The Homeroom/ELA class has so many different personalities among the students.

Some
of the kids have anxious personalities but a lot of them are smart, funny, respectful, weird and
strange. But they are extremely nice and mean well. For example, one of the girls in the class
took the initiative to make a card for Mrs. Dowd. She even got the whole class to sign it for Mrs.
Dowd while she was out.
Some of the students have disabilities (ADHD and others) in the class. These students
sometimes loose focus but when you have these students fully engaged on a topic they are
excellent students. The challenge is how do you keep their attention for a 50-60 minute period.
The students are normally really well behaved, they do however need to be reminded not to do
things like, playing with the fidget spinners is not apart of the daily routine. Usually it is the
students who have the IEPs that need to be reminded to get ready or start doing something. At
some points however, I do need to redirect their attention because they do loose focus. They all
pay attention to me when I am teaching and they are very polite to me. They all respect me but
when I have to be serious with them, they listen to my instructions and directions. All the students
are well mannered. When students say words that I dont like, for example, shut up. I just dont
want the students to be nasty with one another. I want to create a positive and safe environment.
Only had to remind the students of that rule one time, after that I didnt hear it in my class.
Students interact well with each other. In the morning after the students put their things away,
they have side conversations with each other. The students are paired with each other. Desks are
lined up in twos and they go four back and then three over. Some of the pairings of students are
not that good. For instance, one of the girls who are in the advanced math class sits next to three
boys, all friends, and they talk non-stop. She always asks me to move whenever she cant take it
anymore. I have to keep reminding the boys to pay attention and remain focused. One of the boys
however does have a problem with remaining focused and gets distracted easily. He is the only
one that I normally have to keep reminding to stay focused and do his work. He is a smart kid but
is easily distracted.
During group work, they are focus and are paying attention and they love to share their
opinions. When they are working with a partner and they usually get work done faster because I
have them work on it with their neighbors. On the other hand when they work with their friends
then it takes longer because side conversations develop out of the conversations they are talking
about for the lesson plan.
There are many different types of learning styles in the classroom. I use visual audio
learning. Since there are students with IEPs in my class I need to differentiate my instruction all
the time because they learning needs to be reach to all types of learners. For example, for visual
learning I created a graphic organizer on the whiteboard when we did the The Night Sky
lesson.
For audio, letting the students watch videos with the subtitles and the Reading Wonders
program would read the story aloud and read the vocabulary words aloud too.
For interests, the students have lots of interests many of the girls in my homeroom class
participate in sports such as soccer, softball and ballet. Some of the girls sing and do instruments.
The boys talk about all types of sports. There are two kids that talk to me about Pokmon and
show me their Pokmon book. Another kid lets me help him work on his puzzles. Most of the
students are into these Scary Stories and there are three versions of the book going around the
class at a time and they love interacting with each other over a book.
The math class is very diverse when it comes to personalities and characteristics. Even
though they are in the same math class, there are different types of students who are in that class.
Majority of the class is very outgoing, they love to talk to me, and share their interests and ask
different questions about math. Some of the other students in that class are quiet and keep to
themselves but they talk to their neighbor. These students participate in the class but not as much
as the students who are more outgoing. In the math class, the students have a lot of energy, they
are wired and are always ready to get started. They dont do well with not understanding
information, but when that happens it is not just one or two people who dont understand it; its a
vast majority. They dont like to be wrong, and when they are they are extremely confused. Once
that happens, its a great opportunity to show how to solve that problem on the whiteboard. By
walking through the math problem one step at a time, and showing them visually how to
complete it, they understand it very quickly.
There are a lot of different personalities in this class, you have outgoing, smart, shy,
eager, engaged, rowdy, nice, loud, but overall they are a good group of kids.
Behavior in the classroom is always up to my standard. They have the same respect for me as
they do for Mrs. Dowd. Most of the days, their behavior was good, but when Mrs. Dowd was out
for a period of time and I was teaching during the whole morning. Their behavior was more
relaxed and calm because that was the type of environment that I like to have in my classroom.
Students need to fell comfortable and safe and when that happened they were very easy to teach.
Their behavior is not a severe problem because they are always focused and driven to get their
work done. There are however, 2 boys in the advanced math class who are labeled as the class
clowns. So they were always trying to get the class to laugh. At times it was appropriate but when
during the instruction of a lesson I didnt tolerate it. I had developed a good relationship with the
one boy during the year and when he would make a funny comment or joke about the lesson or
question, I would call him out on it and but not make him feel embarrassed but other students
would laugh when I call him out on it.
Peer Interaction, The students interacted with each other a lot throughout the period they
would talk all the time to the people around them. It wasnt really disruptive, it was more of side
conversation, asking and comparing answers and questions with one another. They love working
in groups because they would get to share and compare answers with each other and see who is
right and who is wrong. It was a competition to them, but it never got to a point where it got out
of hand. Usually they would have a debate about an answer, and then would come up to me and I
would settle the debate with the telling them the correct answer. I would give it to them but walk
through the question step by step hopefully along the way they would see where they went
wrong.
Most of the students who are in this class are visual learners. They need to see an
example on the board to visually grasp the concept that we are currently covering. When I have to
put an example on the board and walk through it step by step, you get those Ahhhh moments
because those visual learners understand the problem. Not all the students are visual learners,
some need 1 on 1 assistance, and so you need to read the problem aloud to them. Audio learners,
like the students who need 1 on 1 assistance, these students usually get the concept if they hear
you read it to them. They cant grasp it when they read it because they might not be able to
conceptual understand what they are reading.
Since the classes are in the same classroom, the set up is exactly the same. The
arrangement of desks are in twos, with four pairs of desks going towards the back of the class.
There are three throws with a total of 8 desks in each row. Some of them remain in their desks,
but others are assigned new seats.
Both classes share a lot of similar interests. For example, both classes asked what I am
interested in and once I told them what I like and like to do, the students liked to do the same
thing. For example, when outside with them at gym, I figured out that some of the students like to
play soccer. When they found out that I liked soccer, a bunch of students came together and we
started to play a soccer game.
The majority of the boys like, playing video games, sports (soccer, football, baseball,
basketball etc.) most of the girls are into sports as well (softball, soccer and ballet) but they do
like to talk about the sports that the boys are interested in because then the girls say something
like, thats my dads favorite team. They talk to me all the time about different things and it
always interests me to hear what they have to say next. Its really cool to see the similar interests
among the two classes, they all try to have the same interests as me because they want to talk to
me about the different topics and interests that we shared in common.
For this class I definitely have to pay more attention too because of the students who are
in the classroom. In the math class I can teach an instruction and then let the kids go because they
are able to. I need to keep the students attention the entire time. I need to be more engaging with
the kids due to the amount of students who have IEPs in the ELA class. Even though I have 6-7
kids in that class that are in the math class, it doesnt mean that they are advanced in ELA. The
range of learning ability in the class is far. In ELA I do a lot of partner interactions and whole
class discussion because the students need to be engaged. Some of the kids get distracted but that
due to them having a disability. Majority of my instructional methods are audio and visual
learning with some lectures. The students seem to like seeing the pictures or video showing the
different vocabulary words as well as the pictures in the short stories as well. When it came to the
audio part, I just need to be clear with my directions and reading the stories when it comes to the
audio part. When listening to the recording that plays the story or vocabulary words. As
vocabulary words are pronounced the students get to see the word as the hear it. The students
seem to grasp the information when I am teaching them because they all are paying attention for
majority of the time, but some get distracted because of their disability.
Instructional methods that I used in the class were pretty routine. I followed the same
routine that Mrs. Dowd had already established during the year. Presenting the information to the
students was pretty much a regular thing. I didnt really diverge from the normal plan because the
students were already in that routine and it was already set. We would go through the envision
program, the program they used for math instruction. It would have visual images showing
different examples of problems. For example, when describing fractions they would visually
show 5 parts of a whole for something dealing with fifths. So the program itself was a lot of
visual and audio learning because the program led the instruction, I was just there to help
reinforce the material that the students were learning.
Once the program would finish the instruction through audio and visual learning. I would
be there to lead the instruction for the guided practice. The guided practice was there for me help
walk through the steps of each program with the class. They would read the math problem aloud
as well as all the answers if that were an option. I would then ask them to show me what they
know guiding me through the steps of how to solve a problem. Since most of the students were
visual and audio learners using the whiteboard was very useful when leading instruction through
the lesson.
Normally, the students are never stumped but on rare occasions they would be confused
with a topic, for example, when changing fraction to decimals and decimals to fractions. The
students were getting stumped with this, and it was interesting to see them get frustrated about
something that they couldnt grasp because it hardly happened to them. So once or twice, I would
stop the class and walk them through a problem that they all are struggling with. And like I do,
ask them to walk me through the process of changing a fraction into a decimal and if a kid got it
wrong, I would say, who agrees with this or something like that. If someone would disagree I
asked him or her to explain why and usually they were right and the kids would understand it that
way. But I normally would explain each step and then you would get those ahhhh, I get it
moments.
All the methods that I have used with the students have been very successful. They are
always engage when I am presenting them with new information. Sometimes I will have to
redirect the students who loose focus sometimes. Its not necessarily distracting for the students
because the side conversations are usually about what we are talking about. But other times I do
need to bring them back together. They enjoy reading the short stories out loud, so I have been
doing that more often.
The students do listen to me but when I need to get their attention, I stand in front of the
class and remain silent. That usually works because they all respect me.
 With writing I normally have them do a lot of writing with vocabulary words. I want
them to be comfortable being able to use them in a sentence. If I can see them use the word
correctly in a sentence, then I know they know how to use the word correctly.
There wasnt really too much of language arts in the math class. I mean I did have to
remind kids of what some math terms meant for example, when I introduced decimals and
fractions together, I needed to make sure I went over place values and then different names of the
place values that went along with the term. Reviewing Tenths and Hundredths was interesting
because the students were having trouble distinguishing those place values and then turning those
decimals into fractions. So I took about 5 minutes to review the different terms with them.
Visually showing the students where each place value is located and which fraction went with the
correct decimal.
When it came to speaking and listening the students listened to me and to the audio
instruction that the envision program provided. They also listened to me when I had to reinforce
the material that the envision program had provided. It was goo because you could preview the
information before hand and familiarize yourself with the different procedures and it would
increase your chances of success. With speaking, I would make the students read the directions
first, familiarizing themselves with the instructions of the worksheet. Then I would have them
read the question aloud, followed by the answer, if one was provided. They would read the
directions and read the math problems. They were very successful with this, since they are the
advanced class they didnt have to being of an issue. When speaking, some of the students did
have trouble pronouncing names in the examples.
When doing a lesson with the ELA class, I hit on all the things, fluency, comprehension,
spelling, writing, background knowledge, vocabulary and content knowledge. I keep going back
to the The Night Sky lesson because it was one of the most fun lessons that I did with the
students. Prior to the lesson, I asked the students to take a look at one of the pages in the book. It
was of the Northern Lights. I asked the question if anyone knew what those lights in the sky are
called. Instantly one of the girls hands went up and I called on her. You could see the passion in
her eyes and you knew that she had something to say. She began to tell me that they were
officially called the Aurora Borealis and they mainly occur over Canada and Alaska. She was
giving me all this info about it and it was great to see her use her prior knowledge to start the
topic.
Vocabulary went well in this class because there were always new vocabulary words to go over
with the students. Every new short story there was like 8-10 words to go over. The vocabulary
words were shown via the program and they had pictures or videos that would help make
connections to the vocabulary words. Thus making it easier for the students to remember.
The writing that I did with the students was nothing to difficult. I would have them construct
sentences using vocabulary words. Another time I had them write was when we were making a
cause and effect chart.
Fluency and comprehension was really important in the lessons because the students
would have to read out loud on occasion and some would mess up words, most of the students
would sound it out and if they could get it I would help them. But comprehension was important
because the students need to know what happened in the stories because they need to answer the
essential question at the end of the story. Knowing what happen and understanding what happen
is really important when it comes to reading texts.
Vocabulary and content knowledge were the areas that were mainly focused on in the
math class. Making sure the student was fluent enough with the vocabulary because once they
knew the definition and concepts of the different math vocabulary. Also, content knowledge was
definitely present in the class. Students were always doing DCC (daily common core), which
were practice problems that they would do before the start of every math class. It was a warm up
of different math problems that were on different areas then the lesson we were going to cover.
They were always testing their math skills revisiting old topics when doing the DCC.
Writing was big with math because the students had to write numbers down, practice problems
and constructing number lines.
Word recognition and identification was used in the math class because when students are
reading word problems they need to identify how to solve a problem. For example, know that
one-tenth is 0.1 and one-hundredths is 0.01. Word associations with different math terms are
really important for the students to know. Because as students get order word problems use words
like, sum, product, difference, etc.
Some of the activities that I used in the class were Reading Short stories, Read alouds,
Guided Reading, Shared Readings, Creating sentences using the vocabulary words, Graphic
organizer, and Cause and effect chart. When I perform the activities such as group discussions
and turn and talks, I get the most out of my students. Since majority of the lessons that I was
doing for ELA were vocabulary and reading lessons. The overall goal for the vocabulary lesson
was for them to become stronger with words and increase their vocabulary 8-10 words at a time.
One of the vocabulary activities I did and the students really liked and did well on was when I
had the vocabulary words written on note cars with words that were associated with the
vocabulary words. It was good because first we reviewed the vocabulary words along with their
definitions and examples. I passed the note cards up making sure to mix the cards up well before
passing them out. They were to find the person or people who shared similar qualities with the
vocabulary word. Then, they were to write a sentence using those words on the note card. The
students were really successful with this because they found their partners right away and because
to work. They wrote their sentences down on a piece of paper. After that we shared the sentences
aloud, the students constructed very good sentences using the vocab words and the other words
that were associated with them.
With Reading I usually do a guided reading, or a read aloud, or I even let the Reading
Wonders program read to the students. I have used all different types in the lesson but I feel the
most successful one was read aloud and guided reading. The students liked to read and a vast
majority of them wanted to volunteer whenever there was an opportunity. When we read the
stories, there was usually a question (essential question) that guided us to the main point of the
story or what the author wanted the students to learn or think about when reading the short story.
As an individual I like to hear people opinions and other ideas, so by leading whole class
discussion is what I normally did. Say the essential question aloud and have the students turn to
their partners and talk about what they think? It really never had to be the essential question, but
it would lead them to an idea or a brainstorm that would allow them to think of a whole knew
thing. Then once the interaction of the students would be start, I would walk around and listen to
what they are thinking. Once the turn and talk was complete we would have a group discussion
chatting about the question. For example, I did a turn and talk with the students when I asked
them the questions, What do you see in the night sky? They went absolutely up and beyond
with ideas. Listening to what they were talking about was unreal. I gathered their attention to the
white board and I created a spider web graphic organizer on the board with Night Sky in the
middle. When I asked the students what they talked about, all their hands shot up and I had about
20 things written on the board. They were so engaged in naming things that were in sky like,
planets, stars, satellites, comets, etc. It was really higher order thinking when they were giving me
answers.
Some of the activities that I used in the class were Group work, Partner work, Exit cards,
Mad minutes, DCC (Daily Common Core) and Math sheets. When it came to completing the
activities during the math class it was interesting to see how they did. For example, for the mad
minute. The students had 1 minute to get through as many problems as they can. The mad minute
consisted of multiplication division and addition and subtraction, paired in that way. It was a race
for them. They competed to see who could get done the fastest. A normal sheet for the mad
minute was about 30 problems. Majority of the kids took it super seriously getting done with
ample time to spare. Other students on the other hand, did as many as they could at their own
pace. This was testing how well they can do mental math especially without a calculator. They
were doing basic multiplication and division, for example, 7 x 8 and 9 / 3. But it was testing how
quickly then can calculate the mental math in their head. Trying to increase their speed in solving
mental math. Students would then go over each individual problem reading it aloud and marking
it correct or incorrect with a red pen. The ones that the left blank, they would fill in with the red
pen.
When letting the students work on the independent practice. I would allow them to come
up to the board and write answers for the problems I assigned them. After they would write the
answers on the board we would review them as a class seeing which ones were correct and
incorrect. I would have the student who wrote the problem, read it and then her or she would have
to then explain what they did based on the answer they gave. The class would either agree or
disagree by doing a thumbs up or thumbs down (they seemed to like that). When a thumbs down
happened, usually followed with nos, I would ask why and a new students would correctly give
the answer. I would ask the student who got it incorrect and double check to see if they
completely understand. Usually it is one of the students who dont ask for my help when I am
walking around the room, while they are working on the independent practice independently.
Strengths:
Advanced Math Class:
Areas of strengths would be
that they are smart and are
capable of doing great
things. They are attentive
and show a lot respect. If
they didnt know something
they listened to me, and if I
didnt know something I
listened to them. It was
really good to see they grow
over the course of a
semester. You got to see the
different changes in the
students. They are hard
working and competitive and
thats what drives them to
succeed.
Homeroom/ELA: The
strengths of these students
are a lot different. Since
majority of the students who
are in my Homeroom/ELA
class have an IEP. Majority
of them work hard and are
driven, they are a good group
of kids. If they are not sure
of the answer they dont give
up, they work to find out
how to get there. Though
sometimes its difficult and a
challenge for them, but with
some guidance, they will get
there.
Areas of Need:
Advanced Math Class: The
areas of need for these
students would be to be
patient. Since they are bright
they tend to be a bit over
zealous. They are impatient
when it comes about
knowing the answer (or that
might just be every kid in 4th
grade). For those who do
raise their hands, its waving
back and forth and almost
jumping out of their desks
and calling out, me,
Ahh, hmmm, I Know them is a good way to connect with
it some of the few examples
I get. Some of the other kids
are so eager and anxious that
they shout out the answer or
say I dont get it aloud. They
need to know to be patient
and keep thoughts inside
their heads when it comes to
revealing answers.
Homeroom/ELA: There are
some of the students who
lack motivation. Since some
of the students have IEPs its
hard to get their attention,
some of the students are
disruptive and are
distractions to the other
students. So when it happens
you need to silence it
immediately.
Recommendations/suggestions:
Always be prepared because some
students have good days and some have
bad days, so knowing which students are
subject to that change, you need to know
how to manage your classroom
efficiently.
Also, creating a safe environment for
your students to a good way to start. As a
teacher you need to create an
environment that the students feel safe to
learn in that they wont get criticized
about an idea they had or an answer they
gave. Being personal with the students
and getting to know them and talk to
them. When you are able to connect with
them you can add different elements into
your lesson plans that attract the
attention of the students who may not
always be focused or on task. Knowing
these things are tools that you can use to
become a great teacher. Creating a safe
relationship with your students is what I
did in Mrs. Dowds classroom and I got
the most feedback and attentiveness from
the students then ever before. One thing
to keep in my though, is that you need to
know when to be a peer and when to be a
teacher. There is a time and a place to
have side conversation but at the end of
the day you are there to teach those kids,
shape them into a good person with your
teaching ability.