Reflection Finals Week

Yay! This week is finals week which means that after Friday, I don't have class for two and a half weeks! For our final on Monday we had to turn in all of our assignments from the semester. That was kind of stressful preparing for it, but once we got there we just got to chat while each person conferenced with Dr. Waters. For our bilingual/cultural final we were just finishing up with book report presentations, but I did mine two weeks ago, so I didn't have anything to worry about. On Tuesday, we had our science final. That was kind of annoying to me, because the class was Science METHODS and we took a test on Science CONTENT, so that is a little annoying, but I did pretty good. We also did a children's book presentation thing where we talked about how we could use the book to teach science. Then we had our Classroom Management final. That class was kind of like a party. Pretty much, we ate food and went over some scenarios about behavior problems and discussed possible ways to handle it. Wednesday, was my hard day! That day was our literacy final. We were given information, like a case study, on two students and their literacy and we had to create a plan for instruction. I feel like it went okay, but I don't really know how I did. I just hope I did well enough to keep my scholarship. I definitely feel like I have learned so much this semester. I am satisfied with what I have learned, but I still have to worry about the grades.

Reflection

This was our last week of regular classes! I am so glad to be almost done with this semester! It has been a long one. On Monday in our foundations class we had a guest speaker. It was kind of nice having a change of pace from all of the facilitations, but that class is kind of stressing me out because I have procrastinated the assignments! Then for our Foundations of Multicultural classroom we continued presenting book reports and I did mine last week so it is just smooth sailing for that class! On Tuesday, we had Science, which is a three hour block so it is always very long. I am writing this on Friday and by now I really can't remember what we did in class other than we did some baseball game review thing for the final. Then we had our classroom management class where we pretty much talked about book reports that we were to turn in that day and how to prepare for the final. On Wednesday we had our Literacy Class. We turned in our Case Studies for that class which is kind of stressful I am not sure how well I did. I tried to do a good job, but I know Dr. Byrd is a hard grader so it still stresses me a bit. On Thursday we had Language Arts Methods. In that class we turned in a bunch of huge projects. It was great to be done with them! It is nice just to know I don't have to think about them anymore other than keeping copies of the ones that are key assignments. I am feeling pretty prepared for finals week, but I feel like I have no clue what grades I am getting in any of my classes. I hope I do well enough to keep my scholarship. One thing that really irritates me is that a lot of my professors are constantly saying not to do homework or projects or reading for, "the grade," we should be doing it to be good teachers. I am really here to learn how to become a great teacher, but how can they say grades don't matter? That really burns me up, because it does matter. If we don't get at least a B- we have to retake that class, and some of us have scholarships and our grades are a matter of thousands of dollars. So far scholarships have saved me from spending over $15,000! I wish they would stop saying not to worry about our grades. Anyway no one really reads this so I am going to just stop ranting now.

Reflection

It was so great to have a break last week! Today we went back to classes though. In foundations of American Education we discussed small class size. I think it was a pretty interesting discussion, but I felt like it was really repetitive and not that useful since I don't think we as teachers will have a lot of say in what our class sizes will be. After that class we had our Multicultural Education Class. In that class we turned in our Field Reflection and some of us presented book reports. It was really great for me to sign up to get it done the first week! Now I don't have anything to worry about for that class for the rest of the semester! On Tuesday for Science we did some type of review game for the final. In Classroom management we talked about field experience a little bit more and turned in a worksheet. On Wednesday we turned in our Case Study. That was sort of stressful because I unfortunately put it off until the last minute and had to stay up until 1 AM working on it! One fortunate thing though, is that when we got to class Dr. Byrd said we could have another week to work on it. I am glad I have some more time to perfect it before I turn it in especially since it is a key assignment. On Thursday we had Language Arts Methods. Class went okay, but I was kind of frustrated that we were given a bunch of extra assignments that weren't on the syllabus and I thought I had things under wraps for the semester and now I have a bunch of work to do! Oh well, I have to do what I have to do to make it through the semester.

Reflection

So we went back to classses today. For Foundations of American Education we talked a lot about field and then discussed the reading assignment on Character Education. I feel like I heard a lot of good ideas about what would work in the classroom. It was also really nice to talk to everyone about field and see how everything went. For Foundations of a Bilingual Classroom our teacher was not there because of a family emergency, so we just turned in our Cross Cultural Analysis papers and went home! Now we only have one more day left of classes and then Thanksgiving break!

Reflection Last Week of Field

This week was our last week in field! Today was so sad leaving the kids. I felt bad because they didn't really understand why we couldn't just keep coming back! I can't wait until I start teaching my own class so I don't have to abandon them after a couple of weeks! This week went well. Everything was just kind of winding down. We were done with everything we needed to do for homework, but our teacher was having us teach science again (to three different classes), continue doing our guided reading groups, and do read alouds every day. I feel like everything went well other than the fact that our science lesson on snow was too easy, but it is kind of hard to do any pre assessment when we only work with them for a half hour on science once a week. I'm sure I will have a much better understanding of what the kids already know and don't know yet, when I am with the kids everyday. I can't really think of much to say about this week in field now that it's over other than; I don't want to go back to class at UVU! I just want to stay in the schools. Today on our last day the kids gave us each a book called, "First Day Jitters." It is a really cute little book about a teacher's first day of school. One thing I am worried about is that our cooperating teacher did not give us a copy of our evaluation. I told her we needed a copy because we are supposed to turn one in to our classroom management teacher and she was really weird about it. She went to BYU so things are run a little differently there. It makes me nervous that she was so funny about giving us a copy. I feel like maybe she didn't rate us very well! Which is odd, because I feel like she liked us and I feel like we did a really good job. I will just have to tell our Professor that she needs to get our evaluation from our college supervisor. I definitely think I did a lot better this semester than last semester, especially on classroom management. I feel like a learned a lot about trying to manage behavior, but still being able to be myself in the classroom. Our cooperating teacher was great at management, but I feel like I definitely have a different management style. Well I guess that's all there is. I feel like I am on the right track for getting all of my homework done and finishing out the semester!

Reflection Field Week 2

This week in field was a lot better than last week! On Monday we started out just working with our reading groups like normal in the morning. That day our cooperating teacher was being observed by her principal because she is still a newer teacher. After our cooperating teacher was observed she had to leave to conference with her principal. At this point Annie and I were left in charge for about an hour to an hour and a half. We were going to be doing, "Today's Number," with the kids, doing a read aloud, and working with the kids on word sorts (from Words Their Way). It actually went really well. We were so glad we were able to keep the kids on task and behaving appropriately. On Tuesday I did a read aloud in the morning (reading comprehension study). I read a picture book about a rainy day. I feel like I did a good job with this and the cooperating teacher gave me some feedback on what I did well or could improve on. Tuesday was also the first day we taught our science lesson and we were being observed by our supervisor from the college! I think the lesson went pretty well, but not perfect. What was really nice is we also taught the lesson again to other classes on Wednesday and Thursday. I feel like the lesson got progressively better each day. It was also really nice to get feedback and suggestions from our supervisor and cooperating teacher to help us improve each day. The first day I think went okay, but it was the first time so we did make some adjustments for the next day. The second day it felt like we knew more about what to expect, but we still weren't on top of the management part. Thursday was awesome! I feel like since we knew what to expect and more about how to handle it and what to do it was great. It's too bad we couldn't do it as well the first time, but what can you do? I am really grateful that our teacher allows us to work with guided reading groups everyday. I feel like if we were only doing the one guided reading lesson required by our Literacy class I wouldn't be learning nearly as much as I am. Thursday we also taught a craft lesson on writing a title. I think it went okay, but I think the concept might have been a little bit over their head. It would probably just be a lot better if we could be more explicit and explore the concept more. Overall it went well, but I don't think it's something every student has a good grasp on. Friday was pretty good. I did some running records during reading time because we don't do guided reading groups on Friday. We also taught a lesson on sensory detail and had the kids write poems using the five senses. I think it went well, but timing is so hard. There were a lot of kids who I felt needed more time, but many also who got done so fast! We found out today that we will be going to do science lessons for all of the classes next week again so we need to get planning for that. Also Annie and I will be doing all of the teacher read alouds next week too so I need to take a trip to the library to find some good books. I am really glad that our cooperating teacher is giving us so many opportunities to teach! Getting so much more experience is making me feel a lot more ready to become a teacher! I am so excited and can't wait to be in a classroom of my own!

Reflection-First Week of Field!

So this was our first week in the field! It is very exciting I love field! So far on Monday, our first day, I got there really early because I was nervous to be on time, but hey at least I was on time. I was kind of nervous the first day because I hadn't gotten a chance to meet our cooperating teacher yet. My first impression of the teacher was that she was very in control, and a little intimidating. I really think there is a lot I can learn from her, especially as far as classroom management is concerned. We mostly observed her the first two days. We were just trying to get a feel of how things are run in her classroom. We go there from 8:00 AM until 11:30 PM (ish, we usually stay a little longer). At 8:00 AM that is when the, "early birds" get there. About ten students come first thing in the morning and the teacher does a reading comprehension study. This is when she basically does a Read Aloud with a picture book and asks them a lot of questions for comprehension. Then after that the kids do silent reading as the teacher calls back groups of students one group at a time to work with guided reading books. After this the teacher does a shared reading with the students. At this time it is about 9:00 AM and it is time for the, "lator gators" to arrive. Once the lator gators get there the class gets started working on math. They usually work together on story problems, then have some time to work on the problems alone. At 11:00 on Tues, Wed, and Thurs they have science rotations. After science the kids go to lunch and we go home. Today (Friday) we, Annie and I, each took over one of the guided reading groups and we will be working with them everyday for the rest of field. That is kind of nice because we are only required to do one guided reading lesson, but we will get to practice it about ten times. Wednesday was a really hard day because our cooperating teacher was actually gone that day and we had a substitute there with us. It was hard because the kids were being a little wild, with the sub, but we knew from watching the teacher what she would have said when. It was really hard for me, since I am a natural leader not to step in and tell the kids to settle down, but I didn't want to overstep the sub. All in all it went okay with the sub. The week so far has been good. I feel like I have learned a lot from the cooperating teacher. At the beginning of the week I thought that running a classroom with kids from the younger grades would be really overwhelming, but it seems a lot more manageable after watching it in action. I am really excited for next week when we can do more teaching!

Reflection

This week in our Foundations of American Education we talked about violence in schools. When I was considering the possibility of this happening in a school I worked at it was really overwhelming. I hope that I never have to deal with anything too serious like that, but you never know. I guess all you can do is try to connect with your students and try to make them feel like a welcome and important part of your classroom community. This week in my foundations of a bilingual classroom we talked about the a lot about language. My group presentetd on two articls about English Language Learners. One of them was about students using different dialects in the classroom. The other one was about motivating and connecting with students from other cultures. I think the presentation went okay, but not exactly as planned. Then again, how often do things go exactly according to plan? I am getting very excited to go out and do our field experience next week! I am a little nervous though, because our cooperating teacher hasn't returned any of my partner and I's calls! I guess if worst comes to worst we'll just have to show up at her school on Monday morning! This week during our Science class we talked about what is expected of us for field. I feel like most of our classes this semester have been so vague and not very explicit on what the expectations are of us and then at the last minute they are just throwing all of these extra (busy work) assignments on us and it is just too much! Well, this is just my opinion. Anyway--that's not just based on science class that is with all of our classes. In our classroom management class we just went over the chapter we were currently studying in the text. We were mostly discussing communication with students while managing their behavior. In our Literacy class on Wednesday we went over the field requirements. I feel like I am more clear on everything that is expected of us now. We did finally get a hold of our cooperating teacher which is nice. At least we know what time she wants us to be there on Monday! I am feeling overwhelmed with the work, but excited to be in the field having fun and learning with and from the kids and to get everything done..

Reflection

This week in Foundations of American Education we talked about motivating students who are not motivated. I feel like a lot of people had really good ideas, but I'm not so sure how many will actually work when put into practice, but I guess I'll find out soon enough. In our Foundations of a Bilingual (multicultural) classroom class we discussed our reading assignments on the Gay and Lesbian community and their effect on our classrooms. It was interesting to hear all of the different viewpoints of people in the classroom. I guess I am pretty liberal compared to some other people. A lot of people were kind of getting defensive about teacher's bringing up Gay and Lesbian issues in Elementary classrooms, but I feel like if it comes up (one of the students brings it up, or uses inappropriate language about it) it should be discussed. I know that a lot of people in our community think that homosexuality is wrong, I won't say what my opinion is, but even if you think it's wrong those people still have rights and deserve respect as a person/individual/American Citizen. I don't think we need to teach the kids all about what it is and state my opinion or anything, but you just need to teach the students to respect all. During our classes on Tuesdays we had Science class. It was a bit of a frustrating science class because we were supposed to have a bunch of assignments due, but then he changed the assignments and told us to email them to him instead. Then we had our classroom management class. On Wednesday we had Literacy Methods. In that class we were mostly just preparing for our test that is coming up and discussing what needs to be done during field. I feel like there has been a lot of confusion on what the assignment are for field, but that we finally cleared everything up during our Language Arts Methods class. So there are some assignments that we found out about that we were not expecting, but at least everything is clear now! I am feeling a bit overwhelmed, but I know it will all work out.

Reflection

So far I have decided my blog is really boring and I mostly complain. I will try to make it a little more interesting in case anyone ever actually reads it. This week in our Foundations of Education class we went over Distance Education. I hate to say it, but I don't feel like I learned a whole lot from class. The article we read prior to class was very thorough and going over it for almost two hours class felt like beating the dead dog. That is just my personal opinion. One beneficial thing I learned from it though is that the MIT OCW website exists. It is nice/interesting to know that the information is available to me if I ever want access to it. Our Foundations of Bilingual Education class was alright. We discussed readings that were assigned to class as always. We did also watch an interesting video about Savage Inequalites in American School systems. I found the video very interesting and informative. It also inspired me to want to teach in the district that I grew up in. We don't really have any degraded inner city schools around this area, but seeing the horrible conditions of some schools really makes me motivated to give back to the community. It is very tempting to just try to get a job in the district that pays the most money, but now that I think about it deeper I really would like to get a job in the area I grew up in. It would be sort of like paying back the wonderful teachers I had by replacing them. Nothing too exciting or inspiring happened in my Science Methods class or Classroom management class. I have learned from science though, that when I get out there as a teacher I really would like to incorporate a lot of experiments in my science curriculum. I have also learned that finding an experiment to do really isn't that hard either. I don't need to be super creative or anything I can just look up lesson plans and experiments online. I don't know how first year teachers did it back in the day before the internet. It is such an awesome resource for teachers for lesson ideas, teacher message boards, access to UEN, etc.

Reflection

So far this week is going well, but also very stressful. In our Foundations for Education class we had the guest speaker. I found the information presented to be very interesting. I liked learning more about some of the stuff we need to know to find a job. Our other class on Mondays, Foundations of the Bilingual Classroom went pretty good as far as class goes, but I am afraid I am going to get a horrible score on the reaction paper we turned in. I didn't get a chance to work on it until Sunday because my hard drive on my lap top crashed last week and it wasn't fixed until Saturday night. It is only one assignment though. On Tuesday we had Science Methods and Classroom Management. I don't really feel like I am learning a lot in those classes. I feel like the stuff we are talking about in Science, like covering making a lesson plan. We already learned that last year in Curriculum Design and Assessment. We had to do about twenty lesson plans for that class last semester. The stuff that we learn and discuss in classroom management seems to be pretty obvious to me. Wednesday the class I had was Literacy Methods. I was very glad for the class today. We went over the assignments and lesson plans we will be doing for our Field Work. I was really grateful for that because I have been really stressed lately feeling like I am not sure what to prepare for field.

Reflection

Well, I haven't personally checked engrade, but due to some commentary by my peers I do not think my blog is doing too well as far as scores go. I don't really want to check my actual scores because I don't want to be discouraged so I am just going to commit to be better starting now. Since I find it hard to reflect on the week once it is all over I am just going to add to my post day-to-day. Today in our class (Foundations of American Education) I was a little panicked. I apparently am not navigating the class web site very well since I learned in class, instead of on the web, that no one in particular was fascilitating. I was nervous, but it went well. I actually learned something kind of important too. I usually make a lot of comments, because I feel bad when no one is saying anything so I just try to blurt something out to bail everyone out, but today, I tried not to talk as much (aka every time it is quiet). I think it taught me a lot about wait time. I think this is/was important for me to understand so that when I become a teacher I am not always just bailing the students out/not letting them think deep enough when there is silence. The Foundations of Multicultural Classroom class went pretty well. Mondays are really long though, because we have five hours of classes and both classes are taught with similar teaching styles. Our classes on Tuesday went pretty well, the science class always seems really long, just because to be honest three hours is a long time! We had an assignment to bring a science experiment you could use in class and teach it to two others. I did a static electricity experiment and worksheet for fifth grade. It was actually a lot of fun and I think it went well. I really would use it later. I don't think I learned that much in classroom management. It feels like a lot of what we talk about is basically common sense. Then again, it is only an hour of class so you can't get into the subject too deep. On Wednesdays we have Literacy Methods. I feel like I am doing fine understanding the class, but it is also a little frustrating. Most of what we are learning focuses on the early elementary grades and I would like to teach fifth or sixth grade so I have a hard time seeing how I would apply some of the techniques.

Reflection

I feel like I don't have a whole lot to write about this week since one of our classes was canceled. I did my facilitation on Monday, I was nervous, but I felt like it went well. I feel bad that we didn't get a chance to change articles and talk about the article about Freire too much, but it was hard to find a place to stop talking/change the subject because everyone had a lot to say. In our Multicultural Classroom class, we had a debate and my team won, that was pretty fun. I am also looking for some type of science experiment activity for a lesson plan that is due next Tuesday. I also had a problem with Amazon.com sending me one of my books so I keep having to borrow it from friends. Well, not much to say about anything else. I just have a lot of homework to do, but at least my blog is done now!

Reflection

This week of classes were pretty standard. It was nice to see how Group #1 did their facilitation to help me since my group is next. There have been a lot of reading assignments so that is getting overwhelming. I just wish there were more diversity in the types of assignments. I had a hard time finding a secondary source for my facilitation, but it was kind of my own fault for not sending a message with my questions sooner. It seemed like all of the sources I found that were good on EBSCO Host and Google Scholar were all PDF files that were copyrighted that I didn't know how to copy and was pretty sure I wasn't allowed to. Other than that things are going okay, fortunately the class for next Thursday is canceled. I don't really have a problem with that class or anything, but my boss keeps scheduling me for more hours than I want so that helps a little bit.

09/08/08- 09/11/08

So far the classes for this week have gone pretty well. I am a little overwhelmed with all of the reading assignments, but I guess I can just spread them out and watch episodes of The Office in between articles (haha). We have a test coming up for the Literacy Methods Class, so I hope that will go well. So far I don't feel like I have learned a whole lot yet, but we aren't that far into the semester. Now that we are done going over all of our syllabi hopefully we can get into more interesting topics. I am definitely looking forward to the field experience, which is undoubtedly the best part of each semester.

WebQuest Reflection

I thought that the design of all of our pages worked really well. I think that they were designed to look great. I think the thing that did not work well is that our webquest seemed to be too simple. I think we could have/should have made it more difficult. It was hard to work as a team on the computers since one person was doing most of the navigating. It was nice to do it as a team because it wasn't as much work for each person. It since we could only have the file up on one computer at a time we just had each write things our or find pictures and email it to the person who was working on it. The next time I design a webquest I will probably make it a little more complicated. I will probably want to have the webquest designed to get the students thinking more deeply.

Google Docs!

Here are some of my google docs:

Technology Specialist Paper

Media Rich Lesson Plan Reflection

Reptile Webquest

Field Experience Week 3

Well, all of my avid readers, it is the last week of my field experience. I am sad to report this news seeing as it means my upcoming departure from the lovely and hilarious 4th graders and my re-entrace to my classes. Since I last wrote I haven't had too many new experiences. We recently taught a lesson using the book we read in Social Studies Methods, "Molly's Pilgrim" by Barbara Cohen. It went really well. We were talking about showing respect for other cultures. I really enjoyed sharing this with the kids because we do have quite a culturally diverse little classroom. We also had our final observation by our supervisor. Although during the lesson plan I thought that it was total chaos and that we would surely fail, she thought it was fine. I thought it went badly only because we were doing a group research activity where the kids researched another culture and made a poster to present to the class. Groups mean talking, and I see what Professor Ramirez means now about being EXPLICIT. When you are not, there are hundreds of questions. I sometimes try not to be too explicit. I mean you don't want to feed them their homework on a golden spoon right? Also, I try to leave them room for creativity, but when you do that the kids all ask is it okay to do this or that or the other. I am sure it will be a little easier when it is my own classroom because the kids will get to know me and I will tell them I want them to be creative and that they don't need to check everything with me first, but it would help to be more explicit. Other than that I am stressed about all of the homework due dates, and interviewing a technology specialist tomorrow, and an upcoming math test, but I will survive it all somehow. I think this has been a really great learning experience. The end of the field work is proving to be very bittersweet, but leaning to the bitter side. I really don't want to go back to our classes, I just want to stay in the schools and have fun (teach). On the brightside, we do have summer vacation coming up. I hope everyone else's experiences are going well. I have finally learned all of the kids names now that it is time to go. They are all really awesome kids and I can't wait to get to know more when I have my own classroom for a full year :).

Field Experience Week 2!

The field experience is still going well. We started teaching our lessons on Monday. Monday we taught our first lesson which turned out to be nerve-wracking since our supervisor came in to watch us on our first day teaching! The lesson on Monday was about what culture is. My partner and I were extremely nervous for the lesson because we thought that the kids might have no idea what culture was and we were going to be doing a KWL sheet. Fortunately, the kids knew a lot more than we expected and basically everything went well except that, what we had planned for our 45 minute lesson got done in about 30 minutes so we had to just add to it and make stuff up on the fly. All in all it went well, but we underestimated the kids. On Tuesday, our second day we weren't as nervous or stressed, but our lesson took longer than expected. This day we were going to work on studying Utah culture. First we read a book called, "U is for Utah," which we had anticipated taking 15 minutes, but actually took about a half hour and the kids were a little bored with the book. When the book was over we told the kids about the assignment they were going to be doing which was making a page for our own ABC book on Utah Culture. There are 26 kids in the class and each was assigned to a letter to make a page for our class book. Since the book took a lot longer than expected we had to use our time for today's lesson which was cut short anyhow for an assembly to just finish up yesterday's project. A funny thing that happened though, was that after we assigned the students the letters we handed out their Utah History books and told them to look up their letter in the Index for ideas. One boy said, "this sucks!" hahaha so I just said, "thank you," then he said, "Oh... I meant that there isn't anything good in the index for my letter." I thought it was funny, but maybe it's just me. It reminded me of our classroom management teacher showing us how kids were going to respond to us, "you're gay!"...etc. Well I hope the other stuff we have planned doesn't take up too much time otherwise we won't be able to get all of our lesson plans in! So far the kids are great fun and our cooperating teacher is really nice and helpful. I am so glad that we are getting out there in the field a lot earlier than at some other schools' programs. I will be sad to go back to our classes in a week and a half. I wish we could just stay at the elementary schools in a sort of apprentice type training rather than going back to classes. Oh well, that is not how they have decided that we can earn a degree. Hope everyone else is getting to have fun and enjoy their experiences with their students! Good Luck to all.

Field Experience First Week!

So far the field experience is going pretty well, but it is also overwhelming! We still need to plan a bunch of our lesson plans and do an insane amount of homework, but we'll make it through. On our first day in the classroom we were just kind of sitting in the back a lot of the time not knowing if we should be helping, but mostly observing. We did have some laughable moments trying to do some errands for our teacher in the supply/work room. For one, we were sent to make some double sided copies that we didn't know how to make on a copy machine that needed a password, which we didn't have. Another time we went down there to get some poster board, but brought back the wrong kind and had to go back again. Our cooperating teacher is very nice and is also laid back which is good, but I wish I could be a little more laid back at this point. I'm sure as we are there longer and get to know the kids and our teacher better we will become more comfortable. We will be starting our unit on Culture next week so that is pretty exciting. We will also be going with our class on a field trip on Friday to Thanksgiving Point to see a Dinosaur Exhibit. Well good luck to everyone!

Well, everyone else's blogs I have been looking through were a lot longer than mine so I decided to add a little bit more. Last Friday I went with the 4th graders to Thanksgiving Point on their field trip it was fun, hilarious and crazy. I am really grateful I got the opportunity to have the field trip experience because otherwise I think I would have had a panic attack going on one my first year teaching. The whole time I thought we were going to lose all of the kids or leave one behind LOL! Especially because I was with a different class than my regular one since my cooperating teacher had about 5 parent volunteers and another 4th grade class only had one so I joined up with them. Unfortunately, that mean I didn't know any of the kids so it was harder to keep track of them. We got done early at Thanksgiving point and one of the teachers decided it would be fun to take the kids to Cabela's! I thought this was weird because I have never been there, but when we got there and saw all the taxidermy (dead animals) the kids loved it! They probably liked it better than the dinosaur bones! hahaha. So far it has been loads of fun. We start teaching our unit on culture tomorrow and I am extremely nervous! I hope everything goes smoothly. Good Luck to everyone else.

Oh yeah and just to give everyone who reads this a laugh, the other day when I was taking our class down to the library I overheard a teacher yelling at a kid in the hall for repeatedly farting! It was hard not to laugh when she said, "It's not fair to the other kids who have to hear it and smell it!" I also kind of felt bad for him, I hope she talked to his parents about it! Maybe he has a digestive problem or something. I hope when I start teaching I still know how to lighten up. They're just kids.

Reflection

Reflection of Making my Video!

I learned quite a bit reading through articles about the great depression and by gathering photos to use as primary sources, but the most interesting thing that I learned about the great depression was that after the stock market crashed on black Tuesday it did not recover to pre depression levels until the 1950's!
I didn't learn all that much as far as technical skills, since I am pretty good with computers. However, I have never used the Photo Story program before, so I guess I learned how to use it, but it was pretty self explanatory. I did find it useful to learn how to make a a JPG file out of a powerpoint slide.
I learned that making the digital story, (planning it out) was not all that hard. I hope that I will remember that when I am in the classroom and use it as a tool. It took the most effort to come up with the topic, but when I get out their in the real world, as a teacher, I will already have my subject matter.
I also learned a lot through viewing everyone else's videos! I thought everyone did a really great job. I especially liked seeing the fun and more lighthearted videos just because when I was brainstorming I really couldn't think of any topics that were on the fun or lighthearted side.

Video

Click Here for more information on creating your own digital story!

Digital Story Script for the Great Depression: Tiffany Litchfield

Click here for my google doc of the script.

Pantoum of the Great Depression
by Donald Justice

Our lives avoided tragedy
Simply by going on and on,
Without end and with little apparent meaning.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.

Simply by going on and on
We managed. No need for the heroic.
Oh, there were storms and small catastrophes.
I don't remember all the particulars.

We managed. No need for the heroic.
There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows.
I don't remember all the particulars.
Across the fence, the neighbors were our chorus.

There were the usual celebrations, the usual sorrows
Thank god no one said anything in verse.
The neighbors were our only chorus,
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.

At no time did anyone say anything in verse.
It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us,
And if we suffered we kept quiet about it.
No audience would ever know our story.

It was the ordinary pities and fears consumed us.
We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
What audience would ever know our story?
Beyond our windows shone the actual world.

We gathered on porches; the moon rose; we were poor.
And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
Somewhere beyond our windows shone the world.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.

And time went by, drawn by slow horses.
We did not ourselves know what the end was.
The Great Depression had entered our souls like fog.
We had our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues.

But we did not ourselves know what the end was.
People like us simply go on.
We have our flaws, perhaps a few private virtues,
But it is by blind chance only that we escape tragedy.

And there is no plot in that; it is devoid of poetry.

Class Mascot

The mascot for my future class will be: The Bears!

Welcome

My name is Tiffany and I am currently studying to become an Elementary School Teacher at Utah Valley State College. I would like to teach either 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade. I enjoy hanging out with my husband, playing video games (old school tetris and guitar hero), working out, snowboarding, dancing, music, food, reading (only fiction), myspace/facebook, spending time with my family and I am currently trying to talk my husband into getting a dog. I work at Sears Holdings Corporation selling Lawn and Garden products and Fitness Equipment. I have uploaded one of my favorite cartoons to share with you. I have also added a fun music playlist with some music that I enjoy.

Feel free to view my first google doc.