10/25

Today i was in Mrs. Turners room. When I first went in I thought to myself "Where is Mrs. Turner", but soon realized that she was doing some testing in the tiny closet that the class keep supplies in. The students were watching a movie "Ice Age", which seemed like a waste of time. I tried to work one on one with some students and ended up pulling out Jarone and trying to review to vocabulary words with him. Next thing I knew it the clock said it was time to head back.

I learned that some teachers do not plan well around testing, it is not fair to the other students in the class when they are just placed to watch a movie. The movie did not even have activities accompanying it nor was it relevant to the science topic they were working on. Pulling one student out made me feel a little better, but seeing the teacher testing, the para watching the movie and the students just goofing off bothered me a little. My field II placement is at Mattie V. Rutherford and I am used to dealing with students in this age bracket. I still learned that when a classroom has poor management the students learn quickly what they can get away with.

I did some science review I felt that they did not cover the unit like they should have. It was simply five vocabulary words, and the test was 5 fill in the blanks with a word bank. I learned in class that we need to incorporate teaching of life skills and if we would have used this time to work on those skills it would have had a much bigger benefit then to be working on 5 words that the students have already went over many times. When reading through journals about the students who were behind it was saying that the further behind they fall the harder it is for them to catch up. The rate of catching back up isn't always linear, it also makes all of what they are learning in new classes irrelevant because they can no grasp the topics not knowing about the materials the missed.

10/18

Today the students had choice time of sorts and had to work on the computers. Once again I decided to work with Mila because she knows me and I have been working well with her. When Mila got on the computer I immediately notices that she was having difficulties moving the mouse. We started a program that had the alphabet and it would have different games associated with each letter. When playing the game I would help Mila move the mouse and she was getting all of the answer correct, almost like she had played it before or that it was too easy. I went to the next level up and she still seemed to get them correct. One thing that I noticed is that she was touching the screen on the monitor a lot, she was able to pinpoint what she wanted to answer way easier than she could do using the mouse. This makes me think of my research on the IPad, I wish I had one to try with her.

I Learned that sometimes students may know more then they are demonstrating but it is only due to other limitation such as the ability to use a mouse and keyboard. If Mila had a tablet device for her elementary year for all we know she might be at grade level in some topics. I also noticed a different side of Mila today, the more she got right the calmer and more willing to move through the lesson she was. Unlike trying to use scissors where she got frustrated, this just seemed to motivate her.

Just like the class and my research said the use of tablets for students with autism or other disabilities could be very effective. The help with communication skills, if the student can not communicate with you they can not tell you the answers to questions and they also can not tell you there needs. In the article I just read the young man progressed 1 whole year in a one month period using tablets. That means that in a few months Mila might be able to read. People underestimate these students so much.

10/11

Hard time with Mila, but made progress by doing as we suggested. We were still trying to work with her to be able to cut with scissors. This time the teacher has a pair with a larger thumb hole and she was using the same ones over and over instead of trying different ones. Also instead of having her cut things for no reason which could be frustrating she was cutting through just play-doh with the goal of filling up the bin with materials she cut. We worked with her the whole time and I felt like we were actually making progress which motivated me to want to keep working with her. After about 30 mintues we ended up going outside where Mila bee-lined to the playground at the elementary school. The paraprofessional ran after her and was able to return her without any issues. While outside I saw a student climb under a portable to get a basketball, when he came out he was covered with thorns, I spent about 30 minutes pulling them off of him...I wish we could do something about the mess out here. I hope our outreach goes well!

I was more comfortable and more willing to express my ideas this week. I felt like I had more patience, but it might have just been less caffeine. In the future with my students I will make sure to have a real goal when having them do a task. It does not makes sense to just cut lines in paper or cut play-doh in half just have somebody combine it back into one piece. Another thing I learned was that when one ofyour students takes off, it really is a big deal because the para ran at top pace after Mila. Ms. Calls class is getting a little crowded it seems like there are more teachers than student in there and I can tell that it is making some of the students uncomfortable. I hope next week we can work outside of that room. 

I can tell that Mila has an issue with sensory needs. It seems like she is over stimulated by the smallest touch but loves to lightly itch herself and wring her hands. In class and the book we were talking about the sensory needs of students. As a reflection to the topic out group for our outreach project were talking about making a sandbox but one that is designed better for middle school aged students.It is important that sensory needs are met or else the students may not be able to reach their highest potential. Also, in the article I am reviewing about using tablets/IPads as educational tools they mention that some students just do not feel comfortable using mouses, pencils, or keyboards. It seems like this might be the thing with Mila, next week I want to try to get her on the computer to test some things out. While researching for our outreach/cleanup we were finding a lot of evidence that the environment the students are in plays a large role in their learning. I saw that first hand today and hope that we can make a real change out here in November.