Over the course of this year, my responsibilities within my role as a teacher increased. At the start of the year, I was focused on observing my mentor teacher, the routines she established, and how classroom management looked. Early on, I started to take on lessons and instruct small groups. Eventually, I had my own independent reading group to plan for on my own. As I became more comfortable, my mentor allowed me to incorporate my own lessons and units, as well as take on more and more lessons throughout the school day. Although we co-taught as equals in the classroom since day one, I was able to grow and take on more as I developed my practice. Brief descriptions of my duties and responsibilities in and out of the classroom are below.

Morning Meeting

After everyone unpacks their backpacks and puts their chairs down, we had Morning Meeting to start every day. This is part of the Responsive Classroom approach and allows us to come together as a community, greet one another, get in the emotional and mental space for learning, and orient ourselves for the day ahead. This was one of the first parts of our day I was able to take on. I started taking on more meetings as the year progressed. Leading morning meeting requires me to write a letter to the class on the morning message board, leaving blank spaces for them to fill in as they arrive. Once everyone was sitting in a circle on the rug I would choose a greeting from our list and everyone would have a chance to say a greeting and be greeted themselves. We would then do a quick activity, just to have fun, build community, and begin to activate our brains for the day. I would then call on students to read each sentence of the message, discussing what the day had in store for us. Lastly, I would facilitate our sharing time, where three students each day have a chance to share about anything they choose and take questions or comments from their classmates. Writing the message, greeting my students, and hearing about their lives were all very special aspects of my day. It helped me focus on what was important for my day ahead, so I know it helped my students too. It also gave a chance to center ourselves. No matter how someone’s morning may have been going before school, we all had a chance to restart our days from morning meeting and get off on the right foot.

Morning Routine

Each morning after morning meeting, half of our class would head to pull-out ESL instruction and the other half would stay with Jen and I. These students would get started with students writing in their conversation journals.  Students write at least 7 sentences every day about anything they choose.  Jen or I respond to every journal entry every evening, aiming to create a conversation with each student by asking questions about what they wrote about. This helped students practice writing and also gives their writing meaning.  It gives us an opportunity to learn more about the students in our classroom, strengthening our relationships with each one of them.  Once journals were finished, students have time to answer questions on our morning message board, practice math facts online with Xtra Math, and read to self.  During this time, I am responsible for managing the classroom and making sure students are on task.

English Language Arts and Intervention

One of the first areas of instruction I assumed responsibility for was our Shared Readings(SR).  We read one book twice a week using the Fountas and Pinnell texts for Shared Reading.  These texts were mostly informational nonfiction or tales/fables from around the world. Because we read each book twice, the first read was almost always focused around the central message or theme of the book. Students could then use their prior knowledge on the second read to make more meaningful connections, more precise noticings around grammar, punctuation, text features, and even participate in the reading. Shared Readings are meant to be read by both the teacher and the students. Having participation, especially on the second read, was helpful for the students to be engaged in the lesson and practice their reading fluency and articulation skills. 

The next part of the day, once our ESL students had returned was our Writer’s Workshop. Because Jen is dual certified in ESL, we would have three additional students come to our room for writing and to receive their ESL services. In our class we followed the Lucy Calkin’s writing curriculum. Throughout the fall and the winter, I was available during our workshop time to conference with students. I was fortunate to have the opportunity to substitute in my room and the other second grade classrooms often this year and got to teach writing sporadically and in different contexts. Unfortunately, I did not take on any writing units due to the Covid-19 virus closings. 

Starting around the end of September, I had the chance to instruct my own Intervention and Guided Reading Group. “Intervention” as it is known, is an hour long block where students in the entire second grade are placed in small groups based on their reading levels. This allows students to work with other teachers and peers they may not have had the chance to but more importantly, it allows teachers to give specific attention to students based on their skills and needs. Students below grade level have the most intimate group settings and students above grade level are more collaborative. For half an hour every day, we are in intervention, during which we focus on word work, spelling, phonics, and writing.  For another half hour, we engage in guided reading.  During this time, our group read a variety of books  to focus on reading accuracy and comprehension. I started the year with a group of eight students from all three classrooms and my group grew to ten by the end of the year. We would work on ideas such as compound words, homophones, and contractions. We would read chapter books such as the Magic Tree House series, Ramona the Pest, and My Father’s Dragon. Before we left school, we even implemented a book club style to our groups meeting. Throughout the year, my intervention group’s reading levels increased so that they all reached the ceiling for second grade (P).

Mathematics

After lunch and recess, students return to the classroom and we would have a Math Meeting similar to our Morning Meeting. This meeting accomplished many things in the brief ten to fifteen minutes it took. Not only did it start our math lessons but it helped our students regulate their energy and emotions and refocus back into an academic setting from recess. During meeting we would identify how many days we had been in school, record it on the calendar, and record it in a place value chart, and made the number with coin money, trying to find the way which uses the least amount of coins. Then students would have a chance to create equations that equal the number of the day. My final unit, which I only had the chance to teach on two days before schools closed was an extension of this Math Meeting. This unit pushed beyond this meeting to incorporate technology and differentiated interventions and extensions for students to do more front loading of the lessons we taught and increase mathematical thinking around number sense and place value. 

After meeting, we would then start our Mathematics lesson for the day using Pearon’s EnVisions curriculum. At the beginning of the year, I mostly observed Jen do whole-group instruction while I circulated and checked student’s work and helped questioning students. I began to make on one lesson a week, then in January I took on two a week, before schools closed in mid-March, I was teaching three times a week. When I taught lessons I tried to always include manipulatives, pictorial diagrams, refer to the math Word Wall, and pull small groups for intervention. The more we moved through the year the more I realized the same students were getting lost or giving up and needing extra scaffolding. This is what informed my decision to extend math meeting to include more front loading for each day’s lesson, hopefully helping those students access the material as it was taught to the whole group instead of needed to wait for small group or a one-on-one conference. 

History and Social Studies

The first unit I implemented and was solely responsible for was my social studies unit on migration and culture. We also focused on the continents and oceans, connecting our cultures to the world map. Students sang songs they learned in music and from Jen to remember all of the continents and oceans. We also frequently talked about relevant holidays and important events and their relation to culture and migration such as 9/11, Columbus Day, Thanksgiving, and Martin Luther King Jr. Day. We had even planned to map out the Shared Reading and Interactive Read Alouds we had read that were from other parts of the world on a map on our bulletin board before we left school for the year. 

Science and Engineering

Engineering appeared in numerous lessons and units both Jen and I taught this year. Jen had the chance to take professional development and implement Project Lead the Way lessons into out class focused around engineering beanstalks and houses connecting to Jack and the Beanstalk and The Three Little Pigs classic stories. We also received Lego construction kits which we allowed the students to explore with partners. I also had the chance in the winter to teach my second unit, an engineering project based around building strong bridges. Students worked collaboratively with their partners throughout the project. They identified the problem, imagined, brainstormed, designed, created and improved their models and bridges. Students got to reflect on their tests and make final choices around which materials and folding techniques were the most effective for making their bridges hold the most pennies. Overall, students had a lot of practice applying science and problem solving skills together in these engineering units. 

Various School Responsibilities 

Over the past year, for my practicum at Jacob Hiatt, I held responsibilities both inside and outside of my own classroom. I had breakfast, lunch, and recess duty once a week. During breakfast duty, I worked with two other teachers to supervise breakfast for students in grades one, two, and three.  Lunch duty consisted of monitoring the cafeteria with two other teachers while grades two and three ate. Recess duty requires me and two other teachers to supervise  the students outside on the playground. I also covered for common planning time for second grade on Wednesdays. I would also cover one of the other second grade teachers when she had lunch duty. I substituted in second grade fourteen times which allowed me to teach other students in other rooms occasionally. Jen was also fortunate enough to get to partake in a Fountas and Pinnell professional development training which allowed me to sub for my own class. Substituting and covering for teachers allowed me to become a familiar face in the building and build relationships with teachers and students. Through these experiences I was able to contribute to the school community, gain more experience in various positions, and develop relationships with both students and teachers throughout the building.