That's Mrs. Fobert to you!

Week of 4/1/10

Well, after a crazy week of flying to Florida and back with a 2 1/2 year old and Grad School work - it was time for my micro-teaching!
I worked through Google Docs - which I love - with Dr. Smirnova to plan a content analysis style review of what we've learned so far this semester. Everyone, including myself, loved the quiz in Power Point last week, so I figured I'd make the review in the same form. It was fun to play around in PP in a new way and create a really unique review tool. I think the same type of project would be awesome for a Jeopardy style review for my future students.
I think my MT went pretty well. I was pretty exhausted from a crazy week, and had to be prompted to remember to do a couple of things. I was surprised by how confident I felt in front of the class - I've never felt that comfortable before peers. I think this class has a great job at making everyone feel free to speak their own opinion and never be afraid to ask a questions. The comfortable atmosphere definitely paid off for me that night :)
I'm thinking that micro-teaching in the classroom might be a great thing for elementary level students. If I planned for 1 student a week to micro-teach it would do awesome things for their confidence and make them feel more comfortable speaking in front of a crowd. I think this is will definitely be incorporated into my classroom.

We worked more on our UP and the standards. I think I'm finally getting the hang of it.. just need a bit more practice for it to come out a little more smoothly.

The next week is going to be crazy - many, many, many late nights are coming up. Going away for the week and concentrating on micro-teaching definitely put me behind, and there's A LOT to do to catch up.

My wiki is coming along. I'm finding myself addicted to it the more I work on it. I want it to look great and be informative, and really reflect that I can do the job right. It's fun getting everything up there and adding appropriate pictures, colors and text.

Well, even though the purpose of our FL trip was because Staples was dedicating a store to my later father-in-law, we did manage to get our daughter into Disney for 5 hours - she asks us every day to go to Cinderella's castle and talk to princesses - SO, of course I have to include photos of that too :)





The last picture is of Kailey with her Aunt Jamie as she came around the corner and saw Cinderella's Castle for the first time!

Week of 3/25/10

This week we discussed Bloom's Taxonomy and began our standards, goals and objectives for our unit plans. --- A lot to take in!

The power point on Bloom's is an awesome tool and is permanently saved to my laptop and a thumb drive :) I also printed out several key pages that are already worn from constantly referring to them. The fun little power point quiz was a great tool - also saved to alter for future use!

To me, Bloom's is really just how we should all be teachinng, what we've been learning about all semester. We can't just dump new material into a child's brain and then expect them to get meaning from it and remember it for life. Although there are some children out there who could learn that way, there are more that can not. We have to create to learn! I've known I've needed this my whole life, and sometimes thought I was stupid for needing that in order for things to make sense to me. I struggled in school my whole life because I had dull teachers who only ever asked us to understand what was taught and never really do anything else with it. When I imagine what my class room will be like - creating is key. Children need to be challenged to dig a little deeper and find real meaning in what they're doing. I think I'm going to incorporate this into my unit plan by having the students create a newspaper from the Civil War era with articles reflecting what life was like as a soldier, and opinions from the North and South.

The whole standars, goals, objectives and performance indicators is still pretty fuzzy for me. This is the first time I'm ever seeing anything like this and I'm definitely going to require some practice. If I do enough of them I'll get that hand of it! And, with the many practice's Dr. Smirnova has provided, I'm sure I'll get there soon enough :)

A B C D, CBC, MSMC... ack!!!

Week of 3/18/10

This week we learned about Aims, Goals and Objectives. This is all new to me and so far a bit confusing. I understand the pieces apart, but not quite as an intergrated whole yet. There's the four key components, then the CBC of MSMC... I'll get it down!

We also discussed Content Analysis - an effecive way of organzing all we need to accomplish four our students. I think this is going to come in extremely useful over the next several weeks as we really get down to the nitty gritty of our unit plans. I really like have a formal way of organizing my thoughts and this is something I'll be able to carry with me for the rest of my life now.

I had a pretty awful day at work right before class, so participation was at an all time low, but I got the concept, and will definitely put it to good use.

Our mid-term WebQuest was also due this week - what a neat midterm! I thought it was
really pretty neat to see how many different quests are out there and how extremely different they are. I like components of both that I researched and definitely saw how I could incorporate those into one of my own. I immediately started thinking of different quests I could send my "students" on for my Civil War UP... Abraham Lincoln's life.. North vs. South.... development of the war through reconstruction... we shall see!

This video I found on YouTube is hilarious - 2 kids trying to help their mom with her project on Content Analysis.

Week of 3/11/10
I have to admit that are many days when I feel like I should just give up. School seems so incredibly overwhelming on top of work, keeping up with my house, and making sure I have enough time for my daughter and husband - forget ever seeing friends! This is why I'm so happy that we are required to do fieldwork.
Although the mere thought of scheduling it stresses me out - trying to find a free day is ridiculous - it feels great to get into a school and be surrounded by what I want to do! I took some time during our spring break at MSMC to do my fieldwork for my curriculum class and had a great time. I was in a 5th grade classroom where the children were welcoming and inquisitive and the teacher was more than helpful.
I was there to observe how the teacher plans her lessons, her classroom setup and extra activities. I think I took about 60 pictures to capture the day! I learned a lot of simple and useful tools to save onto for the future that day. I really loved the teacher's rewards system - she gives away popsicle sticks to students who are exhibiting good behavoir and producing good work. The students save these sticks to "buy" prizes at the end of the week, or they can save them to buy something bigger at any given time. It was a very inexpensive yet effective way to positively reinforce good behavior.
I was also relieved to see that all of the 5th grade teachers meet every August to plan the curriculum for that year. They map all courses out making sure all standards will be met. Before speaking with this teacher I was really unsure how this worked, and was terrified at the idea of doing it on my own. It was really reassuring to hear about how they all work together to accomplish the main goal, while still leaving room to mold the direct lessons with their own creativity.
I also had the oppurtunity to prepare the students spelling words for the next week on Wordle.net, they LOVED it! Now, all of the 5th grade teachers are using it!
Here are some pictures I'm going to include with my report, I don't want to give away toooo much! :)

This one girl was so funny - she is looking at the camera in every picture, she was really trying to make friends with me that day :)