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Blog Post #9

Throughout this semester of college, this course has been my favorite one I have taken. I have enjoyed learning and experiencing all of the aspects involved in being a teacher. After completing this course and my service learning placement, I have decided that I do want to become a teacher. I have decided that even though teaching is really hard work I want to pursue it. Some of the things that helped me decide that I want to pursue teaching are the curriculum you get to teach. and the relationships you build with students. While I was completing all of the online assignments and activities in this course, I learned a lot about what you get the opportunity to teach as a teacher. Doing the activity where we researched the standards in Utah for teaching helped me get to see how many different areas you get to teach as an elementary school teacher. I liked that I would get to teach my students math and science, but also we would get to explore social studies and literature together. I ...
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Blog Post #8

I think that I have made a lot of connections between my service-learning placement and the topics that we are learning in class. As I am reflecting on my experiences, I can see how the lessons in this course are actually applicable to a classroom. I think that I have been able to articulate my own learning pretty well. I think that as I have progressed through this course my articulation has continued to improve. I do notice myself making more connections. Now when I am observing the classroom, I find myself making connections to the content. I see the activities that my teachers choose to use and I can pick out the core standards they are fulfilling. I also see how my teachers use the main techniques we have learned about to make lessons interesting. I see growth from my first blog post in the way I describe what I am seeing in the classroom. It is no longer surface level and my posts go deeper into the way the teachers actually teach. I also see growth in how I ...
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Blog Post #7

I have seen evidence of standards being addressed in both my 6th grade and Kindergarten service learning placement classes. In my 6th grade class, I have seen my service learning teacher do certain science activities to fulfill sixth-grade science standards. For example, my service learning teacher had the students each research an animal and talk about where it lives, its food chain, etc. This fulfills the sixth-grade science standard of stability and change in ecosystems. The standards that I see taught to the most are probably math standards. These standards are seen in the school as some of the most important ones. The math book that the sixth-grade teachers follow also helps to ensure every one of the standards is taught. In my kindergarten service learning placement class, I also see how the teacher teaches the standards to students. Standards for kindergarten are pretty different than other classes. They are more based on developing certain sk...
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Blog Entry #6

The diversity that I see the most in my service learning placement classrooms, is diversity in academic abilities. I get to see how both of my teachers help gifted students and students who are struggling. My 6th-grade placement teacher addresses these concerns by doing something called "face in the hole". She will have students do a problem on a whiteboard and then go over the problem on the board. After she has gone over the problem, she will say "face in the hole" and the students will all put their faces down on their desks. Then she will tell them to hold up a 3 if they got the answer correct, a two if they got it right up to a certain point, or a one if they did not understand how to do the problem at all. This system allows the teacher to see who is struggling with that area and focus on them. It also allows the aide in the classroom to be able to know who they should go help. This is just one strategy that this teacher uses to help acknowledge academic diver...
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Blog Entry #5

In my service learning placement, I have seen the importance of the Brown vs. Board decision. Brown vs. Board was a court case that decided that there should be no segregation in schools. I have a student who is African-American in my service learning placement class. It is crazy to think that a little over 60 years ago, she would not be able to be in this class. I love walking around the school and seeing all of the different ethnicities that the students are. The coolest thing that I see in class regarding students of different ethnicities, is how none of the students care about it. They do not see each other by the color of their skin but rather by their personality and the way they act. This is in part caused by the fact that student of different ethnicities have the opportunity to interact in schools, unlike the past. The diversity helps the class to be able to grow and helps to teach the students about how to deal with differences. I have also seen evidence of how the ...
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Blog Entry #4

The two service-learning teachers that I am with have shown me how to get students engaged in learning in many different ways. To start, my 6th-grade placement teacher has helped engage students by using collaboration and movement techniques. I am in her class when she is teaching math, which in general is not a very engaging subject for many kids. She uses collaboration to help fight this. This collaboration is mostly done by allowing students to work together on homework sheets. They get to work with their friends and discuss the assignment. I have seen many students learn from their partners and both students benefit from this. My 6th-grade service learning teacher has also shown movement in her classroom. Every week she picks one of the students to be the class "personal trainer". The personal trainer's job is to pick exercises that will get the class awake and energized. If she notices students are looking tired during the lesson, the personal trainer will come up an...
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Blog Entry #3

My 6th-grade service placement teacher establishes a positive classroom by acknowledging students achievements. If a student has done really well on something or has shown progress, she asks the class to give a round of applause for that student. This is very meaningful and uplifting for the student, and it does not distract from the learning. She also asks the class to do this after a student has shared something that was hard for them, why they got a problem wrong, etc. This helps the students to recognize that failure is not a bad thing, but rather is a step in the learning process. My cooperative teacher has also offered the students many choices. One of the choices she gives them is if they want to stay in and work on assignments during recess, or if they would rather work on assignments during fun Friday. This allows students to understand that they have a choice in their learning. They still, of course, have to finish the assignment but they get to choose when it happens. She ha...
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