Fitzpatrick Student Teaching Blog Week #9

My Final week at my initial placement is very bittersweet for me. Although I know it must come to an end, and it does bring me one step closer to an actual license, I have really enjoyed my time getting to know these students both in the class and out, and I am going to miss my time here.

            In the classroom this week we introduced the one-week unit of the parachute. One thing I really enjoy about teaching at the elementary level is that it truly breaks you out of your comfort zone as a teacher. First having to dance in front of the students, then performing jump rope skills I have never tried before, and now playing games every day with a parachute, like making a mountain or sitting in the igloo, being an ELED teacher truly makes you come down to the students’ level to understand the enjoyment of the material. It is not as easy as you think it would be to act silly in front of 22 7-year-olds for their enjoyment. As hard as it is to create that character initially, however, it is so much fun once it begins to develop and the students begin to gravitate to it.

            I am extremely happy my cooperating teacher decided to complete this unit while I was in the school because it was a unit I always remember as a child but could not remember any games that were utilized. As a staple of the elementary physical education curriculum, I really wanted the opportunity to learn the unit first hand without having to look everything up on YouTube. One game I had never seen before and do not remember was one that my cooperating teacher taught me called “Washing Machine” in which 5 students crawl into the middle of the parachute and lay on their backs with their arms under their head for safety. The rest of the students walk clockwise holding the parachute as the chute get smaller and wraps over the students. As the students wrap in the parachute, the remaining students then pull the parachute open, spinning the students back into place quickly. It is such a simple game, yet the children love it, and it looked like so much fun to try. I was kind of jealous I was the teacher this week!

            One thing I never thought of as a kid that I realize as a teacher is how much science and math intertwined in the parachute unit. In creating the igloo, I was able to teach a lesson on volume displacement, and how when the circumference of the chutes base shrank when we scooted in, the ceiling of the igloo got taller because the air in the chute had to move up because there was no more room around the border. The kids found this extremely fun and interesting. Same with creating static electricity by waving the parachute over the students’ hair as they say in the middle of the parachute. Simple, yet effective and educational.

            Still wanting to try new ways to connect with the students, I took the opportunity of my last week to initiate conversation with them at their level during the closure. What I mean is, instead of standing over them, asking “What did you learn, what did you enjoy?” and pointing to them as they raised their hands, I instead chose to sit down with them and talk to them like regular children. The first time I did this was quite funny to me. I was using the microphone and I could see a student talking to her friend, so I started saying her name into the microphone. She had no idea I was sitting on the floor with the class, though, so every time I would say her name she would look up and begin looking around completely confused as to what was going on. Eventually, she looked down and saw me, I waved to her and said “hi,” and she just started laughing. After that, I just started calling out students’ names and talking to them with small three question conversations, to which every student participated with no hesitation. I noticed through the week when I did this, students talk so much to each other as I talked, but instead, the closure became more of a true conversation of everybody about the positives of the day. I wonder if this sort of idea would work in High School? I wonder if you even get a chance to talk to students like this in High School? I guess I will find out.

            I did have one minor bump in the road this past week behaviorally. In one of my 2nd-grade classes, I recognized three students messing around with each other when they were supposed to be discussing the day’s activities at the end of the period. These students have been talked to by me multiple times since I have been here about playing around during closure so when I recognized this, I was stern to both them and the rest of the class since they weren’t the only one messing around. Afterward, we had our usual closure which one of the three students participated in, and then the class was dismissed. Approximately 5 minutes after the class was dismissed, the homeroom teacher of that class came into my gym stating I needed to write up 2 referrals, and that of the 3 students that I had thought were messing around like they had in the past, two of them were bullying the other student, “falling” on her and saying inappropriate things. It was obviously 2^nd graders not knowing better, and the one student never came to me stating a problem, and in fact, she was the one who participated in the closure conversation, but I felt, and still do, feel horrible for not recognizing this ordeal. I know as a teacher I cannot recognize and correct every situation that may happen in my classroom, but it is still a heart-wrenching experience having another teacher must come to you about something that may or may not have happened in your classroom. Needless to say, I wrote the referrals and talked to all, my cooperating teacher, the principal, and the homeroom teacher, and we all agreed it was not egregious, but still inappropriate which warranted a call home and loss of recess for the two other students. After this situation, I created PE helpers to assist me in putting away equipment at the end of the period so I could keep a closer eye on the student body. This is a practice I will certainly be bringing with me in any situation I find myself in at any level.

All in all, this week went very well, and I feel my first placement was successful. I had a chance to sit with my principal who gave me some good information about what an administrator is looking for when going through the hiring system. Her first and foremost tip was to bullet point anything applicable to my benefit in my resumes and keep the bullets short and to the point. She also told me my strengths and weaknesses, showed appreciation for coming to her with my questions and handed me a personal letter of reference.

            Next week I start at the High School Placement. My first goal for this placement is to correct the one critique my principal had of me, and that is to begin stricter with the students and establish boundaries before I begin to create the student/teacher relationship. Other goals are to converse with my new cooperating teachers on their expectations, create a better timeline of when and what lessons I will be expected to teach so that I can be on top of my Lesson Plans even more so than I was in my 1^st placement, complete my edTPA in enough time to have it reviewed by some of my friends who have taken it and passed, and begin completing my digital portfolio.

            These past 9 weeks have gone so fast, I am excited to see what the remaining 7 weeks have in store.

            Regarding Standard 1 – Teaching Diverse Students – I recently discovered over the week that there is a 1^st grader in one of my classes that is a middle child of four with a new baby coming to the family soon. The student has moved from the U.S. overseas twice over the past year and recently returned in early February after spending 3 months with family in a different country with a different teaching philosophy. Her mother had stated that at the school she had been at overseas, there was more structure than in the states, with teaching acting more as leaders than guiders. Since returning, the student has felt out of place at recess, art, and PE because there is not enough structure for her liking. Since finding this out, I have given the student more individualization, so she at least knows she is recognized, I have also given her responsibility as a PE leader so that she is more engaged and not as likely to act aimlessly.

Regarding Standard 3 – Teaching to differentiated instruction – Understanding that the 3^rd and 4^th grade classes are in need of a greater emphasis on developing more complex cognitive, affective and psychomotor skills as they grow, these students spent the latter portion of the week-long unit participating in team building, small chute lessons in which the student had to work together to project objects of varying sizes toward to teammate who was in charge of catching said object. Students learned the concept of geometry, such as angling the chute toward the partner when projecting the object, respect, and responsibility when listening to one another when attempting to work together to project said object and increase hand-eye coordination ability by having to concentrate on an object of varying size. Such lessons would have been too complex for the means of first and 2^nd grades, and therefore were not utilized at that level.