Week 8

As action research continued, I got a little screwed up in my activities this week. I missed school because of illness on Monday, and had second grade planning day all day Wednesday, meaning the only day i got to do activities with my students was on Tuesday. This week, I thought was a tougher week with the words as we were working with contractions. I figured that a lot of my students would struggle with this test, and it seemed like they weren't too excited about spelling this week. Though, the week got screwed up, I thought it might be a good test for my research to see how the students did with only limited help from me. We did have a few absent students who have not completed the test as of yet, but so far 13 students have scored a 100. This amazed me, and kind of has me twisted. Do my students even need my help? Is my action research going to prove to be pointless and a waste of time? I'm not sure of any of this yet, but i believe I will be able to tell in a few weeks. Or maybe I should start paying closer attention to the students who are having the most gain in scores. That IS what my action research is about, trying to see if my activities help the students learn. So, looking at those numbers, as of now, there were only 2 students that scored less than a 70. That makes me feel a little better.

As a little note to put at the end of this post I just want to say that its amazing the things a couple teachers can get accomplished without having students for a day. We had planning all day Wednesday, and I'm pretty sure that the second grade teachers are fully prepared with their plans up to Christmas. All it takes is one day of hard work and determination and you can get a lot accomplished!

Week 7

Action research started this week, and oh what fun it was. I am doing a lot of stuff with spelling, and my wondering is based around the learning of spelling words from my students. Though it may seem difficult for some people to find interesting activities to do with spelling, I found some in my first week that I will use for the rest of my career. The one activity that I loved best,m and I believe all of my students loved best was "shaving cream spelling". We did this the day before the students had their spelling test because I thought that something like this would help the spelling words stick in their head for the next day. I went around to all of the students desks and sprayed a bit of shaving cream, then had them use the hand that they write with to smear the cream all over their desk. I would then say one of their spelling words, and they would have to spell it in the shaving cream with their finger. To ensure that all of the students were paying attention, and spelling the words correctly, I would call on a student to spell the word aloud after everyone had a chance to try to spell it. The students absolutely loved this activity, and it seemed to pay off.

Out of 25 students, 13 of them scored a 100 on the test this week. This was the highest number of 100's that we have had the whole year on a spelling test. One of our students had consistently been scoring in the 40, 50, 60 range, and she scored a 92 on this test. It makes me wonder if my activities actually had something to do with the great success for this week, did the students just get more help at home this week, or did the activities just excite the students about spelling that they tried harder. Whatever the case, they loved the activities, and they all had success on this test.

Week 6

Week 6 has ended, and once again I saw some things, or was involved in some things, that I have never been a part of. This week we had our first faculty-senate meeting of the year. I didn't know what to expect of this because I have never been a part of one of these. Lisa, Ann, and myself were all asked to talk about the Benedum Collaborative Program, and what it has meant to us, and for Watson. The teachers were to take a vote on whether they wanted Watson to continue to be a PDS, or if they wanted to discontinue their collaboration with WVU. The teachers voted 28-2 in favor of continuing their collaboration. I thought this was a big step in the right direction for Watson, and for everyone at Watson. Some people may not realize the importance this collaboration brings with it for Watson. Personally, I would like to find out who the 2 people were who voted against us, and question them on their beliefs about this. Oh well, I will never know, and it is probably better for everyone that I do not any way.

Other than that, the faculty senate meeting was....interesting. I always heard that teaching was a little political at times, and I saw that first hand at this meeting. I never thought I would sit at a meeting in school and here the words, "All in favor say I." I felt like the things on the agenda were all rushed through, and there wasn't much that was actually accomplished. Then, we sat through a presentation in the afternoon, and all I got from it was that they wanted everyone to go out and vote yes for a bond that would enable the building of a new middle school in east fairmont. What that has to do with us at Watson is beyond me. Though I did not find much production in these meetings, it was nice to have the opportunity to talk with Mrs. Decker without the students there. We are all very busy people, and sometimes it is nice to kind of catch up on everything that has been going on.

The week in school was also a little different as it was the end of a unit in reading. The students took a bunch of unit tests, spelling being the one I was most interested in. I wanted to look closely at this one because my action research is based around spelling. After seeing the scores, most of the students performed how I thought they would, while others surprised me. Needless to say, I am excited to see how my action research impacts my students. I start action research tomorrow! See ya next week...

Week 5

Well, even though this blog is entirely late, I still have a good bit to say about week 5. The one thing that I want to talk about the most for week 5 is our class getting a new student. It was nothing new for me to be introduced to a new student, because it seems like every year I have met new students that have come from all different places. This new student though, was in the middle of the year, and that has not happened very often to me while I have been in any classroom throughout my student teaching. I remember last semester when I was doing my 5-9 placement at Mountainview, our fifth grade class got a new student, but I did not like the way that he was introduced to our class. It was pretty much like, "Ok class, this is _____, and he is a new student to our class." This year though, Mrs. Decker impressed me to no end. The student was brought back to our class at the very beginning of the day, even before the students got there, and it was a Friday. She was in tears, and I could tell that she was not very excited to be with us. Mrs. Decker talked to her like it was a daughter of her own, which is no surprise as Mrs. Decker always tells me how she treats her students as she would treat her own whether it is discipline or love. We took this new student on a tour of the school to get her relaxed, and Mrs. Decker even got her breakfast. The one thing that I loved the most about Mrs. Decker, and the way she handled the situation, was that she made this student feel included from the time she entered our room. She talked to her about her family, about where she came from, and how excited she was to have her in our room. I was truly astounded by the way Mrs. Decker took this child into her room, and life.

Another thing that impressed me about this was how the students treated our new student. When we took her to breakfast, a few of the other girls in our class were introduced to her, and they acted like it was their long lost friend. They were so excited to me her. Then when we got back to class, and started our morning, a few of the students gave our new student some things to greet her. This included a homemade bracelet from a girl, and a pencil from one of our little boys. I thought this was a very special moment to be a part of in my student teaching, and I learned so much from this experience.