Today is the second days for my practicum this week and I took a day off for my Chinese New Year, and I will make up one more day to do my practicum on next Monday Feburary 2, 2009.
I am so excited to start my science lesson with these Grade 2 students. They behaved so good and I really love to teach them. Normally, they were all response well to my questions and actively engaged in all the in-class activities. Every day, when I started my science lesson, I would state my expectations clearly so that they all knew what I expected from them and the purpose of the lesson. I was consistent with my rules and they were all conform to the rules that I set out for them. Today, we did an out-door activity. This time they were required to do the activity of measuring different places around the school building and compare the temperatures they recorded. Overall, it went well and the students were so excited to do this activity, but the only thing that I did not take into account that this activity actually took more more than I would have expected. Some of the thermometers provided by school were not working! Next time, I think would be good to do a pre-test on the thermometers to see if they were working and make sure they were all workable when doing experiments/observation. Next Monday, I will continue on todays lesson, since I planned at least 3 - 4 classworks for students but somehow because of the out-door activity took longer time than I expected! Hopefully, I could finish the rest of the observation and in-class worksheets on Monday!
After Monday, I would conduct my first experiment for the Science lesson. This will be the lesson for getting these Grade 2 students to build a thermometer. I think they would be very excited and want to do it, I believe!
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Classroom Management
Time went by so fast and I already did my practicum at Rosedale for three weeks now, I love the Grade 2 class, partly because they are the Grade I love to teach and they are very cute little angel to me. When I was in the class, there always have incidents that made you feel so enjoyable and laugh about. Overall, I love this Grade 2 class and I can say they are all adorable and you will never want to leave the classroom when these little kids were in the class learning. You can always see them so eager to learn and seem to have ever ending questions to ask and inquire about, once in while might make you feel a bit annoying, but that's alright..... because they all want to learn and always motivated.
In Grade 2 class, I found that if you have clear expectations of their behaviors in class, they are willing to show their good behaviors most of the time. Some of the little tricks that I tried were when I said: " I want to see that you all show me how good you are and I am going to pick the best student of the day." All of a student, even they were all chatting and would become quiet just in a few seconds. They were all response well to me when I made my rules and expectations clear. Sometimes they are so excited in engaging in their in-class activities, once you said "HOH", then they would all put their little hands on top of their heads and listen. I found this management trick is quite useful and they all show respect to me and they love to be with me. At least, I feel that way! Now I found that even my partner teachers were both out for doing something and I was the only adult in class, they would not hesitate to ask me questions or ask for help from me. I think part of this was that my two partner teachers had put a lot of efforts to train this Grade 2 class and these children were exceptionally obedient. I found that one of the main reason was that my partner teachers were very experienced teacher and they let the students knew that I was the teacher in their class and should always treat me as their teacher.
So far, I found that in order to be successful in Classroom Management, teacher should build a good relationship with students and make your expectations clear and easy to follow!
In Grade 2 class, I found that if you have clear expectations of their behaviors in class, they are willing to show their good behaviors most of the time. Some of the little tricks that I tried were when I said: " I want to see that you all show me how good you are and I am going to pick the best student of the day." All of a student, even they were all chatting and would become quiet just in a few seconds. They were all response well to me when I made my rules and expectations clear. Sometimes they are so excited in engaging in their in-class activities, once you said "HOH", then they would all put their little hands on top of their heads and listen. I found this management trick is quite useful and they all show respect to me and they love to be with me. At least, I feel that way! Now I found that even my partner teachers were both out for doing something and I was the only adult in class, they would not hesitate to ask me questions or ask for help from me. I think part of this was that my two partner teachers had put a lot of efforts to train this Grade 2 class and these children were exceptionally obedient. I found that one of the main reason was that my partner teachers were very experienced teacher and they let the students knew that I was the teacher in their class and should always treat me as their teacher.
So far, I found that in order to be successful in Classroom Management, teacher should build a good relationship with students and make your expectations clear and easy to follow!
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Interesting Science experiment at Rosedale
This was the second day of the second week of practicum at Rosedale Elementary. I really wanted to write about the last two days that the Grade 2 students did on Tuesday and Wednesday. I remember yesterday, they were doing an experiment of how to make the floating thing to sink in water by adding rods on top of it. The students were required to add one rod each time and record how many rods can make that floating thing sink in water: styrofoam plate, plastic container, tinfoil plate and a plastic lid. I saw that all the students were having fun and all participating in the learning process, I found that when they successfully made it sank, they became so excited and when I circulating around the classroom and they raised their hands and asked to look at their finding. I thought children are all naturally love to share their experience and this was an effective way to give students the opportunities to participate in an active learning process and sparked their interesting in learning about science.
And today, they had another experiment and were required to design and build a boat by using placsticine (playdoh) and had to make it float. They had to draw the design on the booklet that their group member created; after that, they did the experiment by putting their boats on the surface of the water and see if it was going to float. Finally, they need to record their findings on the observation sheet and this experiment was quite interesting.
And today, they had another experiment and were required to design and build a boat by using placsticine (playdoh) and had to make it float. They had to draw the design on the booklet that their group member created; after that, they did the experiment by putting their boats on the surface of the water and see if it was going to float. Finally, they need to record their findings on the observation sheet and this experiment was quite interesting.
Monday, January 12, 2009
My Practicum at Rosedale
I just finished my first week of practicum at Rosedale Elementary School and I worked with Grade 2 kids. The class size is managable with 25 students and they knew their daily routine very well. I could find that the two teachers were good teachers and they trained the students so well behaved all the time. I have two partner teachers who worked with me and they were both nice person. The Grade 2 class has a strong focus on Early Literacy. Some of the students have really advanced reading and writing skills at Junior High level. During the first week, I was helping in doing some read aloud activities with individual students and I was amazed that the students were all eager that I would pick them and read the book with him/her. They were all good reader and they read stories based on their reading skill levels and they got their own book box. I also checked students' writing and I was impressed by the students' written work and they were all very good at their age and some of them wrote pages and pages. I found that some of the students were very creative. I love to read their writing and I anticipate to be with them again tomorrow.
Another thing I would like to share is that we were very delighted that Darlene and Sharon came to our class and talked about Assessment for students learning and I felt that they provided excellent resources for all of us and their presentative were well planned and organized. I like the in-class activities and it provided hands-on experience for us. I liked the way how they engaged us in the learning process while they still took the responsibilties of instruction. They are experienced educators. I feel so lucky to have them in class and hope to have another opportunity to attend their worksop. Overall, I think this was a rewarding learning experience.
Another thing I would like to share is that we were very delighted that Darlene and Sharon came to our class and talked about Assessment for students learning and I felt that they provided excellent resources for all of us and their presentative were well planned and organized. I like the in-class activities and it provided hands-on experience for us. I liked the way how they engaged us in the learning process while they still took the responsibilties of instruction. They are experienced educators. I feel so lucky to have them in class and hope to have another opportunity to attend their worksop. Overall, I think this was a rewarding learning experience.
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