Blog Entry #3



My cooperative teacher, Mrs.Porritt, offered the students a choice as they began their Math activity.

She explained to them that the project would take approximately 45 minutes.

She explained that through rounding they would solve puzzles to help them figure out a mystery.

She gave them the choice of solving the mystery on their own, with one partner, or with a larger group.

She emphasized that the choice was theirs to decide if they wanted to work in a group and if they did how big it would be.

I was interested to see that there were two large groups, many groups of three, and a few groups of two,

and three students that chose to work alone. As I walked around observing they all had a different experience solving the mystery.

I could tell the choices made them feel some control over the outcome of the activity. 


Mrs. Porritt establishes a positive relationship with each student by taking a moment each day to connect with them.

As the students came into the classroom in the morning I noticed she took a moment with each of them.

She looked them in the eye and asked them something about what was happening in their lives.

She was very aware of different things happening with the student.

She asked one boy how building their new house was going and how he felt about moving.

She asked another student how her mother was doing after having a new baby.

The students had a clear routine as they trickled in by returning homework papers to their bins and doing their class jobs.

This gave her the freedom to connect with each student and set the day on a caring tone.

After the bell rang they had a morning meeting much like the one in the sample video.

The students were able to share with each other at that point.

The connections made with both their teacher and their classmates at the beginning of the day definitely had an

impact on the positivity in the room throughout the rest of the day. 


There were many clear routines in Mrs. Porritt's classroom. When the students arrived for the day they all did their class jobs.

There was then a morning meeting where the daily schedule was gone over.

The day I was there was a late start due to below-zero temperatures.

I noticed a visible relaxation among the students after the schedule was set.

Their schedule had been shifted and they needed reassurance of how the day would go.

There were gentle sounds played at each subject transition.

The students knew when the sound played they needed to return their materials to their desks and

retrieve what they needed for the next subject on the schedule.

I saw that having the security and consistency of these routines made it so fewer questions were asked.

The students were comforted by knowing what to expect and could then focus on the material that they were learning. 


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Service Learning

I will be doing my service learning hours at Lewiston Elementary in Lewiston, Utah. Lewiston is a rural farming town. The school is surrounded by fields and agricultural land. I attended this elementary school forty years ago. The school has scored an 8/10 on the great school's chart. The students are making more academic progress than last year. They are also having strong progress with test scores and are well above the state average. The gender split is nearly even with 51% female and 49% male. The student-per-teacher ratio is 19:1 which is 3 students lower than the Utah state average of 22:1. 84% of the teaching staff have three or more years of teaching experience. The teaching staff is wonderful and is so attentive to their students. The administration is very engaged in introducing new and innovative ways to help students learn and have a positive self-image. The school has started many fun programs to encourage the students to read and learn new things.  I have learned that...
Read more

Blog Entry #7

It has been very eye-opening to learn about the standards used in the Utah education system. I have had two children go through the system and I had no idea about many of the things I learned in this module.  I see evidence of the standards addressed daily in Mrs. Porritt's class. Reading, Math, and Science are all completed in the morning when the students are fresh and ready to learn. Reading Math and Science are covered every day for a longer amount of time than any other subject. Spelling seems to be worked on every other day. Mrs. Porritt makes sure that there is ample time for questions and multiple activities to make sure that the concepts are sinking in and are taught in many ways to help different learning styles. Reading, Math, and Science seem to take priority over other subjects. Art, Social Studies and computers are also taught but not daily. I can’t see anything that is completely not being addressed but it seems that Art and Social Studies are taught much less than t...
Read more

Blog Entry #6

The areas of diversity that I see in the classroom where I am doing my service learning are linguistic diversity and special needs diversity.  I see Mrs. Porritt deal with many students that speak Spanish exclusively at home. She has her classroom library grouped into English and Spanish books. This creates the ability for her students to read their books at home with their parents. After the instruction is given to the class she will put the students to work and then meet with her Spanish-speaking students in a small group. She then gives them very simplified instructions in English and answers any questions that they have before they proceed with the assignment or activity.   The students with special needs also receive differentiating instruction. She has created a daily schedule that runs as much the same as possible. She told me that this helps her students with anxiety and emotional issues to feel secure. She has printed signage all over the classroom explaining the...
Read more