Working One-on-One

This week, I had the opportunity to work one on one with a girl in Mrs. Paynters class. Mrs.Paynter was working with small groups in the back of the classroom on spelling while the others worked on passed back homework from the day before. Mrs. Paynter told me I was welcome to walk around and help the students out with any questions they have. A little girl called me over to help her out on her math assignment she got passed back from the day before. She was working on adding and subtracting mixed numbers, and was concerned about a problem she got marked wrong and wanted to know where she went wrong. I was really stressed out at first because it had been a LONG time since I had even attempted to add and subtract mixed numbers. I I worked through the problem the way I thought it should be done, and it turned out that I got the same wrong answer as she did. I felt really inadequate and stupid, but she was so understanding and nice about it. I turned around and asked another student to explain to me how to solve the problem and then taught it to the girl and showed her where she went wrong. Needless to say I need to brush up on my 5th grade math, but I was really great getting to work with a student one on one. I was really relieved that she was so nice to me, and it was great to see how she processed the problems and why she was having a hard time with them.

One thing I was really impressed with this week was how involved Mrs. Paynter was with her students even before the bell rang. She answered questions, asked about readings, and was personally involved with each of her students. She is very good at checking for understanding and making sure that all the students were on the same page.

My favorite thing we did in class this week was the vocab game. Last week they got in partnerships and drew a picture to represent their word, but this week they got in partnerships and had to come up with an action to represent their word and show it to the class. I was lucky enough to participate because there was an odd number of students in the class, but most of all, I was incredibly impressed at their creativity and ingenuity. I got to work one on one with another student as we came up with our action for "developed". I asked her questions to see what her understanding of the word was, and then gave her a few of my ideas. Then she came up with an idea that we both liked and it represented our word perfectly. She was so smart and creative. It was a lot of fun, and I really liked that it was different than last week. Not the same activity over and over again.

As Mrs. Paynter taught, I sat and thought about what we had been learning this Module in relation to segregation. I can't imagine what it would be like if our classrooms were like that today. I thought about Ruby Bridges and how she attended the school for an entire year and was the only student in her class. I wonder what the interactions with her and her teacher were like. Were they more in classroom interactions or one on one interactions? I would say they were like one one one interactions, and I wonder how different those interactions were for Ruby than being in a class with many other students would have been. I think about how I would act in that situation teaching just one student instead of teaching an entire group of students. My mannerisms and methods would be more specific and specialized to a certain student, than generalized to fit a group. I thought about girls that I got to work with. I not only helped them, but in return, they had taught me as well. We created a bond and a connection that is different than the interactions I had with the other students, and I felt more and more comfortable with those two students as the class period went on.

I had a lot of fun this week observing the classroom and Mrs. Paynters methods. It was also great to learn about one on one experiences with students and how much more personal those interactions are than when teaching an entire class. It was the first time I had had that type of one on one interaction in the classroom setting and I definitely look forward to having more, and most definitely improving on how to handle them.

What Makes a Classroom Work?

Today was my first day of volunteering at Westside Elementary in Springville, Utah. I had the wonderful opportunity to observe the 5th grade classroom of Mrs. Paynter. I have had a little bit of experience working in a classroom, but it was with grades Pre-K through 2nd, so I was of course thrilled to have the opportunity to have the chance to observe and work in a 5th grade classroom.

I could tell right away that Mrs. Paynter LOVES her job. I never once saw her get frustrated or upset with her students, even when a couple of them spoke out of turn or were not doing what they were supposed to. She has so much energy and I can tell that she has a great experience with all of her students. She was so willing to let me do whatever I needed to get the most of my experience, and I was thrilled about that. I was really impressed at how well she was able to change her path if what she was doing did not work right away. She just approached what they were discussing in a different way, checked for understanding, and made sure everyone was on the same page before moving on. I also loved how she gave the students the chance to explore and make mistakes before she taught them how to do their new math chapter. She let them use their previous knowledge, make connections, and see where it went. I loved how she gave them the chance to see what they could figure out on their own instead of just coming out and telling them how to do it.

Another thing I was really impressed with was how easily she approached all three of the modalities in all of her teaching. The first time I noticed it was when they started doing vocab at the beginning of class. She had small groups come back to her table while the others worked on homework and she would introduce the vocab words and discuss why they are pronounced the way they are and how they related to what they are studying in class. Then, when everyone was back in their seats, she went over the words they just learned and asked how they were similar to other words they knew. After that, the class played an activity where she handed out cards with the new vocab words on them, and each student with a partner had to talk together about the word they were given and then draw a picture they thought would represent their vocabulary word on the board. Then as a class, they went through all the pictures and decided what they were of and why. It was great because they discussed it first so the auditory listeners had the chance to listen, then the kinsetic learners were able to be hands on and create their own version of the word, and then the visual learners were able to see each vocab word represented in many different forms and see how they all are similar. 

The three modalities were also shown in her math lesson when she not only had each student write out the math problems in their math workbooks, but discuss and explore the math with a partner, and then she visually drew out each math problem with tables on the board for everyone to see. It was incredible to see how easy the lessons were to follow, but also how they were approached in many different ways to make sure that everyone was able to understand and be on the same page. 

It was a really great experience to be there and observe a classroom like this. I know every teacher is different, as well as their methods, but I truly believe that Mrs. Paynter is one of the best. I hope that someday I can love my students the way she does, let my students know that I am there for them, and be the one who can help them see how wonderful learning can be.