Week 9: Assessment and Fishbowl

This week, we discussed getting started with assessment, especially in relation to our field placements. We created a home survey as a communication to parents and families in order to gather general information about the family as well as information about reading in the home. 

Home Survey Questions
- Who lives with you in the home?
- What types of activities do you do as a family?
- What types of interests does your child have that you know of?
- What is the primary language spoken in your home?
- What are your child's reading habits? What about academic habits in general?
- When is homework done in the home? How? Do you have any rules about getting homework done? What kinds of support does your child receive at home to do their homework?
- What are some goals you have for your child to accomplish by the end of this year?
- What abilities for your child to have are most important to you in terms of skills they will need to succeed in life?
- What would you like to see in your child's teaching?
- In what way would be best for me to communicate with you?

I chose these questions because I feel like they would be essential to determining the values of the family and understand what the family thinks is the best learning style for the child. Especially with elementary age students, it may be difficult for them to really know and verbalize what their preferred way of learning is, and the families are experts on their children, allowing the teacher to really see into what they believe is most important. 

Many of the other Home Surveys I found that pertained to reading had similar information on them as well, however I believe mine have some more detail attached to the questions in terms of what the family values right off the bat. One survey I found that I really enjoyed and would use to alter my questions on incorporated asking questions about the type of technology students have access to in the home. The link is below. I find that these types of questions could be very important when giving assignments to students, and oftentimes people, including teachers, assume that everyone has a working desktop with a printer or WiFi access in their home when that may not be the case. Also, by finding out what kind of technology is used in the home, I can offer apps and websites that could be used as enrichment activities based on my lessons.

http://thetechieteacher2.blogspot.com/2013/07/parent-technology-survey-freebie.html

We also had a fishbowl discussion about the topic of race in general, but also focused in on the classroom environment. One of the parts of that discussion that really struck me was the idea of color-blindness. In our discussion, we discussed color-blindness as a way to not see color in our students and in turn treat them all equally regardless of their race. However, we also discussed that race is a very important part of a student's individuality and identity and it's important to acknowledge their racial background and make them proud of who they are, no matter where they come from or what they look like. I also realize that we discussed our cooperating teachers and the students that they teach in terms of race relations. I've realized that there are only two African-American students in my classroom, one of which is actually from Haiti. The other student on the other hand, whose name is Nyshima, tends to have a distrustful relationship with my co-op. She frequently disobeys the rules that they review daily, and acts out frequently when reprimanded. My teacher actually called her grandmother one day to threaten her over her bad behavior, and as I later tried to redirect her to avoid her getting reprimanded yet again, my cooperating teacher essentially told me to back off so that her grandmother could see the full scope of her actions and discipline her in the classroom. The grandmother never did come into the classroom (at least before I left) so I do not know what became of that situation. But it irked me and I also found it odd that she was not providing a nurturing environment and redirecting the student to the best of her ability when that is a teacher's role in the classroom, and other students of other races may at times act similarly but she will not reprimand them in the same way. 

Week 6: Co-Teaching Strategies and CRI Testing

Co-Teaching Strategies to Use with Math Instruction

Co-Teaching is a method of delivering instruction where general and special educators share responsibility for planning, delivering, and evaluating instruction.
Strategies
- One Teach, One Observe: One teacher teaches the whole group, and the other teacher observes the group, determining who may need extra help and support to contribute and perform well in class. 
- Team Teaching: Teachers share total responsibility for planning and delivering academic instruction, teaching side-by-side.
- Alternative Teaching: One teacher teaches a small group of 3 - 8 students while the other teacher focuses on the whole class, helping to form small groups for more individualized, intense instruction. 
- Parallel Teaching: Both teachers split the class in half and teach both halves the same lesson at the same time, planning lessons together, allowing for more individualized attention with a smaller group. 
- Station Teaching: Teachers divide responsibility for instructional content, dividing class into groups of different activities, achieving the learning goals for all students. 
- One Teach, One Drift: One teacher facilitates instruction while the other floats around the classroom, able to check for student understanding and provide one-on-one help to struggling students.
Pros and Cons
- Pros: Allows for teachers to help all students, provides more individualized instruction, two teachers bring their ideas, general educator brings knowledge of curriculum and special educator brings specific strategies for certain needs
- Cons: May not match all academic topics or ages/grade levels, strategies for teaching may be limited, it may be difficult for both teachers to get on the same page and find planning times

Field Placement - Beginning CRI Instruction
I began my CRI Instruction with my designated student during my third week of placement. My teacher frustrates me a bit because of her teaching and classroom management style. It does not seem like she respects the assignments we have to complete, as her practice reading test as well as her other routines lasted about an hour and a half of my 2 1/2 hour timeframe in her classroom. As she began her morning Daily 5 with the students, I approached my student to begin the tests, as I only had about an hour left to even get started. As I started talking to him, my co-op asked me to wait until after her guided reading session with the student. I was left with about 20 minutes total by the end of their first Daily 5 rotation and guided reading. After reviewing the Interest Inventory, I noticed that Mario, the boy I work with, very much enjoys Scooby Doo and watching lots of cartoons on TV. He has a big family and loves to play Xbox with his older siblings. We did not get through many of the tests, so next time I go to placement I plan to get through the rest of the test battery and analyze the strengths and weaknesses of Mario to hopefully begin planning lessons. It may be difficult to find a place to facilitate the lessons as students are scattered all over the classroom for the Daily 5. Each week there will need to be a lesson planned to perform all 6.