Week 6

Wondering: How can you incorporate a lesson study more often?

     These past two weeks the second grade team has been working hard with our lesson study. We developed a lesson about making predictions and having the students use evidence from the text or schema to develop a prediction, rather than a random guess. My co-teaching partner and I taught the first lesson and it went well. The students were engaged and the lesson was filled with great information for them to use. Going into the debriefing I never expected to change much of the lesson. An observer, noted that the lesson was great and was taught well, however, that the students seemed to already understand the concept of prediction. We ended up completely changing our lesson activities and only altered the objective. Our objective was to teach student how to find the evidence in any type of text or situation to make a predication. I never thought we could make such a change to our lesson from the first time we taught. When the second lesson was taught, it went extremely well. The class we were in was a more difficult group of personalities. The lesson planned well enough that the classroom management was under control.
      According to Tomilson and Imbeau, "it's important that both students and teachers understand the goals of a differentiated classroom and how a particular routine or procedure helps achieve those goals." Even though the students we have taught for the past two weeks for the lesson study were not our own, differentiation played a role. It was evident that the some students were not understanding the individual task. This is when the teacher came by and gave one-on-one help by reteaching the parts of the lesson the student didn't understand. I never thought that this lesson study would be so helpful.

I am still wondering: How can teachers use a form of lesson study to reflect on the daily lessons they teach?

Week 5

Wondering: How will my decision on an inquiry impact my class?

   This week we started talking about our inquiries. After thinking about what I could do, I decided to do my inquiry on a student in my class. We will call her student S. I have mentioned student S before. This student's native language is chinese and second language is english, however, she does not speak in class. In any social setting, she will make gestures to certain students in the class as a form of communication. When student S is with her younger sister, you can see her chatting away in chinese and she is so outgoing. If she is pulled a side to do a running record or for a personal interview, she will speak very quietly where you need to put your ear close to hear. According to my mentor teacher, student S has been like this all through her schooling.
    All of the students in the class know that she doesn't speak in class and they like to make it known to me and everyone in the class who is involved with the classroom environment that she doesn't speak. The student is very bright and always does her work. She is one of the top students in the class with her work ethics even though she doesn't speak. This is where my problem and my wondering comes in. How long can her silence last in the classroom environment. I would like to see what would happens if we talked to her and made her speak during one subject. I was thinking that math is most sensible subject since she would only have to communicate with one word. Then I started thinking about how the class will react to student S speaking. After speaking with Angie, we decided on my official wondering for my inquiry.

Wondering: How can I create a safe environment for student S to speak during one subject?

Wondering: How do you motivate to students who are being lazy with their work?

   Throughout my pre-internship so far I have noticed that there is one student that is very fidgety and lacks motivation. K is what we will call her. K becomes very lazy with her work. For example, if she does not want to do the writing assignment she will make three word sentences and write in her worst handwriting. Even if it is a coloring assignment she will color like a pre-schooler rather then coloring like a second grader with a goal of working hard. In addition, her performance while the teacher is teaching is noticeable. She is constantly rocking her chair back and forth, playing in her desk, looking at another book, or just basically doing anything to avoid the actual assignment at hand.
   On Tuesday, I came in and my mentor teacher had shown us K's work. She had colored an assignment completely like a two-year old. According to Tomlinson and Imbeau, "teachers need to let students know that they will often hear you ask, Is this the best you can do---the most you can give to this task?" My mentor teacher did pull her aside in the beginning of class and asked her, "Is this your best work?" Throughout that day, we walked by her desk to remind her to keep up with working to her full potential. That day she was writing in her neatest hand writing and working to her best.
   The next day, however, she was back to her fidgety self. I want to challenge this student to work to her full potential everyday. The outcome will be remarkable. However, I am stuck on how to do this, which leads me to my revised wondering.

Revised Wondering: How do you motivate students to work to their full-potential all the time?