Classroom Experiences
This month I have had such great classroom experiences within my clinical placement. Although it has been a short month, I really enjoyed being in the classroom with students. I really love actually seeing how students act and watching how each teacher controls their classroom. We can learn so much just by going and watching our clinical placement teachers. Throughout my time at the clinical placement, I have seen numerous things. The first one being lice, and how important tea tree hair oil is! I have also learned to always keep your hair up at schools to make sure that everything is staying clean and secure to yourself. Another thing I have seen is how to deal strange situations. Like I said, you can learn a lot of secret classroom management tips and insight just by watching our CE teachers. Lastly, I have been able to teach individual groups. I think this really emphasized to me how important this small group time actually is. This is the time for the students to really focus on their individual level and the material that they need to know. The students are grouped based off ability. This way the students are able to read material that is on their current level. This allows the teachers to really be able to focus solely on the students and their own level of understanding. NCTCS 2 states: Teachers Establish a Respectful Environment for a Diverse Population of Students. Standard 2c says teachers, treat students as individuals. I feel like this really describes these guided reading groups. I feel like it is an area that focuses on students as individuals and how we can create this respectful environment for our diverse students. I absolutely love this now that I have been able to see the benefits of this with my own eyes! I love being able to go to these schools and gain an insight to students today. I love being able to experience the school and the atmosphere of the elementary schools! It makes me extremely excited for my future classroom.
DC TRIP
This month, I had the amazing opportunity to be able to go to Washington D.C and be a tourist for a few days! It was a very few eventful days, and I love that I went. It was A LOT of walking and A LOT of adventures but I loved every minute of it. I loved hearing our professor yelling HERITAGE to get another school's students back to their group. I loved being able to see Barrack Obama's brand new portrait in the portrait gallery. I loved being able to go into the Smithsonian's and get a glimpse of history! My favorite Smithsonian is the Natural Science because it has the giant elephant inside and I love elephants! (Fun fact: they are a sign of good luck) I was able to go to the brand new Bible museum. This was my absolute favorite museum that I have been to. It was so interactive and so unique and different than the other museums. I highly recommend making the trip up to D.C just to see this museum! Anyway, throughout the entire trip, I was constantly thinking about how cool it would be to take a school trip to D.C one day and have the students walk around and get to experience the nation's capital. I think this would be something that could be so beneficial for students to experience. I was thinking the entire trip that I never experienced this in elementary school because I am from Texas. It is much harder to plan a trip with that many elementary students to go that far. This made me realize how I could really take advantage of using a virtual museum. We are doing one in social studies methods, but throughout the entire trip, I was really thinking how that could be so beneficial for my students. Below is a picture of everyone that went on the trip with Senator Burr! This is a great picture and I will cherish it forever. For my outside research, I found where the Smithsonian offers a virtual reality online for those who are interested. This could be something that we can all use in our future classroom one day if we are unable to take our classes to D.C. https://naturalhistory.si.edu/VT3/
Future Classroom
In my future classroom, I want to make sure that I am going to be taking control of any issues that will come up in my classroom. (Believe me, they will definitely occur). I want to make sure that I am leading by example and I am going to be the leader in the classroom. I want to make sure that I am taking advantage of doing this guided reading groups. I want to make sure that I am going to be placing my students based on ability so I am able to focus on each individual group and that group's needs. This is something that can be very beneficial to my future classroom. I am also going to be aware of all of the virtual museum that are already online and that I could create to make sure that my future students are getting everything that they possibly can out of my class. I am so excited for my future classroom and everything that it will offer one day!
