My Week at Roberto Clemente

Reflection for my first week at Roberto Clemente Elementary School:  2/4/13 - 2/8/13

Class:  3rd and 4th Grade Language and/or Learning Disability Mild

My week began immediately on a theme of community.  I met Mrs. Pino on Monday morning, and she introduced me to her daughter, Riley.  Riley goes to kindergarten here, and loves making colorful sketches on the whiteboard in our classroom while she waits to be taken down to her class.  She is escorted by Angel, a student in our who is excited to have a special task and with a lot of responsibility.  Though I haven't seen his IEP, I believe this task is connected it.  

Before class began, I was given a tour of the school.  Along our walk, we'd pause at different classrooms or in the hallway where Mrs. Pino would introduce me to other teachers, security guards, the nurse, and other members of the Roberto Clemente community.  Though it will take me some time to learn them all, I felt really welcomed and appreciated the tour.

Mrs. Pino had told the students, on the Friday before my arrival, that they would be having another teacher come into the classroom community.  Perhaps this is why many students were eager to engage in varied interactions.  There were stories, questions, and calls for me to look at their work.

Mrs. Pino is very organized and her general presence is a balance of being warm, poised, direct, and fierce in a way that conveys and demands respect.  She has experience with the residency and immediately created a space for me to fully engage with the students.  At first I took notes on observations of the morning routine that involved the classroom aids doing a homework check, a do now of division problems and fact families that had to be copied from the Smart Board into their morning work journals, supplemental worksheets of the same skills, and a morning written entry including message highlighting the special class for the day and the weather.

After the morning routine, I formally introduced myself to the students with a PowerPoint presentation called, The Story of Me.  I had made this for an assignment at Seminar with the purpose of introducing myself to the students at Bragaw.  It had worked so well there, that I updated it and used it at Roberto Clemente.  The students loved it!

After the PowerPoint, I told the students that I was happy to share my story and would also like to know about their story.  The only parameters I gave them were that I wanted some form of writing along with illustrations that tells me about who they are.  I offered a few prompts connected to what I shared, e.g. their name, birthday, members in their family, and their dream.

I also told them that they would have all week to work on them.  We would give them time in class, and they could also take their story home to finish it.  On Friday, we would all have a chance to present our stories.

By Wednesday, I marveled at how quickly I had melded into the classroom community.  The students, whom the teacher noted were one of the best classes she's taught in her 14 year career, were respectful and open to my role as an additional teacher.  As I led shared readings in literacy, health, and social studies; introduced an inquiry lesson on the snails, fiddler crabs, and frogs in our classroom; and played a few games all of the students participated with enthusiasm.  At the end of the day, Wednesday, I told the students that I'd be gone every Thursday but that I would be returning Friday.  I  told them this would be the schedule until the end of the year, and it was a joy to hear the students express happiness that we'd be together for so long.

On Friday morning, I stopped by Bragaw to deliver movies I made for the students.  They highlighted our time from September through January.  Ms. Wise was caught in morning traffic, and unfortunately, I didn't get to see her.  I did, however, get a warm greeting from the head custodian and the security guards who told me I could leave the videos with them to pass on to Ms. Wise.  Here's my video:

After dropping off the videos, I went to Roberto Clemente with excitement stirring within.  It felt really nice to maintain my connections to Bragaw and have the opportunity to grow in a classroom at a different school.  I looked forward to seeing and hearing the presentations from the students.  Also, I had an overall feeling of satisfaction at how my placement was going and for all that I'd learned in the first week.

The presentations went really well.  12 out of 16 students presented, with two being absent, one forgetting the story at home, and the other, a student who has issues with completing tasks, who had not done one.  He is a student that I will have to encourage and understand with tenacity because I can tell he has so many ideas to share.  It seemed that after hearing and seeing everyone's presentations, the students were regretful in not having one to present to the class.  I filmed the presentations and will incorporate them into a movie for my time at Roberto Clemente.  

Now that they've had practice at telling their stories, I would like to have the students create a PowerPoint for their Story of Me.  So, I will be designing lessons for them to do during part of their time at their weekly computer lab session.  It will reinforce literacy skills in writing and speaking; teach them how to use PowerPoint and it's creative features such as accessing it, creating a layout, font settings, inserting pictures, and being ready for a formal presentation of their PowerPoint on the Smart Board.  

With my time here at Roberto Clemente, I want to continue encouraging community building.  As was noted in our class, Partnerships with Families...everyone has a story to tell and given an opportunity, most often they love to tell it.  With these stories, I aim for our class to gain a better understanding of ourselves, each other, and our community.  I see it happening, and it is satisfying.