Practicum Experiences

I have really been enjoying my Practicum experience so far. One can never know quite what to expect going into something like that, but I have been very pleased with my experiences. Furthermore, I feel that I am really taking a lot from the experience- I have seen things I felt were good, and things I felt were not so good. Either way, they are both allowing me to decide exactly how I want my own classroom to look and feel.
One great thing about Burke County is the small class sizes. No class can have more than 18 students, and when you come from a county where 25 or 26 students was the norm, 18 seems tiny. This size greatly cuts down on the amount of problems one could potentially have in the classroom, and it also allows the teacher to get to know her students better and to spend more time with each individual student. Although I will not have any control over my class size, I will always do my best to give them the maximum amount of time possible.
I could only hope for a class as well behaved as the one I am working in. The students rarely argue or act up, and when they do the issue is quickly resolved and handled without disrupting the entire classroom environment. There is not any sort of discipline chart hanging over their heads all the time. There are positives and negatives about this. I really like it because of the way it subtly takes the focus off of "what if bad behavior happens" and allows their attention to be other places. However, no matter how good a class may be, there are no guarantees that something serious will never occur. Students need to be aware of the discplinary protocol that will take place if they do act out in a serious way. This also covers the teacher if any issue were to come up over whether or not she was treating students fairly. Our teacher uses a lot of extrinsic motivation, of which I am not a fan. But whether I am a fan or not, it works. The thing I like most is that when students are arguing she tells them they need to go talk about it until they have one story. Then, they may come talk with her once they have agreed upon one story. They quickly decide what they want to tell the teacher, the person at fault apologizes, and they get back to whatever they were doing. This, in my opinion, is a genius way of teaching students how to talk their problems out on their own instead of being tattle tales.
In terms of instruction, I am a little disappointed. Because of the time we are at the school and the schedule of our classroom, we do not get to experience much instructional time. By the time we get there, they are already finishing up math time. Then, they have a very short reading lesson(which I will talk more about later on), followed by centers, specials, lunch, recess, read-aloud, AR time, and then they are ususally in the middle of some other type of lesson(either science or social studies) when we are leaving. I wish I could experience more classroom instructional time with the kids. However, I know that even though it seems like I am missing a lot, I am really not missing as much as I feel I am. It's just that the school day is so much shorter than we think it is. It's nearly impossible to make sure that everything gets fit in like it is supposed to .
The student's reading lesson that they have is really not a reading lesson at all in my opinion. The teacher takes a story out of the textbook, and plays the book on tape as the students follow along. There is no instruction at the beginning and she never asks them questions as the story is being read. There is usually some activity that she goes over with them after the story is over, but that is to be completed at the appropriate center, and the students only go to one center per day. So, that means some students may not complete the activity until Friday after they listened to the story on Monday. I do not feel that the students are learning anything from this, except how to copy answers from the teacher's example that they filled out as a class. The class we are in is full of exceptionally bright students, and they are all very capable of completing the worksheets on their own or with their center partners. If it were my classroom, the lesson time would be comprised of more than just listening to a story. I imagine it would probably look a lot like the Guided Reading Lesson model we have been taught. And although having students copy the answers we came up with as a class would probably be appropriate earlier on in the year, I would hope to have students finding some of their own answers by this point in the year. This would eventually move to having them finding all of their own answers even later in the year.
During read aloud time, the teacher uses book on tape whenever possible. I am not sure what her fascination is with books on tape, except that it saves her voice, but I would not use books on tape as frequently as she seems to do it. There is nothing wrong with them. They are a great option, but nothing can replace the expressions of a human voice and face reading a story! Also, it is a lot easier to stop and ask questions to make sure everyone is with you. As a classroom teacher, I intend to make sure that the majority of my read-alouds are read live rather than with a book on tape.
The last observation I would like to talk about is the use of AR in the classroom. I like that there is not much emphasis put on AR in the classroom. Each student has a goal for each nine weeks, and if they meet the goal there is a schoolwide reward day. The goals are very reachable for all the students in our classroom and they are set by the teacher. The feeling I have gotten from talking with her is that she sets the goal for each of them simply so that she can say that it has been done. It not something she really dwells on. However, when students are testing, they always take the book with them and look back for answers. I am not sure I agree with this. AR could be a great tool to help build some reading comprehension skills, but if the students are simply going to sit at the computer and look for answers as the questions come up, they may as well just pick a book theyve never read and take the test for it. Ive already written a whole blog on AR, but in short, if it were my classroom, this would not be allowed. I do plan to have a low-emphasis approach to the program. However, I also plan to use it for what it is good for- building some recall and comprehension skills. Otherwise, I feel it is just wasted time, and we all know there is no time for wasted time in classroom.
I am excited about what I have learned in Practicum so far. I cant wait to see what other types of experiences I get top have and what other things I might learn while working with these delightful Burke County children!