MaritaUndergraduate
Exceptional Education |
MaritaUndergraduate
Exceptional Education |
My last week at ISS! Grant and Connor had their last day Wednesday and my last day was Friday. It has been a unforgettable wild ride. On Wednesday we had Sports Day. Now, I am one who loves any kind of sports day, field day, etc. I had been hyping up the sports day for weeks now and the day finally came. Unfortunately, the weather moved the event indoors. My mentor teacher and I came ready to participate but we were the only ones who came in decent footwear. We were hoping to participate in the teacher event at the end but the number of underprepared teachers significantly outweighed the number of prepared teachers. Absolute bummer. I luckily had the run against hunger event on Friday to look forward to. On Friday, we had a whole school run. The run was called “Corsa Contro la Fame”, the race against hunger. All grades participated in one of three different courses. There was a short course intended for the early years, a medium course intended for the primary years, and a long course intended for the big kids. Of course, you could choose which course best suited you. Everyone in Grade 4 except one did the medium course. One student challenged himself to do the long course. I ran with one of the grade fours the whole time and we cheered everyone on as they ran past us. By the end of the run we had a group of four or five fourth graders finishing together. We all high fived each other and drank a lot of water. The one student in the long course had 5 more minutes of running left so we all stood at the end of the course to cheer him on as he was finishing. At the end all the kids surrounded him and were telling how great he was. They are such supportive classmates. We had a lot of fun doing the run and supporting each other. As a final goodbye gift for the students I made them bird nests and paper cranes. I made a nest from paper and foil cups, filled them with chocolates, topped the nests off with two paper cranes and a note from the cranes. Symbolically the nest represents the classroom and the cranes represent me and the student. We have been growing together, me as a teacher and them as a student, and we are going to fly off on our own and do our own amazing things. The kids really liked the cranes. I called them up one at a time to get their note and nest and each student gave me a hug after I handed them the nests. On Wednesday evening, after having a goodbye aperitivo with Grant and Connor, I went home to a dinner party made for me. My host mother had invited every person I had made a connection with in my two months here to this dinner. I had no idea it was going to be so big. She mentioned having a few people over like she does every Wednesday. I thought it was just going to be the regular two or three extra people. I never knew who was coming through the door next. My host mother and brother had gathered some of my favorite people all together to celebrate my time with them. My host brother invited three of his many friends who I had made a connection with. One of the gentlemen I had met in my time here has a wife who is a pastry chef and she had made vegan desserts for our party. Then My host mother's boyfriend and another woman at the table served different types of limoncello they had made from scratch. They ended the night with intensely precious gifts. I admittedly had a small moment where I shed a few tears. It was an incredible evening. Meow even got a big piece of meat for dinner! When no one was looking she stole a big slice of deli meat someone had on their plate. She ate the slice in record time.
0 Comments
Week overview... This week the students had an end of unit math assessment on the money unit. On Tuesday, we did a whole class of all the math concepts they would see on the test. I took the questions from the test and used different numbers to make the review. There are a few students who are often very distracted by each other and do not pay attention in lessons. As a result they do not know the information and ask for help on problems we did in class or ask questions I had already given the answer to. I gave the whole class a warning that if they did not pay attention to the review they would not be successful. Disregarding my warning the same students were chatting during the review. I gave these students a second warning and as a result one of the students refocused herself. The other two continued to be distracted so I separated their desks. The review was very important for them to do well on the test so I put a lot of effort into keeping them focused where during an average lesson I would not have taken so many steps to keep these students on track. During the review, as we finished a problem I asked the students to give me a thumbs up or thumbs down to show they understand the concept. I received thumbs up for almost all the review questions except for one of the very last multi step problems. We did a second problem similar to the original. After a second example, I received thumbs up from all students. On Wednesday the students took the test. The class has an issue with cheating. My mentor teacher gave a warning before passing out the test to not cheat. The students who have trouble focusing also have an issue with cheating. They often look at the person next to them and copy the answers. When grading the math tests my mentor teacher and I noticed certain students did exceptionally well on the test but struggled all unit. These students had the correct answer for all the questions but showed no work to prove they were the ones that got to the answer. My mentor teacher pulled these students aside and gave them a talking to. On Thursday, my host mother visited my classroom to do an acting workshop with the students. Both the fourth and third graders are doing units of inquiry that involve acting. My host mother is an actress and she teaches acting. She did a fun workshop with the kids where they learned about what it takes to be an actor and did some acting games. The students had a great time and wanted her to come back to do more workshops. I made a card and had the kids sign it for my host mom. It was a great class visit. On Friday, we had our weekly assembly. My class performed a play they have been working on in Drama class. One student was not in for the end of the week with a family issue so we were down a cast member. The kids reminded me that I am a STUDENT teacher therefore I am the best option to step in as Peggy the Dancing Unicorn. The students thought it was so funny I played Peggy. A few of the girls helped me find a fluffy sparkly skirt to wear. The performance was a hit with the entire PYP. Thoughts through out the week... I have been considering how I can be a better teacher, especially when it comes to teaching reading and writing. I am a big believer in the science of reading and focusing on phonics to learn how to read and write. I have taken it upon myself to teach myself how to read and write in Italian using the science of reading. This will likely have to be a summer project and I do not think I will be able to get past a kindergarten reading level teaching myself but I think this will help me understand the process of learning phonics better. I understand at a surface level the process of learning to read and the reasoning behind teaching reading in a particular way but I have never experienced this learning process. With more personal experience with this idea of the science of reading I will hopefully be a better teacher. I had a breakthrough with two students this week. There are two boys who sit next to each other and are by all means, perfect students. They are well behaved, they do all their work, they almost never need help or reminders. They are really good kids, but because of this, they often go unnoticed and I often forget they are there. I can always count on them to give the correct answer in math or work peacefully in a group, but I have no deeper relationship with these students. The one student, we will call him J, is more outgoing and likes to talk so I have a bit of a deeper relationship with him besides calling on him in class. The other student, we’ll call him V, is more quiet and is not as willing to speak up in class or in group settings. I had the opportunity during ‘golden time’ to play soccer with these two boys. J was between playing goal and playing with other kids, so he was in and out of the game. I played with V the entire period. He taught me some cool soccer tricks and we practiced scoring on each other. Towards the end of the period J had returned with another student who wanted to play 2 v 2. V picked me as his partner instantly. We absolutely dominated the other two students, we are a soccer dream team. When we were walking back into the school he talked my ear off the whole walk. I had never heard this student speak so much. We got back and the kids got their backpacks together to go home. I am usually the one that initiates the goodbye between me and V, but this time he said goodbye first. I realized at that moment that we could have had this relationship this whole time I have been in the classroom, I just never gave him any one on one attention. The next morning he came into school and complimented my shoes and even came up to my desk to talk to me at one point. J and I have also strengthened our relationship but it was not the turning point I had with V. I realized the kids that need less attention can easily be forgotten. I could have gone the whole placement thinking V was shy and wanted nothing to do with me when really I just never gave him any individualized attention. Even the “good” kids need your one on one attention and care even if on a daily basis they do not need you to hold their hand throughout the day. This breakthrough has been one of the most eye opening and rewarding moments in my placement thus far. One of my students is obsessed with Benji the Bengal. His favorite animal is tigers and when I showed him our mascot he got so excited. I told him Benji likes to watch hockey and eat chicken wings. He has even made his iPad background the Buffalo State logo with Benji front and center. He also really likes drawing and has drawn me at least three different Benji the Bengals. Please enjoy Benji the Bengal. This weekend my host family took me to an American Diner. They had been telling me about this diner since I arrived. The diner was 1950s America themed with old cars, hamburgers, and milkshakes. They had a lot of vegan options including a vegan apple pie. The food was good but the apple pie was a far cry from a classic American pie. It was more cake-like than pie-like. Still it was an awesome lunch. Please enjoy the least chaotic photos I got while at the diner. On Saturday evening, we had a Eurovision viewing party. We got a bunch of pizzas and beers and watched the final of Eurovision. It was very fun to watch as an American who had never heard of Eurovision with Europeans who cared a lot about their country winning. It was an absolute blast. I was able to vote because I have an Italian phone number, however, my man from Cyrus did not end up winning. Connor and I were screaming for Finland to win but they came in second. I spent Sunday recovering from the week and weekend by going on a walk and drawing some of my favorite scenery and taking photos of my favorite views. Finally, your weekly picture of Meowlena.
This week, we had Monday off from school. Tuesday, the students had the day off but the teachers had an ‘inset’ day. This is similar to a professional development day. We were sent an itinerary for the day on Friday last week. This included staff meetings, planning time, and lunch. Tuesday morning was filled with staff meetings. The PYP coordinator was not in so my mentor teacher hosted the staff meeting. All the early years and primary years teachers came to the classroom. We discussed finalizing an order for next year's school supplies, a school wide math fluency workshop, Seesaw (like google classroom or blackboard), and any issues the teachers and students are currently experiencing. The order list for next year's school supplies was very interesting to sit in on. Each teacher had a long list of supplies they would like in the classroom to help teach, however, by the end of the discussion all the teachers decided that more playground equipment and outdoor toys would be the best use of school resources. Many of the teachers do break duty and see how bored the kids can be. The outdoor play area is very nice but it is small and has minimal playground equipment. When all the PYP is outside the area gets very crowded and arguments break out regularly. The teachers think if they had more to do they would end up arguing less. We had another meeting where a high school math teacher was proposing a math fluency program that would be used for all PYP. The program was called Numeracy Ninjas. In this program students would complete a weekly fluency worksheet where they would earn belts for getting correct answers. I found this to be a very interesting conversation to hear what the second grade teacher had to say versus the sixth grade teacher had to say. They both had different questions and concerns regarding their students and their developmental level of those students. By the end of the discussion the teachers were able to agree on how they will use this program for all students at all grade levels. Finding a program that can be used for both second grade and sixth grade is not easy but these teachers were able to work together to make the program work. There are many pros and cons to the IB system and one of these pros is the collaboration between teachers. This system requires a lot of teacher collaboration, which depending on your staff, can be extremely beneficial and productive but also a huge source of tension between the staff. In this case, the teacher did not all see eye to eye on the Numeracy Ninjas. However, the staff did not argue with each other over the program, they asked questions and made modifications to the program so all the teachers and students benefit from the program. I have sat in on staff meetings that resulted in verbal fights and others that were completely unproductive because no one wants to work together. This was one of the first times I have seen a staff meeting where the teachers' productivity solved their problem. I have been teaching the money unit in math. On Wednesday I taught a lesson titled ‘calculating with money’ where students had to find the total and the difference between different amounts of money. The math program had the students doing the subtraction with a method I was not familiar with and also did not understand the meaning behind the method. When I was trying to teach the method I really struggled with explaining in a way that was easy for the students to understand. After the lesson I felt I had bombed it and so had the students. We did not understand each other. I asked my mentor teacher to explain the method to me. She gave the logic behind why the math program was asking the students to solve the problem using this particular method. After her explanation I felt I could have taught the lesson more effectively. What I learned from this was, if I do not understand a lesson provided to me in full then I will not be able to effectively teach and explain the learning to students. My mentor teacher, being very understanding, simply suggested I do a reteach tomorrow on this skill. She explained that even she still has to do reteaches because not every lesson is going to make sense for all the students. I created some review questions in the explicit instruction format with a question I did thinking aloud, a problem we solved together as a class, and a couple problems students solved on their whiteboards independently. The students ended up really liking the reteach and many were excited they understood and asked to do more questions. I asked the students to give me a thumbs up or a thumbs down to rate how they were feeling about this topic. Every student gave me a thumbs up and I felt much better about my teaching. The students really love my animal stickers and the notes I leave them. They have started leaving each other these notes or asking me to give one to someone who was kind to them. I have leveled up my notes by bringing in my ‘zoo’ to class. I explained to them that they could tell me when someone did something outstanding and I would make them a letter. On Friday, one student had a birthday. His father is a teacher at the school and they come in with two trays loaded with giant pastries for his classmates. The kids' eyes lit up when they saw the giant pastries. However, after they started eating, they realized there was no way they could eat the entire pastry. They were absolutely huge pastries so we ended up cutting them in half to the size of a normal pastry. One of my favorite things about elementary teaching is celebrating birthdays and holidays. The whole class made sure the birthday boy felt very special by letting him lead the lines, pick the game they play at break, and sing happy birthday at lunch. I really enjoyed the way the students celebrated their classmate, even if he is a classmate that often causes trouble in class. There is a lot of fun with birthday celebrations in elementary school. You can do little things like give out stickers or write the students name on the board for their birthday and the students will be ecstatic and feel so important. The same student who had the birthday hid a mystery motivator in my computer when I was not looking. I found this extremely kind. This weekend my teacher was away on a mini trip with some of the other teachers for a race some of the teachers were running in. She asked me to look after her cat while she was away. She has a very eclectic cat named Eleana. We had a great weekend together playing and getting a lot of pets. Enjoy these photos of her. On Saturday during the day, my host mom took me to a BBQ out in the country where her fiancé lives. I truly could not tell you where we were, but it was absolutely beautiful. We had Italian BBQ, which was very good but it's hard to beat an American BBQ…
After that, we visited a nearby city and walked around the vineyards behind the fiancé's house. It was a beautiful evening. This week, my mentor teacher gave me almost full reign of the lessons for the week. She provided me with an outline for the week but left the lesson planning and teaching to me.
The school does not have a reading program they follow, for example Scholastic or Fundations. Teachers use a free online program called A to Z reading to find topics and worksheets. I have been placed in many different schools and have used many different reading programs at these schools, but I have never seen a school that has not bought into a reading program. In past placements the reading program the school bought into always had each day planned and prepared for the teacher with topics, presentations, worksheets, etc. The teacher's job is to relay the information provided to them to the students. Here, we pick a topic, for example adverbs, and then I make a presentation, worksheet, etc for the lesson. I enjoy the opportunity to make my own reading lessons and have to research each reading topic to find the correct information and the best way to present this information. I think I was able to create engaging presentations and worksheets for the students and the students enjoyed the lessons. While I appreciate the creative process of making my own lessons, creating a lesson from scratch is extremely time consuming, especially for someone who is still learning how to create lessons in the IB system. I am not always confident I have presented the information in the best way or that the students understand 100% of the information, I am learning a lot about the lesson planning process and what goes into the reading lessons I am usually provided with. Math not going bad but not going great. I had one day this week where I felt confident in the lesson after and I knew the students had learned and benefited from the lesson. The other days of the week I needed to do a lot of reflecting and self evaluation at the end of the lesson. Math is a difficult subject to teach for me. I quite enjoy the subject but find it difficult to relay the information in the most explicit way. The math program provides each lesson with a video of someone teaching the teaching slides. I have been watching these videos to help me prepare for each lesson. This has given me the specific language to communicate the math information. I am met with the additional challenge with teaching the money unit in an international Italian school using a UK based math program. The entire unit is taught using pounds and pence. The students are familiar with the Euro system. I am familiar with the USD. For lack of a better word, the situation is a bit trippy. I quite enjoy the topic of money, making this a particularly interesting unit to teach. The students absolutely love the pretend money. I have been brainstorming how to create a fun real life money lesson into the unit using fake money. Interestingly, ISS does not have scheduled science and social studies lessons. Science and social studies are interwoven into the unit of inquiry. In the US science and social studies are often a forgotten or skipped subject on a day to day basis but not completely left out of the schedule. Adding in science and social studies into the unit is easier for some units and more challenging for other units. In our current unit ‘all the worlds a stage’ adding science has been difficult. Social studies is a bit easier to integrate into this lesson. In other units like energy science is the main focus and social studies takes a smaller role. Learning to add the science and social studies into the everyday lesson has been a great skill and I will be continuing this practice to a lesser degree back in the states. Science and social studies usually have a designated time in American schools but only about 50% of that time is actually used to teach science and social studies. On Friday, I was having a bad day. I was tired and nothing was going my way. I felt off the whole day. I am not sure if the students could pick up on my mood, I try to turn it up positive when I am with the students but it is not always possible to be authentically positive all the time. I had the first two periods where I had to teach math and language. I am finding the money subject in math to be difficult to explain and I never leave a math lesson feeling I had taught the material in the best possible way. On this Friday I especially felt I had absolutely bombed the lesson. Language was better, so I made a Kahoot! on adverbs vs adjectives and the students always enjoy a Kahoot! We then read some poems from a book I found in the library aloud. The students took turns reading each poem aloud. They absolutely loved reading the poems which was a nice positive way to end the lessons. After the two lessons I was drained and felt bad about my teaching. I helped my mentor teacher get the students ready for drama and then we headed to the staff room to work while the students were at drama. Unfortunately, I had left my power adapter at home and had no way to charge my computer. This was adding extra stress because I knew I only had a few battery percentages to send some emails and edit some lessons before my computer would die. Admittedly, I was on the verge of tears by the time I had sat down to open my computer. When I opened my computer a piece of paper had fallen out. A student had left me a mystery motivator in my computer sometime between the end of language and leaving for drama. She used the fish sticker I had given her on a quiz on the hidden note. The note was written in the same format as the notes I leave for them.I do not know if she noticed my mood and was motivated to leave the note or if it was a coincidence she would leave me one after leaving my mentor teacher earlier that week. She left a very personal message that I really needed at the moment. Whether coincidences or an act of intuition, her little act of kindness helped me get through the rest of the day, genuinely, in a better mood. Everyday I am exposed to many, MANY, different cultural experiences. I have, up until this week, really enjoyed my time as a foreigner in Italy. I have embraced every difference, challenge, and experience. Now a month away from home, I wish I could be in my own house, in my own bed, with my own food, with my own car, in my own country just for a little bit. I do not want to leave Italy, but I wish I could have an hour back in my own home so I can drink Tim Hortons, eat a PBJ, and nap in my own bed. I have started listing the things I am excited to do when I am back in the US. Some of these items include driving my car, drinking free tap water at restaurants, flushing a normal toilet, and walking down the street at a fast speed. Friday I was having a rough day. Nothing was going my way and I was missing home. For the first time on this trip, I was crying in my room. I just needed to let out my negative thoughts and the stress of the day. My host brother came into my room and caught me crying. Both him and my host mom were so supportive. My host brother talked with me and we went on a very scenic walk to different parks in the city. My host mom asked if I wanted to eat out or at home and what I would want for dinner. She made all my favorite foods and gave me a huge portion of dinner. I felt so much better. As much as I miss home, my host family knows how to make me feel at home. Please enjoy some more pictures of Meowlena. I was trying to take a nice photo of her but my host brother interrupted to bother the cat and I got a very funny photo. |
AuthorHi! I'm Marita Miller an exceptional education student at Buffalo State student teaching in Siena Italy. Follow my journey! Archives
May 2023
|