Professional Development

I think that providing professional development for teachers is one of the most important and most difficult things to do. From an elementary perspective, we teach all four main subjects along with other things like handwriting and keyboarding. Our curriculum changes about every 7 years (it used to be less than that) so we as elementary teachers had to spend a lot of professional development time learning the new curriculum. Most of the time our professional development classes happen after school when teachers have other things to do. The classes that are provided in my district are wonderful, but it really is a time commitment to take them. In order to have successful professional development a district should provide many choices for their teachers. I also think that week long inservices in the summer are very beneficial because there may not be as many conflicts over the summer months and you can learn a lot with some choice. Districts should also provide time during the year for teachers to get together an share ideas that have been successful for them.

Differentiation

My role as an elementary teacher has always been to meet the needs of all the kids in my class. No two children are the same. For as long as I can remember, I have been adjusting my lesson to meet the needs of different students. All my students read at the level that they are comfortable at and are even spelling at their level. I have never had a student who is ELL, but that does not mean it is not possible. I find that when I differentiate, I do without thinking. A lot of times it is driven by the students. They always ask can I do more than that or can I do this? The hardest part about differentiation is assessing kids to find their reading level or spelling level. By the time I get through one assessment and figure out the numbers it is time to give it again. Sifting through the data and what it means is the most time consuming part.

Student-Centered Assessments

In Third Grade we have many opportunities to assess children. We give them a big reading assessment, spelling assessment, and math assessment through out the year. These are not student-centered. However, throughout the year, the children have many opportunities for self and peer-assessment in all subject areas. In ELA, we learn how to peer-edit each others work and give them feedback. We also talk about being active readers and being able to assess what we have learned by reading a certain book. In Science and Social Studies, the kids have the opportunity at the end of our units to select a project of their choice to present to the class. So, what I am trying to get at here is that student-centered assessment is something that can be done at any age. There needs to be a lot of guidance and modeling a first, but I really have the opportunity to lay the ground work for their future in education. When kids get a say in what they are doing, they take more responsibility for it and take a lot of pride in their work.

Digital Divide

One issue that I have with my class is teaching kids how to gather and use reliable resources. Nowadays, even Third Graders, want to "Google" things when they don't know the answer. In some ways I think that it is cool that they want to find answers, but I think that it is my job to teach them that there are many more ways to find answers to questions. Also, they need to learn that all that they read on the Internet may not be trustworthy. The other issue that I have in class is computers. I have three in my class that run on OS 9 which is perfect for word processing, but since I part of my ELA time is Project Based, many kids can be working on a project and we don't have enough computers in the class. I can't just let them into the computer lab unsupervised, but at the same time they are so into finishing what they started, they have difficulty sharing our computers.