Day 28: 3.4.11

I learned today that children will feel like failures if resubmission is not an option.

Day 27: 3.3.11

I learned today that students want to be engaged in the classroom if you give them the opportunity. I had a demonstration called an enviroscape where students could put things like fertilizers, pesticides, sediments, cowpies, oil and other things on a landscape (which was Kool-aid) and all be rain clouds and spray the area down to watch the pollution get into the fields and rivers and lake on the enviroscape. Even the students who I usually get no response from in normal class were excited for the activity. I think I really realized that you need to find a way to reach every student, it may take 100 different tries to get a student to want to do work but it’s worth the effort.

Day 26: 3.2.11

I learned today students and children have trouble with limits. If you give them an inch they’ll want to take a mile. I learned, after discussion with my co-op, that sometimes it’s ok to sweat the small stuff and deal with it because it can pile up into a bigger something later on.

Day 25: 3.1.11

I learned today that you need to be prepared for class. I had a substitute in for my co-op today. I had not realized that they switched to single periods for that day and was going to have all the students in one day. I only had enough papers for a double block day, so for half of my students. I had to, in between classes, print off more sheets for the future classes. In the real world if I had a substitute I would have to make sure they had EVERYTHING they needed no matter what the situation of the day.

Day 24: 2.28.11

Today I learned that it’s important to learn your students. My co-op gave me the task of rearranging the seating. She said it would be good practice for me to give it a whirl. So I had to use what I knew about my students, who they’re friends with, who they don’t like, who needs closer to the front, who would be ok in the back and other factors to rearrange their seats. And, all in all I didn’t do so badly with the assignment.

Day 23: 2.25.11

I learned that coloring and drawing is fun at any age. I was having the worst time getting students to understand succession. I finally decided to have them read the two pages about it in their book aloud to each other and then make reference sheets with the type of succession, the definition and an example that they drew. It got them involved and engaged and most exciting for me is that it seems like they honestly understand the difference between primary and secondary succession.

Day 22: 2.24.11

I learned students crave technology. I found a great webquest on biomes and split them up into investigatory teams to find out about biomes. I asked the class what they thought and they told me they liked this better because they got to pick what animals and plants they discovered in the biome and they were doing the finding, not just being told by me.