Hello, I am Liya Harris-Harrell, and this is my blog for student teaching. During student teaching I worked with second graders at Media Elementary School. Click here for Navigation
wring sub plans for my cooperating teacher’s class was an interesting experience. I was told that the plans that I provided were very detailed, hinting that I somehow provided more information than was necessary to someone who was not regularly in my classroom. as I look back on what I wrote in these sub plans they still do not feel like enough information to take over someone else’s classroom.
I think that plans for a sub are an interesting concept because it implies that they should help guide the classroom so that the school day should proceed as it always would. However, sub plans sometimes seem like very loose guidelines for what actually occurs in the classroom. I wonder what a substitute teacher would ask for, in terms of information, to best run a classroom. How much information would they request? Would they ask only for information around what content that is expected to be taught or would they also wish to know what are the routines that are practiced on a daily basis.
Sometimes I think back on how chaotic the classroom would feel whenever a substitute would come in, as they would ask students for some of the information that I would now assume would be provided in a substitutes plan. Does that imply that in those situations subs were provided with the bare minimum of information to make sure that the classroom did not erupt into total chaos?
I am writing to you today to discuss one student who we share. Since switching over to differentiating for phonics and writing I have concerns around a student who is assigned to my classroom. The student in question is Luca. Prior to the switching of phonics and writing, I found that this student was having some difficulties focusing in the classroom environment. Mainly in getting started with his work and I worry that it is an issue of behavior more so than a lack of understanding with the second grade content.
I can tell that this is a very capable student and that he can start the work after several prompts from the teacher. Furthermore, I have noticed that this student often gets distracted unless someone redirects him back to the task at hand. Another thing that I noticed while working in small groups during math is that sometimes he will not want to do what we are currently working on. For example, we during one of our pre-assessments for the upcoming unit it asked for them to complete the subtraction problem. I pointed this out while reading the instructions to this small group. Once they started on the pre-assessment I noticed that he had started to do addition so I took the opportunity to remind the student that question wanted them to solve a subtraction problem. I was then given the response that he knew that that was what was being asked of him, but he wanted to do addition.
I am planning to bring some of these concerns up during our grade’s intervention meeting, however I wanted to see if you noticed any similar behaviors when you have him for phonics and writing. I was wondering if you had any advice for how you would proceed with the student? I am currently considering implementing a behavior chart within the classroom once I discuss this with his parents.
One student that I would like the pleasure of sharing with you is Connie. She is a joy to have in class and brings a lot of energy into the classroom. Connie is one of our students who is on a 504 plan because of her diagnosed ADHD. Connie loves drawing and can be found taking almost any moment during the school day that she gets a chance to. In addition to her creative nature, her parents are looking into sending her to the classroom with fidget toys to help with her focus in the classroom in ways alternative to drawing during the lessons.
I wanted to find ways to support this creative brain so my first step as a teacher was to take some time during morning meeting to talk about fidget items and how they can be used in the classroom environment and how they might differ in use from person to person. I planned to do this during morning meeting also as a way to give students who do not have a diagnosed disability a way to buy into fidgets if they felt that it would help their focus in the classroom.
My lesson provided examples of the differences between using something for fidgeting and using something as a toy. I even demonstrated when I noticed myself starting to use a pen cap in a play-like manor over a tool for focusing so that students would start to understand when things might behave as a fidget or a toy in different circumstances. I hoped that this early display would help students who needed fidgets to not feel like they were the center of attention if they pulled out fidgets and no one else in the classroom really knew what they were being used for.
Once our classroom became a bit more cohesive in terms of knowing expectations for the classroom, I began working towards helping students understand what expectations might look like outside of our classroom environment. This meant having another conversation about items that were toys and should not be brought into the classroom versus items that were marketed as fidgets. This is where I was questioning myself on where to draw the line or how to have this conversation with my second graders as a whole. I did not, myself, want to single students out because they were using items that traditionally are not for focus in that way.
Ultimately, I am still trying to find ways to value other ways of learning within my classroom. In this, I also want the students to also learn to value each other’s strengths and weakness so that they can collaborate with each other while also acknowledging how their differences can help each other.
As for my student with ADHD, I hope that they feel supported in my classroom and feel that they have the space to learn in ways that values their ways of learning and understanding information.
In preparation for student teaching, I read Yardsticks: Child and Adolescent Development, Ages 4-14. I read this book in order to think about what I would need to know in order to work with second graders (ages 7-8).
My take aways from this book was that while every child is diverse and comes with their own range of needs that for the most part each student will meet some expectation of the developmental markers that is expected of their age range. While, I wanted to focus majority on the seven to eight age range of the students that I would be working with I did not only read that section of the book. This is because there is more to students than where they are at developmentally, but also where they are coming from and where they are headed developmentally. Therefore I also spent time reading the sections about ages six and nine year olds. I gathered a lot of information, that seemed really vital to understanding what children between the ages of six and nine could look like on their developmental journey.
Considering Yardsticks during student teaching
During my time as a student teacher, it was difficult to remember everything that I learned from this quick introduction to childhood development as I was teaching myself. I felt that I was sometimes seeing the information I learned present itself when I would watch the interaction of students with their peers and with other adults. I could see this development as I saw students grow and change over the four months that I was in the classroom environment. However, I was unable to really apply this information when crafting my own lessons. I would often work on the lessons that I was making and forget what I would need to change during the actual presentation of my lesson in order for students to really understand the information that I was giving to them.
In order to truly apply my understanding of early childhood development to my instruction as a teacher, I would need more of a deep dive into understanding where students were coming and going then was really provided in Yardsticks. Because yardsticks provided me with an introduction to what childhood development looks like across a wide age range I now know that I have to consider more deeply what information that I need to consider when planning out my lessons. I cannot only consider what information students should. Be learning according to curriculum but also I should be considering how this information needs to be evaluated and presented in order for students to really understand and apply this knowledge.
Overall Yardsticks was a great book for learning about child development, but nothing can really prepare for seeing what actual children in the age range will behave like in a classroom.
I plan to share my experience of student teacher to those who may read this blog. As a student a part of Swarthmore College’s Education department, I had been in the classroom only as an observer prior to this experience. Therefore coming into student teaching was my first full experience really being in a classroom and interacting with students in this capacity. I am grateful for the time that I got to be up in front of the classroom. I gained a new perspective on what it meant to work with younger students and learn what it meant to manage a classroom. Prior to this experience, I had read of the ways that classrooms were managed in ways that were harmful to students of color but did not know what it was like to craft a classroom that was responsive to students’ needs without letting them take over. There was a balancing act of boundaries that I am still trying to understand as I continue my path as a future educator.
My expectations for this experience clearly did not match what I actually experienced as a student teacher. However, this was partly in turn to the demands of students coming out of quarantine and my understanding of how to plan for the demands of a classroom on a week-by-week basis. With both of these factors challenging how I would plan week-by-week I struggled to keep up as the demands of the quickly changing environment and my ability to adapt in the midst of the expectations outside of the classroom, those from my curriculum and methods class. Despite the overwhelming nature of this experience, I learned a lot and hope to take what I have learned and apply it to my future endeavors of learning how to be an educator.
Coursework and Student Teaching
Prior to student teaching, my coursework focused on education from a very theoretical standpoint. I learned about what education looks like and how it tended to benefit one population of students over another. From this coursework I gathered that there was something that needed to be done to help students develop into well-rounded learners. I understood what this could look like, but really had no idea what a real classroom would look like in comparison to what my coursework has taught me.
In student teaching things felt very different from what I was receiving in the classroom. I was expected to bring in my own ideas into someone else’s classroom. My cooperating teacher was very nice and worked with me to make sure that I was meeting expectations, however, figuring out how to develop my own teacher persona in contrasts with my high energy co-op left me at a disadvantage. I was trying to figure out the ways to show that I could meet the demands of the classroom and classroom management without disrupting the routines that my cooperating teacher was trying to develop in order to have cooperating classroom after I was gone.
Second graders, especially second graders who had been kindergarteners when quarantine first started, were a challenge. I did not understand their needs coming into the classroom. I learned over time that they really did need boundaries crafted for them in order to learn to the best of their abilities. These boundaries did not only mean those that created the lines of classroom expectations, but also they meant how did I, as a teacher, facilitate their delicate interpersonal relationships between each other. I constantly worried that I was not doing my best to maintain a balance that would keep students from erupting into too many emotions. By the end of my time within the classroom I felt that this would something I would constantly worry about as I am still understanding what it means to facilitate between young children who do not have the communicating abilities of those older then them.
Reflection
Student teaching was hard for me. I was not ready for student teaching with Swarthmore. The program threw me into the deep end of what it meant to be a teacher, especially after coming out of a time when things were far from normal. Despite the feeling of constantly feeling like I was two-steps behind and could not find my footing in the education world through this program I know that I would still like to find my place as an educator.
One thing everyone tried to make clear during my time during student teaching is that I needed to find my teacher voice and show that I could have control over the classroom. I had to show that I could demonstrate proper classroom management while also providing content to the students. My cooperating teacher and supervisor both saw the possibility of a great teacher within me, but felt that I was not growing to meet the pace that the program that I was in. I do not truly know if I have really processed what this means for me. Under normal circumstances I am sure that this insight would make more sense. However, I find that this ended up making it more difficult to try and continue working towards my goal of being an educator.
Now as I wonder about what path I would like to continue down, I am uncertain whether my path should look like individual work with a designated class or working school wide as an art instructor. I have seen what art education can look like from several observations across age ranges and question how can I find a space that best fits the ways in which I want to support children be more creative individuals who value the things that they make just as much as the information that they learn in their general education environments.
I do not know what this looks like, but I am prepared to do what I need to make sure that I can balance the demands of a classroom without burning out in the process.
Ethics Toolkit - Unit 4: The Connected Teacher Reflection
From the ethics toolkit, it is clear that teachers have many responsibilities that extend outside of providing students with the information that they need to become well-rounded students. The Connected Teacher focuses on how teachers connect with the outside world and how much of these connections are public and private ones. In this module, we learn about the decisions that teachers make as the online space becomes increasingly apart of the outward persona that teachers present.
In the situations provided they looked at how teachers presented themselves online, how teachers were using computers that were provided by the school, and how teachers were interacting with their students. In these examples some were clear violations of the trusts that the community puts into the people that teach their children. While other situations treaded on uncertainty of the times because the online presence of these teachers was apart of their personal lives and not apart of who they were in a schools setting.
Either way, it is clear that when it comes to online presences of teachers there are clear lines that one should not cross and ways that one should navigate online spaces as to not interfere with how the community perceives those who are making an impact in children’s lives. It is important that teachers continue to perceived in a positive light so that students are able to have safe environments to enter into and learn what they need to without worry that a teacher’s private life might become a distracting matter within the classroom.
On my first day visiting the Montessori School, I was greeted by several people on staff and felt very welcomed into the school’s environment. Some of the things that I noticed during my visit was that student art work was being displayed as soon as you entered the school and it was one of the first things that I noticed when entering the art classroom also. The art classroom was a large room, but also combined with the kitchen. Teachers and staff moved in and out of the space as I arrived in between pre-school arrival and the teacher’s first class of the day.
Before her first class arrived, the art teacher explained what their current project was. The students were making landscape art that featured a snowy landscape, that had been created before this class period, and they were adding onto it by using paper to create trees and snow that would create a separation between the foreground and the background. While she explained what the project for the day would be the teacher for the first and second graders came to speak with the art teacher about rearranging the order in which the kids came into the classroom. Typically first graders would come to the art class first and then the second graders would come. Today, the teacher was requesting that the second graders come first because a first grader would be leaving before they could receive math instruction that they would need to understand the homework if the schedule was to go like it did on a normal day. It was interesting to see the collaboration to figure out what the steps could be taken to make sure that instruction was not missed but also still giving the opportunity to go to art class before leaving for the day.
Once the second graders arrived, the art teacher introduced the steps for the project, and left information very open ended. She did not place restrictions on how many trees that students would have to place onto their collage snowscape. Much of the class was spent suggesting to students what they could do to add onto their artwork to make it feel more complete. However, students quickly moved towards finishing their artwork so that they could do free-art activities that they were allowed to do once their artwork was finished. It was interesting to see how the students split themselves based on the types of free-choice activities that they wanted to explore. After the period was over a few second graders had to stay behind in the classroom in order to clean up the art supplies and scraps of paper that they had used during the project and free choice.
Shortly after the second graders left, the art teacher came back downstairs with the first graders. This time she set guidelines for their snowscape, asking for students to add three to four trees to their snowscapes and suggesting to them that they could add a small house onto their collages if they were interested. This time the expectations were easier to demonstrate as she was able to show students other examples of what the snowscape might look like outside of her own. Using students’ examples from the previous class these first graders took the idea and continued to showcase their own creativity with examples.
Overall, the snowscapes turned out really nice and it seemed like students had fun making the pieces of artwork.
Day 2 - Third through Sixth Grade
When I arrived, the art teacher was having student’s share their artwork. For the older students, she has them work in a sketchbook over the week and then when she sees their class they have the option to share anything new that they’ve created since their last class. Students were gladly sharing the things that they were sketching and everything I saw that day was very different between each student. After students finished sharing their sketchbooks the art teacher demonstrated the project that they would be working on. This project involved soft pastels, a polar bear drawing they had done the previous week, and collage work like the first and second graders were working on. There were a few hiccups while students were working with the soft pastels. For instance some students overused the soft pastels or were not using the tool in the way that was demonstrated by the teacher. However, this did not prevent students from making really interesting artwork and overall it seemed like the goal of the project was still achieved. These pieces of artwork were very varied and no piece looked like another students. In addition, students were given more space to take different paths with the project. For example for one 5/6th grader they did not put their polar bear on the same page as their northern lights background that they were creating with soft pastels. Another student was able to explore what it would look like to give a bit more space because adding the snow and polar bear made the artwork feel too compressed to them. A 3/4th grader even applied the soft pastels to the paper in the wrong order but made what seemed like the most successful display of northern lights in the sky. And because students had the same project, the teacher was able to really hone in on when to suggest to students that it was time to move on to the next step in the project or suggest where creative additions could be added to their pieces of artwork.
Seeing different steps and suggestions made across this age ranges really demonstrated what early art education can look like when you have smaller class sizes and the schedule does not require as much absolute planning or ideas as in a public school art classroom.
On December 1, I visited a high school to observe in their art classroom for two periods. When I arrived school was just starting so students were filling into the building through a metal detector and to scan their ids or insert their student id numbers. I felt very overwhelmed entering the space as it was very different from anytime I had entered a school. Although I have entered schools with very thorough security in this city area, this felt completely different.
Once I arrived in the art classroom, students were already working on their projects. Because the teacher who welcomed me into their class has several classes on an alternating schedule (A/B) this class was working on creating giant heads that were modeled after different cultures that they had to research and draw sketches from prior to this class period. This class period moved along very slowly as students worked independently on their projects.
Every few minutes the teacher would go around the room and correct students early on in the process to prevent issues of stability since they were using cardboard boxes to make the structure before adding on the paper mache.
The second period that I observed was much larger than the first period as second period held 30 students compared to the 7 students of first period. The teacher had mentioned that she did not want anyone observing this period because many of the students did not get much work done. However, I was very interested to observe what a less then perfect class period looked like in high school. I had seen what a second grade class could look like on a “bad” day and wondered what a “bad” day might look like in high school.
During this observation I learned a lot about high school art classrooms. I am still very interested in pursuing art education, especially for older students. I want to find a way to challenge students artistically and create different ways into art that does not focus solely on doing projects. I think that also there has to be a way to have more joy in the classroom than what I saw, but do not know what that might look like yet.
This student is a joy to have in class. They have had many positive experiences in my class and demonstrate that they are dedicated to growing in my classroom. Some areas that I have seen strong growth and persistence in are reading and math. In addition, phonics and writing areas where I feel that they are making good progress but might need extra support to meet grade level expectations. Furthermore, I would like to also take some time to touch on how they are meeting expectations for social expectations compared to where they should be typically for a second grader.
First off, in reading, I have seen tremendous strides from your student. At the beginning of the school year, there were concerns as your student appeared to have been at a lower reading level at the end of first grade compared to at the beginning of first grade. Sometimes that happens, but it is nothing to be too concerned about. In fact, your student is now approaching expectations to be on grade level for second grade reading, and I believe with continued support at home and at school they will be meeting expectations by the end of the school year. You should be so proud of your student. Some of the areas that are a strength in their reading skills is that they are attempting to use the strategies that they are learning during reader’s workshop. This has really helped them with decoding while they are reading. An area I would like to see them to continue to grow in is their retelling of the things that they are reading. I find that often they are occasionally missing details that will help them understand why something occurs in the story.
For subject areas that I would like to see them continue to grow in and demonstrate their persistence is in writing. I find that when we are working one-on-one or in small groups to develop your student’s ideas that they are getting stuck around perfection of the words. I worry that this might cause their ideas to not get developed as fully as they could. Your student has really great ideas that I enjoy reading about, however, they are sometimes incomplete because they lose track of where they were. I am wondering if you could help to provide extra support at home that focuses on really just expressing one’s ideas. Or even if we could talk about some more of these goals that I think would really help continue creating a strong learner.
Recently I’ve learned a lot about the journeys that others have taken on the path to the field that they are in. These stories feel so full and like they have a certainty to them that I wish I could say that I’d have 10 or 15 years down the road.
What I have gathered however is that I need to find what makes me happy when I think of the work that I am doing. Understanding that there will be some bad , but that I need the good that’ll support me through the bad. And thinking about that, I know that I can do this. That I can figure out what my next steps are.
As I think through what I do enjoy about education, I really like being a support to the kids that I’m working with. I don’t think that it matters what they are learning but I want them to believe in themselves that they can do something. I think that’s why I love art education because it always feels like an area where you can support someone in their most authentic area. Because no matter what they create their end result has a piece of them and what guided them there through the process. I think though I have to figure out what spaces for the kids that im working with look like to even be able to support them like that. I don’t know what development looks like for where they are at and it’s hard to support them if I don’t know. I plan to work harder to learn where they are at developmentally so that I may support them grow in the processes that they are learning
As I think about the coming weeks and how my journey of student teaching looks different than those of my peers I worry that I am not being productive in my work and how I spend my time. I worry that I entered student teaching with the wrong mindset and may be paying the price for not having faith in my own abilities.
My time as a student teacher has been stressful. Although it was stressful, I did not think anything of it. My way of functioning through most things is to procrastinate until I feel the right amount of panic and stress to motivate a completed product. I feel that between full weeks of school and planning and being told that I need to find time to relax in between all of this I never realized I was drowning in all the expectations that come with being a teacher. I did not decide to stop student teaching because I wanted to rather because from an outsiders perspective I was operating in ways that were not healthy to my mental well being.
However, how do you even gauge this measure of too much stress if your brain can take up to a week to really process the emotions that and stress that you are experiencing in the moment.
I wanted to be a teacher. I want to be a teacher? I have been given options on alternative things to do but I am stuck in the indecision of what to do next and a ticking time bomb of two months and no solid plan to fall back on.
I wanted to support myself with my art but that’s not realistic and my backup plan creates a stress in me that I do not know how to handle in a way that does not cause others to think that it is self destructive.
I don’t know if I could have done two full weeks by myself.
Including whole body listening as it relates to students - a conversation with my cooperating teacher. I think changing how we view whole body listening fits into a conversation of UDL
This year is the first year that the second grade department at Media Elementary school has decided to differentiate for phonics and subsequently writing as they have decided to treat the two as an ELA block.
In this I have learned to see what it looks like when you differentiate and teach with one group’s level of ability in mind as opposed to considering a whole groups level. And even in this i am overwhelmed as the kids who have been designated as low, in terms of phonics knowledge, still in themselves require further differentiation in order to get them to meeting some form of expectations for the foreseeable second grade future.
I cannot tell as of now if differentiating into writing based on phonics ability is helping, but we are going to pivot and differentiate even further which I am excited about. Excited that we will do more to help these kids achieve some type of writing goal over the next couple of months that I am in this space. I do not know how this would look in class with only one teacher. I hope that this works. I hope that working with the kids in small groups helps them improve in writing to the extent that is necessary for them.
Thinking about modifications, differentiations, Universal Design Learning, and accommodations in relation to what you are seeing in the classroom
I would like to UDL more in my own classroom. The ways that I currently see UDL implemented in the classroom is through the access to materials. Materials such as fidgets and access to assistances that will show that the student will be able to accurately demonstrate their knowledge in the classroom environment. I think the ways that these assistive materials are provided in the classroom does help students overall.
In year where covid was not an issue, I think that having a sensory corner would be another way of having UDL be provided in the classroom without it standing out as being something different or unnecessary since it would not always be know what students might need the support of having a dedicated space for sensory needs.
