Greg Week 8

This week really flew by. This is pretty much my final week at this school because next week I am going to go around an observe other classrooms. The time has really flown by. Monday was a working day at trinity. Just a lot of reflecting on my time at my placement and writing about it for my edTPA. I cannot wait for my edTPA to be done it will be a huge weight off my shoulder and give me the opportunity to focus more on my new placement coming up on March 11.

Wednesday, I taught a science lesson. I was very excited about this because I like teaching science.  It was aa two-part lesson. The first park was on potential energy. Thursday was going to be the second part on kinetic energy. I really like this topic and it makes me think about standard number 2, Content Area and Pedagogical Knowledge. The competent teacher has in-depth understanding of content area knowledge that includes central concepts, methods of inquiry, structures of the disciplines, and content area literacy.  The teacher creates meaningful learning experiences for each student based upon interactions among content area and pedagogical knowledge, and evidence-based practice. I have a god understanding of this science topic because at a former job the students would do a big project about types of energy and as a para, I had to assist many of those students. So being able to teach this content was great because I have a great understanding of it. There was a leveled story with picture supported words talking about the potential energy, the same set up for Thursday’s lesson except on kinetic energy. I introduced the new vocabulary worlds for the unit, since they were new words the students did not do great on their goal of identifying them, but on Thursday there was some improvement. They we would read the story, highlight vacab words on the smartboard, stop and answer the 5 comprehension questions. The student who’s IEP goal is to answer three detail questions from a story did fantastic! I was super impressed with the progress that she has been making. The final thing I did with them for the lesson was a little activity, it differed slightly from Wednesday to Thursday. To show the potential energy I had a car sitting on top of a hill (ramp). I went to each student and talk about how it has energy that isn’t being used yet. Then the next day I did the same thing but had them push the car down the hill and talk about his it used its potential energy and turned it into kinetic energy.

In my lessons on Wednesday and Thursday I would say I did lot with standard 5, instructional delivery. The competent teacher differentiates instruction by using a variety of strategies that support critical and creative thinking, problem-solving, and continuous growth and learning.  This teacher understands that the classroom is a dynamic environment requiring ongoing modification of instruction to enhance learning for each student. I used vocabulary, questions, a story and a small activity to do this lesson> my teacher complemented me on how interactive and relaxed of a lesson it was. She also like that I used a variety of activities for one lesson to keep the kids engaged, check for understanding, and teach them of a new subject.

What a great week, next week is my last week at this placement!