I have just gone through my first week of school and boy, was it a rush. This quarter I have Literacy part II, SCED (which I nicknamed "sked") for Science Education, Practicum III (part 2 at View Ridge), and an online elective course, TESL Introduction to Linguistics for the ESL (English as a Second Language) Teacher (that's a mouthful). It is NOT Teaching English as a Second Language, which is a totally different course despite the acronym. No math as of yet. I was just about to take WWU's Independent Math but decided to save it to help fulfill my fulltime status this spring in regards to financial aid.
Total of four classes this session.
For literacy, instead of doing the EALRS/GLEs in reading, we will be doing writing in EALRS/GLE's. It seems to be a whole lot easier than Literacy1 which was extremely excruciating. The assignments were heavily loaded; this time, it almost as if it is -- in preschool terms -- "free choice" time. Prior to the quarter we ordered books off a list that (professor) C. gave us. It was completely our choice to order as few as one, or as many as the entire list of 10+. Most of us ordered at least 3-4. Not bad at all. Last week, we were put into groups according to the books we bought. It's almost as if we were put into book "clubs". Our assignment for this project is to actually assign our own respective group reading homework any way we want it. I like! Another thing I like about this assignment is that we'll be collaborating a lesson to teach the class ABOUT the book/s we chose. I've been grouped with SP and KA (that's their initials. I'm tired of using pseudonyms....I have a tendency to forget whose name's which. It's a pain to sift through my entire blog to look for names that I've used before). By the end of the class, we were able to assign ourselves our own 'homework'.
(note: GLE = Grade Level Expectations and EALR = Essential Academic Level Requirement are Washington State's student requirements in reference to the NCLBA (No Child Left Behind Act). As a public school teacher, we are all required to teach to these standards and students must meet those standards/requirements. If not, budget is cut from the school and teachers get laid off if they do not teach high quality education).
There are more projects for this class, but they seem to be easy because it has to do with lesson plans and presentations to our real group of kids at our practicum sites (LUV it!). I find this as a surprise to myself because when I first started doing lesson plans and presentations, I was a nervous wreck! You must read my previous blogs regarding my first presentations. I had fun, yes...but I was hella nervous. Now I'm not and I can produce lessons in a blink of an eye and get good (not great) marks by my evaluators (my host teacher and practicum supervisor) for presentations and behavioral management.
There is another tedious project for Literacy: my case study. Last quarter's case study was done on a child for spelling. Spelling did NOT occur with kindergartners yet so it was tough for me to find someone. I did an assessment on the only child who knew her phonetics. She did pretty well. As far as spelling assessment for a group of children, there was no way no how I was going to test it on my group of kindergartners (they didn't know how to write, let alone write their names yet!) Instead, I assessed the 2nd grade kids at my work site. The assessment went really well and so did my entire project (got an A), but like I said, it was tedious.
This quarter's project involves Writing, so I chose a boy in my kindergarten practicum site whose reading level is slightly lower than the highest writers in the class. I started my project yesterday and did my observations/data on him. I think C., my Literacy instructor, will like this one because this time, I'm following instructions in the syllabus to the tee instead of improvising like I did last quarter.
My science class is fun. There are projects/presentations for this class, but I think it'll be okay. My professor, who also wrote and co-authored one of our textbooks, is someone who seemed like he should've retired a long time ago, but his passion for teaching remained in his heart and is very enthusiastic about sharing his talent with us. There was a lot of information that he passed out to us, but I think teaching science is manageable. Plus...I love science :)
For my TESL online course...ALOT of reading, weekly quizzes, and (teacher's random choosing of students to do...) exercises that takes FOREVER to complete. So far, I'm not behind my work...whew! But it did take a lot of highlighting and studying as closely as possible due to the minimal time limit we have on each quiz (15 minutes). There isn't much to say about this course because it's very new to me and routine is much different than when I'm physically sitting down at my desk in a classroom.
Last, but not least....PRACTICUM. I started yesterday and it felt nice to be inside the classroom. Even though I'm not getting paid, my love of teaching older children (as oppose to preschool teaching) is a worthwhile job for me. Time goes by fast and I'm often on the move with my host teacher, CF. She has been such a tremendous positive model for me -- including my host teachers from last year -- that I'm growing to love teaching more and more each day. I hope she doesn't notice, but whenever she teaches, I practically absorb, with admiration and awe, with the way she handles the children with ease. As she's told me time and time again. "It takes YEARS of trial and error and practice..." I've yet to see this as I am in the very beginning stages of my (pre) career. Though I am still learning, I pick up methods and techniques she uses in her class -- it's so much easier doing it this way especially with her children because it's the only way they'll be able to stay consistent with their learning.
Speaking of which, I have a new practicum supervisor. She lives right here in Everett, which is super convenient for me and her. She's also one of the science (coordinators?) in the school district. I can't say much about her because she's yet to evaluate me and I've yet to get to know her.
In about 1/2 an hour, I'll be heading off to school in the snow-slush roads (ew). It's Literacy...I can't wait to share with my group about what I just read , our "homework". I think I have a lot to say about Writer's Workshop.
Til later...
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