Pre-clinical practice - 2 weeks prep
Heading to FISO this Tuesday to meet the teacher and class! Full day of fun including a bit of forest time and a filming of the meeting and discussion of the mentor and me - just 5 minutes of recording after practicing the discussion first.
This is my baseline and InTASC Standard 1 video - technically this is Module 8, but I think I recorded this before Module 8 began so it probably was still Module 7. I actually started a week early because of breaks - which were total 4 weeks over the course of the Module 8.
I taught a math lesson on measurement. I feel like I have grown so much since this lesson!
Here are my meeting notes from my mentor first meeting. I chose to keep her videos off my e-portfolio since I want her to keep her privacy :)
Meeting: Today I took a personal day off work to meet the mentor teacher and class. The meeting I set up today was a whole day of observing and getting connected to the students. I got a sense of the classroom. I took note of students who have specific learning or health needs (autism with math deficiency and a student who has Type 1 diabetes). This is our main campus of the school i work at. The school is huge compared to our school of just 250 students 3 years old to 8th grade. My mentor's class was one of 5 classes in the grade 4. I think based on today's lesson, I could teach either a math or literacy lesson for my baseline video. I'm starting a week early for the clinical because it will be necessary to get all the videos in on time.
Rubric: You can't see so much the Rubric discussion since we talked about it more in depth before the recorded session. But my mentor thought is was pretty straight forward. Although it is a lot of material to cover, I explained that I would only be focusing on 2-3 at a time normally. We already established that the Unit of Inquiry energy project would be a great lesson to cover the PBL in standards 4 and 5.
Standards, Lessons, differentiations/groupings : The units and standards are available on the UofI documents and there are google slides and documents that I can access to find information about those standards. They are a Teachers’ College so they do readers and writers workshops. The grade 4 teachers have a document with sequencing of the UofI and other subjects. The schedule for the classroom has tons of links within it. It is a live document that is added to every week. Catherine and I will work on this together as the weeks go by. During the un-recorded session, we looked at the 4th grade planner on a google doc for the whole year. The team creates and shares digital lessons via links to google slides and google docs. My mentor focuses on reading and writing literacy, another teacher focuses on math, other teachers focus on the unit of inquiry, and there are two new teachers who are just getting their footing, so they are not in charge of planning anything. These are guidance and not mandatory, but they are well thought out to match the scope and sequence. Next weeks focuses will be: Math (Strands/Substrands: Multiplication and Division of Whole Numbers Measurement & Data collection)- patterns and division, Reading -Readers Workshop: Reading the World (Readers tackle complex, technical passages head-on by reading and rereading small parts, thinking about what those parts are teaching, and using talk and writing to explain their ideas. Refer to the structural elements of drama (e.g., casts of characters, settings, descriptions, dialogue, stage directions) when writing or speaking about a text). Word study of prefixes, suffixes and non-fiction text and jotting structural notes about the text, Writing - (Consult reference materials (e.g., dictionaries, glossaries, thesauruses), both print and digital, to find the pronunciation and determine or clarify the precise meaning of keywords and phrases. Spell grade appropriate words correctly, consulting digital and/or print references as needed). Informative text with topic, subtopics, supporting facts/evidence and topic sentences. Unit of Inquiry: (Energy can also be transferred from place to place by electric currents, which can then be used locally to produce motion, sound, heat, or light. The currents may have been produced to begin with by transforming the energy of motion into electrical energy. (NGSS.PS3.B)). The writing will tie into the unit later on as we move to the group presentation where they have to explain what they learned and made with the energy unit project. Each group has to present either in front of the classroom or on a video. They are currently making a prototype based on their design for a useful energy efficient product that transfers energy. They must be able to name three types of energy being shown (kinetic, potential, etc...). They are also budgeting their "money" for the project as things in the Maker Space lab cost money - which is just math coins in the form of Euro coins.
The groups are homogenous normally so the groups can be given similar work, but of course there is a wide range. The pace I saw today was 18 minutes per activity for each group. They didn't rotate stations per se, but they did several activities in consecutive order. This is a new set up the teacher was trying and it worked really well and allowed to be able to teach a mini lesson to each group over the periods for Math and Literacy. I couldn't even tell it was a new system! One student Ella, has struggles with math and is really behind, so she may have the same concept but be one lower level of the Bloom's taxonomy. Other students have to write about their thinking and describe the process they are using to solve problems. One of the biggest challenges is to get them confident in making mistakes. They are unsure of themselves about how to continue if they aren't sure. The goal in the group rotation activities is to build independence. There is time for correcting afterwards.
There is are google docs with summative assessments, and one of the grade 4 teachers has a good method to incorporate data for formative assessments that I might want to look into. Also they use Seesaw to show their learning, in addition to using notebooks where the teacher will go by and check them - giving them a sticker to signify that she has checked the work. If they haven't got a sticker by the end of the period, then they lay the notebooks open on her desk for her to look at later.
Norms and expectations: the class made classroom agreements and they also have math agreements. They are all really great and get along, the biggest problem is that they chat a bit.
As I submit this I have may have to miss my first half of the week because my daughter's teacher tested positive for Covid. Waiting to hear back from the Gesundheitsamt (health office). It's likely that my daughter will have to stay home until next Thursday. : (
Catherine Mentor Meeting Caprice Candidate
Nov 10, 2020 - First meeting the week before clinical.