Journal #4 - Domain #4 - Teaching and Instruction

Using a variety of presentation strategies will prevent students and teachers from becoming stagnant in the classroom. My cooperating teacher, Ms. Clarke uses an array of presentation strategies, such as books, worksheets, manipulatives, visual and audio aids.
Ms. Clarke also uses a variety of grouping. She has often addressed the whole class, asked an open-ended question and then told the children to share their answer with the person next to them. This is a great way for everyone to be heard and an opportunity for children to help each other. Ms. Clarke also puts the children in small groups, especially for reading. The children seem to enjoy reading in small groups. I have had the opportunity to sit in with several of these small group-reading sessions. When the children begin in their groups they decide how they are going to run the session, for example how many pages each person will read and which direction the rotation will go. Usually they decide to each read one page and rotate in a clockwise direction. As each child reads the others follow along in their books. During these small group reading times Ms. Clarke will do some one-on-one reading time to do reading assessments or join in with a group.
In math I have observed Ms. Clarke use cubes and geometric shaped tiles to help the students understand and visualize fractions. The students had fun using this manipulative and then transferring their findings onto a worksheet. Ms. Clarke also uses small wipe boards for quick math assessments. Each child has their own wipe board where they work on a problem and then holds it up for her to see their answer. Using this strategy she is able to quickly scan the answers and either moves on or does more problems to clarify. Mostly, worksheets and tests are used to assess formal math progress.
Ms. Clarke does use a variety of technology in the classroom. The students share laptops with another classroom. Each child is assigned a number and each computer is labeled with that number. The children do a good deal of writing on their computers. During the observations I have made the children seem quite comfortable using Word to create their documents. She also uses a document camera a great deal. The document camera is a device that allows the user to put a document, or basically anything under the camera and it will project it onto the screen. The children also use the document camera when they are sharing their work with the class. I had the opportunity to use it when I did my lesson for the class. It is really cool! In addition to the computers and document camera Ms. Clarke had each child bring in blank videotape. She set up a recording camera and each child taped another child as they presented an oral book report. I liked how she gave the children the chance to use the technology rather than taping the children herself.
Teaching the curriculum is not a choice the teacher has however, how they achieve the curriculum goals in many cases is up to the teacher. As educators we must be creative with how we teach a diverse population of children. We need to ask a lot of questions and listen carefully to answers so we can meet children at their zone of proximal development. If there is no variety in the way lessons are taught or if the information is too easy or difficult we will loose the child’s interest and motivation.