Conferences (3-25-08)

This week my school has parent conferences, which is making the classroom a little more hectic then usually. All day my teacher was trying to prepare for the upcoming conferences; doing running records, looking through student work, and preparing comments. It seemed that she had everything every organized, but there still was a lot of criteria to follow. She showed me the paper work that she had to fill out, then she needed evidence to back up what she was putting on the report card.

It was a great experience to see the effort that a teacher has to put into the conferences. I never realized the amount of time that it would take, but it makes sense. Conferences are the one thing that I am the most nervous about. I don't want to be a young, first year teacher and have the parents come in yelling at me for their children's grades or progress. I know that I am going to have the sweetest parents and then those that want nothing to do with me. Watching a brief conference gave me a little ease, but not as much as a would like.

How could we approach the first conference with the parents? Should we initiate a parent meeting before school even starts? This way we could get to know them and what each of us expect with their children coming into my classroom.

Experience in the First Grade (3-11-08)

For the past two weeks the children in my third grade class are taking the CMTs. I was able to go work in a first grade classroom during testing. I really enjoyed the experience. I was first told that I was just going in there to observe, so when I got to work the the children I was very excited. I had worked with individual children on either spelling or math. I enjoyed seeing the difference in the children from first to third grade.
I could see the ideas and concepts that were forming in the children, that they will have to develop for the third grade.
Not only the working with the first graders was a great experience, but seeing the classroom management was interesting. Every classroom that I go into, has something different and i think that it is a great learning experience to take all that in. Even though I will still have my own way of doing things, I will be able to more of a background.

Listening in the Classroom (3-6-08)

I feel the same way Caitlin, but I always think that children and us both have to use this different listening skills everyday. I think that it is important to listen to different ideas and learn how to respond to each. For example, discriminative listening i s to distinguish sounds. This is important in learning how to speak. We as adults and our children, will hopefully learn a new word everyday. It is crucial to listen to the new words to stress emphasis and speaking and repeating the information.As for aesthetic listening, I feel that this is important in all aspects of learning for everyone. I feel that this is important for the children to find subjects that interest them and different ways that they can connect to the test. I see this everyday Tuesday during my experience at my school. The children are read to everyday before dismissal; they are able to sit back and enjoy a book that they are all able to share together. Efferent listening is listening that most of us do everyday. Listening to directions or instructional activities is efferent listening. This is obviously important to everyone knowing what is expected of them and making sure that all the students understand the material. I feel that critical listening is one of the best listening skills to learn and try to apply everyday. This listening skill allows for an students to think outside the box and apply what they have learned to everything around them. I also think that this listening strategy is important in developing class questions and discussion. I think that the teacher asking the children Why they think something, or explaining how they got an answer, would also fall into this category. I notice that my classroom teacher is also asking deeper questions and checking the students critical listening skills. See who is really picking up on the meaning of the reading.All four listening skills are important in the classroom and everyday life. I feel that you can't have one without the other. Granted, it is like a step process, but children should learn to accomplish all four, and the teacher as well.