USE

Praxis visit, day 2, 2.12.13; only my second day of observation at the school. A Tuesday morning, at 8 AM. On a normal day, they do a combination of math and reading packets and Ms. Morrow works with students individually when they most need it, some students need more one on one help than others. This day, they had to prepare for their special education standardized tests.

            Today I have decided to focus on behavior within my praxis.  There are a few students that I have mentioned in my past notes that I would like to focus on today.

Attached are my fieldnotes from the week of 2/27!

• During lunch, Teacher L asked me to introduce myself and say a bit about why I would be joining them. I told them I was training at Haverford to be a teacher and wanted to learn about how to teach from their class. Then they asked me a couple of questions (will you teach here? Etc.) Then, Teacher L had each of them introduce themselves to me and say something about their selves. Students said thinks like ‘I really really really really like sports’ or ‘I am crazy about horses’. One student introduced herself to me in sign language spelling.
  • This is the best introduction to a field placement class that I’ve had so far. I really got to get a sense of each student from the beginning, and was introduced as a teacher and member of the community.

• After the class had time for two students to share their fairy-tale projects, which were fairy tales they had written, illustrated, and bound. They first explained what the story was about, showed the cover and back with fake prizes and review quotes. (‘This story was excellent, it left me on the edge of my seat. When is the author writing a sequel?’ –Publisher’s Weekly) Then they read the story to the whole class, which was done in a friendly way with a bit of talking in the middle, and laughing with the group. (One boy said in the middle, ‘Teacher L said I couldn’t use violence, so I used cupcake blasters instead’). Afterwards, each of the two students received comments and maybe a question or two from the class, and lastly Teacher L.

Attached are field notes from my second visit. 

Guided Individual Reflection

What happened? During her individual reading time, E was reading nicely with her teacher. When Mrs. K stood up to pick something up off of her desk- not 2 feet away- E stood up and tried to flip her table in record time. The books and papers went flying. Mrs. K ignored the disruption and continued teaching, while I picked up the papers. E did not appear angry or to show any emotion.

Why did it happen? E took advantage of the time that her teacher wasn't looking to act out. It was not that she was angry or upset, but might have been feeling angsty or pent up. I have seen E, a child with moderate autism, act out before because she likes the stimulation. 

What might it mean? It could mean that E needed some time to take a break from working on her reading, or needs to learn better coping skills for behavior (which she is working on at school).

Attached are my first field notes from the semester. Because I got started late, I have gone twice this week. 

What Happened? 

When I arrived at my field placement last Friday, the class was just finishing a math lesson on solving two-step stroy problems involving subtraction and addition. As is their routine, after the class was finished with the lesson, they played a math game independently. Today's game was called "Spin-and-Add"-Each student was given a spinner with a series of three-digit numbers, and they were supposed to spin the needle and add the first two numbers that it landed on. My cooperating teacher, Mrs. Dolly, asked me to work with two stundents, Wendy and Joel, both of whom do not have the "number sense" that their peers do. Their spinners were only numbered 1 through 9. For Wendy and Joel the goal of "Spin-and-Add" was to practice "counting on" using their fingers. 

Although I was working with both students, I found myself having to focus primarily on Wendy. Although Joel occasionally had trouble understanding that each finger he put up corresponded to one number, it seemed that he began to realize the process the more that he practiced. In contrast, Wendy did not seem to be understanding at all. She could add numbers that totaled less than 10, but struggled with anything that required more than two hands to visualize. For instance, on one of her spins, Wendy got a 4 and a 7. Our conversation was as follows,

Me: "So what two numbers are we adding?"

Wendy: "4 and 7."

Me: "What is 4+7?"

West Philadelphia Elementary School, Kindergarten

*Pseudonyms were used in this entry.

Guided Individual Reflection Protocol (McEntee, et al., p. 52):

Step 1. Collect Stories: During my lunch break today I jotted down some notes about events/situations that had occurred.  This was so that I could my full attention to my students while they were in the room, and so that I wouldn’t forget any event, even ordinary events, that had occurred. 

Step 2. What happened? During the journaling activity today Samuel decided that he wasn’t pleased with the situation.  Instead of voicing this clearly, the crumpled up his piece of paper that he was supposed to write on.  He blatantly crumpled up the piece of paper in front of me, while I was directing him not to, because he would have to use it anyway.  He continued to crumple up the piece of paper, and then asked for a new one.  I stated that I had clearly told him that that was his only piece of paper, and that he still had to use it to write his journal entry.