Christina's Capturing Thoughts Blog on Parent Teacher Confrences

I saw Professor Chatel's post to Anna suggesting that she visit Christina's blog on parent teacher conferences, and I decided to check this out for myself. I really appreciate all of Christina's time and effort that she put into finding this site and laying out the suggestions for all of us to see. As future teachers her blog offers a great layout of starters for how to hold an effective parent teacher conference.

This past week at Smith Elementary there were parent conferences going on as well and in talking with and as I just observed the conferences and heard from my classroom teacher about all the time and preparation that went into these conferences I learned so much. Although, I have to say the biggest thing I took away is that if you stay ahead of the game, then when the game hits head on, you will be ready to play the game, and will be prepared and ready for that challenge. 

Meeting my Cooperating Teacher for Student Teaching in the Fall

Today I had a scheduled meeting with my cooperating teacher for student teaching beginning next fall. I greatly enjoyed meeting and talking with her and we both are looking forward to working with each other beginning in the fall. The school I will be at is a new school so it will be a challenging and rewarding experience for the both of us.

Writing Prompt at Tuesday Experience March 11th 2008

This Tuesday at Tuesday Experience the children were recquired to work on a writing prompt. The question for this particular prompt had been previously designed by one of the teachers at a staff meeting with the second grade classroom teachers. The question was as followed: "You are on a playground and have found a key, what will you do with this key." 

My classroom teacher began the entrance of this prompt writing session by asking her students to generate a list of what makes a good story. The main ideas generated by her and the students were, that good stories must have a setting, and more importantly, they must have a beginning, middle and end. 

I had the oppurtunity to walk around and assess the students as they worked on their writing prompts. When and where it was appropriate I worked hard to generate thought provoking questions to stimulate the children's individual writing process. 

I was pleased to see that some of the children were very effective and creating a well sequenced story, with a distinct beginning, middle and end. However, it was also apparent that many of the students despite continued work on sequencing of stories were still struggling. 

I am pleased to see my classroom teacher working hard and continue her effort to build her students skills in sequencing, and I have seen them have practice in doing so within the classroom. I appreciate and commend her efforts to build this area in her students, and I can appreciate her struggle, as this is not always an easy task to acheive.

I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions for me that I could add to my own thoughts regarding further lessons and activities that might help those students still struggling with understanding beginning, middle and end? I am open to anything, I have thought of ideas as has my teacher, but I would love to see what my peers think could work.

How do students use journals as tools for learning in language arts and across the curriculum?

Students use journals for a variety of purposes in the classroom. There are seven specific types of journals that students use within the context of the classroom these are as followed: personal journals, dialogue journals, reading logs, double-entry journals,language arts notebooks, learning logs and simulated journals.In almost every type of journal entry that students write the primary focus is on the writer; the writing is personal and private. There are many reasons for writing journal entries, here are just a few: record experiences, stimulate interest in a topic,explore thinking,personalize thinking, wonder, predict and hypothesize, etc. Students can also use journal writing to share events, record learning in both literature focus units and thematic units.

Writing Characteristics At Tuesday Expereince

Students at my Tuesday Experience have had practice with focus and organazation in their writing. Students as a class had developed a story focusing on a begining and maiddle and during writing time they were asked to work on creating their own ending to this story. The teacher reminded students that the ending might have a problem that could be solved. During this time I worked with one particular student to develop sentences for his ending. Not all of the students were able to come up with problems in their endings and resolutions, but the teacher said she will continue to work on begining, middle, and end.

I have seem my Tuesday Experience pass back student work to be corrected. This work often focuses on correcting capitalization, punctuantion and spelling errors. Occassional I have seen papers come back to students asking for some more details, but this is less often the focus. Often when papers are returned to students to be corrected the focus is on conventions.

So far in Tuesday Experience I have yet to see focus on elaboration and support, transitions and fluency, word variety and sentence variety. I have seen my teacher and myself revising students written work focusing primarly on conventions and word spacing.

Paley's Classroom vs. Tuesday Experience Classroom

Paley's Classroom:

Paley's classroom allows her students to lead the pace and activities that will let them learn. The classroom is driven by student learning, and is not as teacher directed as the usual classroom. Paley lets her students select the direction of the learning, as well as the content to uncover. Through the use of a strongly developed thematic unit on the arthur, Leo Lionni, the students learn about very important life lessons that the teacher herself is learning about alongside her students. Paley allows herself to learn from the direction and responses of her students, and the thought provoking lessons they teach her make her question her own understandings.

Tuesday Experience Classroom: (as of the third visit)

My Tuesday experience teacher has a very scheduled classroom structure, everything is focused around the centers that student's go through in daily routine. Unlike Paley, my classroom teacher does not allow for much student directed or generated learning. The students follow the lead and pattern that has been set by my teacher, and do not question this schedule. It seems that this schedule is well understood and that the children would be unsure of the everyday structure of the classroom without in in place.  

Reading and Writing Process

So far in Tuesday Experience I have seen some aspects of all 5 stages of the reading and writing process.

Stage 1: I have seen my students prereading sometimes by making predictions or asking questions about a text they read during read aloud.

Stage 2: I have seen students in my Tuesday experience make drafts in writing and also read during read during silent reading time.

Stage 3: Students have responded some to what they read both during read aloud and during silent reading using pre designed worksheets based on what they have selected to read. Students have been observed revising dratfs they have written as a class and adding an ending to one of these dratfs.

Stage 4: Students have been observed during the writing process editing drats for fianl revisions.

Stage 5: Students have published some final dratfs of writing. Some of the students have done projects or worksheets based on readings done in class.