Sam's Reflection 3/9

This week was hard in the fact that Monday and Tuesday were focused on my future career and the job search that needs to be starting and then having to dive back into my present situation with my fifth graders. I feel like I am being pulled in 100 different directions and it is hard to stay focused!

Nonetheless, this week had its ups and downs as well. Once again, it took time for my students to re-adjust to me lead teaching, even though I was barely out of the classroom. It has really shown me that my students need structure and they need the day to be predictable to them so that they aren't worried about what is next and are focused on what they are learning. This is hard to do with the many switches and extra things that are thrown into our day. I think something that I want to do in my future classroom is having someplace where they can see the schedule and know what to expect. I also really want to spend time this summer laying out what procedures, expectations and mini-lessons need to happen in the first month of school for them to get used to a good structure and have tools to help them succeed.

It has also been extremely eye opening for me to see the amount of testing that we have to do with our students. It is almost like the students are desensitized to the importance of these tests because they are so frequent. Once again, test scores did not come out in the way that a teacher would be happy with. I am feeling discouraged as well with this. I am continuously thinking about different areas that I can improve my practice to make these students succeed and connect with them, but it is very difficult. Something that I really am going to focus on in my future classroom is stamina in general: stamina for writing, reading, math, and just figuring something out. I think that stamina has a lot to do with it. I also think lacking "common sense" testing skills has a lot to do with it, as well. While strategies to take tests seems obvious to me, these students need more time to be explicitly taught them.

It was helpful in seminar this week to get some more resources to be able to acquire skills to incorporate best practices into the classroom and impact these students. I do not want to get in the rut where "well, this is how these students perform, I don't know what else to do." I want to be part of a district and community that never gives up on their students and knows that using best practices is the best way to affect these students, not the latest and greatest "program."