Tomorrow is the final day of my practicum!

Week 1 - EDEX 962/963

July 6, 2015

Thank you so much for always visiting our Happy Camper 2015 blog. I hope you enjoyed all the posts and pictures during the past 16 days. I met many highly intelligent students and teaching at the Summer Learning Place was very helpful! I taught reading, writing, math, and functional behavior to 3rd and 4th graders. Tomorrow is July 30th our final day in attendance. This experience was truly amazing. 

How do I feel about this course now that it is complete?  I am still excited that I had the opportunity to work with students here in the Upstate.  I believe we were able to improve knowledge for academic success. I am proud of the upcoming final performance where student will speak on stage as to why they want to go to college.  It's never too early to talk to students about their future in education.  

Let's check to see if I reached my 3 goals:  

1. Did I help students master reading, writing, math, and behavior goals. I was able to identify a reading benchmark for instructional or grade level, and tracked fluency progress all four weeks.  We worked on identifying sight words, sounding out words, and learning new vocabulary in the content.  

We worked on telling time, multiplication, measurement, calculations, and number operations using problems solving skills on grade level.  We focused heavily on the writing process and took time to work our way through each step based on the main idea and supporting details from extended passages or given prompts.  

Behavior was tracked using quantitative data with percentage ranges comparable to their peers with specific positive and negative points addressed in detail.  Behavior was noted for time and day, data logs were sent home to parents for immediate feedback.  

2.  Did I communication weekly with parents. I completed my students' reports with relevant detailed information related to all 3 academic achievement domains (math, writing, reading) and the 1 functional behavior domain.  All reports were sent home within the allotted time.  

3.  Have I successfully completed my summer Practicum? I have now completed all 3 observations where I taught a lesson based on a set day and time.  The lessons were thorough including objectives, standards, accommodations, early finisher activities, and differentiated instruction for total interaction.  A para-professional was included on the instruction to assist with further academic needs of the students.  Following the observed lesson, I reflected to tell what went well or what needed improvement.  

Great Experience!

Final lesson observation - coming soon

Candidate: 

Ms. April Smith                                                                                                                                                                            

Lesson Topic: 

Reading  - The Skeleton Key   

with comprehension integration

Essential Question's (EQ's):  

• How would you answer this literal or inferential question based on information presented from the text? 
•  What are some details that support the theme of today’s story?   

Date Taught:  

July 27th (10:45 - 11:15)

What went well: (TBD)

  

What did not go as planned:  (TBD)

How to change for subsequent lessons:  (TBD)

What information would assist me in if you were this child's teacher?

MJ - I would be interested to see the actual medical report related to the diagnosis as well as the most recent psych report.  I would be interested to see the MAP scores from Fall and Spring to compare (all performance goals from math, language usage, and reading). What current balanced literacy level is the student working on related to comprehension?

IK - I would be interested to see the report card grades for each quarter.  I would be interested to see a qualitative report from last year's teacher related to how student works and interacts compared to same age peers. Is student involved in any extra-curricular activities to assist with ability to follow steps within a given time related to the actual directions?  Are there any cues in place to assist student with follow verbal, and written directives which appears to be a weakness.

C.Mc. - I would like to see the current and previous IEP from the annual and/or reviews.  When was the last time there was a reevaluation review?  What are students MAP scores from Fall to Spring (for student growth in comparison with typical student growth), and what are the current academic achievement goals to work on towards mastery.  Are there any behavior plans in place related to interspective and intrapective intelligences?  Does the special education teacher use instructional and grade level content with the needed encouragement?  Is there a team building and relationship process in place (EX:  check in, check out)?

TJ - Is this student in challenge?  What are his district and statewide assessment scores (specifically percentile ranges, lexile ranges)?  Does student have social interactions comparable to grade level peers?  What are the ACT Aspire scores as this would have been the 1st year student took this type assessment, considering student's higher order ability. I would be curious to see how student  performed without the accommodations considering this assessment was timed.  What would students previous teacher(s) say about writing ability and were there opportunities to talk about the writing process prior to having to write?

2nd Lesson Plan - Writing

Candidate:  

April Smith                                                                                                                                                                       

Lesson Title:  Big Money

Standard: 

Does your writing support your point of view with reasons and information? 

Personalized: 

Which step of the writing process are you working on:  P-DREP (pre-write, draft, revise, edit, or publish)?

Topic:  

Pretend you had $100, but you weren't allowed to keep it for yourself. You have to give it away to a charity or person. Who would you give the money to? What would you want the person to do with it?

Date Taught:  July 22, 2015

What went well:  

The student were presented with a copy of a Big Money coloring sheet, a pre-made writing web with 5 circles total, and a Big Money “lined” worksheet to write out their list of sentences.

The students followed along & read the writing prompt written on the board with Ms. Smith then independently to hear & see the prompt more than once.

I used direct instruction to talk about what the writing prompt is meant, allowed for Q/A time.

As a group or individually we filled in the middle circle with the main idea then filled in the outer 4 circles with details.

I used visual & verbal assist with spelling.

The students were monitored, and the lesson was adapted to assure lesson objectives were met.

We re-read the prompt again to focus on all vocabulary words (vocabulary words were circled for emphasis).

The vocabulary words were:  imagine, hundred, dollars, keep, give, away, person, charity, who, and what (discussion for comprehension).

The students wrote in their writing journal one complete sentence for each word listed.

The students went from talking about the individual vocabulary words into writing a complete sentence for those words.

What did not go as planned:

I did not plan to stop prior to publishing.  We focused on task analysis using each step of the Writing Process.  We went from thinking, talking, listing words, to using those words in a sentence but was not able to further develop the list of sentences into an organized paragraph. 

How to change for subsequent lessons:

In the future I would allow a couple days for this lesson, that way we could go from editing (where we stopped today) into organizing using more voice, content development, conventions and organization.  I'd prefer for the students to begin this "publishing" section on a desktop computer then the lesson would not seem so boring.  Students do not like to write and would prefer more engaging alternatives.  

Click on the hyperlink for useful information!

Instructional Strategies; Working with a Paraprofessional

List 5 duties of a paraprofessional

1.      Works with individual students or small groups of students to reinforce learning of materials or skills initially introduced and outlined by certified staff.

2.      Assists the certified staff in devising special strategies for reinforcing learning materials and skills based on a sympathetic understanding of individual students, their needs, interests, and abilities.

3.      Monitors work, corrects papers, and supervises curriculum-based testing and makeup work as assigned by the certified staff.

4.      Serves as the chief source of information and help to any guest teacher assigned in the absence of the regular certified staff.

5.      Performs clerical, classroom maintenance, and instructional duties as assigned by the certified staff.

List 3 accommodations and 2 modifications that could be used in a classroom

Accommodations (Timing, scheduling, setting, presentation, response)

1.      Frequent break which is supervised

2.      Special grouping (small, individual)

3.      Special lined paper

Modifications

1.      Decrease the number of standards required to be learned during the school year.

2.      Change the general education assignment to eliminate some of the work.

Why sit down at your desk to calculate...

Students don't just perform, they also explain steps to solve when using numbers and operations.

Week two, we are writing!

Let's start at brainstorming, then draft words into sentences, next create a rough draft to edit.  Finally, I believe...publish time.