Placement as a Student Teacher.

Today, I went and visited my school. I am so excited that I will get to be doing my student teaching in Mrs. D's Classroom. Mrs. D teaches 6th Grade Communication, along with 7th and 8th Grade Science! This is so exciting! I have forgotten most of my science (embarrassingly true), so the fact that this is going to make me remember allot more will be SO AWESOME!!! 

I noticed the watchful guidance of the teachers, and the staff as I walked up to the office - this tells me that although they know me they are conscious of who I am and what I am doing, their first concern is the safety of their students. The atmosphere at the School is always encouraging, welcoming, and positive. The learning that goes on here just makes me more excited that I get to do my student teaching here! 

The classroom is neat and tidy. Everything has a place, and the safety issues are well cared for here. There are no desks in this room, just those really neat lab tables for four students to sit at. This adds to the atmosphere set up for learning, especially learning science.

The first period of the class is "Study Hall" the students are encouraged to engage in proactive learning and study during this time. Mrs. D takes role, lunch information, and takes care of all those pesky little administrative tasks. She also prepares for the first lesson of the morning. Communication Arts! Today it would be a spelling test - she offered to let me administer it, but I asked to watch her first so I could see her protocols in action first. 

Next, in roles the 7th grade class for science - they are in test prep. I felt lost- I kept using geology terms for weather science, no wonder the students kept looking at me like I had lost my mind! I struggled through and quickly noticed that the students were all struggling with the same terms, and concepts. This makes me wonder how it was presented and IF it was not the text or the presentation of the material that was so confounding. 

In the 8th Grade class, it was test day. They had a multitude of questions about the test - but it was all format, and how to questions more than subject questions. Again, I wonder about the format of the information. Is this a trend that I need to be paying attention to? I will look at my text book on testing and see what style the testing is and see what the pitfalls are. Perhaps this is the pitfall of this kind of testing (short answer/matching/fill in the blank). Somehow I think it may just be this group of Students - they like to articulate their concerns.