Photo off of Amazon.com of the desk band ordered for two of my students. This assistive technology has improved the focus of my students and has signifcantly diminished the distractions to other students during instruction.
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I've been presented with a couple of professional development opportunities this semester, but one that stuck out to me was one that my school held on reader engagement. Our learning design coach hosted the PD and it was all about how to screen for reader engagement, how to track it, and how to get students excited about reading. We also learned about the reading leveling system this school uses and how to see trends in student data when it comes to reading level and engagement. This PD was important to me because I want my students to be excited about reading, and if they aren't, I want to help them get excited. One of the first steps is finding what interests them. I also learned that engagement screeners can be given periodically, not just at the beginning of the year. After our meeting, the learning design coach sent us links to different screener assessments we can use on our students.
During my final internship, collaboration in all aspects has been an important factor in my success. Two areas where collaboration has been beneficial to me this semester was in the home and at school. Collaboration with parents is important to student success and collaboration within the school is important when planning for student instruction. Collaboration with parentsCollaborating with parents is extremely important in the success of students. If parents and teachers can work together, students will thrive. I have collaborated with parents in many ways this semester. The very first thing I did when I started my final internship was send home a letter to parents introducing myself and opening the door for openness and communication with them. I wanted parents to know that my goal is their students’ success. In addition to sending the letter home, I have used a technology application called Class Dojo. Class Dojo is an app that allows teachers to communicate with parents instantly. You create a class and invite parents to join. You can give students points in the app for good behavior, add to a class story, or send messages home to parents for reminders. One thing I never do though, is I never send any negative messages to parents through the app. With technology, also comes miscommunication and I would never want any problems in that aspect. If I need to talk to parent about a behavior issue, I make sure to always call parents or address them at conferences. I like to send as many positive notes home as possible. When students get to pick out of the treasure box for good behavior, I always alert parents. I also send positive notes home for effort, test scores, or any other celebration. One student was very proud of a project they made in class and asked me if I could take a picture and send it to their parent. I love how easy it is to communicate with parents at this point and time and I view it as a positive way to encourage student success. COLLABORATION WITH SCHOOLCollaborating within the school has proven to be extremely important in my professional growth this semester. I would not have learned as much this semester if it hadn’t been for the collaboration with my grade level team, as well as administration. At the grade level, we collaborate as a team on a daily basis. We are constantly bouncing ideas off of each other for lesson planning. In my grade, we have four final interns. We have constantly collaborated to plan engaging lessons for students. Once we come up with ideas and start to finalize plans, we then take those plans to our team to make sure our lessons are meaningful. We have a climate of openness and respect toward one another and we have learned how to work really well together. We meet together in person, as well as communicate electronically. In addition to team planning, we also attend PLC meetings once a week. At these PLC meetings, administration and our learning design coach are present to help us use data that we have collected to plan for the future. One day this semester, we had a whole planning day dedicated to analyzing third grade data to brainstorm next steps in planning intervention groups for struggling students. At this planning day we used multiple reading data resources, like IRLA data and a mock FSA test. We also analyzed quarterly check data in both math and reading.
A conversation between myself and a parent after the math FSA. This student showed a tremendous amount of effort on the test and her assessment scores will reflect that.
Pictures of students' brag boards. Students track their progress with multiplication tables, reading counts points, and books read. Reading counts wall where students track their points.
Student work of a social studies research project during Black History Month. Students were required to do research on a person, complete a graphic organizer, write a rough draft, and ultimately a final report on their person.
Students using their knowledge of fractions to compare them with the fractions of their peers. Students are using multiple strategies (benchmark strategies, division, and drawing models) to solve. Student work of modeling equivalent fractions. Students use this knowledge to apply it in multiple ways during math.
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