Inquiry Project

I am reflecting upon my experience I had yesterday interviewing one of my High School teachers in hopes to receive knowledgable feedback for my point of inquiry. It was a great experience in that I was able to not only speak with her for a long duration, but I was also able to observe her ESL class. I discovered that she is the only ESL instructor at South and she supports each of her ESL by modifying their lessons in other subject areas such as: mathematics, science, and social studies. She happens to also be an expert within the area of English and provided me with an immense amount of feedback for my questions and concerns. From that experience, I have decided to add the ESL license addition to my major, due to the shortage in educators who have their ESL license and the increasing need for experienced ESL instructors.

My project is coming along great with many ideas and plans for my final draft. I have enjoyed my time in interviews and observing experienced educators in hopes to become an expert with my inquiry focus. The on-line resources have also shed light to many of my questions and have helped tremendously with my focus and frame of reference.

LAP Progress....11/2

Thus far, I have completely enjoyed the research and time spent on completing the LAP project. I have had a chance to build a relationship with the child I am working with in noting her progress and reading abilities. I spoke briefly last blog post about my experience visiting her classroom, which gave me great insight regarding her skills with more experienced reading educators. However, I wanted a more personal conference with the child and decided to meet her at the public library in Ellettsville, IN. I not only held a wonderful and insightful conference with the child but also had the chance to browse around the library and become familiar with their great resources. The child also shared a great experience and we were able to sign her up for a membership and that evening she wanted to take books home with her [she was thrilled about reading at home!] So, we proceeded to roam around to find her a couple books to take to her home and read at her leisure. Well, to say the least, she ended up with over 15 books that she took home and read! The next day she could not find enough words to describe how great all the books were and when I asked her which was her favorite she told me, "the one about dogs." This experience enabled me to discover what types of genres the child is most comfortable reading and most importantly, enjoys reading. This has also helped our concluding conferences because I have been able to prepare books that interest her greatly and ultimately have had successful meetings.

Interesting Observation....

After much deliberation about the LAP due in this course, I was unsure of who I would observe and focus my LAP on. I concluded my ideas and approached a member of my church who has a six year old daughter, she is in first grade and attends Edgewood Primary Elementary. I explained what the assignment was and asked if I could observe her daughter's classroom in order to gain a greater understanding of how her teacher organized reading time. I have yet to arrive to the point in my education where I have an abundance of field experience, so this was a new encounter for me.

It was well worth it! I had such a great experience and ironically observed the same day as the reading specialist visited the classroom. Moreover, I was delighted by the organization of the literature within the classroom. The classroom had a vast array of books for the students to read. Each genre was divided into plastic boxes with labels on the front indicating the type of genre. I did observe that this wonderful 'label rich' classroom was easily accessible for all types of readers. The classroom environment was a managed well with a great balance of encouraged autonomy.

The students were divided into groups of four and were assigned a specific area in the classroom. The reading specialist visited each group and spent twenty minutes with all groups. She incorporated a set of vocabulary flash cards that the students would study prior to reading the literature. After they throughly went through the vocab words, their reading performance was nearly flawless. She concluded her lesson with the game of Bingo. The students were thrilled by this activity and were extremely engaged during this time.

Overall, it was a wonderful experience!

Reflective Entry-Week 4

I have been delighted by this course and the knowledge I have gained from my time spent reading the materials and the responses my peers have reflected over the last couple of weeks. I often feel as if I am unable to contribute the amount of advice that the other students have due to my lack of experience within the classroom. I will express my appreciation for current teachers in the course who guide and direct my future decisions as a teacher. I spend most of my days and hours in class sessions learning 'how to be' a teacher, but not enough time speaking to and learning from current educators who are currently working with students. I have found that after professor Davis assigned groups of three into a discussion forum that the placement has allowed for more personal conversation to transpire within the discussions. I have learned a great amount of do's and don'ts' from the other experienced teachers. Samantha brings personal experience with her children and students which I find very interesting. I am grateful that I am able to ask her questions like, "Have you utilized this method in your classroom, if so was it effective?" in order to gain knowledge of future planning.

Since I am unable to observe my own classroom, I will describe a current college course I am enrolled in. The subject of the course is Sustainable Public Discourse, Intensive writing. During our class period I took into account that given 4 weeks into the course, students are contributing more to classroom discussions and observing more scholarly issues. I feel as though we are understanding the assigned readings, now that we have been given a great deal of foundational information to build upon. Most of our readings are scholarly journal articles and scientific papers which require careful examination and understanding. I have noticed a growth within my understanding and I am more confident with the readings than in the beginning. This experience has given me an understanding of how to present new and difficult material to my students who may not bring 'previous' knowledge to the class in regards to the subject matter. I will attempt to build a strong beginning foundation, then introduce the material so that they will have a greater chance of understanding and achievement.