Blog #2

 In my 3rd grade classroom I have been able to witness a lot from different perspectives. In the morning I see on level or below group of students and then in the afternoon I see above average or gifted group. Each class has very different behavior issues, while they have some of the same too. The morning class has a major issue of listening to directions the first time. There are a few students that literally ask a question about what my teacher just went over the second he stops talking. They also have a problem with getting their work done on time, we constantly have to walk around and tell them to stop playing or stop talking and do their work or it would never get done. This classes behavior issues mainly stem from these problems, but they also have trouble getting along with each other and tend to say very mean things to each other for no reason at all. This week I had one students tell another "you're going to lose because you're stupid" when we were playing a math game. The student that said this was mad because he had not won yet and wanted others to lose too. The student that was told this immediately started crying and didn't want to play the game anymore. I felt bad for him because he was really looking forward to playing right before he was told that. In my second class (the gifted group), the students also have a competition issue and tend to degrade each other or brag too much. My teacher does not seem to address it directly, he just tells the students to apologize to each other. I feel like something else should be done.

As talked about earlier, I do not feel like my teacher style matches much with my teaching style. He is extremely laid back and just does things on the fly when I would have to have everything planned out and organized. I also feel as though I would be harder on the kids with their behavior issues because they seem to just do as they please right now. I do think my style of teaching will be laid back but not to this extreme, I need to have some type of order in my classroom. Some of my supervising teachers style that I would incorporate into my style would be the way he presents the material to the students. On Monday and Wednesday he presents new information, and Tuesday, Thursday and Friday he reviews the topics introduced. I also like how he incorporates centers and manipulatives very frequently. I like these two things because I think it really reinforces the topics and helps the students to really grasp the concepts with a great understanding.

The one curriculum/ instructional element that was new to me was the formatting of my teachers lesson plan book. The way he wrote out his lessons were nothing like the lessons I have to write for my classes and every time I see him teach the lessons, it is very informal. For some reason I expected it to be like the lessons I have done previously. Also, I did not realize how spread out the lessons were, my teacher is always saying, "oh we will just finish tomorrow." I thought each lesson had to be done at a specific time or day.

On the other hand, the concepts and formatting of his class seems very comfortable to me. I love the way he presents a topic and than reviews the next day. I also found it comfortable the way he had the classroom set up and how the students were in table groups. It was familiar to me because that is how I want my classroom set up and how every class I have been in so far has been set up.

The next thing I plan to do in my professional development is my peer-to-peer evaluation. I haven't got up in front of the class yet; I have only been doing group or individual review sessions. I have really enjoyed working with the students individually though; they seem to depend on my to come explain things to them when they are having a hard time.