My first goal was to take thorough observation notes daily. At times this goal was tedious and time consuming, but overall I feel I have made adequate progress and have found the notes to be beneficial. I have taken detailed observations every day in my placement and have compiled into an organized notebook. The notes range from general observations about classroom set-up/schedule/etc. to detailed, exact recording of teacher/student dialogue. After each day, I type up my observation notes and expand on what I observed. As I reflect on that day and what I observed, I find myself developing wonderings, asking questions, establishing beliefs,and gaining ideas, all of which I include within the typed up notes. These observation notes have been very helpful in developing my EDUC 600 teacher researcher notebook and in developing my EDUC 414 teacher notebook. For both of those classes, I have used the notebook that was created as a result of my observation notes. Within this notebook are the daily observation notes that include my wonderings, ideas, and reflections along with pictures and student work. I also have a section with text connections, where I list connections I'm making in my PDS to text I am reading for classes and pulling out information from texts that I find the most beneficial/had an impact on myself as a teacher. The last two sections include a quotes section containing inspirational/motivational quotes from my professors and funny quotes from students and then a lesson plan section that holds lesson plans that I worked hard on, taught, reflected, and received feedback on.
My second goal was to gain more experience using a smartboard. I have not made as much progress towards this goal as I had hoped, but I have still gained some experience. I was able to incorporate the use of a smartboard into my differentiated lesson for SPED 360. I used the smartboard to read the students a book that was found online. They all seemed to enjoy this with many students commenting on how cool it was. I also used the smartboard as a "filler" activity while waiting for lunch. There is a website, www.spellingcity.com that allows any user to type in spelling words and creates a learning game in return. The students really enjoyed this, asking to repeat the activity on following days. Although I have not used the smartboard as much as I hoped, I have been successful in learning more about the smartboard. Since I am in the classroom 30 minutes before the school day begins, I have had the opportunity to sit down and "play with it." I have googled smartboard lessons and found an excellent site with pre-made smartboard activities/resources www.teacherled.com. I was also able to play around with the smartboard software that allows you to create your own game/activity. After break I will be teaching a math lesson on place value. I have been looking for a smartboard activity to accompany this lesson and hopefully I will be able to incorporate and use the smartboard again. You can read the lesson/reflection here.
The third and last goal that I set for myself was to implement number talks into my classroom. I had hoped to complete a number talk every day, but I was unable to do so due to scheduling and time issues. I was however, able to use a number talk as a math discussion for my EDUC 430 class. This was my first time doing a number talk in a classroom and I feel it went very well. I had mentioned in my practicum plan that I thought about incorporating number talks into my inquiry for this semester. Since I was unable to complete a number talk daily like I originally had hoped/planned, I am not able to use this for my inquiry. I am in a pre-k classroom next semester so I will not be able to use it for inquiry then either. However, for my intern placement, I am in a third grade classroom. I am hoping that I will be able to incorporate number talks into my daily teaching with the third graders and maybe use it as part of my action research at that time.
You can read the number discussion here. I also have this video taped, but it was to long to post in the blog!
