Practicum Plan Updates

One of my learning goals that I really wanted to focus on this semester was becoming familiar with and using the SmartBoard during my lessons. At Suncrest, all classrooms except for pre-school has a SmartBoard. Last semester I was in a pre-school setting so I did not have the opportunity to experiment and play with a SmartBoard. Now that I am in a classroom that has one, I really wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to familarize myself with the SmartBoard. So far, I have been able to observe my teacher use the SmartBoard every week. From these observations, I have gained ideas as to the variety of uses it has to offer. She used the SmartBoard to work on writing letters, to work on vowel patterns and sounds, and to show videos to the students during class. I have also spent time outside of my placement researching and reading about lesson plans and uses of SmartBoards in the classroom and how if used properly can be highly motivating for students. I have been able to incorporate the SmartBoard into two of my small group lessons. One week, I was doing a station about groundhogs (it was groundhog day) and the students after completing a short activity at the table of making a pop-up groundhound were able to use the SmartBoard to make shadow puppets and then I had them use the pen to practice sounding out and spelling groundhog along with writing the word. The next lesson I did where I used the SmartBoard was when I did my read aloud with the class. I read the Grouchy Ladybug and during the read aloud I had an interactive analog clock pulled up on the SmartBoard. Throughout the story when a new time was read, I would make the clock show that time and ask the students to make the time on their handheld clocks as well. This lesson went very well and the students loved the interactive clock. In fact, they were so interested in the clock, my mentor teacher changed one of the stations she had planned that day so the students could come to my station at the board and use the clock themselves.

Some of the changes I have made to my plan include adding the goal of attending as many seminars, meetings, extracurricular activties and professional development opportunities offered at Suncrest as possible. So far I have been able to attend the majority, only missing some due to class schedule conflicts. I was able to attend my classroom Valentine's Day party, a workshop on fluency, a Student Achievement Team (SAT) seminar, and I plan on attending a kindergarten field trip, the interns' presentations to the faculty, the book fair and art show, the talent show, as well as volunteering to help with the afterschool math and reading tutoring.  I have also had to change a few tentative dates along with my wondering topic which I will explain in detail later.

I feel as of now that I am making good progress toward the activities listed on the due dates. So far I have been able to complete all of the activities on the sheet by my target date and due date. I did have to change my tentative scheduled dates for the small group and whole group lesson because I still have not received further information or instruction in order to complete these two activities. I still need to complete my inquiry research brief and begin collecting data. I had a minor setback with my inquiry brief because after meeting with my mentor teacher last week, we decided it would be in my benefit, as well as hers, to change my wondering topic. I have already completed my read aloud and I am finishing the reflection piece this week. I have a topic for my digital story and have already been collecting pictures and artifacts to use in the story. I still need to complete the literacy assessment piece that I added to my plan in order to receive Honors Credit for Education 460. I plan to start working on that assignment  next week and finishing it the two weeks following Spring Break.

Even though looking at all the assignments that must be completed throughout the semester makes me feel a little overwhelemed, reflecting on the assignments that I have completed and evaluating the plan I have in place to manage my  time makes me feel more confident going into the second half of the semester.