Week 4

This week has been a more laid back week since today the school of education had teacher interviews our classes were cancelled. Even though we did not have class, I went and check on my ecocolumn and recorded data in my notebook! I get so excited going to see the growth that has occurred since I last saw my terrarium, so I can imagine what this experience would be like for an elementary student! On Tuesday in science methods, we started something new where Dr. Parker puts a question that could potentially be asked in your classroom by one of your students. We have 30 minutes to do research on these questions so we can know the answer when that one kid likes to ask a lot of question! This was a really cool growing experience for me because by having us do the research, we learn more about the topic for ourselves. This week in math methods, we wrote an edTPA style lesson plan with a partner and while working on it, I kept having to stop and look up some of the edTPA vocabulary that I didn't understand. Even though I struggled, I learned something by taking the time to stop and look up anything I didn't understand. This week, the thing that gave me the most satisfaction is creating a visual during our hurricane presentation that helps to visualize that warm, moist air is like fuel to a hurricane. This visual helps me to remember how hurricanes are formed,  and I know it would help an elementary student to understand too. The action steps that I want to complete over the next week include finalizing my overall concept of my unit and start moving forward with the rest of the unit plan! I contributed to the class this week by being involved in class discussions, and working with my classmates to maintain our ecocolumns! Next week, I can help my classmates by being more encouraging to everyone while we are all getting deeper into the semester! This week, I found a resource called Science for us and this is a great website for science education. There are projects, lesson plans, modules for learning, and the best part is that they're all based on the state standards. I will use this resource in my future classroom if there is a module that happens to line up with my standard because I think the kids will be engaged while using this resource. My first top tweet of the week is from David Carruthers and it says "what kind of teacher are you?" then there are 3 different types of teachers listed. A classroom teacher, a school teacher, and a global teacher. This tweet just reminded me how I need to not only strive to be a classroom and a school teacher, but I need to become a global teacher by going outside of my school and sharing ideas that can impact children largely. My second tweet of the week is by Alex Corbitt and it's a visual of "education then vs. education now." This tweet really brought into perspective that education has changed a lot since I was in elementary school and it will continue to change. Instead of having the students sit quietly in desks, the students learn best by being able to talk and discover things by themselves instead of having the teacher stand at the board. We must have our classrooms the way this tweet describes them. My third and final top tweet of the week is by Danny Steele and it is a tweet about building culture in your classroom every day with how you spend your time. This week, I have been following Hurricane Jose, which has been downgraded to a tropical storm for now. I read on The Weather Channel where it will re strengthen into a hurricane and the east coast is at risk for high surf and rip currents. I can connect this to my learning in science methods because we talked on Tuesday about how hurricanes form and we know that a hurricane cannot be present if there is no moist air to fuel it. I am relating my learning from this week to the NCTCS that says "teachers know the content they teach" This week I have learned about how hurricanes are formed and I can now help my students to better understand how they are formed. For chapter twos text facilitation- I really enjoyed the video of the middle school kids being engaged in their inquiry based science lesson. My biggest takeaway from the video is to start every lesson with a question that the students will explore and find answers to. This is much more effective than just telling them the answer the the question because they have to experiment for themselves to find the correct answer. This chapter was solely about scientific inquiry which we have been discussing in science methods. Now that I know all about scientific inquiry, I don't see why anyone wouldn't use this in their classroom because it is a great learning experience for the students to explore for learning.

Week 3

This week has been a great week! I was most proud of myself for collaborating with my science fair group and altering our plan to make a much better project that you can test and hypothesize about. My struggle this week was trying to learn to distinguish between the pieces to the knowledge dimension of blooms revised taxonomy. Having to place the small pieces of paper with the scenarios on them under the paper with the words "factual, procedural, conceptual, and meta cognitive" really helped me and the rest of the class to better understand what each of them means (Thanks Dr. Parker)! The thing that brought me the most satisfaction this week was the Inquiry self check. I really enjoyed reading this website with the eight pointers of how to create an inquiry based classroom and after completing the discussion board, I feel much more prepared to teach with an inquiry based approach! I contributed to the class this week by putting resources in my discussion boards that help with teaching science education and knowing the content since I didn't do so well on the 5th grade science EOG. Next week, I will also put resources for things in all of my discussion boards. Not only is it in the rubric, but because it really does help me and my classmates learn and grow from exploring all of the resources we all post! For my outside learning, I played around with a website (http://www.sciencefun.org) and this is a great resource and I highly recommend my classmates to put it in their resource kits. This website is great for kids to learn science by doing experiments that are safe to do, but also very engaging for the students, there is also a trivia tab as well and if you get a question wrong it tells you why it's wrong and why the correct answer is right. Another fun feature on this website is the science jokes tab. I think these jokes would be a great thing to do before you begin a lesson because the students will automatically lock in on you because you are doing something fun for them! I will use this website to help myself to better learn the science content. My first tweet of the week said "What happens when students own their learning?" and there is a infographic which has many different effects from students owning their learning. Everything listed on the infographic is very important for you students to develop! There is a picture below if you wanna see the infographic. My second tweet is by Tom Loud and in this tweet, he's giving us teachers a friendly reminder that our attitude effects all of the other teachers we work with. This is the same thing in SCED or any class, my attitude can effect all of my colleagues. My third tweet is by Amy Fast and she just reminded me that the goal of our teaching is to give our students a "passion to utilize the material for a greater purpose..."

  This week, I have been following hurricane Irma, and the thing that amazes me the most about weather is that you never know for sure what is going to happen. I can connect my research about Irma to science because hurricanes are science phenomena in action! The NCTCS that I focused on this week was "teachers know the content they teach" I missed some things on the science test and after reflecting on the discussion board, I found that resource I talked about before that can help me learn some of that content and even use some of it in my future classroom!

Week 2

Week two was very beneficial in my learning process. In math methods, we broke down the 8 math standards and put them in our language so we can better understand each standard. I feel so much better having those standards to remember to effectively teach my students. In science methods on Tuesday, we broke out into small groups to discuss the four A's- assumption, argue, ask, act. We applied the four A's to our discussion about phenomena and how to implement it in your classroom. This really helped me to learn what phenomena meant because we went through the four A process. This is a technique I would certainly use in my future classroom. On Thursday in science methods, we created our EcoColumns! This was very exciting to talk about all of the different pieces we cut out to find out how they all work together to create a working eco-system for our little critters and plants! I can't wait for the outcome of this learning experience! Over the next week, I am going to do a little more research about 3D learning and teaching phenomena in the classroom because these things will help with student learning. Next week, I will help my colleagues out more by reporting back to my blog with more information about 3D learning and teaching phenomena. My first tweet of the week is by Todd Whitaker and he says "One of the best indicators of the quality of the teacher is the amount of praise and laughter in the classroom." I think this is very important to keep in mind for having a safe environment where students feel comfortable to learn which is standard 3 of the NCTCS! My second tweet of the week is about writing your classroom rules in a way that tells students what they should do rather than what they shouldn't do. This also goes along with standard 3 because using rules in a positive way make the students feel more comfortable in their learning environment. My third tweet for this week was a board in your classroom dedicated for characteristics of an innovator! I think this would be great to use in your classroom because your students can look at the characteristics and follow them to become an innovator! This goes along with standard four of the NCTCS because I would be facilitating learning to my students to learn problem solving techniques displayed on the board. The current event I have been keeping up with is Hurricane Harvey and how it is devastating a lot of people! This is a phenomena that you can teach in your classroom because hurricanes are a part of weather and since it is a current event, it is also relatable to your students! Within the first two weeks of classes, I already feel more prepared to teach science and math, and that makes me super excited for the remainder of the semester!

Week 1

This week has been a great week getting started back to classes! I am proud of myself for remaining positive throughout the first week of class and schoolwork! My biggest struggle this week was getting organized for the upcoming semester and making sure everything is in place for the semester. Over the next week, I would like to stay on top of all of my work and possibly even get ahead in my classes! I contributed in the class discussion today about buoyancy by actively discussing with my team members! In order to help my colleagues out over the semester, I will try to share ideas and lesson plans to help each classmate. My first tweet I found interesting was the visual of the science behind the eclipse and how the moon covered the sun. This is a great visual to show your students while teaching them about the eclipse. My second tweet is by Amy Fast, which is someone Dr. Parker suggested that we follow and I am glad that I did. This tweet is basically saying that if a student passes a test and their passions, goals, and mindsets are not met, then we have failed them as teachers. This stood out to me because as a student, I used to get very frustrated when I took a test because it seemed pointless to me if it did not contain something that interested me. I believe that it is much easier to learn if you are engaged with the topic and enjoy what you are learning about. For my third and final tweet of the week, it's like an eye opener for me as a teacher because Amy Fast says that we as teachers are constantly trying to measure how well our students are doing, but we rarely ever ask them how they are doing. I think it is important to have a relationship with your students and show them that you care about their well-being and their grades. This tweet has a checklist for your students to fill out how they are feeling so that way you know exactly how they feel. As everyone knows, The Great Eclipse was on Monday, which was really exciting to watch for me! The temperature dropped, and even though I was not under the line of totality, it got a little more dim outside! My favorite thing about this event is that it's very rare to happen and I am so happy I could experience it! I learned that if I become a successful science teacher, I will be able to properly facilitate learning in my classroom! I cannot wait to see what the semester has in store for me as a future teacher!

Blog reflection

Blogging this semester has helped me to grow as a future teacher. I have learned the true importance of self reflection by doing this. Blogging strongly connects to standard 5 of the NCPTS which is "Teachers reflect on their practice." Reflection is powerful and purposeful to teaching. After reflecting upon something, you know what you as the teacher could've done differently in a lesson, what worked well in a lesson, and what didn't work at all in a lesson. Reflection helps me as a teacher and student to grow as a professional. Throughout the semester, blogging helped me to grow because once I had completed my assignments for the week, I would have the chance to go back and analyze them and talk about how I did. This showed me that there is always room for growth when learning. I will use reflection as a key aspect in my classroom. My students will be required to reflect on their assignments so as a teacher, I can understand their thoughts and as a student, they can grow in that subject area by reflecting. In my future classes at Gardner-Webb and in my future classroom as a teacher, reflection will be utilized as much as possible. I believe that reflection has helped me to learn from my mistakes and build upon my learning. 

Week 14

Week 13 was really fun at Washington Elementary! When we got there in the morning, our class was in the gym for a musical they were having that night! When the kids all went back to class, a little girls nose started bleeding and I got to help her stop bleeding and I realized that being a teacher is more than just teaching the kids. You are also a doctor, mother, dentist, and much more! After all of the commotion, the kids were working on a math activity where they were trying to make animal figures out of shapes like big squares, small squares, some different sized triangles and a parallelogram. Everyone got to create something different and then create a habitat for their animal to be in! I love seeing hands on, fun activities in the classroom that benefit the children's learning on a particular topic. Then, for the rest of the day we broke off in groups and did cute Easter crafts with the kids since they were going on spring break. I was in charge of the "create an Easter egg" station along with making carrots out of a plastic bag and orange Reese's pieces. I love to be able to watch kids creative juices flowing and see how excited they get about being able to be creative. For my outside research, even though I am in 311, I have been more heavily focusing on ways to integrate arts into my lesson plans! This goes along with standard 4 of the NCPTS which is "teachers facilitate learning in their classrooms" I think that integrating arts into your lesson plans is an efficient way to facilitate learning to your students. Although it is Easter break, the hard work doesn't stop! However, we are less than a month away from summer break! Week 14 was very busy and informative. We did not go to Washington this week, we did have class and we were able to work on our units as well as things going along with the Katie Kath event and the science night coming up. I think my hard work this week falls into the "Teachers lead in their classroom" standard of the NCPTS because I am demonstrating leadership by helping out with all of these educational events and it is expanding my knowledge so that way I can effectively teach my students.

Week 12

Week 12 was a very busy week for me as I was in Daytona beach, Florida competing at cheerleading nationals with the Gardner-Webb Cheer team. However, the wi-fi at the hotel was terrible and I could not complete any online work. I started on my traditional lesson plan and I am preparing for teaching my clinical lesson plan as well. I am very excited to see what the next few weeks of school left hold. We only have two more times at Washington for the semester which is sad but exciting at the same time because that means it is almost summer! For my traditional lesson plan, I have been really practicing my integration skills and I get super excited when I find a way to integrate another subject into my lesson plans. This connects to a part of standard 3, or teachers know the content they teach. Teachers recognize the interconnectedness of content areas/disciplines. I have been able to find a way to integrate social studies, arts, language arts, science, and math in some of my lessons and by doing that I have achieved the ability to recognize how all of the content areas connect. I will use integration in my future classroom with every lesson that I teach so that my students will be skilled in all areas and they too can recognize the interconnectedness of the content areas.

Week 11

This week was a very busy work week for me and my classmates! This week at Washington in the morning, I was having one on one with a child who has a very small attention span and it was very difficult to make him focus, I tried my best to make the math games we played meaningful to real life in order to grasp his attention. After lunch, I was with three students playing a board game that built upon their spelling skills and word recognition. One student was clearly more advanced than the others and was trying to help the other kids playing the game. For my outside research, I have been finding technology resources every week for my resource kit that I can take with me to my future classroom. I have been doing a lot of work for ssed307 this week on perfecting my flipped lesson plan! I also have been doing work for my fine arts integration clinical lesson plan and that has been a great learning experience for me to learn to integrate multiple subjects into one lesson for my students. Being able to connect lessons and integrate multiple subjects into one lesson is important for me as a teacher. This connects standard 4 of the NCPTS which is facilitating learning to your students and I believe that integration is definitely one way to facilitate learning in my classroom. I will use integration in my future classroom with every lesson that I teach. It allows for the students to expand on their knowledge of multiple subjects.

Week 10

Week ten has been a struggle with trying to get back in the swing of things after spring break but it has been a great week! On Monday at Washington, Michaela and I’s teacher was absent, so there was a substitute teacher in the room. Before the teacher started her instruction, another teacher from Washington came in the classroom to have a “class meeting” and the students sat in the floor with her and they talked about teamwork and how they as the “fourth grade” can work together and be there for each other. I thought this was beneficial for me to see because school isn’t just about the curriculum you learn including math, science, social studies, language arts, etc. School is very important in developing social skills and character traits that the students will be able to take with them through life and in their future careers. On Tuesday at Washington, Gardner Webb’s school of education gave the teachers a duty-free lunch and it was really cool to interact with some of the students and to allow their teachers to have a break and eat some yummy tacos! After the duty-free lunch, we went to our normal classrooms and helped as usual. I was able to do some one on one time with three students for language arts instruction. I was sad we didn’t get to spend as much time as usual with our classrooms but the duty-free lunch was much needed for those teachers! In class this week, we broke off into groups and each had a different task from edTPA. Savanna and I had task 3 and we had to find the top ten most important things we need to know. I learned a lot in class today, although we only talked about task one and task two. For my outside learning and research, I have been reading over the edTPA handbook and making sure I know what everything means so that way I can be prepared when I start writing my lesson plans. The standard that connects to this weeks learning is standard four which is facilitate learning for their students. This is a direct connection to standard four because by using edTPA, I will be able to differentiate for my students, and know how each student learns so that way I can teach them effectively. I will use the “class meeting” in my future classroom because I think knowing how to treat others and work together is very important for my students to know. Also, edTPA has taught me that planning, teaching, and assessing are very important in order for my students to learn effectively, and for me as a teacher to teach and assess effectively.

Week 9

Week 9 was a very fast, busy week! On Tuesday at WES, I worked one on one with a little boy and he had a serious issue concentrating. This helped me to learn and grow as a future teacher because I know all of my students are not going to be focused all the time while I am teaching. I had to practice some management skills and tell him he would have to remove a star if I call him down one more time. Even though it was difficult to get through, we finished our math cards and he knew exactly what he was doing, he just struggled paying attention. That was a great learning experience for me as a future classroom teacher. Outside of class this week, I did some additional research for my PDP which is all about the 4 C's & 21st century skills in the classroom. I found some websites that really explain what those are and how to implement them in your classroom. My PDP research connects to standard 4 of the NCPTS because I am learning how to facilitate learning in my classroom by using technology and other means to make sure my students are learning everything they need to know. I would connect all of these in my future classroom by following the research I've done for the four C's and 21st century skills. Also, I will remember everything I have learned in my clinical such as how to accommodate to a student who has trouble paying attention!

Week 8

Week 8 was fun! This week at Washington, Caroline, Megan, and I got to teach an Arts integration lesson to our classroom and it was fun! It was Dr. Seuss week so we chose to read “One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish” then followed up with a math worksheet for them to complete. Then, we talked about the kind of habitat that fish live in and it was interesting to hear what all the children said. One child said “a dentist office” so that was funny. Then we created a fish bowl out of a paper plate to integrate the arts. I think the class really enjoyed doing this lesson! Our Social Studies class was online this week and we had breakout groups to make a visual for SAMR, I think this helped a lot for me continuing writing my unit plan in this class because I learned what Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition is and how to implement these areas into my unit plan. I have been researching some things for my PDP conference on Monday and finishing up what I want to have done before the meeting. I have learned a lot and found some great resources through doing this. Me researching things and finding resources is a direct correlation to standard four D of the NCPTS which is facilitate learning by using technology in your classroom. Week 8 seemed a little less busy than the other weeks for some reason, I know that week 9 is very important and will be a busy week but I look forward to conquering it with my classmates!

Week 7

This week was a great learning week for me and my classmates! On Monday at WES, I got to help a student research the president of his choice and help him start writing a report on his chosen president. I thought this was a teachable moment because research skills are very important to develop in the elementary years so that way the students are skilled in this area before getting into middle school and high school. On Tuesday at WES, I was able to work one on one with some students again during math and language arts instruction. I love being able to see the excitement on the kids faces when they get something right. They always look to me for reassurance when they finish the activity to see if they got it right and its so exciting to me how excited they are to learn! Today we had the digital learning day and I got some really great resources for teaching and for planning instruction. I am so excited to start implementing these in my classroom. In social studies methods today we talked about our virtual museum requirements and we learned how to use google cardboard and google street view. I feel like I am a new graduate of a technology program because I am skilled in google street view. All of these technology resources are a part of standard four d of the NCPTS which is to facilitate learning by using technology in the classroom and these resources will help me as a teacher to facilitate learning. In my future classroom, I will try my best to use technology resources every single day to facilitate learning and to help my students gain a deeper understanding of topics we discuss in class. Outside of class time, I have been looking into the NCPTS as well as the conceptual framework to gain a better understanding of how to implement these into my future classroom! I hope everyone's week was as beneficial as mine was when it comes to technology resources! I can't wait to read everyone's responses!

Week 6

Week 6 was an exciting learning week for me. On Monday at Washington, Mrs. Greene gave Michaela and I an opportunity to create a hook for her students who are about to begin reading "The Mystery Of Blackbeard the Pirate." We are both very excited for this opportunity and I cannot wait to see what I learn by doing this. On Monday at Union Elementary, I was able to walk around the classroom while the students popcorn read and then helped them while they worked on a packet about the book they are reading about poetry. On Tuesday at Washington, Mrs. Starr allowed our group to work one on one with the struggling students again, this time with these students is beneficial to me because I am able to differentiate according to their needs. The child I was working with mastered the math game I used so I had to make it more difficult for him and this was very effective for me to practice differentiation. Also on Tuesday, Mrs. Starr gave me, Caroline, and Megan the opportunity to teach a lesson incorporating a Dr. Seuss book! We are so excited for this lesson plan and can't wait to see what we will learn. My outside learning and research was beneficial this week, I have been researching technology resources for the Technology day next week and I found a great resource for lesson plans and it has the lesson plan, the standards, how to differentiate, independent practice, teacher instruction and all kinds of other resources! This research on technology relates to standard 4 of the NCPTS which is the teacher facilitates learning. More specifically, standard 4d which is "teachers integrate and utilize technology in their instruction." In class on Thursday, we worked on our Unit plans, more specifically, our performance tasks. We had a great discussion on the difference between performance tasks and learning experiences and now I understand them both much better. All of my learning this week will help me in my future classroom because I have been getting a lot of hands- on experience at my schools and that is really beneficial for me as a future teacher. My technology research will most definitely help me in my future classroom because I will have all types of resources to use in order to assist my lessons. Overall, this week has been an extreme learning experience for me and I am excited to see what the rest of the semester has in store!

Week 5

This has been an awesome week so far! We started our partnership with Washington and I am so excited for all of the things I'm going to learn throughout my experience. I got to do one on one time with some of the first graders and I learned a lot just doing that so I know this semester has great things in store! Our Today's Learner projects are due Monday and Lindsey, Caroline, and I have been working on that together and we have learned so much about how kids today learn. In class, we had a great discussion about performance tasks and Dr. Parker showed us this website called performance assessment resource bank and I found a great one for my Unit! Dr. Parker and the class helped Michaela with her performance task and I thought it was really cool to see how you go through the process of writing a performance task matching it up with the GRASPS acronym. This will be important for my future classroom because I will be using performance tasks in all of my lesson plans. This ties in with standard 1 of the NCPTS which is "Teachers demonstrate leadership" I believe that the teacher is being a leader while writing performance tasks in the classroom. Overall, this week was a huge learning experience for me and I am excited to apply everything I am learning into my life as a Teacher.

Week 4

Week four was very informational and exciting for me! The PDP conferences really helped me to grow and learn how to make my goals S.M.A.R.T. In class on Tuesday, we looked at an awesome unit about Cultures! I have been looking at her unit and taking notes on what she did well and trying to apply them to my unit. I have been working a lot this week with Savanna on January's global citizenship project as well as the app evaluation. Meeting with her is beneficial for me because not only do we get our projects done, we help each other with our units. Today in 311, we were gearing up for Washington starting on Monday and I am really excited to start our partnership because I can't wait to learn from these teachers and children throughout the course of the semester! Today in class, we talked about our Units and I finalized my PDP. I got some feedback from Savanna that helped me with my unit. The NCPTS for this week would be standard #5 because I am learning how to assess myself as a teacher. Overall, this was a great week for me, I know that next week will be even better when we start going to Washington!

Week 3

In week three things are really starting to pick up in my classes. I feel like I am really growing in all areas on my road to becoming a teacher. Life is really starting to teach me that things do not always go as planned but I am slowly learning how to just keep moving on and stay focused on my main goal. My main goal is to graduate in the spring of 2018 from Gardner-Webb with my degree in elementary education. Tuesday for class we traveled to Washington Elementary and met the teachers and toured the school, I had a great time and I am super pumped to be able to spend the semester helping out such a great group of teachers at a great school. Thursdays class we spent majority of the time talking about how to make generalizations between two concepts. This discussion really helped me to gain a deeper understanding of what a generalization is. We also discussed SMART goals and Lindsey started out with her goal and by the end of the discussion she had a completely different goal and I learned a lot while talking through the goals and I am excited to begin my personal development plan. We touched on edTPA at the end of class just a little bit and the biggest thing that stuck out to me was when Dr. Parker used Mallory, Colleen, and Megan and said edTPA wants to know how you helped the AIG student to learn, how you helped the "bubble" student to rise above the bubble, and how you helped the struggling student to rise up. NCTCS states that as a teacher I need to create a respectful environment for my students to learn and I believe edTPA has a direct correlation to that. Overall, week three was a success for me even after a few bumps in the road, I am still growing as a future teacher and I cannot be any more excited.

Week 2

This week I did a lot of learning about Concepts vs Topics. I learned that concepts are the big ideas of things and topics are small pieces within the concept. Outside of class while completing my assignments for week two I also learned how to make a voice over for my info-graphics and top tweets of the week. I will connect what I have learned in week two into my classroom by using the big ideas of things instead of small facts. Also, I will incorporate my new knowledge of technology into my future classroom. I will demonstrate leadership in my classroom because I am personally responsible for my students success on things such as concepts. I will provide a safe environment for all of my students by incorporating different things for all learning styles. I will radiate knowledge about each topic I teach by knowing the over arching concept of the facts. As a teacher, facilitating knowledge will be a part of my daily classroom routine by me knowing how to use technology and me knowing the difference between concepts and topics. I will reflect on my practice by recording how well my students absorbed what I had taught them for the day.

Welcome To Spring 2017

Today I began my Tuesday/ Thursday classes for the Spring 2017 semester. I am excited and nervous at the same time because in a year I will hopefully be student teaching. It feels as if I just started going to Gardner- Webb. Today was overwhelming with all of the information that I received but I am excited to continue on my path to becoming an elementary school teacher. In order to stay organized for this course, I have written all of the due dates from the course calendar in my personal planner so I can keep up with due dates.
Today I learned that Social Studies education is very important to teach your students. It is not something you just teach for a test. It is crucial to teach social studies for your students to become proper citizens in their community. I did not realize just how important social studies education was until I read the article. I am excited to learn more about Social Studies and how to teach it to my future students.