Week 4 of 10

Hello everyone, I am last posting for last week because my mind has not ventured far from edTPA this weekend. I have been so focused on edTPA that it seems everything else has slipped my mind. I'm sure we all agree that Thursday can't get here fast enough.

Last week was a decent week. I would rate it a 3 out of 5. It was not a special week and nothing "bad" happened. I just felt like the whole week I couldn't get caught up. I still feel that way in anticipation of this upcoming week. I know that also relates back to edTPA. I am really looking forward to next week because edTPA will be behind me and I know I can give more of my attention to my teaching.

Last week, I was able to demonstrate standard 1 (NCPTS) by collaborating with the other 7th grade math teacher. We typically get together once a week to plan our content and stay up to date on where each other is at in the curriculum. There have been a few times when he has asked what I had planned and then asked if he could use the same thing for his class. This week, he had a family death and had to be out unexpectedly for a couple of days. I told him to let me know what I could do to help and he asked me to get together some work for his classes to do while he was out.

I demonstrated standard 2 last week by going over the lockdown procedure and other safety information with each of my classes. With everything going on in the country recently, the students and the staff were all feeling a little uneasy. To help make my students feel safe in the classroom, we went over the procedures and took time for questions which me and my CE answered carefully and clearly. I also spent a lot of time reflecting (standard 5) about the recent situations and about how I can professionally advocate (standard 1) for change in our schools. Our students shouldn't fear coming to school and knowing that they do has really dampened my mood.

For standard 3 last week,  I took some time to study the content I knew I would be teaching this upcoming week. This was content that I was a little uneasy about and was having a hard time remembering. I tried to write my lesson plans before studying the content, but I quickly found out there was just no way. I ended up having to set my plans aside and took some time to refresh my memory on this content. To some, this might sound like I don't know what I'm doing because I had to "study my content." However, I feel the opposite. Last semester, my CE told me that even she, who has been teaching for 13 years, has to study sometimes. I think this helps make for a good teacher - one who is not embarrassed to study her content.

Last week was a review week for my classes. We spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday reviewing material that would appear on their benchmark this upcoming week. On Thursday, my students took all of their "training" from the beginning of the week and participated in the "Math Games. This is an example of how I demonstrated standard 4 during the week. As students came into class Thursday, the room was decorated with a South Korean flag and an olympic sign. Instead of the usual warmup on the board, there were fun facts about South Korea. I tried to find facts that the students could compare to. For example, in America a birthday tradition is birthday cake, in South Korea a birthday tradition is seaweed soup. Class time on Thursday was spent playing review games in which teams competed for the "gold."

Finally, for standard 5 last week, I spent some time reflecting on how I can include more 21st century skills and integration in my lessons. I feel like I made good progress on adding 21st century skills, however I am still struggling with integration.