This week has been so crazy, I almost forgot to write my blog! Luckily, I just remembered! It has been yet another whirlwind of a week where I am left feeling like my head has been spun around. I taught my lesson in the classroom this week and I feel like it went well. There are already a few things that I thought about on my way home though that I would change if I were to do it over. It is just minor things but I think I have become so accustomed to reflecting that I pick apart every little thing looking for ways to improve my practice. That brings to mind the Professional Teaching Standard: Teachers reflect on their practice. I know that practicing teachers reflect on their lessons all of the time and they make adjustments and refine their practice. This reflection is a skill that I am working on and I find myself reflecting more and more as we get more opportunities to actually teach.

The major focus in my mind right now is MY UNIT! Right now, I am making sure everything is age appropriate and that I have enough assessment and modification. So, that is where all of my brain power is going and I am using the NCSCOS a whole lot to make sure that my unit is grade level appropriate. I am excited to see the finished product and hopefully all of you are having a very productive and great week! The light at the end of the tunnel is SO close so hang in there!

Wow, wow, wow! The end is approaching so quickly! It seems that it was no time ago that I was writing my first blog at a complete loss of what to say for the fear of sounding silly. Now, the words just flow effortlessly and I know you all are going to not only understand what I am saying in my blog but embrace it. I have always been intimidated by blogging thinking that I didn't have anything interesting to say. I am proud to say that I have embraced blogging and I have grown to love it. I look forward to this so much more than discussion boards and so this has been one of my favorite things about this semester!

On another note, can you guys believe our units are due in TEN DAYS? AAAHHH! I am nervous but excited about the end outcome but this week ahead holds a lot of work for me. I just do not feel 100% about my performance task yet but I am getting there. I am so glad Parker is willing to go back and forth with us and answer our ridiculous questions (well at least mine are) all the time because that has literally saved me. Also, the feedback and encouragement I get from all of you has saved me as well!

I also finally have my lesson planned for my clinical experience and I am really excited about it! I approached it with much more confidence than I have ever had in lesson planning and I know that is because of what I have learned this semester. I would stop and think, how can I make this more engaging? What is going to really hook these students? How can I integrate technology in a more meaningful way? These are questions I never would I have asked myself before but that's because I simply didn't know to ask them. So, I feel particular grateful for the new skills I have acquired as a future teacher and for the new outlook in lesson planning. I have a whole new appreciation for how far student engagement can take you. That has really tied into the standard of Teacher Facilitate Learning because student engagement and the way we teach is a huge part of that.

I am looking forward to a productive week of tying up loose ends and I will let you know how my lesson goes in the classroom! Have a great week and try not to lose steam, we are SO CLOSE!

Another week down and another week wiser. Tonight, we had our traditional learning lesson presentations and I was SO NERVOUS. I haven't been that nervous in a long time but I feel that it went smoothly and everyone did such a good job. I get new ideas from you guys as you teach so I actually love hearing your lessons. As silly as it sounds, I also like to get to be a part of your lessons and watch you all do what you love. It makes me so proud of all of us and how far we have come. There are some things I need to work on but I am thankful for the constructive criticism because it makes me very aware of what I can do to be better. Once again, I find myself going back to the professional teaching standard: "Teacher reflect on their practice." What better way for us to better our teaching than to literally practice together and then reflect on it. The practice and reflection is helping us to become better professionals. I am really working on being more comfortable with being observed because in student teaching, there is going to be ALOT of observation. Even as professional teachers, we are going to be observed quite often so I know I have to just get over my nerves and be confident in what I am doing.

Now, it is officially time to get our units to where we want them to be and I am excited about that. I am fascinated by the unit planning process and I cannot wait to see it finally come together. I am hoping that my first concept-based unit will be strong and will be something I can be really proud of. I think the main thing is once again, reflecting on what I am doing and thinking of ways that I can make it even better. This week, I am working to make sure that I am strongly connected my standards in the unit with me learning experiences and performance tasks so I am working closely with the NCSCOS to tie everything together.

I cannot believe this semester is coming to a close! So, let's enjoy our last few weeks together, work hard, and like Parker said, finish the semester out strong!

Whew, what a week! I am at the point in the semester where I find myself constantly thinking, "Okay, when is this due?" or "Oh my gosh, this is coming up!" If I am not working on something, I am worrying about it so I am just about to drive myself crazy but it will be okay! We are very close to that month long break and it is going to be so gratifying to come out of this semester ALIVE. I got my placement which is exciting and one is a first grade classroom while the other is 5th ( I am most excited about the 5th). I work in 1st everyday but I actually love working with older kids too so I am grateful and excited for that opportunity. This week, I have also adjusted my PDP to better fit my needs and I am excited about that. I am focusing heavily on becoming more efficient at integrating technology and I think that is going to be SO HELPFUL to me. This class has given me a new awareness of how important it is that I be able to integrate technology. So, I am excited about my new goal for myself and how it is going to help me grow.

I also have focused heavily on my traditional learning plan which allowed me to work closely with the NCSCOS this week which is always important. I am trying to make the NCSCOS something that I am super familiar with and I feel like we are all slowly but surely doing that. I am excited to present lessons with you all again and I am actually surprised at how much I found myself thinking of my first lesson to guide me in this lesson I am working on now. I kept thinking "Okay, I didn't like how that worked and I did like how this or that worked." I imagine teachers do that all the time so it was exciting to have something to go off of when planning this lesson. That brought me back to the standard of  "Teachers reflect on their practice." I have been reflecting so much this semester as I prepare for student teaching which is so close! I think about where I started, where I am now, and where I hope to be. While I am nervous, I am also so proud of how far we have all come. I know we can do this and I am excited to see us all as student teachers! Have a wonderful week!

This week, I have been solely focused on finishing my virtual museum. I have worried about it weeks but I finally am starting to feel okay about it. It is my fist virtual museum so I have driven myself crazy worrying over it and wondering if it is as good as it could be. That's nothing new though, I tend to worry about every assignment but it always turns out fine. The virtual museum really scared me at first but as I got into it, I realized that it is actually a fun assignment. I like being able to create my own museum out of my visit and I like how accessible this makes museums to students. I mean we are creating something that we could actually use in our classrooms one day, how cool is that? I have found that students actually LOVE museums when we go on field trips, even first graders. So, the idea of creating virtual museums is genius. Think of how many more museums we could show them when we take out the cost of actually visiting. I think it's great and I feel so accomplished already knowing that I can create a virtual museum.

It has also been really great connecting the museum to the NCSCOS. This will make the museum so much for more meaningful for the students and teachers. They can make connections and know that this isn't just some random museum. It means something and pertains to what they are learning and need to know. I have been on quite a few field trips since I have been working in an elementary school and I can honestly say that I have never seen the connections being made between the field trips and the NCSCOS. Maybe I missed the connections but I don't think they were made clear to the students. So, this virtual museum assignment has made me aware of how important it is that field trips be tied to the standards. That really brings things full circle for the students and helps them to have a deeper understanding of the content. So, this week I feel like I have really been developing in the professional teaching standard: Teachers Know the Content they Teach. Without this knowledge, I wouldn't be able to tie the content to my museum. So, I can see myself growing in content knowledge even as I finish developing my museum.

I hope you all have a great week and I cannot wait to see your finished museums!

Hey, everyone! Another week down and we are SO CLOSE to finish line this semester and this both scares me and excites me. I am excited to have a break and about all that we have accomplished this semester but I am nervous about all of the upcoming assignments that are due. We can do it though, I believe in us. This week I completed my flipped lesson plan and my flipped component for the lesson plan. This was a vastly different way of planning for us all but I have to say that I like it. Think of how much more time we have for discussion and hands-on learning when the students have already watched/heard the lesson. Some are concerned that students will not have the technology to view the lesson beforehand and I can see why this would be a concern. However, I think you could always use the time in the mornings when students are settling in to have them view the lesson. I am also pretty positive that all schools are moving toward providing students with technology, or at least I hope so. I am glad to have had the opportunity to have planned a flipped lesson because this was a huge learning experience for me. It took me out of my comfort zone and allowed me to see another way to teach. I like having as many of these experiences as I can so that when I began teaching, I know the many options that I have and I can find what works for my students and I.

I also developed my peer rubric this week for my flipped lesson and that was helpful for me. I was able to think about what I need to work on before I present the lesson to you all. Developing the rubric has made me more self-aware of my weaknesses and brought to mind the standard "Teachers are always learning." I am learning every day and I am learning so much about myself as a teacher while going through these experiences and I hope you all are too. I also was able to incorporate the NCSCOS in the planning of my lesson. I knew that the lesson had to be based off of the standards that I had chosen for my unit so I explored those standards further. I am feeling more and more comfortable and more knowledgeable about the NCSCOS each week. When I first began this program, I was afraid because the NCSCOS seemed so overwhelming. But, now I know how to break it down and make sense of it.

Today, I also completed my teacher interview. What a relief! It went better than I ever expected and I know I had expressed my worry to you all so I just wanted to update you. I am so grateful for the opportunity to continue to grow and continue this journey! I cannot wait to meet with you all to present our lessons, see you then!

What a BUSY week! This week, I am diligently working on the flipped component of my lesson plan as well as the self-assessment rubric for this component. Also, my focus is on integrating technology in my unit in a way that is going to enhance student learning. I don't want to integrate technology just for the sake of saying, "Okay, I integrated technology into my unit." I want to use technology in a way that is going to really engage my students and make their learning experience more interesting, meaningful, and fulfilling. Technology is one of the greatest tools that we have at our fingertips as teachers, we just have to know how to properly utilize it. The thing is, there are literally so many ways to do this. You just have to find the best way that fits.

That is where the SAMR and TPAK model have come in for me. The best type of technology integration takes place when the technology, content, and pedagogy all come together. When you have each component, the most effective instruction happens. Each component plays an important role and when they all combine, the magic happens. This is what the TPAK model put into perspective for me and this is a new way of looking at technology integration for me. This makes sense. Without the content being present, what good is the technology in the classroom doing? Students are not learning what they need to learn if the content is not involved. With this model, I can look at each piece and see why each piece is needed. The SAMR model opened my eyes to the different types of technology and made me see that I want to be the teacher that uses technology for modification or redefinition of my lessons. I want to do what wasn't possible before. With redefinition, I want to do what was not conceivable prior to the integration of technology. In my eyes, this can be a game changer. This can completely reshape and change your unit for the better.

I am looking forward to utilizing touchcast this week as well to summarize what I have learned from the TPAK and SAMR and learning even more by seeing what you all post. Each of you have a way of making me see what we are learning in a new perspective and I really enjoy that. I can feel myself growing as an instructor each week and I can see you all growing, which is REALLY amazing and exciting.

The NCTCS teaching standard that comes to mind for me this week while I am working, is "Teachers facilitate learning for their students." I am using technology this week as an outlet to better facilitate learning for my students and it is both challenging and exciting. I hope you all are gaining something from learning to integrate technology as well and I cannot wait to see how you all take advantage of this week's learning opportunities! Have a great week!

We are officially into October and things are starting to feel serious for me! I am finding myself constantly thinking about what is due when and what I need to do first and it seems things just keep popping up. However, I feel that I am pouring so much of my heart and soul into these assignments and every time I turn something in, it feels like a weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. This semester has challenged me in new ways and I feel like all of the assignments we are doing are long-term and require so much more thought and effort then they ever have before. I like this though because I feel much more accomplished this semester than I ever have. It is going to be so fulfilling to achieve all of my goals this semester and to see my effort pay off once all of these projects are complete and submitted. The stress is worth it guys, I promise we are growing as educators. Think about how far we have already come since the beginning of this semester!


This week I am thankful that we don't have that much due so we have some time to spend on our units. I feel pretty confident about my performance task and now I am breaking that down to develop my learning activities. I can see this unit literally coming together and each part fitting like a puzzle. Now, each part makes sense to me and I can see the purpose that each part plays in the whole picture which is a good feeling. My biggest thing right now is figuring out how to make sure I cover each standard that I want to from the NCSCOS in my unit. I am focusing on the NCPTS: "Teachers Know the Content They Teach," this week. I am spending time exploring the content in my unit and making sure I have a solid understanding so that I could teach the content in-depth. Upon focusing on this standard, I have come to realize how important it is that I be an expert on the content that I teach. In order to help students make connections within the content areas and to be able to help them make connections to their lives, I have to have a deep understanding of the content. So, I am definitely working on my content knowledge because I want to be the best educator I can be. This will be a continuous process through out my career and I feel like my content knowledge will continue to grow over the years.

I hope everyone has a stress free week and if you start to feel overwhelmed just remember how close we are to the end goal! We are so fortunate to be able to pursue our passion and I feel lucky to pursue mine with all of you! Have a great week!

We are another week down, you guys! This week, I am focusing heavily on my concept-based unit and am making some definitive decisions that are going to shape the direction that the unit is going to go. I feel that my generalizations are solid and so is my conceptual lenses. I feel confident about those aspects of my unit as well as the standards from the NCSCOS that I feel like my unit will cover. I am still developing my performance task but mainly I am working on my rubric for my performance task. After talking with Dr. Parker on Tuesday, I realized that the rubric will basically break my performance task down into different sections and I will decide what I am looking for from the students in each section. From there, I will be able to develop my learning activities because the activities I develop should basically serve to prepare the students for the performance task. I will pretty much be addressing each part of my rubric for the performance task in the learning activities. To me, this is a very logical way to break it down. Now, I can see the purpose of each part of the unit plan and it is starting to all come together for me.

This week the standard "Teachers Reflect on their Practice" from the NCPTS has been something I can really relate to and focus on this week. I am finding myself reflecting on what I have in my unit so far constantly. Even when I am at work, I find myself thinking "What can I add to my unit?" "How can I lead the students to make the connections that I want them to make?" My brain has been constantly working and I think this is what everyday life must be like for professional teachers. They must be constantly reflecting on the units, lessons, and activities that they have planned and thinking about what they can do to make the learning experience better for students. I have found that even writing this blog on what I am doing each week has lead me to be much more reflective and has allowed me to think about what I can do to be better each week. So, I think blogging is something that I will continue even after I am hired as a teacher. It is just such an easy outlet to use to reflect and organize my thoughts.

Moving forward, I think my biggest challenge this week will be taking my guiding questions and my rubric and wording them so that they will be on a second grade level. Dr. Parker reminded me that I am probably just used to writing lesson plans with adults in mind. I had not considered this and I am glad this was brought to my attention because when I have my own classroom, I will be constantly be writing lessons that are for my students with learning in mind. So, I am glad that I have the opportunity to go ahead and get used to writing my lessons this week.

I hope you all are feeling confident about your units and I cannot wait to see what everyone is accomplishing!

Hi. everyone! We have made it through another week and I feel like the semester is just FLYING by. This week we are focusing on assessment and more specifically on performance tasks. I had heard of performance tasks prior to this class but never have I had an explanation of what actually qualifies as a performance task or how important performance tasks actually are. The performance tasks showcase what your students can actually do independently and allow you to see what your students have actually learned.  What I took away from our weekly meeting was that performance tasks need to be authentic, allow students to demonstrate their learning, be aligned to essential standards as well as pervious learning, and there should be more than one way for students to complete the tasks. Also, when thinking about my performance tasks for my unit, I remind myself that Dr. Parker said that performance tasks should be developed with "learning in mind, not teaching."

I have to admit that in the classrooms that I have worked in have gotten me accustomed to activities.  I do not see many performance tasks being developed but I believe that performance tasks are going to give me a much more accurate description of the learning that has taken place in my classroom. So, I am thankful to be growing as a future educator and learning about different types of assessments and how they are going to benefit myself and my future students. It is exciting to be able to say each week, "I did not know that before, but I know that now." That allows me to see that I am growing as an educator and makes me feel excited about the future.

Moving forward, I am developing my performance tasks for my unit with learning in mind. I feel confident about my knowledge on performance tasks now so I don't feel apprehensive about what I am adding to my unit. It is a good thing that I feel calm about my school work this week because it has been the craziest week ever with my sweet 1st graders this week. It was picture day first of all and right before getting her picture taken, one of my girls got very sick and vomited all over the gym floor and my leg/foot. Thank goodness our yearbook pictures are from the waist up. Also, we have had to switch our math instruction from whole group to two small groups because we felt like that is what would benefit the students we have the most. So, I am challenged everyday with keeping these students interested in the math that I am teaching. Today, I used bowling pins to demonstrate ways to make ten and I allowed them to bowl to see how many were left when you knocked down a certain amount and they seemed to like that. So, I am adjusting to that as well as coming up with fun ways for my small literacy groups to remember their sight words. That is a big challenge for our class this year so I am open to any sight word game ideas you guys have! No matter how crazy things get in the classroom, I still leave feeling fulfilled everyday so I wouldn't change it for anything in the world!

I hope you all have a great week!

We are almost finished with week 4 which means we are 25% done with this semester. That is so crazy considering it feels like no time has passed since I was writing my first blog. It has been a whirlwind but I feel as if I have gained so much already. This semester, I feel like I have gotten to know all of you on a more personal level and that makes me feel good because I feel more connected to you all.

This week, I am thinking more about my generalizations for my unit as well as my guiding questions. Once I get my generalizations where I want them, my guiding questions should flow naturally to led the students to the generalizations. I feel like the guiding questions almost serve as clues to the generalizations that we don't want to tell students but rather have them figure out on their own as we go through the unit. So, I am excited to see what Dr. Parker thinks about what I come up with for my guiding questions.

This week I also signed up for the General Curriculum Exam and the mathematics subtest that goes along with it (*shakes in boots*). I am SO nervous to take these tests. It makes my stomach clench just typing this. I have major test anxiety and I think it stems from the one time I failed a spelling test in 3rd grade and had to be sent home because I was basically inconsolable. My brother has made fun of me my whole life for that, but I'm over it now (partially). So, the thought of this test makes me shudder. Thankfully, I got the first praxis over with this summer and I'll be honest, I really wanted to turn my car around when I got to the testing site and go home. I was so scared but I did it and I passed. Since I am trying to be totally honest on my blog, I am not even going to pretend that I didn't stay up basically all night the night before reading "Praxis for Dummies" which is available on Amazon for 12.95 and I am sure I partially owe my perfect reading score to that. So, the next step is the General Curriculum Exam and I am going to overcome my fear of testing and go in there feeling confident. I am here to tell you that if I can do it, all of you can. You might want to sign up as soon as possible though because the dates are filling up!

This week, I also decided that I am for sure doing my virtual museum on The Bostic Lincoln Center. This is a site dedicated to collecting and displaying evidence that Abraham Lincoln was actually born in Rutherford County which is the county that I live in. I have heard of this theory before but never really believed it but after exploring their website, they almost have me convinced. So, I am actually really excited to visit and share my findings with you guys.

I am looking forward to seeing your posts and I hope you all have a great week!

First off, thank you all for the comments on my blog postings! You all are extremely supportive and I am lucky to have the opportunity to work with you all. Your support and kind words really mean the world to me.

This week we have continued to talk about concepts and during our zoom meeting, I was able to share my thoughts with you all on planning my unit around the concept of oppression. That seemed to go over well so that encouraged me to move forward with that concept and what I did not know is that it is actually recommended that we use two concepts for our unit. I was actually so glad to hear this because that is going to expand our realm of possibilities for our unit so much. So, I am thinking of doing Oppression and Freedom. I am thinking of doing a 2nd grade unit because it is a grade I have not worked in but it is a grade that I think I would like to teach! So, I have been looking at the unpacking documents for the Social Studies standards for 2nd grade and I feel good about all of the possibilities and the connections that I can make.

I have to admit I am not a big fan of generalizations at the moment. I am constantly brainstorming and my problem is cutting the sentence down to just a few words. I knew I was in trouble when someone said "So, it is like a tweet?" in our meeting. Literally, a red flag went off in my mind. I have a twitter but I do not tweet because of the word limit. I end up having to re-word my tweets a million times and then get frustrated. I am a long and detailed sentence type of writer so this has been interesting for me. I will get it though and I will be so proud when I do! I like the fact that this has challenged me and who knows? Maybe generalizations will inspire me to become a master "tweeter."

I am also working on my PDP and my biggest thing is picking the two areas that I want to work on most because there is so much I want to work on. My biggest thing is deciding what is going to be most beneficial for me to improve upon this semester. I want to be very thorough and specific in my goals so that is a work in progress.

Also, I had my first wisdom from experience interview with Jerrye Ficklin, a first grade teacher at Harris Elementary. She is one of the BEST teachers I know and I look up to her so it was exciting to get to interview her. I used many of the questions that we talked about in the meeting and I loved hearing her responses and I cannot wait to share it with all of you.

I hope you all have a great and productive week!

Week 2

It is week two and I am slowly starting to feel better. I feel like I am getting a better hold on all of my classes. I am so thankful for the Zoom meetings because I know exactly what is expected of me and I know exactly what we are doing each week and that makes me feel so much better! I feel more confident about this semester and I know I am going to come away from it a better teacher.

This week, I am working on a visual on what "concepts" in social studies education means to be. Am I the best at creating visuals? No. Will I look at someone else's and think that theirs is better than mine? Probably. But I am VERY excited about this assignment. I am a visual learner. Also, in creating this visual, I am going to have to look deep into my own thoughts about concepts. This is going to allow me to do some critical thinking and I know that this is going to help me get a better grip on what concept-based instruction is all about. I need that because I am still iffy on what I want to base my unit on. So, I am excited about the learning taking place this week in this class as well as my other classes. Already, I have learned a fair amount about concepts just from the Zoom meeting and that has made me feel better about planning a unit.

This week I have also gotten deep into unpacking the NCEL standards for the General Education Curriculum test. I find myself reading the standard and then thinking, I didn't know I had to know this to take this test. So, then I do research on each standard and end up spending hours learning everything I think I need to know on the standard. That has helped me immensely because I will be much better prepared for the test. So, that has been extremely beneficial for me.

I am also thinking of what I will include on my PLN plan for this class. Picking out Do's that I need improvement on from the KUD document has allowed me to pick out specific things that I can and will improve upon. Now I have some ideas and I can go from there.

It was the first week of school in the classroom that I work in so it has been CRAZY! It has been a whirlwind and on top of getting the students adjusted and settled, the other assistants and I have been wondering/worrying about our job security. I was talking to a few teachers that I work with and they told me that anyone would be crazy to enter the profession of teaching in North Carolina with the way things are right now. That had me worried and wondering, am I doing the right thing? What if I am entering into the wrong profession? I have went home and prayed each night and tried to imagine myself doing anything else in the world besides teaching and the truth is, I cant. My life without teaching just feels pointless. I love it so much. I was reassured by two of the mothers from the class I had last year and they don't even know how much they reassured me. I ran into one of them when they were picking up their child from school and she hugged me so tight and told me how much her child missed me already this year. Another mother called me just tonight and told me her son had been trying to come see me each morning this week but kept missing me and was upset about it. She asked when I would be finished with school and told me how much she hoped that I would be her son's teacher again before he left elementary school. I assured her that I would be there 15 minutes earlier so that he and I would have time to talk before the bell rang. My point is, I know this is what I was meant to do and I think God sent me these reassurances. All I can do is keep my chin up and follow my calling!

I hope everyone has a good week and I cannot wait to see everyone's concept visual!

The first week of classes has been a whirlwind. I have taken in so much information that I feel like my head may explode but in a good way. At first, I was overwhelmed but now I feel excited. Just in this first week, I have learned so much about social studies instruction even though I feel there is MUCH more to be learned. I feel like after this week I have a good understanding of why social studies instruction is so important. This understanding will be essential to me as I learn to teach social studies in a way that is meaningful and powerful. I am already connecting what I know now to what I have seen in the classrooms I have been in and this has been eye-opening for me. Now that I know how essential social studies is, I realize that there is not enough social studies instruction in any of the classrooms that I have been in. I do not believe that there is enough focus on social studies because people do not consider it to be a tested subject especially in elementary school. However, social studies actually integrates into all other subjects and could help to raise test scores with a comprehensive understanding. I am anxious to interview my two teachers that I chose because I want to see the emphasis that they place on social studies and their feelings on the instruction that takes place today. This first week has already shaped and impacted my outlook so much and I feel like I will be a much better educator because of that. I am excited to read more articles and continue to learn the social studies standards inside and out. I am anxious to start lesson planning because I know how important it is that my lessons interest and engage the students. Now, I realize that I am responsible for teaching students how to be critical thinking, decision-making, contributing member of society. That seems like an overwhelming thought but now I have a better understanding of what the overall goal of social studies instruction is. I am excited to learn more and to continue to blog and reflect on what I am learning and experiencing. This week was a mixture of extreme nerves and excitement. We'll see what next week holds!