Field Experience Week 2

Hi Everybody

I hope you are still enjoying working with your classes and your cooperating teachers. I have really LOVED watching you all teach. I am so proud of the things you are doing. This week, I got to see Kirsten teach the "opening activity" for Ms. Goldsmith's science class. We learned about earthquakes and an old chinese urn that people historically used to determine the size and location of an earthquake. Apparently, the urn had little balls all around the outside. They would determine the direction and seriousness of the earthquake by which ball fell - and how far. Hmmmmm! ;-)

Then, I visited Kim. She has the cutest little first grade class. They were in a reading group working with their teacher, so Kim got to file papers and organize all of her studnets' folders. - Yes, it's a part of teaching too! ;-)


Back at the high school, Kenzi was also hard at work in her English class grading papers!













Finally, I closed out the week visiting Senor Jose and Ms. Larrain's Spanish 4 Honors class. He taught them a wonderful song by Aventura called Un Segundo Mas. Be sure to leave your comments about YOUR best and worst thing that happened this week. Don't forget we will visit our pen pals next Friday March 19th!

Service Hour Opportunities & Articles to Read

· Buckets of Hope – Lists are located on the bulletin board – Due FRI –Mar 12th

· Teacher Appreciation Gifts (ask businesses or donate $5 gift cards)

· Saturday, March 27 – Extreme School Make-over School for the Deaf and Blind 9am.

· March Teacher of the Month ShamrocksIf you still need to read educational articles this quarter, check out the links on the right column for Edutopia, THE Journal and Teaching Tolerance. Also, I have included links to some on-line articles that I found interesting. Have fun!
Mean Chics and Ugly Cliques
Half a Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste
Building a New Business Model

Field Experience Week 1

Hi Everyone! All of the cadets are out in their first week of Field Experience. I had the privilege of seeing Johnakin teach .....hmmm....math stuff. Since I haven't seen tangent, cotangent, secent and cosecent in 20 years, I was, well, a little rusty in class. It was a review! - BINGO!!! I had a BLAST! I only got 4 questions right, but hey - that's pretty good for missing the actual teaching part! Excellent work!



So, I also visited Chelsea S. She was grading a HUGE amount of papers, and Mrs. Shea said she is a great worker! I popped my head in on Kenzi and Philip. Their classes were watching movies, so I moved along. I'm looking forward to seeing more next week! Keep up the good work!
Click on "Comments" below and leave your BEST and WORST experience from the week. Be sure to write your name next to your entry. Click on "Anonymous" before publishing! Have fun reading about each other's experiences! Miss you much!

- Mrs. Turner

February 22 - February 26 - Lisa should have posted the weekly blog here

February 15 - February 19

Tuesday- Quentin and Joseph presented, Joseph being able to change his day so that we still had two presentations. Quentin started by teaching us about French History, showing us the castle which has quick sand surrounding it. Joseph taught us how and when to use “por” and “para” in Spanish. He used a song for por, which he got the students to try and sing.

Wednesday- Katy and Natalie presented, Katy being a scientist with her lab coats. She taught us what floated, which the results for some were surprising, and she also showed us why a banana floats with the peel on and sinks when it’s off. Natalie taught us how the French Revolution was a huge part of history.

Thursday- Rachael and Tiffany presented, Rachael telling us that the English Reformation was not about the language but the religion. Tiffany taught us about Irony and the three different types, which we found and identified examples of.

Friday- Chelsea S. and Victoria presented, both involving English. Chelsea started by teaching us about the major literary movements and the authors within each time. We were quizzed on which philosophies clashed and which authors were from which movement. Victoria taught us about the different common grammar mistakes, like compliment and complement, and how to use each correctly.

“Teachers teach more by what they are than by what they say.” -Unknown

“Tell me and I'll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I'll understand.” –Chinese Proverb

“To learn and never be filled, is wisdom; to teach and never be weary, is love.” -Unknown

Monday:
This week we experienced several early childhood education lesson plans. As a class we all took the mindset of this age group, and with this mentality we listened and reacted to what we were taught.
Today we enjoyed learning from Miss Aliyah about the different continents. We learned that there are seven different continents and are named Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America. In order to remember the continent’s names we learned a song. We also learned that there are several different characteristics about each continent and certain animals that live there. Like how Antarctica does not have a permanent human population, but houses penguins. We watched a ‘brain pop,’ a short movie which that described the continents, and even got to draw a map to the destination that matched a description.

*It was also spirit week and our day to dress today was Kindergarten day and Nerd day





Tuesday we made our cards for our pen palls. The animal for this card was a frog, and the images popped out of the card when it was opened. We made the card pop out by cutting slits in an already folded piece of paper. The slits were then unbent out, in the opposite way of the fold. The image of the frog or heart could be pasted on the card. They were adorable and will be a great surprise for Valentines Day.

Wednesday, Miss Megan taught us about the names of animals in Spanish. One of the ways she got the students involved was to initially have them draw a picture of their favorite animals. We learned that a dog is a perro in Spanish, cat is a gato, and other Spanish animal names. We also had to pare up animals with similar characteristics, like farm animals or mammals. We even learned that in other countries the sounds that an animal makes is said in other ways. We practiced making animal sounds in Spanish.
Miss Kim taught us about shapes. We learned all about what each shaped looked like, the characteristics of it, and its name. Also, we listened to a rhyme or song that told us how to draw each shape. She had us use the shapes to make pictures and also allowed us to practice drawing them on the board and on paper.


Thursday, Miss Casey taught us about firemen. We learned what to do if there was a fire in our school and she showed us practical steps to keep us safe at home. She told us to make a plan of escape form our home and to change the batteries in our fire alarms. Firemen use oxygen tanks and masks, that might look scary, but are used to keep the firemen sage as they try to save others. We also learned how to dial 9-l-1 in case of a fire.
Miss Meghan taught us about part of speech. We learned how to identify nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. The characteristics of each helped us to understand how to write sentences. Nouns are subjects, verbs are actions, adjectives describe nouns, and adverbs add to the verbs. We were able to write a sentence and find the parts of speech by the end of class. We even wrote our own sentence with all of the parts of speech and then had to draw a picture that would use all the parts of speech.

Friday
We went to the elementary school to be with our pen palls. When we were there we helped them make a valentines-man out of hearts. They had to cut and paste the hearts and according arms together to make the man. It was great to see the creativity of first graders as they drew on the face. Everyone was excited to see the finished product and to then draw, talk, and play with their pen palls. Afterwards we gave our cards to them. It was cute to see their reactions upon opening the card and seeing the images pop out. We also received valentines that they had made for us earlier. Due to the pep rally schedule we had to leave early.

In times of change, learners inherit the Earth, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.-- Eric Hoffer

Febuary 1-Febuary 5

Monday- Snow Day!!!

Tuesday-We started teaching our lesson plans that we had been working on now for a couple of weeks. The first to go was Kayla who taught us how to see patterns in shapes and tell the different kinds of shapes. Then Andrea taught us her lesson about colors in Spanish. Both had lesson plans for kindergarden so we got to play fun games like "I spy something....", and being able to create our own patterens out of different shapes.

Wednesday-We kept going with our lesson plans and we were taught first by Kristen who taught us how to count money. We were able to play an activity which allowed us to move money pieces on the board into a piggy bank until we made one dollar. We were then taught by Chelsea Elliot who helped us learn how to count to a hundred by using three different methods, one of them was by using a chart that counted one to a hundred and having the children put small circles on the numbers as they counted so they could see how much was a hundred.

Thursday-We were taught by Marshee who taught us how to see the different placements of numbers in math. We were able to play with different types of blocks that showed how much each place of a number was worth. We were then taught by Shay who showed us how to multiply by using a counting board. She showed us how mutliplication is easier to figure out an answer than just adding all the numbers up.

Friday-Friday was the start of spirit week which meant that all the classes were cut short for the pep rally we were going to have later on that day. Lorena was the only one to teach that day and she taught the names of the months in spanish. Her activity involved us drawing a picture of a month that we love and then as we learned about the months in Spanish we could write down what our month was on our paper.

~Quote(s)~ "A teacher affects eternity. He can never tell where his influence stops." -Ibrid-

"Come to the edge.We might fall.Come to the edge.It's too high!COME TO THE EDGE!And they came and he pushed and they flew..." -Christopher Logue-

Blog By:Chelsea Slessman

Monday, January 25 - Friday, January 29, 2010

Monday, January 25th

Mrs. Turner reviewed how to make a lesson plan by referring to the handout provided the week before. She talked about the requirements we are to follow when giving our presentation to the Teacher Cadets later this month (i.e. we will have 20 minutes). We then decided what grade level we wanted to teach our lesson to and began working in class with books and on computers.

Tuesday, January 26th

Although we had a shortened period, we continued to work on our lesson plans and sign up for our field experiences.

Wednesday, January 27th

This was our final in-class work day on our lesson plans.

Thursday, January 28th

Mrs. Turner taught us how to make monkey puppets for our penpals using brown paper bags and construction paper cut-outs. Many students got creative with their letters.

Friday, January 29th

We spent first period at Mauldin Elementary School in Ms. Quinn's class. To celebrate the 100th day of school, we helped our penpals string 100 Fruit Loops onto a necklace. They showed us their projects, and we talked while sharing those delicious doughnuts! Some of us even challenged the first grader Tishone to a "count off," seeing who could count to 100 the fastest. He won. No matter what. :O

Tell me, and I'll forget. Show me, and I may remember. Involve me, and I'll understand.

-- Chinese Proverb

:) Victoria Ralph

January 20 - January 22, 2010

Wednesday January 20, 2010

We came back to school from a long 4 day weekend because of MLK day on Monday and a teacher work day on Tuesday. We started the classs by going over what is to happen during the rest of January and then what is going on in February. Mrs. Turner passed out a lesson plan template to everybody and then she went over each part of the template. She then showed us Blooms Taxonomy and explained what each level was. She then read the children's book "Knuffle Bunny Too." She then gave us questions from the story and we had to put them on the correct level of Blooms Taxonomy.

Thursday January 21, 2010

Today we broke into groups with a children's book for each group. The groups task was to read the book and then create a quiz based on the book with questions that covered each level of Blooms Taxonomy. Then the groups were to trade books and questions and the new book you were supose to read and then answer the questions and evalutate the question to see if they truly covered each level of Blooms Taxonomy.

Friday January 22, 2010

Today we began class with Mrs. Turner going through the questions from the group work from the day before. She shared the evaluations of the questions to the class as a whole. Then we broke up into 5 groups and we all were given an article and were told to read the article and each person in the group had to become an expert on that article. Then one person from each group was put into a larger group to create 5 different groups. Each member now was to tell the new group about the article he or she became an expert on. Next we participated in an activity that was math problems and each group had a different problem and we had to figure the problem out then one person who was chosen at random was to answer it. Then Mrs. Turner gave us an oral quiz and the person who would answer it was chosen out of a cup of pop sicle sticks. These group activity gave us examples of possible structures that can be used in a cooperative learning setting.

The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. -Sydney J. Harris

January 4-January 15, 2010

Monday January 4, 2010

We all came back from our wonderful Holiday Break and talked about what all we did. Mrs. Turner told us about everything that was coming up within the next few weeks and there after. We also watched some of the credits for Freedom Writers and talked about writing our letters to our teacher dealing with the seven gifts.

Tuesday January 5, 2010

Today we talked about our Mid-Term that we would have to present for our Professor. We all picked our topics and then began brainstorming our ideas.

Wednesday January 6, 2010

Today we all meet in the classroom and asked any questions about our projects. We then all traveled down the hallway to the library to work on our Mid-Terms.

Thursday January 7, 2010

We went to the library again today all working very hard on our projects.

Friday January 8, 2010

We once again traveled to the library to finish working on our Mid-Term projects that were do the next week.

Monday January 11, 2010

We came to class and some students who are not taking the class for Anderson Uni. presented their Mid-Terms for the class informing all of us about Education related topics.

Tuesday January 12, 2010

Exam time was here... finally. Everyone came with Mid-Terms in hand and we greeted our Professor from Anderson at 8:30 am ready to present. We were in here for 3 hours and everyone taking the class for college credit presented their projects. We all laughed and things going on in Education. Everyone did a great job!

Wednesday January 13-Thurdayday January 14, 2010

We did not come to teacher cadets these days becasue we were in other classes working on our exams.

Friday January 15, 2010

Everyone was so relieved that exams were over and we all were ready for our 4 day weekend! We all worked together and got service hours done and picked our teacher of the month for January.

"Who dares to teach must never cease to learn." -- John Cotton Dana

NEED EDUCATIONAL ARTICLES?

If you still need to read educational articles this quarter, check out the links on the right column for Edutopia, THE Journal and Teaching Tolerance. Also, I have included links to some on-line articles that I found interesting. Have fun!

Mean Chics and Ugly Cliques

Half a Mind is a Terrible Thing to Waste

Building a New Business Model

December 7-11 2009

On Monday Book Reports was brought into class to turn in for a grade. Joesph was so excited about his report that he wanted to present his to the class. His book report was on the book " To Kill a Mockingbird" which talked about racism. Also Mrs. Turner passed the article " Seven Gifts for Teachers that will last a lifetime" and assigned to finding a teacher that has all of the gifts in the article and write them a letter. After that we started the movie " Freedom Writers".

On Tuesday during class we decided on what pictures to use for Coach Rhodes room maker over. We also discussed our Christmas Party and made changes with the locations. After that we picked back with the movies "Freedom Writers". After school we decorated Coach Rhodes room, with pictures, laps, curtains, and etc.

On Wednesday we talked about the great success of the room maker for Coach Rhodes. We also signed up for drinks, desserts and chose pizza for the Christmas Party. After that we continued the movie.

On Thursday we had to take pictures for the year book, and when we returned we completed the movie. That night we went to Joesph's house for our Christmas Party. We had so much fun laughing and playing games with each other. Everyone brought silly gifts to exchange and that was very interesting. What a night we had at our Christmas Party!

On Friday we all was in different locations for Teacher Observation at Schools from elementary to high.

Quote :

" A Teacher affects eternity: he can never tell where his influence stops"- Henry Brooks Adams

" Teachers opens the door, but you must enter by yourself" - Chinese Proverb

Blog Posted by: Kayla L. McCluney

November 23-24 and November 30 - December 4

Monday and Tuesday, November 23 and 24

We made Turkeys for all the teachers with cookies, candy corn and fudge.

Then we delivered them and made them all very happy.

Monday, November 30

We went over the December calendar and decided when to do all of our activities such as: observing, writng to our pen pals, visiting our pen pals, watching Freedom Writers, feeding teachers, and when to party for Christmas.

Tuesday, December 1
Voted on teacher of the Month (I'm pulling for you Ms. Crouch)
Made the winner's stockings, Fixed bulletin boards and put up their stockings.

Wednesday, December 2
We wrote to our pals in the elementary school on a tiger, which is a grown up cat.

Thursday, December 3
This was a choose to observe day or not to observe day.
The people who didn't observe stayed in Mrs. Turner's room and made Christmas mice and started on Reindeer cards for out pen pals.

Friday, December 4
Everyone was observing or helping teachers because we're cool.

My quotes:
"I like a teacher who gives you something to take home to think about when you get home besides homework." -Lily Tomlin as "Edith Ann"

"The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn." - John Lubbock

Quotes for November 16-20

"Instruction begins when you, the teacher, learn from the learner; put yourself in his place so that you may understand . . . what he learns and the way he understands it." - - Soren Kierkegaard

"The whole art of teaching is the only art of awakening the natural curiosity of young minds for the purpose of satisfying it afterwards; and curiosity itself can be vivid and wholesome only in proportion as the mind is contented and happy." - - Anatole France

November 16-20

Monday November 16, 2009

We all had our Middle School observations at Mauldin Middle School. We observed 6th, 7th, and 8th grade classes in various subjects such as math, science, social studies, english, and even home economics. I observed a 7th grade english class. They took notes and reviewed what they had read in "Twelfth Night". I observed that there were many differences between the middle school class and the elementary school class from room decorations to student interaction.


Tuesday November 17, 2009

We started off class with Katy's blog from 2 weeks ago. We talked about our elementary school and middle school observations comparing and contrasting the schools (more colorful vs. more plain) and the classrooms (very decorative and busy vs. not as much). Even the way some of the desks were arranged was different. We then picked which high school and subject we would prefer to go to in order to observe for our high school unit. We finished class with the Ron Clark Academy students singing about the election (You Can Vote However You Like) and their trip to South Africa.


Wednesday November 18, 2009

First we confirmed our high school selections for our high school observations on Friday. Then Andrea and Quentin read their story "7th Grade Woes".



After their story, we worked to get ready for our Teacher Cadet Breakfast with the Experts in groups to come up with questions for teachers, administrators, special education teachers, coaches, and guidance counselors. After each group came up with questions for each, each group was assigned one of the categories to pick out the 10 best questions. These questions were then typed up by Mrs. Turner so we could each have a copy.

Thursday November 19, 2009

We had our Teacher Cadet Breakfast with the Experts. It was an awesome experience and a great way to practice our professional skills by interviewing teachers, administators, special education teachers, guidance counselors, and coaches. I had the experience of interviewing Mrs. Collins. She was really nice and had a lot of good insight about teaching. Since she teaches mostly college prepatory(cp) classes, it was good to hear what she had to say about its challenges. She also answered many questions about getting students involved, how to handle challenging students, teaching to each student's learning styles, and coming up with lesson plans. It was a really good learning experience.

Friday November 20, 2009

We had our high school observations. We went to multiple high schools. Some went J.L. Mann, Greenville High, etc. and some stayed at Mauldin. I stayed at Mauldin and observed Miss Mulvey's Spanish I cp class. It was a great experience to witness first hand some of the challenges teachers face. It worked out really well that I got to see exactly what I had heard Mrs. Collins talking about the day before. I also got to observe a little bit of Miss Mulvey's Spanish III honors class. The behavioral difference was astounding. It was truly an experience I will never forget.

November 9-13

November 9

We discussed Ron Clarke and his new school out of Atlanta. We also prepared for our Mauldin Elementary by choosing what teacher we wanted to observe. Afterward, we began The Ron Clarke Story, a life-story about Ron Clarke and how he began teaching those who are underprivileged.

November 10

Today, we continued watching The Ron Clarke Story. . .

November 11

We still continued to watch The Ron Clarke Story. Today, we finished the movie and reminsced on his teaching abilities and what a good movie we watched.

November 12

On November 12, we traveled to Anderson University. Here, we were involved in a campus tour, Teacher Cadet informational session, and a life/time management class.

We met many new, cool people from different schools aroun the upstate. AND Mrs. Turner's Teacher Cadet Conference was BETTER!!

November 13

Friday was a relaxing day. We all were assigned an elementary school to go to on Monday, and today we went to an elementary school to observe a teacher and their classroom. We related their classroom activity to the psychological development stages that we learned in class.

"Our attitude toward life determines life's attitude towards us."

- Earl Nightingale

"To put the world right in order, we must first put the nation in order; to put the nation in order, we must first put the family in order; to put the family in order, we must first cultivate our personal life; we must first set our hearts right."

- Confucius