Last Thursday
was my second opportunity to co-teach in the pre-K classroom. This lesson was
focused around a review of all five senses and had the teachers help lead
individual centers. There were 2-3 students at one center at a time. I think the
small groups for the majority of the lesson helped me work on my long term goal
for this clinical. My goal that I have slowly been working on is to get to
know the ELL students and through that, find ways to differentiate instruction
and accommodate for their needs.
When reflecting on this goal, I
realized that the pre-k classroom had fewer ELL students than the kindergarten
room and also had few students total in the classroom. I think there are some
benefits and down sides to having a smaller classroom and fewer ELL students.
For one, in the pre-k classroom, it is easier to get to know the students and their
needs when there are fewer students. Also having fewer ELL students means there
could be more chances to get to know the ELL students in order to accommodate for
their needs. The second point would be the amount of conversation I had between
the two classrooms. I found that the kindergarteners were more talkative than
the pre-k classroom which is to be expected. The more talkative the students
are, the easier it is to get to know the students in the 30 minutes that I have
every time I am in the classroom. Like I talked about in my earlier blog post,
I feel that the lack of conversation also had to do with the new teachers
coming in to the classroom and the students not know us. I’m sure the students
would be more talkative with their everyday pre-k teachers.
Last Thursday was the last time I
would be teaching in the pre-k classroom. I think I learned the more outgoing
students from the more shy students. I also learned n situations like that were
communication is limited, focus on body language and hand movements to be able
to really understand the student and what they are trying to say or answer.
That was the difficult part of teaching the younger students. I think that the
lesson that I helped teach accommodated well to the student’s needs by how they
had hands on centers prepared and ready.
For my particular center I focus on
the sense of touch. I think the items that the students were feeling throughout
the center time were item that the students are familiar with. I think that is
very important when preparing lessons for young children, just like it is important
to teach the students using vocabulary they are familiar with or would
understand. That is part of the differentiating instruction process. I am
learning from clinical experiences what the students at certain ages know
already or are working towards learning. I have seen a great jump just from the
pre-k and kindergarten clinical the ability levels in each classroom. Overall,
I feel my goal in the pre-k classroom was harder to accomplish and, as a result,
I feel with more teaching experience I could have gotten closer to my goal. Pre-k
needs hands on learning with many visuals which is what I consistently saw in
the pre-k classroom. This type of teaching is great way to accommodate and
differentiate instruction for ELL students.
EXCEEDS: I provided a link to help pre-k teachers learn strategies
for teaching ELL students
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