Give me a T.... W.... S.... what does it spell?

The LAST hoop to jump through!... Well, it doesn't exactly spell that... but that's how I felt about it.

1. Challenging: I agree with whoever said that BYU didn't give us enough information about it!!! I had no clue what the TWS even was until my second cohort and even then, I would've had NOOOO clue what I was doing if I hadn't taken Social Studies during Fast Track over the summer. It would've been a serious disaster. So, yes, BYU needs to give us a little more info about it. Another challenging thing, which someone already said, was that it was SO repetitive!!! When I was writing the reflection section, I kept thinking, "Didn't I already write this???" All the student work examples, blah blah blah.... it's just unnecessary. Especially if you're interning... we teach for an ENTIRE YEAR with someone observing us WEEKLY and sometimes DAILY. I would think THAT would be good enough to determine if we're "good teachers" or not and if we can graduate. But, maybe it's just me. I'm just letting all my frustrations of the TWS out. :) And I could have gone about it all wrong but I didn't go through it thinking, "Oh wow, I'm learning so much" and "Ohhh I'm so glad I learned that for my teaching..." The things I've learned about my teaching have come FROM TEACHING and from being observed by my wonderful facilitator and CFA and the tips and ideas they give me. I didn't learn anything "new" by teaching a unit and handing in 97 pages of paper. (ok, I'm done venting...) :)

2. Valuable: NOTHING was valuable. :) ... ok ok, I'm just kidding. It was valuable to plan out an entire unit on my own and see it all unfold... but in reality... I did WAAAAY more for this than I ever have or probably will with a unit. Because I spent a whole class in the summer (Social Studies) working on it and getting it revised by professors. So it was quite a different scenario. But it was valuable to see how it all worked out. It was also valuable to create my own test. And I don't know who said it in a previous post but it IS hard!! I thought it would be much easier but the more I looked back at my test, the more I thought oh I should have changed that question, should've asked this instead of that, etc.

3. Stress Level: I'd have to say just about a 5... I usually get WAY stressed about stuff, but having it just be pass/fail made me WAY less stressed. And Teresa repeatedly telling me that I'd be fine and not to worry helped a ton too. Also, having taken Social Studies in the SUMMER with Fast Track, I already knew the grade, school, etc. that I'd be in for my internship, so I had the majority of the TWS already done. If that hadn't been done over the summer I'd be WAY more stressed. BUT there were no tears shed over this so I consider that to be low stress. :) The most stress has come from just being frustrated about doing it.

(Hopefully this post wasn't too harsh, Teresa... I'm just trying to be honest! That's what you said to do, right?) :)

-Chelsie

The TWS

I completed mine way back in October and it is completely different than the one BYU does. Sorry, but mine was not hard!

Sincerely,
Megan Camper

The TWS

Congrats everyone on finishing the biggest project ever! I haven't celebrated yet (except for going to bed on time) but this weekend is going to be the most relaxing in a long time.

1. The most frustrating thing about the TWS. Well, I think it had to be getting all of the student work and examples and such together. That took so much time!! This past week has been awful because of it. I don't even want to admit how much time it took to get everything together...it's too embarrassing. Also, just the general lack of information about it. Teresa, you were great getting us information, and all of the last-years interns were great with their examples and support. But, I think BYU needs to be better about informing their students about this project. Last, (sorry, this should only be one thing) I felt like the whole thing was very repetitive, especially the self reflection part. As an intern (I don't know how student teachers feel) I felt like the repetitive nature of the project and the amount of work we had to do was both unhelpful to me as a teacher, not as informative as it could be, and it distracted me from being as good of a teacher as I could be. I heard someone saying that the TWS should be changed into a format that is more practical so that teachers will actually use it in their teaching when creating a unit.

2. The most valuable thing about the TWS was creating my own test. I've gotten all of my tests from other teachers, and it was nice making my own. Man-that takes a lot of work!

3. I think I would rate myself at a 9. I get stressed out about things-especially those things that determine graduation. Also, the last formatting and scanning things just took so much time that I didn't have time for anything else. When all you do all night is scan you are not happy. I think my students have noticed.


Rachel

1.) The most challenging part of the teacher work sample for me was the assesment plan. It was the most tedious section I think, but a very improtant one.
2.) The most valuable part was the actual planning of the unit and really trying to make it the best it could be with accommodations for many students. I did the TWS on Landforms, which is the Science rotation that I teach 4 times throughout the year. So I was able to teach the unit twice before the official time I taught it for my TWS. This made it much easier for me to really make the unit solid and make changes to improve it each time.
3.) This past week my stress level was a 0. I finished the TWS shortly after Christmas break so I was ready to get it off my hands. Thanks Teresa for all your suggestions and support!

Blog of the Week

THE TEACHER WORK SAMPLE....

Would you mind commenting or blogging about the following three questions:

1) What was challenging about the TWS?

2) What was valuable about the TWS?

3) On a scale of 1-10 (10 being the MOST stressed), how stressed have you been about the Teacher Work Sample? Why?

Thanks! Oh - and Megan - you can write about the project you had to do last fall for BYU-Idaho.

DONE!!!!!!!!! DONE, DONE, DONNNNNE!!!!!!

Just wanted to say to all you wonderful interns...

CONGRATS on being DONE!!!

The long-dreaded Teach Work Sample is submitted and we're DONE! Hurray! My husband and I are going to celebrate by getting COLD STONE ICE CREAM!!! (Cake batter with sprinkles... it's the BEST!!!) Go do something fun, smile, and be happy because WE'RE DONE!!!!!!!!!!! And.... a SUPER-HUGE thank you to TERESA!!!!!!!! I SO appreciate all the help and encouragement and motivation you helped to give us on the TWS! You're amazing! :) Now we can focus on all the fun, awesome teaching ideas you have! HURRAY! (oh... and finding a job... but not until April...) :) Happy Wednesday y'all!

-Chelsie

PS- Teresa: when you finish your Masters' Thesis... I'll post a congrats to you too. :) And you should get Cold Stone Ice Cream too because your INTERNS finished their TWS's and then you can go again when YOU turn in your thesis. I'll go with you. :) Any reason to celebrate is a good excuse for me! :)

Ashlee

Lately I've noticed that my students are starting to get more restless and bored in my class. We've now been in school for five months and they are kind of bored with the daily routine. I decided that I needed to change somethings. I changed the way our class was arranged. I was surprised how much this helped to mix up the class. Another thing that I've done is sometimes I will switch the order of things that I teach. My students are so use to the schedule where it sometimes gets mundane. Once a week I'll switch two subjects. I've found that this has helped with their restlessness. Which is a good thing because we still have three months!

What would I change?

If I could change one thing in my classroom, I think I would see more creativity. For example, for one of my centers my students got to color and cut-out a picture of Washington (after everything was done, of course). Well, I admit I am NOT perfect becuase I got the wrong color of paper to use for the project. Instead of just sitting there or asking what they could do about the problem, these students asked for blank paper so they could color it and cut it out. Some of you might not be impressed by this, but this is AMAZING for my second graders. I love how they took the initiative to solve their own problem! If this was a common trend among students I think that we would see more higher level thinking and more problem solving in real life and school situations. I would love that.

Writing Ideas

I just wanted to remind everyone about some writing ideas we learned in our classes at BYU. I tried (am trying) these with my 2nd graders and they loved them.

Last night I had the strangest dream..
1. Show students a picture of some famous artwork (I choose "The Scream").
2. Give the prompt- "last night I had the strangest dream..."
3. Give students a certain amount of time (I chose 7 minutes for the first round) to write the first part of the story. After they have written that, have the students switch with a neighbor.
4. Students will read their neighbor's story and then add on to it (6 minutes for just writing- don't include reading).
5. Switch papers one last time, read and write (5 minutes).

My students loved adding on to someone else's work and finding out how their stories ended.
I'm going to continue the writing and askt he students to revise and edit their own paper. I also had to ban certain words after each writing session because I saw the same things over and over again.

::Food Coloring in the Water::

This one is so simple. You just drop some food coloring in water and then see how descriptive you can be in describing how the color looks as it dissipates. I haven't taught this one yet, but I plan on modeling quite a bit before we begin. I think this is a great activity to help the students be more descriptive in their writing. I plan on saving the students' work and redoing the activity a few times to see if they become more descriptive with time.

Have fun!

Rachel Taylor

Just one thing???

If I could change any one thing about my classroom, it would be that the students would be more respectful of each other outside of the classroom. Not saying they are ALL like that, but I have a couple that are constantly calling out, calling people names, tattling, and it drives me bonkers! If I could change those two students' difficult attitudes, it would be amazing. They are usually the ones that interrupt and disrupt the flow. We are working with them, and they are getting better, don't get me wrong, but of course some days are better than others!

Squeepers

"Squeepers"

Yesterday Teresa came in to teach my class a Utah history lesson. My grade-level uses a social studies packet which I find boring, and so do my students. I asked Teresa if she could come in a teach a cool Utah history lesson, so she taught "Squeepers". I found this lesson to be fun for my students, and I was shocked at how quickly they started working when she sent them back to their seats. We are going to finish the lesson she started yesterday today, so wish us good luck!

Ms. Camper and her class!

Megan Change

If I could change one thing, it would be a smaller class size. With the class I have I find it exceptionally challenging to try and accomodate all the different learning styles in my class. I feel like I have so many students, and I am a teacher that loves to work with students and their individual levels. However, I am finding this extremely hard with my class size. I just really want my students to gain the best educational experience possible, and I feel like it would be accomplished more easily if my class was smaller.

Megan

Changes

If I could change one thing about teaching it would be to have a smaller class. It sometimes gets overwhelming when there are so many students in the class and you are trying to meet their individual needs. I know what each student needs but it's had to always give them what they need. Such as individual attention, one on one questions, and more.
Another thing hat i would change is to not worry so much about the end of the year testing. With the people on my team we are always talking about the language that the test uses and the tricky questions that we need to prepare our students for. It's nice having a core to guide our teaching but I wish that we didn't have to focus so much what the end of the year test will have on it.

What would I change?...

Well that's a tough question Teresa. Because I have 29 students and I'm in a portable, those were my first two thoughts (less students and more room!) However, I love my class and deep down I wouldn't want to get rid of any of them. :) (That might be different tomorrow though!) And although my room is not the biggest, and it is rough to walk outside EVERY time I have to use the restroom, make a copy, print something, etc... that's not the one thing I would change. I've thought about the curriculum... there are some little things I'd like to change about that, but overall, it gives me a guide as to where I need to go. I also thought about all of the "extra" things we do besides just "Teaching" (SEP's, grades, assemblies, field trips, etc.) But, without all of that accountability and extra fun, our job might be kind of pointless and tiring. So it came down to this... my students. Now I know I said I would not get RID of any of my 29 students, but I WOULD like to change some of their "attitudes" and motivations. I wouldn't want EVERY single student to be a genius because that would make my job pointless. HOWEVER, I would like all of their attitudes to be positive. I would like them to be motivated in every subject, every day! OH the things we could learn if we were ALL motivated EVERY DAY! haha! I might have to change my own attitude to match that some days. But really... wouldn't that be cool to have 29 motivated, happy, positive students?! Maybe one day... :)
-Chelsie

Guided Reading Queen

I loved the post that said Teresa is the "Queen of Guided Reading" and then someone else said that she's the "Yoda of Writer's Workshop". Haha I totally agree. I just wanted to share something that I saw Teresa do in Guided Reading that was SO simple, but I would have NEVER thought of doing it. She came and worked with my high group who is on an S. They've been reading the book Matilda. The biggest thing in that book is VOCABULARY! So Teresa picked out some words that were more difficult and she just cut strips of white paper and folded them in half. She wrote the word on the outside, and then when she opened it, on the "inside" was the word in the sentence from the chapter. She had a word for each student in the group. She showed the word to everyone in the group and then gave it to one student. She told them to read the word, then open it up, read the sentence, and try to use the context clues to figure out a definition for the word. Each student had a minute to work on this, and then they got to share with the group. It was SO simple, hardly any preperation, but it was SO effective! Anyway... just thought you might like to try something new! :) Also, I was told this idea a while ago and most of you probably do it... but I didn't know! You can do word work on the table with dry erase marker! Ah! It's the coolest thing! The kids love it because they're "writing on the table" and I love it because they're learning word work! :) It's great! Anyway... good luck and happy guided reading! :) -Chelsie

What Would You Change?

I wanted to ask everyone to post about the following question.....

If you could change anything about your classroom (students, curriculum, physical space...ANYTHING) what would you change and why?

I also want to encourage all of you to read through other posts on this site and make comments. The more we share and interact, the more we can help each other.

THANKS!

Meredith

I agree that Teresa is the queen of guided reading, but she is the Yoda of writer's workshop. Thanks for your awesome lesson today. You are really giving me some great ideas to help get me out of my writer's workshop funk. Just to let everyone know, she taught a lesson on how to write an autobiography. The kids (5th grade) first completed a graphic organizer with different boxes dedicated to different phases of their life (birth, early years, school years, family, friends, things I love.) She told an awesome story about a memory from her early years. She used this story to model how to complete the graphic organizer. She filled it out with the students. After they completed the G.O., they had a chance to share parts of it with someone next to them. Then she showed them how to make a life map. They used their G.O. to make a life map that had little sketches of memories from each phase of their life, much like an illustrated timeline. She modeled this with her own and completed her life map with them. Again, they had a chance to share their life map with someone. They loved sharing, and hearing funny memories about their friends' lives.
She advised me to have the students write their autobiographies in chapters. This will help everyone stay somewhat together (which is my main problem with writing, the gap that forms between students who work efficiently, and others who are much slower.) I'm excited to start the writing process tomorrow. I know it will go super well because of all the awesome prewritting she did. Thanks Teresa!!!

Teresa's Visit

I must say, Teresa is the queen of guided reading! She came into my class last week and worked with my highest group and my lowest group. I really liked the way she did the word work before reading the book, so it had some vocabulary help as well! I never knew how to just all of a sudden switch over to word work and keep their attention AFTER they had read the book. I did this with a group yesterday and it really helped! Also, I'd always written words they needed to know on a whiteboard. Teresa did a rhyming book and had them match words that rhyme. Yesterday, there were a lot of compound words in the story, so I thought, hey, why not have them put together compound words. Amazing! They saw the words they had made in the story and were so excited! I also feel that doing the word work beforehand, if it ties into the book, helps my guided reading groups run smoother! With my higher group, which is a P, I had picked a chapter book and my picking wasn't the best...so she picked a picture book. You'd think that the upper levels would want a chapter book and nothing else! They had a great time doing the picture book, and you don't even have to worry about keeping up with the reading with the book day after day:) Picture books are wonderful ALL over!

February Frustrations...

Alright all you professional teachers! :) I've heard that around this time of year, students can get a little restless... well I've seen that taking place in my classroom and it seems like it's been ten-fold the last two weeks. I've actually been at home, sick for the last two days and my husband said, "Well, you wanted a break from your class! Be careful what you wish for!" :) I never thought I'd want a "break"! Seriously, things were going SO smoothly it felt like until just about a week ago! So here's the scenario. Any ideas will be greatly appreciated! Teresa- I need some professional advice!!! :)
So I have one little boy and a little girl who say they like to write... but they just SIT during writers' workshop. They say they "can't think of anything to write about". It's EXTREMELY frustrating! ALL the other students are writing and then I have these two who just have NO motivation. They're the same two who have made the last two weeks MISERABLE for me. Honestly, it's been TOUGH the last two weeks. Students are just getting lazy, more talkative, and it's driving me crazy! I thought I was doing great w/ management, it was never an issue, and all the sudden, I have these couple students who don't try anymore, they lie to me about things and it makes me so mad that it TOTALLY changes the entire atmosphere of our classroom!! I feel bad for those students who are doing what they're supposed to! But it seems like positive praise, rewards and points aren't enough to change the atmosphere. It just feels at a lull b/c some students are just kind of giving up. I've thought about using the whole "ignoring" thing... but they disrupt others with their talking. I've called parents, but when there's no discipline at home, there's not a whole lot I can do. ANY IDEAS?!
-Chelsie

Awesome Website

Recently, in my classroom I have been trying to implement more technology. My class loves it when we go to the computer lab to play math or literacy games. I find that this helps my students understand and master concepts in a fun yet independent way. There is a particular website I use for all my math and literacy games, I advice you all to check it out!


http://www.internet4classrooms.com/skills_4th_original.htm

Megan Camper

KWL Charts

I am sorry to say that after teaching for five months that I've never done a KWL chart in my class until yesterday. We did one on Abraham Lincoln. I was shocked at all that my students knew about him. They went on for several minutes about tons of detail about his life. My students were excited to share all that they knew about him. When they said what they wanted to find out they were getting excited about learning. We then read different books on him and found out more about his life. I loved this lesson. It was good seeing all that my students knew about him. It was fun also to see them wanting to learn more. I'll make sure that I do KWL charts in my class more often.

Ashlee Allen

Window to Reading/Writing Workshop

Erin's 3rd grade classroom (2/5/09)

In this post, I will be describing with pictures and text how Erin organizes her morning literacy block. I am thrilled to see how well she thought this through and how engaged her students are with literacy. I will be uploading the forms you see here once I receive them electronically. I hope everyone can get a few good ideas from her.

Erin begins her morning with a quick start sheet that has five problems. It is similar to daily oral language where students are revising sentences and working on grammar, usage and mechanics problems. They quickly correct it as a class.

Writer's Workshop

Erin begins Writer's Workshop with a mini-lesson and gathers her students at the back carpet to learn more about writing.
Today she read them a story called A Fine, Fine School students were asked to listen for main ideas, and Erin modeled writing the main ideas on chart paper. After the story, Erin modeled how to write a summary and then sent the students back to write a summary on the story.....

During Writer's Workshop, the students have access to all the materials they need. Here is how Erin has her writing center organized....
The student writing folders are in the middle. All forms such as storyboards, peer edit sheets, graphic organizers for pre-writing, author's circle materials and publishing paper can be found here.
This chart is hanging nearby and students each have a paper clip with their name on it. This is what it would look like when first getting started, but as Writer's Workshop progresses, the student clips will be found at all different stages of the process.
Once student's stories have been published, they can display their most current story on a display rack for others to read during independent reading time.

Guided Reading & Centers

Chelsie has her guided reading groups organized by color. She meets with three or four groups each day. A schedule of who she will meet with is posted at the front of the room along with the word wall words for the week as seen here.....

Each student has a guided reading folder where they track the stories they are reading and keep all materials related to their guided reading assignments....

In a guided reading notebook, students write responses to their reading, ask and answer questions and do assignments related to the reading comprehension strategies....

The higher level reading groups have sheets that they use throughout the reading of a book to keep track of vocabulary learning and to further practice the comprehension strategies. This month they are working on Summarizing, Schema and Visualization. These forms change often....

During the reading block, students are encouraged to find new words in their reading and add them to the "Oh My Word" jar. Each week, some of the words students have found are highlighted. Here is a word that one of the students found while reading the book Matilda....

While Chelsie works with her guided reading groups at the back table, the other students are busily engaged in their center work. At the beginning of each week, the students get a tracking sheet that tells them what they need to do each day in their centers. It looks like this....

On the back is a sheet for Word Work. It tells the students what to work on each day....
Students do some type of word work each day and each day that also do a spelling sort. Chelsie is doing developmental spelling and is using Words Their Way in her classroom. Each student gets a sheet that gives them directions for doing many different kinds of sorts. It looks like this....

Front
Back

Students do spelling sorts each day using leveled words. Notice in the following pictures how several different children are working on words that are on their level....

This student is sorting VVC words and VCe words
This student is sorting words that have ur, ure, ur-e sounds.
Here's yet another students sorting higher level words with different VCV patterns.
One of the higher level students was sorting words with war, wor and wan patterns.
Here is a lower level student sorting more simplistic words with "e" vowel sounds.

Consider that Chelsie's students are doing this work and it is all self-regulated. She is back at the table working with guided reading groups during this.

Center's always begin with 15 minutes of silent reading, then students move in to their other activities. Chelsie does a great job of managing both the students at their desks and the students at the back table. You can tell they are WELL TRAINED and know exactly what to do.
Another center activity is called, "Teacher Choice". This can be any work that the teacher chooses for the student to do. They also do a weekly event writing. This week, they were writing about their trip to the science fair and which project they thought should be chosen as the winner. Notice that the students write...A LOT. In fact, every single student (even the lower students) had the entire sheet filled with writing. This is something she has trained her students to do (to keep writing).

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Here's one last thing that Chelsie does to promote friendship and cooperation during centers. She read her class the story "Stone Soup" and talked about how in order for things to be better, everyone has to cooperate and contribute. Students can fill out a "Stone Soup" sheet when they notice other students in the class contributing and being good. She chooses a few and recognizes students each week.


If anyone has a question for Chelsie, you can ask it in the comment section!

Megan

Teresa,
Sorry it took me so long to respond, I wanted to see how well my students would actually do with the peer editing, before I gave appropriate feedback. My students are doing such an amazing job! It is funny because it would appear that peer editing was what was making our writer's workshop such a nightmare. Now that they have the peer editing down, it seems that the rest of writer's workshop is flowing so smoothly. I have shared the peer editing checklist with my team! (I hope that is ok :) ) I have found the peer editing checklist to be such a useful tool in the aspect that is easy for my students to read and fill out. Also the idea of special red pens is awesome, my students love it! Thank you for coming and helping our writer's workshop.

Sincerely,
Megan Camper and her class

Meredith

Hey,
It was so fun to have you in my class the other day. The kids loved bingo and they really loved the lesson on persuasive writing. We are still working on writing our letters and they have loved telling me their ideas. One student is trying to convince his parents to buy him a cow. Weird I know...but he has got some great reasons like, we'll have free milk, I can ride him to school, and he will help take care of the weed problem in our backyard.
I AM COMPLETETLY DONE WITH MY TWS. I want to get rid of it so bad. Can I turn it in early? I hate looking at it. Jk it wasn't that bad. When do I turn it in?
The next intern meeting is on February 19th right? I heard it was going to be a principal's panel. I think that will be great. I'm getting nervous about jobs next year, but I know it will all work itself out.
Do you have any great ideas for math games? I need more! I have cards and manipulatives and all sorts of things but I don't have any good ideas of what to do with them. My math class is so mix-leveled that many kids are done with an assignment way before others. I need games or extension activities for fractions. That's my biggest challenge, the broad range of ability in my math class.
Yay my first blog post. Fun! Hope to see you soon.

Meredith -P.S I made those turkey wraps from your food blog the other day and my husband will not stop talking about it.