Contextual Factors: Community, School, Classroom & Students

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St. Paul Elementary

Community:

 St. Paul, Oregon is located in northwest Oregon; it is 50 miles southwest of Portland and 30 miles north of Salem.  St. Paul is a small farming community and also known for their annual St. Paul Rodeo that takes place every Fourth of July weekend.  As of 2009, St. Paul has a population size of 449.  St. Paul’s socioeconomic status is middle to upper-middle class.  As far as ethnic and cultural characteristics the population is 75% Caucasian, 23% Hispanic, and 2% two or more races.  St. Paul has 52.5% males and 47.5% females.  St. Paul has a Parochial School grades pre kindergarten through 8^th grade, an Elementary school, and a high school.

School: 

St. Paul Elementary School has 135 students (pre-K-6, one teacher per grade).  Support personnel at St. Paul Elementary includes one Special Education Coordinator, one Special Education Teacher, one ESL Teacher, one Behavioral Specialist and a Social Group Coordinator (whom is a George Fox Graduate student), one Speech Therapist, one principle, two janitors, and two secretaries.

Classroom:

  For my Practicum I am in the kindergarten classroom.  There are four tables (red, yellow, blue, and purple) in the classroom with five chairs around each table.  There are three students at each table, the students changed tables and groups at the beginning of each month.  Also in the classroom there is a teacher’s desk, large white board, cubbies, sink, carpet area, restroom, windows, one door that leads to the hallway and one door that leads straight outside.

Students:

There are 12 students (five girls, seven boys).  The students ages ranges from five to six years old.  As far as students abilities and needs; three of the students are considered high students, they are able to read 1^st and some 2^nd grade reading, four students that are consider somewhat low, these students are younger and possibly should have waited one more year before starting school, and five students are at Kindergarten level.  There are no students with special needs.  One student is being watch for possibly speech therapy and one being watched for a learning disability.  As of now there are zero TAG students, but my teacher believes there are two possible TAG students, it is hard to tell, teachers usually wait until 1^st or 2^nd grade to really decide.  There are four ESOL students. 

Incorporation of research-based practices:

In the classroom there is one student who is a Dutch/English speaker from U.S., four Spanish speaking students from Mexico (these students are ESOL), and seven English speaking students from the U.S.  All 12 of the students’ parents have full-time jobs and are all married.

      During my practicum work sample I will incorporate different cultural materialsto my lessons; i.e.: with taste and smell have foods that are American, Dutch, and Spanish to relate to my variety of students.  Also, I will keep in mind my ESOL students and TAG students.  For my ESOL students I will always visually model my lessons in front of them and a lot of visuals.  For my TAG students I will provide each lesson with the same materials as the rest of the class, but have more materials in case these students finish and want to continue at a more advanced level.

Reflective Analysis: From the information that I have gathered and observed at St. Paul Elementary and throughout the community, I have learned that in this very small town, that is very agriculturally associated, I will have to be aware of the “small town” feeling.  

I strongly believe that every child deserves a safe and appropriate education.  Personally, I have only spent a short amount of time with a child that was diagnosed with autism, so I do not really have a story to share, yet I have always been interested in working with children with special needs.

            Educating children with special needs will require more one-on-one work as their developmental process will not progress at the same pace as a child without special needs.  Special needs children will have the opportunity to be placed in a more hands-on program where they will have educators working with them directly.  With this close interaction, the special needs children will have the opportunity to develop to their full potential in a setting that is conducive to their learning and to their personal growth.  The IDEA law has become a benefactor to children with special needs, providing them with immeasurable support, however while it has been very beneficial it also comes with draw backs, as funding with State and Federal levels has been troubling, inefficient and is sometimes confusing for around four decades.  IDEA has 13 categories of disabilities, and there are approximately 7 million students who are labeled as having one or more of these disabilities.  IDEA has helped people recognize and learn about many disabilities, rather than making the situation uncomfortable, they have removed many of the stereotypes and stigmatisms.  IDEA has taught society what people with disabilities face and how they can be supported and understood.

            In a case where I had a student or students with a disability in my classroom I would make special modifications so that that student would have easy access to everything that the other students have access to.  For instance, if the student uses a wheelchair, I would provide him/her with a larger/taller desk so that his/her wheelchair could fit underneath the desk to make it more comfortable.  Also, I would widen the desk rows for the wheelchair to get through easier, make sure that the room did not have clutter that the wheelchair might get hung up on or be an obstacle, and  door that opens easier so that the student has time for his/her wheelchair to get into or out of the classroom.  Along with physically adapting the classroom, I would also provide free and appropriate education, giving those students as normal of an educational experience as I possibly could and providing any materials or medications as I possibly could.  If my classroom ever becomes inappropriate for any of my students, I would find somewhere more appropriate and beneficial for him/her.

          I believe that receiving support in my classroom as well as from my fellow teachers, faculty, and parent/guardians.  I strongly believe that these people will be a huge impact on the student’s performance and attitude as well as an encouragement for me.  Having this involvement will be a great help and benefit as it will be as important to me as it will be for my students.

Literacy is the foundation of providing students with appropriate tools to use literary skills throughout life.  There are many elements to language arts; reading, writing, speaking, and listening.  Literacy is an important concept of being successful in life, as these skills develop and grow throughout an academic career; people gain a strong literacy environment and expand on their vocabulary. 

I am a firm believer in implementing literacy into the classroom.  I believe that literacy is one of the key elements in providing students with a strong, thriving education.  Inmy classroom, I want to apply these ideas throughout the curriculum; using journals (writing), reading groups (reading), speeches/presentations (speaking), comprehensive skills (listening).   Also, in my classroom, I want to have a writing center where the students can come and get help with their writing assignments, a library where students can go to individually read quietly, and a reading carpet where I will read aloud to students and conduct a classroom discussion during the reading.  In addition, I will introduce and practice text-to-text, text-to-self, text-to-world, and pair share connections during reading time, so that my students can relate the stories we read as a class to real world situations. 

Having all of these practices in my classroom will teach my students good qualities to literacy and to begin and continue to use these skills throughout their lives, always having these connections can help students to really relate real world experiences to literacy, and begin to have an appreciation.

 Literacy can have a powerful effect on a student’s academic career.  By providing these materials and resources in my classroom I believe that I can help give students a better education and become even more literate.  Also, by being a positive role model, letting my students know that I have high expectations for their education and sticking with these goals throughout the school year, I believe I will be seeing every child succeed. 

During my practicum teaching my Kindergarteners a unit on the five senses, I use literacy in every single lesson in one way or another; reading a story aloud to the class, having students listen to the stories and my descriptions of our daily vocabulary words, and speaking when answering to responses, engaging in conversations during lesson, and/ or asking questions.  Even though these students are only five and six years old, I did work with writing skills during my unit a little.  Every day the students wrote their name on their worksheets and I encouraged students to practice writing our vocabulary words in their journals during snack time and once during a lesson. 

For my lesson on sight (lesson two) my literacy objective was:  SWBAT identify the different colors and animals in our story (“Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?”) by using listening and speaking skills while participating during the story.  In this lesson I read “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” as an activity for my students, while reading the story, I got the students to participate by asking questions of what they thought would happen next, of what color objects where, and asked with they saw in each picture. 

For my lesson on hearing (lesson three) my literacy objective was; SWBAT predict what will happen during  “Polar Bear, Polar Bear, What Do You Hear?” by answering what they think will happen throughout the story by actively participating through using listening and speaking skills.  This activity was very similar to the pervious activity; I read the story to students and got them engaged through asking a lot of question.  These books were by the same author and used the same repetition, so the students recognized the repeating and were actively engaged throughout the entire activity. 

For my last lesson (lesson seven) on all the five senses, my literacy objective was; SWBAT recognize vocabulary words from previous lessons by looking up on our five senses charts and be able to select certain words and write those words in their journals.  During this lesson I had stations, at one of my stations I had students sit at a table, next to our six charts of the five senses that were filled with vocabulary words that we had added throughout the lessons.  I asked the students to get out their journals and encouraged them to practice writing our five senses vocabulary words in their journals.  The students could choose any words that they wished to, I just wanted them to practice their writing skills.