6. Reflection, Self-Evaluation, & Professional Development (LO 4.2 & 4.

3)(APS 3, 10) Whole Class: The atmosphere for the classroom was very positive for the students. I tried to keep everything laid back but serious, and made sure that all of the students felt like they were a part of everything. I feel that I impacted them in a positive way for the lesson because all of the students were engaged in the lesson and even clapped at the end when the butterfly came out of its cocoon. The students were very well behaved for the lesson, and very attentive to everything. There were a few times that some of the students would get a little talkative and I should have addressed that more than I did. But I felt that they were not affecting their own or anybody elses learning so I did not think it to be important to take the time out of the lesson and distract everyone by calling out the students. I think that one of the things that I would have done different during the lesson was letting more students come up and act out the butterflys life cycle. I know that all of the students were wanting to come up there, and I think that if I had allowed more than one group come up there, the acting out would have gotten better and more dramatic and it would have stuck with all of the students better. Three Individual Students: Jeremiah (High): He was the top student in the class and for all of my lessons he was at the top for my assessments. He is a bright student who is very persistent in all of his work. He always tries his best for everything that he does and always wants to answer all of the questions. For one of my lessons he was one of the two students who already knew who Rosa Parks was. Also his mother was the one of the two that would come in and volunteer in the classroom and I know that she spends a lot of time working with him on his school work. I think that the objective that

I had in my lesson was an easy objective for him because he was the only one who could tell me what a life cycle was. Deivion (Low): Deivion was the lowest student in my class and was ranked at the bottom for all of the lessons. Deivion is more of a disruptive student who is more worried about having fun than listening to lessons. Every day he gets one or more cards put in his pocket because of bad behavior. He has no self confidence and always says he cant do something. He is the only student in the class that still does not know all of his letters, but by the end of my time he was only missing four letters, so there was progress being made. He lives at home with just his mother and brother and his brother also has a lot of behavioral issues. During this lesson Deiovion was absent so I have no assessments for him. But for other lessons he would only put in a little bit of effort except for the last lesson, doing the egg experiment he done really well with that and done great with participating and behaving. I felt like I had created a very good relationship with Deivion by the end because I would work with him one on one every day that I was there. I got the chance to really get to know him and was able to take the time and be patient with him on things and not try to hurry him through because I had 25 other students depending on my too. So Deivion and I had a very good relationship with each other, so I think that that help with his behavior during my lessons. Ethan (Average): Ethan was my average student in my class. Ethan is a bright boy who trys on all of his work, but he often gets distracted because of talking to his friends. During my lesson he would raise his hand occasionally to answer questions, but for the most part was quiet. He did volunteer to come up and be the caterpillar during the lesson and seemed to enjoy that part. My objectives that I had for Ethan was developmentally appropriate for him, because it was not to difficult but not too easy either. He was able to recall when asked what a life cycle was and able

to put the butterflys life cycle in order. I think that Ethan is successful in what he does because he is a bright boy who does the work that is required, but he doesnt put any extra effort into anything. I think that I could have helped him out more by engaging him more in the activities that we done and spending more one on one time with him. I think one of the other reasons that Ethan was successful, was because he came from a home with both parents and siblings and they are supportive and care about what goes on in the classroom. Modifications: One of the things that I had to modify for this lesson was pointing out the bolded words in the text. On the first page I had the students look at the text and tell me what they saw different about it. None of the students were able to see it and when I told them that it was bolded and why, no one seemed to really understand what I was saying. After that page I stopped pointing out the bolded words in the text and just asked them questions about it. They never brought it up again that the words were bolded and they still learned about the life cycle of a butterfly. I thought that doing this would help the students because not only would they learn something new about text, but they could look at the words and it would better help them to memorize them. But it was obvious that it was not necessary to do this because they all were able to tell me the life cycle of a butterfly. Reflection on additional 4 lessons: There was not a certain type of instructional design that I had for each of my lessons. We did different things for each one. The only thing that was always the same was we always either started on done the entire lesson at the carpet. For the first lesson the students were up moving around, and it got a little crazy because they are not used to doing that but they done ok with it. I

kept all of them different because I didnt want the students to have to stay in one place for all of my lessons every time. I would always give the students a chance to interact with each other and have small discussions. For several of my lesson I had either all of some of the students come up and take in front of the class. I think that for the most part the students done very well with all of my lessons. I like that I gave them a chance to interact with each other and discuss things with each other. I know that for my future lessons I will continue to do this. One thing that I defiantly learned from my first lesson to my last was that you have to establish your rules and enforce them, and make sure that you give clear instructions on what is expected of them. They became very confused with my first lesson when they were moving around to the different tables, but the last lesson that did when they were moving around, I made the expectations and instructions clear and things went a whole lot smoother. One thing that I felt as if I did good was using different methods of learning. We had small group, whole group, they were able to discuss with a partner they were able to explain their decision to the class, and they were able to come up and make a prediction in front of the class. So I feel like between the five lessons there were a variety of methods used. All of the students were actively involved in all of the lessons except lesson two, on Rosa Parks. I feel like that was defiantly my worst lesson because it had the least amount of interaction with me and each other. But other than that one lesson everyone else was actively involved in the lessons. For two of the different lessons the students clapped and got really excited over the butterfly coming out of the cocoon, and me demonstrating how its easier for an egg to spin if its boiled. They really enjoyed those two lessons and were into them very much. One thing that I could work on is the discipline during the lessons. During several of my lessons one of the students would disrupt to tell me that somebody was doing something that they were not suppose to be doing, but I would ignore them and say that it would be alright. But if I was the

teacher in that classroom I know that I would not be able to ignore things like that because the students would think that they could do things to each other all of the time and not get in trouble for it. Some of my lessons that I taught were in line with what they had been studying, but non of them went along with the students home works. But mostly because my lessons were in science and Social Studies and they only have math and English homework. The time that I had allotted for my lessons were not set, but I knew that I could not take more than 45 minutes with each lesson, so all of my lessons stayed under about 30 minutes. Reflection on possibilities for Professional Development: I think that one of the biggest professional developments that I had was learning how to work one on one with students. I feel like is a very important thing that I needed to learn how to do. I spent about thirty minutes each morning working with one of the students on his letters and there was a change from the first time that I helped him to the last time. I learned the students and I learned how to better keep up with what he knows and that you have to document everything so that you have evidence to go back and show people. Another thing was collaborating with the other teachers. I was able to attend the kindergarten meetings every time that I met and once had the opportunity to meet with the principle and reading specialist to talk about the students that were in RTI. I learned how you can get together with one another and do team teaching, and I was able to see the pros and cons to it. I learned many new things this semester and cannot wait to get in the classroom and be able to put them to use.