Every Kid Needs A Champion

In watching this Ted Talk Video by Rita Pierson, it's easy to see that teachers are often the only person in a child's life that supports them and encourages them to do their best even when academically they are labelled as low or slow. Please watch the video and be inspired and make a difference in your student's lives.

Using QR Codes in the Classroom

Recently in my Power Tools class, we had to choose two technology resources that are useful to teachers. One my of resources that I reviewed and critiqued is QR codes. QR codes are kind of like barcodes, but when scanned they lead to different types of information. This includes, websites, text, images, audio, video, addresses, and map addresses. They can be scanned from iPod, iPhone, Android phone, and iPad using a variety of apps. They can also be created. I created a unique QR code for each one of my classmates to demonstrate how QR codes work. I created them using the site http://goqr.me.

To see all the uses that QR codes can have for teachers in the classroom, view my prezi HERE

Using Technology In the Classroom

One of the most talked about classes for my graduate program has been power tools. Now that I finally get to take it this summer, I am appreciating everything that I'm learning. Power tools focuses on technology and how to implement it in the classroom. We use Curtis Bonk's book, The World Is Wide Open and we recently had a live web chat with him. I have learned so many technological resources that I can't wait to put to use in my own classroom in the future. Check out my YouTube video on cyber bullying below made from doom.animate.com. North Carolina is one of the few states that has bullying and cyber bullying laws that protect students, parents, and teachers.

I hope to share more resources and eventually a list of resources as I continue to learn. Thanks for reading my blog.

Teacher Licensure Testing

Recently we learned that North Carolina has decided not to use the Praxis exam for teacher licensure anymore. We now have to take two separate exams in order to get our licensure in North Carolina. Other states have done the same, so I guess we are following suit. We must take the Foundations of Reading exams which tests your knowledge on how elementary students learn to read and write. We also take a general curriculum exam which tests language arts, social studies, and science. There tests are about four hours each and cost $155 each. Recently my teacher emailed me and informed me that I had been chosen to receive a voucher to take these tests for free and my score would be used to set the cutoff score in order for students to receive their licensure in North Carolina. Pretty exciting.

Well I took the Foundation of Reading test on May 9th. It wasn't too bad, but I'm glad that it was free, just in case I didn't do as well as I needed. I'm also beginning to study for the general curriculum test. I am not a big fan of social studies and history. I was never able to remember or memorize enough information when I was an elementary school student. At least I know that this is my weakness and I can work on it before I become a teacher. Thank you to those of you who are reading my blog. I know I always say that I hope to post more and more often, but as you already know becoming a teacher isn't as easy as I had imagined.

On a good note, I received all A's this semester, which made me super excited. I realized that my goal should be to do the least amount of work possible in order to get a good grade and learn the required material. There really is no need to go out all on projects and papers when it is not necessary. I have too little time to get some much done as it is.

The first summer session starts in two days. I'm glad that it's here, but I'll be even happier when its over. 12 weeks total, four days a week!!!! Sheesh. Hardest summer ever.

Student Teaching is Coming.......

So I was recently informed of our first student teaching meeting in one week. Then I learned that at this meeting we have to specify our grade interest when we teach. Immediately most of my classmates knew the exact grade they want to teach, and I was so confused. My first semester, I observed first grade which I fell in love with. I thought I wanted to be a first grade teacher until my second semester. Now I'm with third graders. I have to say that I loved both grades and experiences and both have their pros in cons. I love the abundance of activities that I can do with first graders and the fact that there is no end of grade testing in first grade. I love that third graders are more independent and I love reading chapter books more than picture books.

Our choices are K-2 or 3-5 and after discussing the pros and cons, I think I really want to teach older students. As much as we all enjoy younger kids, I think I can relate more to older students. I think my son who is in the fourth grade right now also had a lot to do with my decision. I'm so excited to student teach which begins in August, but I have a ton of assignments to worry about before that dream becomes a reality. What are your thoughts on teaching lower vs upper grades?

It's been a while huh?

I'm back!!!! I got so swamped in grad school assignments that I took a break from my blog, but I'm proud to say that I finished my first semester with 2 A's and 1 B. I'm about half way into the second semester and so far it's looking pretty good. My field placement this semester is with an awesome third grade classroom. Third grade is like a totally different world from first grade. I fell in love with first graders last year and I vowed that when I graduate I would teach first graders. Well...now that I have a third grade placement, I love them just as much.

So far I have done a reading assessment and taught a small group lesson on retelling the story. I still have so many assignments left including teaching three whole group lessons. These scare the heck out of me. There's just something about having a class full of 25 students waiting for you to teach them. I don't want to mess up or confuse their little brains. Even though it terrifies me, I totally enjoy it. I hope to post some of the lessons that I am creating for my third graders pretty soon. Thank you to those of you who are reading and enjoying my blog posts, don't be afraid to like and comment. See you soon.

My First Teaching Experience

Today I taught in my field placement for the first time. My literacy lesson was from the Common Core Standard CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.1.1 Ask and answer questions about key details in a text. I read the book My Dog Never Says Please. It is about a girl who wishes she was a dog because her dog is never asked to have good manners. In the end she is allowed to sleep with the dog in the dog house and realizes it's not as fun as she thought it would be. I think overall I did a pretty good job considering how nervous I was. After reading the book, I asked the students questions about the specific manners that were mentioned in the book.

Overall this was a great experience. I was able to engage and connect with the children and the lesson went exactly as I wanted. Afterwards I had them to write a short story on which of the manners in the book was the most important and why. I hadn't predicted they they would all write about saying please (because it's the tile of the book). I think if i was actually going to use this lesson in the future, I would make a list on the board of the manners as they listed them for me after reading the book. This way they would actually be able to look on the board and choose a manner to write about. I did have a couple students write about other things and their writings were so cute. I loved it.

My cooperating teacher even commented that I was a natural and I had a natural connection with the children. I was very nervous and scared, but now I can't wait to teach my next lesson and become a real teacher in my own classroom.

I got an "F" in Grad School

That's right. I got an F on a major paper. In my mathematics K-2 class, we are required to write a paper on "What mathematical knowledge should an elementary school teacher have to be effective"? My teacher was very vague on what she expected because she wanted it all to come from our minds. This paper was so stressful, that some of the students decided to drop from full time students to part time students. That is not an option for me. I'm determined to finish this degree in one year. My paper was actually very good. It included aspects of the curriculum, classroom management, diversity of cultures, problem solving, and assessments. The problem is that I don't have much experience in APA style so I lost a ton of points on my paper. I also didn't proof read as well as I thought I had, so there were mistakes I should have caught. In the end, we basically had two weeks to find five good quality resources and write a 12 page paper on a subject we knew nothing about. It was very hard. I ended up with 13 out of 20 points, a 65%.

Even worse, this is the first of many papers that will go into our teacher profile for the schools accreditation criteria and our professional profile. So it was a pretty important paper. Good news is that I get two weeks to revise and turn it back in to earn back half of the points that I missed.  Needless to say, I can still make a B on the paper. I can say that I have learned my lesson. I will be going to the writing center to learn as much as I can about APA style and rewriting and revising this paper as much as possible. My teacher seems to be an expert on APA style, literally. She has published many books and articles. It's very intimidating. I was discouraged, but I've recovered and I'm back on track.

Thanks for listening to my rant. Grad school is a lot harder than I imagined.

My Mini Grad School Break Down

My Monday class in the class from hell. It's unorganized, experimental, and overall confusing. There are two teachers, in which one of them basically owns the whole education program and the other has no idea what she is doing. On the first day of class, my cohort was split up into two separate classes, which really sucked. Anyway, I realize that grad school is grad school, but this class is on its own level of hardness. This class is so horrible that we have to have a mini therapy session in our other classes about that class before we can start any other class. Our syllabus is basically a whole page per day of our reading assignments. We have to read a whole book and like five million articles each week. This week we had a midterm, which consisted of watching a video and relating it to 10 terms that we had studied in class. Sounds easy enough, but the terms were decided by the teacher and they had absolutely nothing to do with the video. Yes, I completed the assignment, Yes, I hated it, and Yes, I cried about. This was Sunday.

On Monday, I was so exhausted and worn out from finishing the 10 page midterm the night before, that I refused to attend her Monday class. There is no way I could have looked at her without yelling, "Do You Even Know What You're Doing?" The bad thing is, the first hour of our class is spent at a nearby community center where we tutor kids after school. I hated to let my assigned student down, but again, there is no way that I was in the mood to look at that school, so I didn't go. I didn't notify the teacher, I didn't tell any of my classmates, I just didn't go. I went home and prepared for my Tuesday class, Mathematics. I regret letting my student down and I will make it up to her, but I do not regret taking a day off for me to recuperate from my mini grad school break down. I'm better now and although I will never catch up in that class, I feel better knowing that all of my classmates are also behind on reading every single book we are assigned to read each week.

Thank you listening to my rant on how grad school sucks.

Critical Explorations and Field Experience

This week has been amazing. In my Cultural Contexts class we are tutoring students in an after school program while also involving them in a critical exploration project. A critical exploration project allows the student to focus on something they would like to know or learn more about. My child is absolutely fabulous and has chosen the topic of pandas. We are trying to find out how the giant panda and the red panda are different and related. This week I taught her about animal classification and we classified each of the animals see compare and contrast them. It was an amazing experience and I can't wait to continue with her next week.

I also got my field experience school and teacher assignment. I couldn't have asked for a better placement. My teacher is the most creative, enthusiastic, organized, and loving teacher I have ever met. She has her room 100% organized with everything in a box, labelled, decorated, and in its correct place. She sings songs to her children so that they can remember the rules as well as their lessons. She encouraged them to do their best, think for themselves, and not to give up. I absolutely love her, and I've only visited her classroom twice.

Our fist meeting consisted of an introduction, while during our second meeting I observed her math instruction and interviewed her afterwards. Her mini math less was a continuing lesson on subtraction. The kids learned about "Linus the Minus" and they all loved it. She later admitted that she found this on pinterest last year, but not one kid has had trouble with subtraction since implementing "Linus the minus".

I also found "Gus the plus" on pinterest, if you interested. After the mini lesson the kids went around in stations to solve difference subtraction problems.Another amazing thing that I noticed was what she used for dry erase boards. Each student had their own vhs cassette box. One side was red for math and the other side had lined paper for literacy. They were labelled with their number and they carried their markers and erasers inside the box it was a genius idea. The photo below is the cassette box that she used, I couldn't find a photo of one decorated and prepared but you get the idea. Overall a great week, despite the fact that I have a 10 page midterm due on Monday. Yikes!!!!

Welcome to my Blog!!!!

I'm on a great journey to becoming a teacher. Since I love reading all of the great teacher blogs, I wanted to make my own blog about becoming a teacher and hopefully continue when I get my license and my own classroom. Currently I am a grad student in North Carolina. I am in my first year of grad school to get my Masters of Arts in Education, specifically Elementary Education. I've always wanted to be a teacher since I was little but somehow I took the wrong path when I entered college. I can honestly say that since I started school, I feel like I'm on the right path for the first time in my educational life. Anyway, thanks for checking out my blog and to find out more about me, check out my about me section.