My Progress

One of my learning goals is improving my classroom management skills. I have had a lot of opportunity to work on this this semester, and I feel I am improving and learning every day. The main thing I have done is to really pay attention to the things my mentor teacher does during class. The students in this class have various disabilities, so it is necessary to handle their behavior issues in different ways. Sometimes it feels very overwhelming to me becuase I feel like I can't control the class nearly as well as she does. I have learned to just keep changing my approach until I find something that works.

My second learning goal was to collect more inquiry data and document it better. This is still something I need to work on because I haven't been able to collect very much yet. My third goal was to get my lessons approved ahead of time. I have not written many of my own lessons thus far, so this is something I will continue to work on in the future.

I have not changed my practicum plan that much so far. I have had other assignments that were not listed on it such as journals and other random things that teachers assign. Some of the due dates were changed as well. My learning goals still remain the same and I am working on all three of them. Overall, I would rate myself as on track as far as completing the assignments go. I have turned in everything on time so far, and have managed my time enough that I could give each assignment enough attention and effort. I would like to be ahead of schedule, but at this point in time that is not the case.

Characteristic #4

Principle #4 states, "We believe The novice teacher should be a facilitator of learning for all students." This means that the teacher needs to take into consideration the needs of each student in the class. Because all students are unique, their needs may be different. The term "facilitator" requires that the teacher help the student make discoveries in learning rather than feeding it to them.

For SPED 360, I made a differentiated instruction lesson plan. I organized the lesson according to the various needs in the classroom. During Math, students were given a choice of how they wanted to review for their test. Their choices were using flashcards alone or with a partner, playing a multiplication card game, a multiplication dice game, or Bingo. Because the students were given the choice as to which mode of review they prefered, the learning was more meaningful because it catered to their learning style.

This artifact shows that I am capable of adjusting lessons according to the learning needs of students and making sure individual preferences are met. The assessment (test the next day) showed that most students had a very good understanding of multiplication and many of them mentioned that they really liked having a choice of what they got to do.