S16: Blog 11: My Day in 5th Grade

On Tuesday, while my students were testing, I had the opportunity to go visit one of my classmate’s classrooms. She is in a 5th grade class that is departmentalized, so her CT teaches reading and writing and then her students switch with another class to go to math and science. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from 5th grade, since I spend my time around younger students.

The first thing I noticed when students began to wander into the room was that some of them were quite literally bigger than me. I’m used to having to squat or kneel to be at eye-level with my students but to look at a few of these kids in the eye I had to look up. I found it more amusing than shocking, as I know I’m not the tallest person in the world and grew up with a sister who is four years younger than I am but half a foot taller.

The next thing I noticed was that when independent work time began, the students were so good at following directions and getting to work. I’m used to having to repeat myself a few times to the whole class and then still having to go answer individual questions once most of my students have begun to work. Today, I didn’t see any of that occur. Of course, age does have a major impact on this difference but I was truly impressed with the maturity of these students.

What is especially interesting about this classroom is how technology is being used. Each student has recently received their own lap top that they use throughout the day and even carry with them when they switch classrooms. They were using this lap top during their independent reading time today as they are beginning work on a research project about a person from history who had some kind of impact on America. The students were given websites to use, such as biography.com, to help them explore information about different historical figures if they hadn’t already chose their research topic, or to look for information about their figure, if they had already chosen someone. I had the opportunity to walk around the room and chat with some of the students while they were working. I was impressed with the enthusiasm with which some of the students were able to talk about their project. I enjoyed how the students were choosing to research people who while historically significant, were also personally significant to them. For example, one student is choosing to write about Amelia Earhart because of how much she had enjoyed a book that she had a read about her and wanted to learn more. And while this was an independent assignment, some of the students were able to think of creative ways in which they could collaborate. Two girls wanted to work together and so decided to choose a President and First Lady about whom to learn. What impressed me most was that the entire time I was walking around, not once did I notice a student misusing the computer. They were never on websites they were not supposed to be on or watching anything other than videos related to their research topic. It was clear to me that my classmate and her CT have put time and effort into teaching their students how to safely and responsibly using these laptops to enhance their learning experiences.

My favorite part of the day was when I had the opportunity to co-teach my classmate’s guided reading group. As someone who is in a self-contained classroom I had not yet had the opportunity to teach a lesson at school with anyone other than my CT. We were able to plan together during the half hour that the students spent at music. She had chosen a ReadWorks passage to have the students read and discuss. This particular passage had to do with school integration during the 1950’s. These students were already familiar with the Civil Rights Movement, my classmate explained to me, because the previous week they had worked with a passage about Rosa Parks. During our planning time, we went through the passage to look for words the students probably wouldn’t know the meaning of and looked for places where we could pause the reading and engage in discussion.

I keep saying how “impressed” I was by this and that, but I have to again say that I was very impressed with how well the group of students did with the lesson. The title of the passage was the rather ambiguous “Different Colors” (no illustration included) and one of the three students was able to make the prediction that the passage was going to have something to do with people being different colors, because that is something about which they had read last week. The students were also able to engage in meaningful discussion while we were reading the text. For example, they were able to talk about the different points-of-view of the different characters in the story. They were also able to contribute examples when asked about how things between white students and black students were “separate but unequal” like how black schools were usually more crowded and had less resources. My classmate and I were able to guide the students to better understand the vocabulary being used by pointing footnotes that defined some of the trickier words like “barred” and “integrate.” I was able to use what the students already knew about the US Constitution to help them understand what the word “unconstitutional” meant. This was, for me, real-life example of what the strategies we’ve been learning about in our Intermediate Literacy class, like think-alouds and comprehension questions, look like with older students.

I enjoyed my day in 5th grade and am grateful for the opportunity to work with a wonderful classmate and her CT. I am looking forward to next year when I will get to be in an intermediate classroom!

Addresses FEAPS 1 b, 3 b, c, and e and 6 d

#EDE4942 #FEAPS1B #FEAPS6D #FEAPS3B #FEAPS3C #FEAPS3E #technology