DewaltObservations

__**Tuesday October 11, 2011**__

Today I was at Central Columbia Middle School with Miss Susco's 8th graders. I was in her classes last semester for observations when I was scheduled to complete a practicum this semester, but unfortunately I was unable to take part of it this semester then. Not much has changed from then though. The big difference in the kids that I noticed particularly is that this group of students is a lot quieter and aren't as rowdy as what last years group was. They all seem like great kids though. The main focus of the class as of now is learning the elements of a story and vocabulary. Both are very important for them to learn about, especially the vocabulary so that they build on the words that they know for the PSSA's. I am going to have the opportunity to actually teach this coming Thursday to the classes. It is not a full lesson, but I have a vocabulary review game for a lesson. The students are having trouble remembering the definitions of words and their parts of speech so the lesson plan that I developed will hopefully help them to raise their test scores for the week!

Kyle, I'm so glad to hear that you're involved in helping these students already, and I look forward to hearing about how your review might help them with vocab and grammar! Often these elements get separated from other activities and from what's important to students--how might you make them more SCAFFOLDED and RELEVANT? Also, can you tell me more about your context, teacher, students, activities--I want specifics! user:sherrymi

__Thursday November 3rd__

Today was another exciting day at Central. The students were working on poetry and were going to the computer lab to finish up a powerpoint slide that had an image of fall on it and some poetic devices on it. All of the students seemed to be doing really creative things with it! All were actively engaged to try and create the best finished product. To give a little background of my school and everything there, Central Columbia is a close by school district in between Bloomsburg and Berwick schools. The middle school has grades 6-8 and all of the school buildings are housed on 1 campus. Miss Susco, who will be my first student teacher placement in the Spring is a recent graduate from BU and has been teaching for I believe 4 or 5 years now as an 8th grade English and History teacher. (She only teaches 1 section of History though). This years 8th graders seem to be quieter than last years and many have a very high IQ. The class thus far is structured around vocabulary and lessons. Overall, Jamie has a lot of really great activities that she does with the students and they really learn a lot from her. One big thing that CCMS has their teachers utilize in teaching are graphic organizers. They do really help students to learn and keep the knowledge focused and organized so I think that this is a really good mechanism to utilize in their teaching practices. I will be going again Wednesday so I look forward to spending more time there!

<--- Click this file to view my lesson plan that I will teach to my class.

__Tuesday November 15th__ Went again today to Central and got to see a whole new style of teaching that really worked. The students are soon going to be reading //The Summer of My German Soldier// so to prepare them with a context and background information, Miss Susco had them watch a very interesting and informative film based on WWII. The students had a worksheet that they had to complete while watching the film so it had them actively engaged and analyzing the information that they were viewing. Seems like a really great way to get students motivated and give them the necessary information so that they are prepared for the upcoming unit!

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