Contract - Autism Classroom

I had the opportunity to spend several ours in the autism room at North Elementary. While I was there, I observed and worked with kindergarten, first, and second grade students. I got to see them interact in their general classroom and be pulled out into the autism room. I saw a wide range of ability and severity levels among the students during reading and math. I wanted to spend time in this room because I had never seen an autism room before and am very interested in it. I really enjoyed the time spent at North working with students with autism. I am currently working toward getting my autism certification and this experience helped reinforce my desire to work with students with autism. It was so interesting to see how different things are dealt with and how the students take sensory breaks to help them stay focused. I saw so many things that I have never seen or heard about in a text book, but that probably goes back to getting to know your students.

Contract - Behavior Disorder Classroom

I spent a day in a BD classroom at Mylan Park for part of my contract. I wanted to see different special education rooms because my future career may be in a very different setting then what I was placed in. The say started out with an IEP meeting for a student who was going to begin attending a new alternative school for elementary students. It was very interesting to see this because there are not many alternative settings for elementary students. They discussed her transition process to go there and come back to Mylan Park. The meeting took up most of the morning, then she had her planning and it was time for lunch. After lunch, her schedule got interrupted (surprise, surprise) with an issue involving a 2nd grade boy. We went down to address the issue and it took about an hour to resolve. When we returned to the room, there was a student and a teacher waiting from 3rd grade. There had been an issue with a boy asking a girl to lift her shirt and she was complying. She spoke with the student about what had happened and plans on addressing the situation again. It was reaching the end of the day and several students came to her room for assistance with homework or tests. They remained in her room for the rest of the day and then we walked them down to the bus. Although her day was mixed up and interrupted it was nice to see. This experience showed me how truly important it is for teachers to be flexible.

Contract - NASA Star Lab Training

I had the opportunity to attend the NASA Star Lab Training and learn how to operate the inflatable planetarium. This training not only taught me how to bring the planetarium into a school, but gave me knowledge on space. It also provided me with many great lesson ideas to do with students about space and our solar system. This was a very interesting training because I have never seen the inflatable planetarium before. The instructor for this training also informed me of other trainings and equipment available through NASA. There are several trainings that will even pay you or give you course credits for attending. If I stay in the area I will most definitely attend more.

Contract - Tech Steps

For part of my contract, I helped teach tech steps to the entire 5th grade class with another intern. The tech steps they were on required the students to write an interactive story using power point. The students created a story with multiple endings depending on which things you would click on as you went along the power point. This experience opened my eyes to the difficult tasks that 5th grade students are expected to complete. I could not believe the level of difficulty of this assignment. I also realized how important it is to have an extra set of hands when teaching tech steps. Many students were unfamiliar with what was expected for them to complete and there were hands going up every time I turned around. I think it is valuable that students learn new 21st century skills and how to use technology, but this was very difficult and I could not imagine doing it by myself.

Contract- DIBELS Training

The first part of my contract completed was my DIBELS training. I went to North Elementary and learned how to use the palm and give students the test. Once the training and practicing was over, I spent several hours DIBELing 3rd and 5th grade students. I experienced using the palm and written forms. This training and practice allowed me to gain experience working with students. I had to create a sense of comfort when pulling the students for testing by asking questions and putting them at ease. I then had to get through the test and converse with them after and tell them good job. This experience showed me how time consuming testing can be but the results can really help out with instruction.

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.