Friday, Day Thirty-four

Today was a good day. In 3rd grade language arts we had our phonics quiz. The students did very well with that. I always give them a bonus section and seems to be helping a lot. This section forces them to think about the phonic patterns we have studied. I also had the students go to an interactive web site to work on some contractions. They are not doing well in retaining the concept of the contraction. This web site gave them a contraction and they had to choose the correct words that formed the contraction. Scores were not very high on this lesson, I expected much better but the students all seemed distracted today. On a better note, one of the students in this class that struggles with social interaction and hated my card game, asked if we could play. Unfortunately we did not have time and I truly regret that since he wanted to play so badly.

In 4th grade math we solved multiplication and division equations using a number line. This was a fun lesson. It gave the students yet another strategy to solve these equations. That is why I like this unit, it is full of strategies to help the students. Technical difficulties got me again in this lesson. I had typed up the pages needed in the lesson including the worksheet for assessment in a Word 2007 format. The problem is that it is not compatible with 2003, so nothing could read it. So we simply took out a piece of paper and did it by hand. The students did very well with it. Since I couldn't print what I wanted I tried to find something online for the students to work with but that didn't happen. Division was more difficult for them on the number line, but they understood it enough to complete the worksheet. They wanted to just solve the equation which was only worth 1/3 of the points, the major part of the points came from showing the work on the number line. I am proud of them, they did well.

I had never thought about the styles of teaching affecting a student so much. In our reading we studied the helicopter, drill sergeant, and consultant teacher. I knew that the drill sergeant teacher was a tough teacher and students learned but it was almost like forced learning and I often wondered how much was retained. I had never heard of the helicopter, but I have seen it. Teachers that feel that students cannot complete a task themselves, will hover and do the thinking, processing and answering for them. The student only has to copy the answers from a note or write exactly what the teacher says. I want to be the teacher that causes the student to think on their own, come up with their own answers and if they are not correct we can discuss why. The consultant teacher fits me better. My 3rd grade class has a student like "Ben" in our reading. He expects us to do everything for him. He is such a bright boy but hates to write. Orally he can tell me the most perfect answers in language arts or math, but writing it down causes turmoil. We give him every strategy we can think of, but he just truly hates writing. I have been thinking that maybe he could learn to type his answers into a document, but he hates the process of finding the right keys also. We will continue to work with him, but I plan to pull back on the things that I know he could do on his own. It will not benefit him in future classes if I do everything that he is capable of doing.