So far my field experience is going really well! There are 26 second graders in my class, so there is always a lot going on. For the most part, I spend my day working one on one with a few kids while they work on word work, iPads, or other parts of Daily 5. I'm in a co-teaching classroom, so there are always two teachers leading the lessons. When you add in the students, 2 teachers, my field experience partner, and myself, there are always 30 people in the classroom, so it gets pretty chaotic real fast. So I also spend a lot of time trying to control the chaos and calm the students down. I think a big reason for the chaos is them wanting individual attention, and acting out gets them that.
I have done one read aloud so far, and it went really well. I read 5 Little Monkeys Wash the Car because my book needed to be about families working together. They really liked it. Today I also co-led a guided reading lesson with my CT. Eventually I will lead my own lesson, but since I've never seen one done with little kids before, she helped me the first time. I'm looking forward to doing it on my own next time.
How is the co teaching? I have never seen co teaching before. It seems like it has many obvious advantages like just an extra adult, for more one on one and more control of a classroom. Does it seem like the lessons are cohesive? I would think that the teacher would have to be on the same page all of the time to avoid sending mixed messages and confusing students. Are the guided reading lessons like what we did in Cassie's class, or are they different?
ReplyDeleteI'm really excited to hear how your solo lesson goes! And the co-teaching classroom sounds awesome, yes chaotic, but also unique.
ReplyDeleteNate: Co-teaching is really interesting actually. I had it in one of my schools growing up. There's the main teacher who is always there, and then another teacher who comes in for just the morning literacy block and leaves around 10 to go to another class for the day. But when she's here, the two teachers work together. They lead lessons on the smart board together and kind of each take a part of the lesson to teach. Or some days they will each take turns and lead an entire lesson by themselves. When we break off for daily 5, they also each run their own guided reading groups. So that gives the kids a lot more rotations through guided reading. Each group meets with one of the teachers at least once a day and sometimes twice. They have somewhat different teaching styles, so it's good that the kids get to experience both. Their guided reading is kind of different than what we did. They focus on either characters or plot or something like that. They don't always read the book even, sometimes it's just a picture walk. But every lesson is run differently, so they're always learning something new.
ReplyDeleteJeff: Yes the co-teaching is really interesting. I still haven't lead my own lesson but hopefully I will soon!