Visits - week of 2/25

I have finally put in some serious time at GE this week - and am at least starting to piece together the parts of my project, get a feel for these older students and what they are capable of, which is one of my biggest challenges working with these 5th graders after having had an experience in kindergarten all last fall. The brilliant part about Ms. M's schedule is that I get two hours of watching her ESOL groups and then there is downtime between the two so we can talk about things in there, or I can see her out in the bigger picture of the school day pushing in to the regular ed classroom as well. I think she is such a great person to collaborate with and we work well together. However, I think she can tell that I'm a little bit out of my element in terms of this whole project and is very helpful.

We touched base again and basically honed in on the webquest idea as a final decision. It's really my best option with the time I will have with the kids, and also something that if I can really get good at I can really learn to use with my own kids next year. We talked about lots of different things to get the kids going on it - but are still trying to figure out exactly which science or social studies topic it would be best for. I am personally a science person - I don't do well with history in terms of my prior knowledge, and history in 5th grade is different wherever you go - if I teach next year in a different state it won't be Virginia History but another history all together. Science is also what I"m leaning towards because it's more universal and carries over and some of the concepts go up and down the spectrum and spiral off of eachother. I think the girl who did the placement last itme with Ms. M did light or sound so I am going to look at the 5th grade Science SOLs and just get familiar with all of them.

Other than content, we talked about logistics - do we want the students to work with a partner or groups? what kind of rubric would we have? What would their final product that they are "questing" for be? I am also concerned with the real details - do we have enough laptops to do it with the cart and take it to a classroom? Do we need the computer lab and how can I reserve the times we need?

The other thing I really want to make sure of - that is important with so much in teaching - is to make sure that the structure of the activity IS user friendly and that with a streamlined design for autonomy, can the students use it easily and does it actually help and benefit them? I want to see if I can make it accessible for all of them, allow them to reach their strengths and talents and that if they are performing or presenting something in the end, that it allows for them to be successful!

The other great things I am seeing amidst all of the ESOL observing I am doing as well, is Ms. M's great way of integrating technology into the day in little ways. I got to see her record students reading aloud - and then having them watch it to be aware of their fluency and literacy improvements and to hear their mistakes. Also, she uses the Active board often - let's the kids use it too! She gives them the pen (obviously they know what to do and what not to do with it!) and hast them match words and definitions in front of the group. Her small group setting is definitely to her advantage, because they all get lots of turns. She also has little applications like dice that she rolls so that turns are random, or using colors to represent things. I think the beauty of her system is that the board is ALWAYS set up, so she always thinks about using it, and so that it is always easy. Just something to think about....