exploring. I believe it will also give me the chance to take risks with the lessons I prepare and to explore components of my teaching without feeling as though I am taking away from the students’ learning.
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