EDU 450 Weekly Reflection 5

This week, I would rate as a 4. It started out very rough, with 7 students in my room being absent with the flu or flu-like symptoms. My first edTPA lesson was also not what I had hoped it to be, with my students struggling to "get" the concept of predicting. We are in our clothing unit, and I provided a mystery bag filled with a coat, snow boots, hat, gloves, and a scarf. When I asked students to predict where we might go or something we might do wearing these clothes, many of them answered, "Disney World." I also had one who attempted to be funny, answer, "the beach." Throughout the week, however, we consistently reviewed the key vocabulary and definition of predicting, while incorporating as many opportunities for making predictions as possible. We predicted the weather, we predicted what would be served for lunch, and continued making predictions based on clothing and where we might wear specific types of clothing, connecting our unit to the learning segment planned for edTPA. Students began to show greater understanding of prediction and using information related to the topic, and to the story we were reading over the course of the week, which was relieving to me. Reflecting on the week, I believe my students were not as prepared for this concept as I had originally believed, and are not yet ready to build on this concept. I believe they would instead benefit from integration of learning domains and reinforcement of pre-reading skills and pre-writing skills related to letter recognition, an area in which they are still struggling. While the lesson was age-appropriate, I was slightly discouraged because it was not exactly developmentally appropriate for the ability of my students. They did grasp understanding as the week progressed, so it was not a total failure of a learning segment.
I feel more able to focus on my long-term goals with my edTPA lesson being completed. I feel like this week was productive in preparing me for the completion of my edTPA tasks 2 and 3. I spent most of my time this week focused on edTPA, and can now move on to focusing on other elements of my planning and teaching.
I became a little apprehensive seeing my first lesson go so poorly, however, made adaptations to the lesson and reframed my plans and instruction to make it more aligned to the developmental abilities and needs of my students. For next week, I plan to continue working ahead, as well as prepare my materials early, so I will not be putting things together the night before. Advice I would offer to other student teachers this week is, go with what your students need, more than what you have planned. I spent so much time preparing and planning my edTPA lessons, and have had to change course drastically to help my students grasp the concept. It was daunting to make such adjustments at the last minute, but it has been so beneficial to my student's learning. Most of the data I have analyzed this week was related to my edTPA segment and it significantly changed my plans for instructing my students as they learned the skill of predicting.
Continuing to build on my NCTCS proficiency, I am focusing on standard 1, element 1b, to display the ability to use appropriate data to identify areas of need to be addressed in a school improvement plan. As this is the first year PreK has been a part of the SIP, I am actively attending SIT meetings and adhering to the plan to integrate Kindergarten readiness skills and utilizing the Second Step curriculum to build social emotional maturity. For standard 2, element 2b, and plan my instruction to include the influence of diversity. I utilize many multicultural images in my lessons to integrate a respect for diversity and teach global awareness. For standard 3, element 3d, I am integrating 21st century skills in my instruction my utilizing the NC FELD, which features goals for young learners that align to 21st century learning. For standard 4, element 4d, I am hoping to be able to integrate technology back into my lessons, as I am still waiting for my Smart Board projector bulb to be replaced. For standard 5, element 5a, I am hoping to  use my student data to create ways to improve student learning by reflecting on work samples and anecdotal notes to help identify the learning needs of my students.
I have continued working on various portfolio artifacts and have set my PDP goals and put my classroom management plan in place. There are no questions either me or my CE have at this point. We are looking forward to the upcoming weeks and seeing our students grow.