Last week I was able to assist Laura and Allie on their preschool
lesson. Their focus was on the sense of smell. I really enjoyed the activity
that they come up with. They made two sets of bottles and had the students’ record
if they liked the smell or didn’t like it. Since they are so young and very early
developing readers they had a very simple sheet that had smiley faces on it. I felt
this was also helpful for the students that are bilingual. They started with a
book and then did the exploration activity that allowed the students to
actually try out and use their sense of smell. I loved the idea of having them
smell something in a bottle without seeing it, but I was concerned that the
students would dump the bottles and a few did. With that age it’s hard to make
an activity that they can smell without having the physical object.
My goal is really made up of three smaller goals. I feel
that it might be a good idea if I focus on one goal a week. For this week I decided
I would focus on to gaining experience in working with and accommodating for
diverse students. Whether we know it or not we will mostly likely always end up
working with student who are diverse. That’s just the nature of teaching. It would
be very boring if we had 25 of the same kid. Students from a young age should
see us supportive of all of our students. Based on my background and where I grew
up, I don’t feel that I had much exposure to other students who were different
than me. Some might call it white privilege. But I don’t think I was using my
race to get my things. Did I have access to more things because I am white?
That’s up for debate. My parents have done a very good job of providing me with
the tools I need to become a teacher. Do I realize that all parents aren’t like
mine? Absolutely. I feel that in my clinical site I have had a few times were I
find myself wondering why a student doesn’t understand something. I’ve come to
realize that this is sometimes a result of their culture. I need to learn that
all students might not celebrate Halloween and might need help brainstorming
words if that’s an activity I’ve planned. This is just one of many examples
that comes to mind, but overall I realize that I have a lot to learn.
We were able to get some basic instructions form Laura and
Allie on what they wanted us to do and how to help the students. I think it
cool that we get to be aids in our peers lesson because in the future we might
be in a situation where we have a co teacher with us. It can be hard to fall
into that position and it definitely depends on the two teachers and their
styles of teaching. One teacher might prefer to plan while the other prefers to
lead the whole class. It would be helpful to sit down with the co teacher and
plan out what are the expectations of each party involved. If you are not both
on the same page, how are you going to lead a classroom together? I would say
that I see this come into play a lot in my PDS site. My CT from day one gave me
many opportunities to work with the students and earn his trust and respect. I would
not say we are co teachers because it is mainly his classroom, especially when I
am not there. He does include me in many classrooms decisions which shows me
that he trusts me with the students. I feel that trust is earned and I work to
show him that I can handle certain responsibilities.
EXCEEDS: I plan to respond to two classmates, I have 655 instead of the required 500 and included experiences from PDS.
