Bethlehem Practicum Pictures and Summary
Above are three pictures from the Bethlehem Urban Practicum that I completed this past summer. The document below is a written summary I composed for the Bloomu website. During this practicum I was able to participate in an 8th grade classroom as well as a 3rd grade classroom, each for a week. My week at the 8th grade social studies class was mainly for observing and helping individual students on worksheets or assignments. It was the end of the school year and the standardized testing was completed, which meant many of the students struggled to find motivation to be engaged in the school day. One of the most important aspects of teaching I was able to learn in the 8th grade class was classroom management. All of the students were very well behaved in this social studies class, even though many of them had behavioral IEPs. My cooperating teacher explained to me that it is important to build rapport from the beginning of the year in order to gain the students' trust and cooperation. I also learned that many behavioral issues can be handled in simple, non conformational ways, rather than sending every kid to the office. It was nice to see that a classroom of underprivileged students were not fitting the stereotype given to them.
The above pictures were from the 3rd grade class I participated in. In this placement I was able to be thrown into teacher and take over the class on many different occasions. This classroom setting made me very aware of the need for hands on activities that keep students active and engaged. In the first picture on the left, we took the second half of the day to dissect owl pellets as a class. Each group of two students would carefully break apart the owl pellet to see what kind of animals the owl had eaten. Students found many different bones with which they were to identify and number. One group actually had an owl pellet that had five complete rodent skulls in it, which was very interesting to see. We followed up this activity with practicing bone identification as a whole class, using the rodent bones we found in the pellets. Students loved this activity because they had control of what they were doing, but still had guidelines and objectives that they needed to follow.
Working with these students of multiple grade levels, different SES, and different ability levels made me realize the importance of differentiated instruction. Many of these students were learning to speak English, which meant that their books and reading assignments needed to be modified. Coming from a rural area in Central Pennsylvania, I had never experienced the need for such drastic forms of modification, other than different ability levels. Participating in this school helped me to realize that every student is different and therefore will need different modifications and scaffolding to help them succeed.
The above pictures were from the 3rd grade class I participated in. In this placement I was able to be thrown into teacher and take over the class on many different occasions. This classroom setting made me very aware of the need for hands on activities that keep students active and engaged. In the first picture on the left, we took the second half of the day to dissect owl pellets as a class. Each group of two students would carefully break apart the owl pellet to see what kind of animals the owl had eaten. Students found many different bones with which they were to identify and number. One group actually had an owl pellet that had five complete rodent skulls in it, which was very interesting to see. We followed up this activity with practicing bone identification as a whole class, using the rodent bones we found in the pellets. Students loved this activity because they had control of what they were doing, but still had guidelines and objectives that they needed to follow.
Working with these students of multiple grade levels, different SES, and different ability levels made me realize the importance of differentiated instruction. Many of these students were learning to speak English, which meant that their books and reading assignments needed to be modified. Coming from a rural area in Central Pennsylvania, I had never experienced the need for such drastic forms of modification, other than different ability levels. Participating in this school helped me to realize that every student is different and therefore will need different modifications and scaffolding to help them succeed.