I am so glad that the end is here! I enjoyed my student teaching but I am worn out...
This semester has definitely been an "eye-opener" to a lot of things. For the most part I had a wonderful group of students. My main concern was the absences and the suspensions. I constantly had students not coming to school or being suspended repeatedly. This makes it difficult trying to keep up with make-up work and moving on to the next lessons. My students enjoyed my literacy engagements and action research which both were of the same. My students made connections to other classes they were taking or had already taken in order to determine definitions to new words or phrases. Also my students had computers everyday in the classroom so if someone didn't know the definition of the word we would have contest to see who could look up the word and find the definition the quickest!!! Most of my students enjoyed this activity. It kept the students on their "toes".
Readicide has taught me a lot and i recommend this book to all teachers and parents! I have been able to implement Gallagher's instructions but it was a slow process and of course not enough time during my student teaching. However with this experience I will be ready and willing to put the effort into my first year of teaching and there after! I have realized some of the strategies that worked and some of the strategies that did not work or needed twicking.
Now on to all the papers and graduation!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Casie,
ReplyDeleteI experienced a similar situation at my school, in regards to the amount of truancy. I actually had one student who thought it was humorous to continuously be in ISS. Sadly he was also one of the smartest students in the class. His absence diminished his grade and caused struggles for my host teacher and myself when it came to grading.
Your idea with the computers is awesome. Having computers at hand as well, I wish I had thought of the same idea. It sounds like you are just as ready as the lot of us to be finished. Good Luck with your papers...
BTW it is tweaking not twicking, just thought you should know...
I had the same problem with students never being in class. The policy at my school was students had to finish one punishment before they were punished for the next. One of my students was in school for maybe six days while I was there. By the end he had his mother withdraw him for school because there was no way he could make up all the work. I am not sure if it is just for the semester or if he dropped out of school, but it makes me sad that this had to happen.
ReplyDeleteIt is good to hear that you were able to implement different literacy engagements so successfully. Good luck with all your work because I am right there with you...good luck on the job hunt too!!!
I had the same problem with students being absent or suspended (OSS or ISS). See, I would plan all these great activities and then show up to my class only to have 6 students missing- atleast!! It was quite ridiculous. My host teacher even complained and told me that it is an issue with students, one that unfortunately we cannot control. So what do we do? We keep teaching those who are there! I'm glad to hear you had a good time and can't wait to talk about it!:)
ReplyDeleteIt really is strange how much class some students miss. My teacher just said to teach like everyone is present and it is the students responsibility to show up to get the work. Thats good that you were able to implement some reading strategies, the more we use them the better we will get at it.
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