Student Teaching Rationale

DPI Standards:

Standard 16, Indicator 2,3,6

NET-S Standards:

Standard III a,b,c,d

Context:

While stuent teaching, I was given the opportunity to experience a lot about the school life.  Outside of the classroom filled with students, I was able to see and do what the teachers do after hours.  I attended the various faculty meetings, teachers trainings, teacher workdays, and grade level planning.  I will do all of these, I was able to interact with the majority of the school staff.  The principal and assistant principal made various trips into my classroom to conduct their weekly '3-minute walk throughs.'  During these walk throughs, the administration looks for a couple things and observes three minutes of your teaching.  Also, my university observer came and observed me a couple of times   While in the classroom, I was given the opportunity to interact with the parents.  My classroom had a wonderful group of parents that were very active the classroom.  There was a father that came in three mornings a week to work with students on AR tests.  There were two class moms that came in weekly to help the teachers out with hanging work or copying.  There was also another mom that came in and worked with some students on reading.  These were all opportunites that allowed me to interact with the parents around me. 

While student teaching in the classroom, I was able to use a wide range of technology.  I used the SRA Imagine It website daily.  I used this website to involve the students in the daily activities.  The Daily News was on the website, so I projected it on to the TV for the class to read aloud.  In the past, the teacher would use the projector to do so.  This website also had multiple activities to involve the stuents.  There was an option for the students to listen to the stories being read while the pages were also projected on the TV from the computer. 

www.sraimagineit.com

During one math class period, I was able to use the SmartBoard in the library.  During this time, I involved the stuents in this new piece of technology.  They loved using it.  This was one of the first SmartBoards in the school.  I used United Streaming to show a short film clip on coordinate graphs and then we used an interactive website to practice plotting points on the coordinate graph.  The students seemed to really enjoy this. 

http://www.oswego.org/ocsd-web/games/BillyBug/bugcoord.html

Impact:

While student teaching, I was given all these 'first-hand' experiences in the school setting.  I hope to use the lessons that I've learned in my future classroooms.  I feel that this experience allowed me to experience the school setting with an associate (my cooraporating teacher) right by my side.  The technology use also showed me how I can impliment technology in my future classrooms.

Alignment:

I feel that during the student teaching experience, I reached many standards, but the key ones that I had never reached were on included in Standard 16.  Standard 16, Indicator 2 states that teachers participate in meetings that establish policy.  I was able to meet this standard by attending all of the faculty meetings.  These meetings went over any of the school's concerns and announcements.  Also, I attended all the grade-level planning meetings.  These were where all the 2nd grade teachers discussed what was going on in the 2nd grade.  Standard 16, Indicator 3 states that Teachers communicate with parents, guardians, and caretakers to build partnerships between home and school.  I was able to meet this standard by talking with the parents during their time in the classroom.  Also, I helped my cooraporating teacher out with the website.  The classroom website was updated weekly and discussed the class's weekly happenings.  Standard 16, Indicator 6 states that teachers welcome classroom obseration by other professionals and initiate professional dialogue regarding teaching methods and instructional delivery.  I met this standard by allowing multiple observations to occur in the classroom while I was teaching.  After some of the observations, I discussed, with the observer, what happened during the lesson. 

NETS-T Standard III a states that teachers should facilitate technology-enhanced experiences that adress content standards and student technology standards.  I was able to meet this by creating lessons that followed standards and incorporated technology.  By using the SmartBoard for math went along with the standards for 2nd grade math.  Standard III b states that teachers should use technology to support learner-centered strategies that address the diverse needs of students.  I was able to meet this standard by using the SRA Imagine It website daily.  While using the website, I projected it onto the TV through the AverKey.  This allowed me to teach to alot of the different learning styles.  By having the story read aloud, while having the words highlighted, met two of the learning styles, auditory and visual.  Standard III c states that teachers should apply technology to develop students' higher orders skills and creativity.  I had the students watch a film clip on United Streaming and then had the students write a folktale that related to the topic that we were learning about during reading.  The United Streaming film was a short folktale and this gave students ideas for their own.  Standard III d states that students manage student learning activities in a technology-enhanced environment.  I feel that I met this standard daily.  The classroom was surrounded by multiple types of technology and I used them to help the students' learning.