Mylan Park Elementary Week 9

The Thanksgiving theme carried over into this two day week. We made turkey t-shirts, and read an interactive story of, "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie". Not only was the week short, but teaching time was interrupted by OT and PT on Monday. This takes away from my instruction time, but is important that the students receive it. Due to nice weather and it only being a two day week, we took the students out for an extra recess at the end of the day. Several of my students typically spend their recess in my classroom because of weather conditions, or overcrowded indoor recess so this was a real treat for them. It was nice to see them interacting outside the classroom. They all seemed so happy and free. Many of the general ed classrooms were doing their monthly reward on Tuesday so we decided it would be okay to watch a movie as well. This was my last week of full time teaching and starting next week, I will slowly be weened out. I am starting to get sad, because I am realizing my placement is coming to an end, and I really don't want to leave these kids!

Mylan Park Elementary Week 8

This week at Mylan Park was another adventure! We learned about Thanksgiving all week in the afternoon. I read several books to the students, and we took on the role of Native American Indians by making dream catchers and traditional headdress. We also several turkey crafts, wrote about what we are thankful for, and wrote an acrostic poem. To end the week of learning about Thanksgiving, we had our very own feast in the classroom. The students really enjoyed this and needed a break at the end of a long week. I wrapped up data collection for my action research by reviewing and giving students their post test. I gave them a variety of post test to get a better understanding of how they were learning the material. I briefly looked over them to see how they did, but have to fully decided on how to analyze everything. Data analysis is going to be a struggle for me. From the glancing over the data that I did, I know that the students have made some improvement, so that is always a good thing. I am finally feel like I can move forward with the action research paper and hopefully everything will start falling into place.

Mylan Park Elementary Week 7

This week at Mylan Park we wrapped up a two week unit on the human body. I believe that the students really enjoyed it, and I am very pleased with the overall outcome. We did many hands on activities to simulate different body functions, and built a human body with paper plates, and organ print outs. I continued on with my action research. I am so proud of my students and the progress we are making with it. I have also been trying to pull together my contract hours for next semester. This has been quite challenging due to the fact that I am completing them at three different schools, and have little communication with my first home school where I am required to do hours. I attended two IEP meetings which was really nice to be a part of. The meetings were very different because one of them had a re-evaluation. These meetings made me realize how much work goes into being a special education teacher and that it is going to be difficult to lead an IEP meeting. I had a hard time hearing some of the things that have to be said, and believe that I am going one day have a hard time delivering information to caring parents. The IEP meetings helped me learn a lot about my students and more about their goals and modifications. I think it is very important to know your students well to provide them with the best learning environment possible.

Mylan Park Elementary Week 6

I felt that this week at Mylan was very successful and informative. I am very pleased with what all got accomplished. I was observed twice and believe that both went very well. I was observed while teaching math, which is when I conduct my action research, so I was very anxious to see what she thought. She was very pleased with the good relationships I have with my students and how well I know them. She also noted how I knew what questions to ask and who to ask them to. She also mentioned that this approach I am taking with my students seems to really be working with them and keeping them engaged. I am happy with how well my action research is going and feel as though I got a lot out of it this past week. This week, we learned a little bit about our bodies. We labeled external body parts, learned about our bones, and their all time favorite learned a skeleton dance and song. The students loved having music in the classroom, and I was very excited to see how well they took to singing and dancing. I had the students put together paper plate skeletons which they will be completing with organs and muscles next week. This week I learned a little more about contract hours. I became familiar with what is wanted at Mylan and am trying to sort through when and where to spend my hours. I am really looking forward to next week and how my action research will progress and the continuing with our bodies unit.

Mylan Park Elementary Week 5

This week at Mylan Park Elementary was different from any experience I have had this far at any of my placements. On Monday afternoon, one of my students had an extreme behavior issue. This resulted with me having to take the other students out of the room. We went into their general ed classrooms and worked played educational games and played on an educational website starfall. This threw the entire week off, along with dealing with subs, plays, and Halloween parties. My student who had the outburst had to sit out of the party on Friday afternoon, I had to stay back with her. I was a little nervous thinking about what I would do if she had an outburst while it was just the two of us, but it went very well. My action research was almost non-existent this week due to the outburst, a cooking activity, and the party. This week taught me that plans will change and you sometimes just have to go with the flow and not let it get to you. It is a little frustrating when you have spent time making plans just to have them all pushed aside. I had to take what I thought would be most important and teach that instead of everything I had planned. All in all, this placement has shown me the true meaning of being flexible. You never know what will happen and you need to expect the best, but be prepared for the worst.

Mylan Park Elementary Week 4

This past week went well. It was a little broken up due to a PLC I attended on Wednesday. I learned that it is important to prepare for a sub, and that sometimes they don't get everything finished you had wanted. But that is part of being flexable. We wrapped up a unit on city and country by making large models of the city and country. The students worked together and created an amazing model that will be displayed in the library for the entire school to see. I did some of my action research this week, and it is going better than expected. Several of my students are really catching on and remembering the concepts from week to week. I am still struggling with feeling that I do not have enough data to collect, but I am happy with how the students are taking to this math program.

Mylan Park Elementary Week 3

This week went pretty well considering that we had a sub for a day and a half. I believe my students handled it better than expected because they are getting used to me being the room as well. I believe one of the best things week was the students writing their spelling words on the white board. They really enjoyed being able to use our new technology and responded very well to it. I also started to implement my action research. We completed lesson 1 over the course of three days. The students did very well Monday and Tuesday and were very proud of themselves. They were all smiles when they finished and had understood what they were doing. On Wednesday however, they got a little frustrated when we combined two concepts together. They all got through it, but I think I will review again on Monday to ensure they are catching on and remembering.
This week I have also learned that even though the students look so cute and innocent that you sometimes need to be stern or they can and will walk all over you. Many of my students will try people to see if they can get the attention they want or if they will really move their clips. I had to get a little tough this week and let them know that I am just like a teacher and can change their clips too. They try to get away with things when the sub is here that they would never do on a regular day. It is hard to have to not always be smiling and nice to my kids because they get you with their cuteness

Mylan Park Elementary Week 2

My second week at Mylan Park went very well. I jumped right in and began teaching math and science in the afternoon. I believe the students feel comfortable with me and have really enjoyed many of the activities I have done with them. We explored our five senses and did many hands on activities with that, even cooked! I also began taking data for my action research. I am planning on seeing how a multi sensory approach will help the students learning of addition facts. I gave the students a pre test with and without manipulatives to see how much they knew. The scores were low, but that was expected based off what I had been told by my mentor teacher. I also informally interviewed the students about what they thought about math and whether or not they liked it. None of them hated it, but they were not very happy about it either. I also made sure to closely observe while the students were taking the pretest. Many of them became frustrated and they all needed prompted to keep going and stay on task. I am going to implement the multi sensory math next week and am looking forward to seeing the results!

Mylan Park Elementary Week 1

My first week at Mylan Park was quite an adjustment. Coming from high school was going to be a big transition and having never been to Mylan Park made it even more difficult. I was welcomed by the all faculty and staff and have felt very comfortable at the school so far. I spent most of my first week observing and trying to get to know the students. This classroom is much different from any classrooms I have been placed in. I have seven students ranging from first to fifth grade, and many of them stay in my classroom for most of the day. I have never been a part of a special education classroom like this and am really looking forward to see how it all works. During my first week I got to attend a PLC. This was interesting to see how it differed from the PLC I attended at my high school placement. It was an all day event that focused on westest scores. It was very different from my high school PLC, but I am glad I got to see how different schools and levels do things. I am really excited about working with my students for these 11 weeks and cannot wait to see how much we can accomplish!

North Marion High School Week 5

My last week at North Marion went well, but I am sad to leave. I attended an after school seminar to learn more about edline and different things you can do with it. It was very helpful to see the different components it has. I believe that some of its capabilities could even help in action research like some of the graphs and statistics it can create for you. I attended another IEP meeting, which is always beneficial to be a part of. I have attended several at this placement and they have all been a little bit different. I have seen some dealing with freshman and their plan for the next four years, students on home bound, and students who are planning the transition to college. The meetings were on topics I would not have gotten the chance to see in any elementary placement and I am glad I got to be a part of them here.
My overall experience at North Marion has been wonderful. I believe that I grew a lot as a teacher and learned more than I ever had as far as special education goes. I believe my weakness at this placement was teaching math. It is difficult to teach a subject well that you have not had in many years. While in my collaborative settings, I heard other math teachers explain things so well and have such good examples to help illustrate concepts to the students that I would have never thought of. I know that being an elementary teacher involves teaching every subject, but high school math is much more difficult and I wish that I could have explained some concepts better to my students. I believe as I grow as a teacher and with more years of experience, I will gain the resources and ideas to convey concepts to my students. When I do get a job, I need to make sure that I am 100% comfortable with the material before I teach it, and that I go above and beyond to find the best way to teach and explain it.
I am really going to miss driving down the Husky Highway each day and being welcomed by all the faculty and staff. I feel like I have become part of their Husky family and hope that I can do some of my contract hours here, or at least get on the sub list and be able to spend some more time here.

North Marion High School Week 4

This past week at North Marion went well, however, there are a few things that I learned to help me become a better teacher. This placement has been very different than my past experiences and it has been interesting trying to adjust. There are many students who don't come to school for many days in a row. This week has taught me how important it is to stay organized with missed assignments and what they need to make up and what they can't. I not only need to be organized with their papers that they missed but also be organized and keep up with edline and make sure I immediately mark things that can not be made up and mark things that can be made up but do not have a grade yet. My mentor teacher keeps folders in the classroom for the students to keep their papers in and I usually put their missing work in the folders, but I need to make sure I only put in what they need to make up and the date that we did it on. I got a little mixed up this week with a few make up papers, but in the end it all worked out. I think in the future I will try to have a more organized way to keep my papers for myself and my students to help make make up work go more smoothly. I would like to have a filing folder or something to keep each chapters papers in with the dates on the tabs or something along those lines. I would also like to have a 'mailbox' for each student that I could easily put what they missed in it. I am also having a difficult time with knowing how to handle a student that has already missed 10 days of school. It is hard to move on with everyone else when you have a student who has no idea what you are talking about. There is usually a few minutes at the end of class for students to start homework and I can spend time with the students who were absent, but you can't make up 10 days in five minutes. This is an issue that I think has to be dealt with differently in different situations, but I am currently struggling with what the best option is.

North Marion High School Week 3

This was my first week to fully take over all the classes. I got to take advantage of some resources like algebra's cool. Some of the students took very well to it, while others preferred me teaching instead. I also had the students play interactive computer games to help with the order of operations. Now that we are getting into more difficult material, I am really seeing how much time some things can take. I feel as though I moved too fast through a few concepts which resulted in poor quiz grades, but they students will be given the opportunity for corrections and more practice. This week has also taught me that lessons can and will be changed. Nothing that I have planned has to stay set in stone. I was nervous to steer away from my plans, and I think that I should have spent some more time last week and maybe the quiz grades would have looked a little better. I am becoming more comfortable with everything and am finally starting to develop my own routine. I am looking forward to this upcoming week to see if I am getting any better at pacing myself.

North Marion High School Week 2

My second week in my high school placement has been even better than my first. I have had the opportunity to begin teaching applied geometry. At first I was a little unsure of the lessons I created and my time management skills. After the first day I had to adjust a few things in order to have my lessons flow from day to day, but it all worked out especially because I didn't realize how much review and practice was needed. I believe my lessons went well, it is just hard to adjust to having half the class absent one day and try to catch them up the next. I believe that will be an ongoing challenge at this placement for me. My lessons consisted of things like lecture, guided notes, and review games. The students seemed to really enjoy the Jeopardy review game we played the day before the quiz. They all really worked hard and remained engaged with it, they even requested to play again the next day! For my future lessons, I want to take advantage of some of the resources offered at North Marion. Next week I plan on using Algebra'sCool. It has an interactive video with guided notes, guided practice, and independent practice. I am looking forward to seeing how the students will respond to learning math in a very non traditional way. Algebra'sCool, is one of many resources I can use at my placement. I am thankful there are such interesting things to do, but it is hard to take advantage of them, when I am still learning what many of them are.

This school has done a really nice job with making the students from WVU feel very welcome. I can't say enough how nice almost everyone has been and how they want us to feel like a true Husky! They have even asked the interns to be a part of the Thuse today, by having us lie on the gym floor and be a part of the spelling of HUSKIES with human bodies, all being faculty. I am becoming much more comfortable with this placement and am really taking a liking to working with high school students.

North Marion High School Week 1

The first few days at North Marion were very beneficial because it was the behind the scenes of teaching that I had not experienced before. I got to sit in on the meetings and help with first day preparations. I also helped out with setting up the classroom. I have never seen how everything is pulled together in the beginning of the year. I was a little nervous for the first full week with students because my previous experience was in kindergarten. The students and faculty were very welcoming and my nerves were quickly calmed. Everyone at North Marion has done a great job in making me feel welcome and like I am a part of their team. I am treated like an equal which has made me more comfortable feeling like an authority figure to students who are only a few years younger than myself.

I observed and assisted in my classes and started to get to know the students and became more familiar with how things flow. I looked through the materials for the geometry class that I will be taking over next week to make sure I was comfortable with everything I needed to teach. I am looking forward to seeing how the students will respond to me teaching them and how well I will be able to instruct them. I hope they respond well and will easily grasp the concepts I am teaching. I am however scared of not having enough to do. I am not yet comfortable with time management and am worried of running out of things to do during the class period.

Artifacts and Characterisrtics of the Novice Teacher # 2

The artifact I chose is a lesson I taught for my creative expressions class. I had the students first discuss how different types of weather make them feel (sunny, stormy, snowy). We compared and contrasted the feeling in a Venn diagram. The students then listened to three different selections of classical music titled, "Summer", "Cloudburst" and "Storm". While listening to the music they pretended to be a bug or a tree and had to use movement to act how a bug or a tree would during the musical storm. Once the songs were over, we then did another Venn diagram on how them music made them feel. The students then had a sheet of paper folded into thirds and has t draw a bug or tree (whichever they were) and their emotion on their face. Many students had a smile for summer, straight mouth for cloudburst, and a frown in the storm. I believe this lesson falls under Characteristic 2 of the Novice Teacher, that the novice teacher should be an effective communicator. This basically means the teacher can communicate effectively in a variety of ways like spoken, written, and non-verbal. This lesson demonstrates spoken, written, and non-verbal communication. The lesson begins with spoken and written communication during the discussion, and has non-verbal communication when the students are pretending to be bugs and trees and moving their bodies and changing their facial expression to communicate.

Artifacts and Characterisrtics of the Novice Teacher # 4

Characteristic number 4 states that the novice teacher should be a facilitator of learning for all students. This means that the teacher can provide resources to help students better understand concepts. Students all have a variety of learning styles so it is important for teachers to have different ways of presenting and assessing information. I recently taught a lesson on weather and how it affects what you wear. We had a discussion about what they wore that day and why. I then pulled up a weather temperature map of the United states to provide a visual for the students. We then talked about how the weather is in different places like Hawaii, Florida, Alaska, ect. We talked about what they may be wearing there and what kinds of activities they would be doing there. After we finished out discussion, the students went back to their seats and drew pictures of the weather in Morgantown of what they were wearing and what activities they could be doing. They also drew a picture of another place that had different weather and what they would be wearing and an activity they would be doing. Several of the student have special needs so for them during station time they were able to get on the computer and play a dress the bear game. They would look out the window in the computer and see what they weather was. They would then decide what the bear should wear. This gave them a more visual way of seeing how the weather affects what you wear and what you do. It was also better for me to see that they understood because their drawing skills are not on level so this allows the teacher to see what the bear was wearing.

Artifacts and Characterisrtics of the Novice Teacher # 9

The artifact I chose was an introductory lesson about the Olympics. This lesson presented students with a power point presentation about the winter Olympics. As a class they discusses when and where the Olympics started, where they are this year, the different sports played in the winter Olympics, the opening ceremonies, and national anthem rituals. I put this lesson as characteristic number 9, The novice teacher should be aware, of and have respect for human diversity, because the teacher in this lesson presents students with information about other cultures celebrating at the opening ceremonies, traditions of the lighting of the torch, and respectful ways of singing national anthems. Students learned the meaning of the Olympic flag, which represents all the large bodies of land. They learned that even though we are different we all remain friends at the Olympics and the Olympic rings interlock to signify friendship at the games. This lesson helped open students realize that even though all the people have different cultures and traditions, we all are equal and friends at the Olympic games. The students got to create an Olympic flag of their own and write on the back, something interesting that they learned about the Olympics.

Artifacts and Characterisrtics of the Novice Teacher # 10

The artifact I chose was a three week unit on the Rainforest. The unit covered several content areas including;science, visual art, and reading and language arts. I put this artifact into characteristic number 10 The novice teacher should be liberally educated because it does cover multiple content areas and integrates technology. This artifact could have fit into several other characteristics, but I believe characteristic 10 was the best match. The Rainforest unit allows students to integrate a wide variety of fields and the webquest within it allows students to continue searching for more knowledge. The unit also consists of several projects that have students act constructively to new ideas for example create save the rainforest posters.