Parental involvement in education. And of course all the articles agree that parents being involved in their student’s education will improve the student’s chance of success.

But I’m also finding in all the articles that it’s essential for teachers to make parents feel like they can be involved and communicate with them a lot.

This is something that I hadn’t really though about when I first decided to become a teacher. It was just all about the students, but students bring with them what their parent’s have (or HAVEN’T) taught them.

I need to figure out a way to interact with parents. I suppose email is good. Parent teacher conferences. Hmm.

If there is a spectrum of learning in the classroom, then there should also be spectrum of teaching to help ALL students succeed.

About the differences and effectiveness of process vs. skills teaching.

Process is letting the students do the work and check against each other. In this method, the teacher is less authoritative. It works best when students already have a solid knowledge base.

Skills is directly explaining everything with a lot of structure. The teacher is more authoritative in this method. It works best for students that do not know much about the subject. 

thatspookytrickster:

i went back to the elementary school today!

as i was walking up to the class, a boy from the class next door saw me and said

Boy: That’s really cute.
Me: What is?
Boy: Your shoes! What is it?
Me: Oh, it’s from YoGabbaGabba.
Boy: Foofa?!
Me: Yeah!

once i got to class, i saw at one of the tables in the back. tanya went up to me and said hi, then went back to her table. a few minutes later, she brough her bucket of books and supplies to my table and sat next to me. she showed me what she was working on and wrote some words on her little white board. interestingly, she writes from right to left instead of left to right. and it’s all just nonsense either way. it was cute that she was so excited to show off to me though.

I observed at an elementary school for the first time and WOW what a bunch of cuties!

There’s 12 students, 3rd-5th grade, all with disabilities. But to be honest, if you didn’t tell me that, with 90% of the kids, I’d have a hard time telling that they a disability or if they were just over active little kids.

A few of them stood out to me. Jason, a 5th grader seemed very opinionated. He helped some other students with their work. Iyone (pronounced ion), a 4th grader, is the class clown. William, a 4th grader, acted out the most. He did some of his work, then went to the corner which was furnished with a book shelf, rugs and a huge pillow. For most of the time I was there, he wrestled with the pillow. Bibiana (obviously a filipino name), a 4th grader, was working on the computer and got through a bunch of lessons. Probably the best behaved in the class.

Mrs. Oliver told me that (especially in the 4th graders) there’s a very wide spread of abilities. Tanya (who I think has autism, based on her tendency for toewalking and hand flapping) can only write her name correctly about 40% of the time. William however, (the trouble maker) is the closest to grade level out of the group.

Wow little kids are just great and I… well it’s too soon to say, but perhaps I’m considering teaching lower levels than high school?

I had TOTALLY given up on Bridgeway Elementary already, but the principal totally called me back yesterday! She emailed the special ed teachers, and one of the teachers emailed me back! 

I think I’ve secured my second setting.

My dad

Ms. Brian is younger than expected but very nice. Her students have intellectual disabilities and learning disabilities. I don’t know what I was expecting to see, but there’s no visible difference between these students and typically developing students.

When Ms. Brian left the room, the students shot a bunch of questions at me about who I am and why I’m here. One of the girls, Yazmin, reminds me of Nahomi

The vice principal that I met with just this morning, set me up with a teacher to observe! I’m going to start observation next thursday (since i have two tests this thursday)