Exhausting but SO Rewarding...

Week four is quickly coming to a close… which means my students are completing week 3! I’ve been very thankful to be in the classroom with them everyday this year so far except one. It’s been so great to see them grow on a daily basis. This week I was most proud of being able to help a few students with their addition and watch the light bulb go off in their head. That is a very satisfying moment when a student finally understands after working and working with that student. This week my struggle came with a wave exhaustion. Being in the school every day has been very rewarding and very tiring. However, lots of water and some extra sleep are easy solutions for that struggle. Something that brought me a lot of satisfaction this week was attending the PTO open house night at my school, the students were so excited to show their students what they had been learning and creating in the classroom!

Next week, I have the chance to sit in on a meeting where the 4th and 5th grade teachers will be deciding on flexible reading groups, where students will be switching classrooms during guided reading time. I’ve observed this type of grouping in a previous clinical experience in lower grades classroom, but I’m very interested to see it in action in 4th and 5th grade. This will also be very valuable to take part in this process because next semester when I begin teaching I will be able to transition in smoothly. This week in class we continued meeting about our science fair project and began discussing our next steps for the water cycle project.

This week’s outside learning came during this week’s PLT meeting. I was walked through powerschool, the system my school uses for a grade book and attendance. The lead teacher walked us through how to set up grading scales, how to add assignments, and so much more. This was very beneficial because all of the district I am in uses this system so I will be better prepared to utilize this system in my future classroom.

My first tweet from this week is about inquiry based learning. It's described here as having 4 pillars as part of it's foundation. The pillars are passions, goals, curiosity, and new challenges. These are four great ways to get your students about learning and engage them in inquiry-based learning.

My next tweet is about changing the mindset from "They didn't learn it" to "I didn't teach it well". This is important mindset change because without it we don't recognize the need for self reflection and changing things up. No student is the same and thus will require different teaching methods.

My last tweet is about a few formative assessment ideas to use for student reflection. One of my favorites included is actually the one that allows the student to make the choice for what fits them best. As I just mentioned every student is unique and has there own unique way of showing off their knowledge.

The current event I learned about this week is the spinach leaf that was transformed into beating human heart tissue (yes, you read that right)! I actually first heard about it while one of my student''s was on Dogo news reading about it. This would be perfect to show to students about real life science and get them engaged in inquiry based learning. 

This week was my week to unpack NCTCS 1A, 1B, and 1C so I learned a lot. It was very informative to go through and dissect these standards to find true meaning and intent behind it. For example pulling out key words and concepts was beneficial to grasp the full meaning of the standard. I look forward to seeing everyone else's NCTCS unpacked to get a more in depth knowledge about all of the standards!