This past week I worked in the
preschool classroom at Brigham Elementary School in Unit 5. The preschool
classroom has an attendance of around eleven students. Although we did not know
it, this classroom is a bilingual classroom with students from different
backgrounds. These eleven students also each have their own varying
personality. In the preschool classroom we first played a “getting to know you”
game with the students. In this game we discussed what things we liked and
discovered whom else in our class liked the same things as us. We then moved on
to reading the class a book on the different kinds of things that scientists
can study. After the students finished listening to the story we had them
return to their tables and draw their very own scientist. We went around and
asked the students what their scientists were doing so that we could write it
on their papers for future reference. After the students had enough time to
complete their scientist drawings we asked each of the students to share their
scientist drawings with the other students in the class. The students had a
variety of things to share about their scientists. Once all of the students had
shared their drawings we reviewed with the class what types of things
scientists can research.
Before
going into the preschool classroom at Brigham I set a couple of goals for
myself as a future teacher who wants to grow. The first goal that I set for
myself was to learn how to better communicate class material to a group of
diverse students. The second goal I had set for myself was to gain experience
working with a group of diverse students. Although I wasn’t aware that the
group of students I would be working with this past week was so diverse, I was
part of a great learning experience with a diverse group of students. Before
entering the classroom this past week I also planned a few steps in order to
reach the previously stated goals. These steps include getting to know all of
the students as well as their learning habits. Another step I planed to take in
order to reach my goals was getting involved in the classroom. Looking back at
the goals I set for myself as well as the steps I put in place to reach my
goals. Although I did not get much insight into how to communicate material
better to a group of diverse learners, I did gain experience in working with a
group of diverse leaners. This experience was short, however every experience
helps. I did get involved with working with the students in this diverse
classroom as one of my steps stated. I also began the first steps of getting to
know the students. I did not get to know much about their leaning habits
although I am not upset about this based on the little time we had to work with
the students.
In order to
help benefit other teachers or others who are simply interested in the topic, I
have attached a link below to some tips for teaching a classroom full of diverse
students. Although this website does not give us all of the answers, it gives
us a glimpse of some initial things to implement in our classroom of diverse
learners.
Exceeds: I included a link of helpful tips for working with
a group of diverse learners. I also went slightly over the limit of 500 words.
Amanda,
ReplyDeleteI also set a similar goal in wanting to simply gain experience in working with ELL students. I think it’s going to be a goal that I can accomplish, but I’m not sure how well I’ll be able to accomplish it. Like you said, any time spent with ELL students is going to give us experience and help us to grow as future teachers. With that being said, I think it’s going to be challenging, because we’re only in their room one day a week for 30 minutes. Although we are all teaching during the first two weeks, after that only one of us teaches. While the other teachers are instructing, it’s going to be more of a facilitating experience for the rest of us. It’ll be interesting to see how this all works out. I feel as though it would also be very beneficial for us to watch the actual classroom teacher instruct, because then we’d get to see the dual language component. I know that in kindergarten, we didn’t really hear our children speak Spanish at all. They all spoke English pretty well, and the only challenging part was the accents. I think observing the classroom teacher interact and instruct the class would give us a better understanding of the dual language and bilingual classroom feel. Your first goal also seems very interesting, and I’ d like to hear more explanation of what it exactly means. It’ll be interesting to see (at least I know for me) how much or how well I can accomplish my goals in the short amount of time we see the children each week.
Amanda,
ReplyDeleteI think the activity your group did with the students was a good way to introduce the topic of a scientist. I also liked how you had the students share the scientists that they drew then your group talked about what scientists do and research. I also have very similar goals as you. I want to learn better ways to better accommodate diverse students or ELL students. I hope to become more confident when working with these students. I think the more experience I have the easier this will become. I also think that there is not a set right answer to any of this. I think this will always be a learning experience and I will always have room to grow when figuring out effective ways to teach a diverse classroom. I felt as if I did gain much from this first time in the classroom, but I was able to observe the students and see how they interact in the classroom even if it was for a short period of time. I was able to see which students struggle with communicating because they don’t know English. I think the more we are in the classroom, the more comfortable we will become working with these students. I also think it is difficult for us getting thrown into a different classroom than our PDS class. We are used to our PDS students and it can be confusing trying to get to know a completely different class when we only see them once every couple weeks.