Special Needs Students in the Regular Classroom

     I have always had a strong opinion about special needs students in the regular classroom because I have a cousin who is one of them. He went to public schools until he was about 14 years old. The teachers thought that he had reached his maximum capacity at a regular public school so his parents took him to a different school. Daniel is very smart for his age and I believe if they would have kept him in the regular classroom where he was use to the atmosphere and use to his peers he would have done a lot better. He graduated from high school with a regular diploma.

    I am no expert in special needs students in the regular classroom by far but just from my own observations this semester it became a big concern for me. I believe that if special need students can do well in a regular classroom then leave them in there. I noticed a lot of the students in the classroom encouraging the special needs students to do his or work and was just really nice to them. I am always an advocate of encouraging others to do the best he or she can and it just makes the whole world a little bit better. Special needs students have enough struggles as it is and I believe that school just be an encouraging place where each and every student can be their self and it be a learning environment.

Final Philosophy Statement

      At the beginning of the semester I would have never thought I would learn so much. At the beginning my philosophy was lecture and only lecture. I thought that the key to understanding the material is to constantly lecture to the students over and over again hoping that the each student eventually understands the material. That is how it was at my high school so I just assumed that it was like that for any school. Boy am I wrong! Lecture is not the key to understanding material at all, especially when it comes to mathematics.
  
     Lecture is not a very important factor in teaching anymore. Yes there are some days where all you can do is lecture but it is not something that one should do each and every day. Technology in the classroom is a concept that I never witnessed while I was in high school so it was totally new concept to me when I went into a classroom that used a lot of technology. I was skeptical about the whole technology idea until I saw it in action. I always thought that technology always has issues and it never works correctly and once again I was wrong. Technology is a great tool to use in the classroom especially when you want to show the students great online videos and tutorials that relate the topic you are about to teach. Technology gives students so many opportunities that past students will never have. I will definitely use technology in my classroom as much as I can.

     I also have learned that group activities is a great way for students to learn. I always thought that group work was not a great idea because when I was in school I was always the student that did the work and everyone would copy off of. My theory on group work has totally changed this semester. While observing the teacher would assign a lot of group work and it was amazing to see how each student did his or her own work and how they collaborated with each other to solve the math equations. Not a single student that I saw copied any work from another student and that gave me a lot of hope with group work for my future classroom. I hope to use a lot of group activities in my classroom to that the students can help each other which most of the time is more helpful than the teacher trying to explain the concept.

     My philosophy statement has changed a lot throughout the semester and I believe that it has changed for the better. I'll be able to relate to my students more and be able to make my classroom a great learning experience for each student that enters my room.

Practicum Final Reflection

    Observing for 35 hours this semester at Berry Middle School opened my eyes to so many different ideas that I have never thought about. I love how each grade has "teams" and it allows the students to get to know a small portion of their grade and they actually become really close friends in the end. I got to witness a lot of the topics that we talked about in class in the real classroom, especially when it came to the use of technology.

    I saw a lot of technology being used in the classroom. The teacher that I observed under always used a bell ringer for the beginning of class and she would always have it projected from the projector from her computer which I thought was pretty neat. The students had a mathematics project that each student had to complete in two days and each class got to go to the computer lab to complete the project. They used excel and they learned how to graph scattered plots which showed the students exactly where the best fit line is. I never realized how much technology can be used in the classroom when it came to mathematics until I went to the school and saw it myself.

     In the classroom that I observed under I learned a lot of differentiated instruction and how the teacher incorporated several different ideas to teach the concept so that each student could fully grasp the content. The teacher I observed under used a lot of online videos especially from YouTube to introduce the students to the topic that they are about to learn. I learned a lot this semester observing at a great school that I will take with me when I become a teacher.

4MAT REFLECTION

    Before learning about 4mat in the classroom this semester I had no clue what this meant. I figured 4mat was the whole concept that the students were going to learn. 4mat is a lot more than just that. When I think of 4mat, differentiated teaching/learning is the first thing that comes to mind. I have never thought about different types of learners in the classroom until we talked about it in class. I never knew  that differentiated teaching could occur in the classroom until I witnessed it myself while observing at Berry Middle School.

     Differentiated teaching allows each learning type to learn the way he or she learns the best. It allows the students to actually grasp the material being given to them. I knew that students learned different ways such as by doing or by listening but I did not know that there were 4 types of learning. I realized how hard differentiated learning can be at times especially in mathematics when it comes to certain topic ideas. The math teacher that I observed under told me to "always do your best and if you are doing your best your students will learn".

    I will definitely incorporate differentiated teaching in my future classroom because I want to be able to reach all of my students in the classroom. I have always been a type 2 learner and to be able to incorporate the creative side of teaching excites me a lot. It really allows me to think outside of my comfort zone and be able to think about different ideas for my students.

Lesson Plans Reflection

     I never knew it took so much work when creating lesson plans for the classroom. I have never created a lesson plan until this semester and I was a little overwhelmed at the beginning. After doing 4 of them I kind of have the general idea now of what a lesson plan is suppose to consist of. I had to think a lot about using technology in the classroom and how to relate math topics to the students lives and how it can relate to them. When I was in high school it was all about lecture, take notes, and take a test. Now teachers must incorporate technology and ideas that relate to the students. I actually enjoyed creating lesson plans because it allowed me to think out of the box and be able to be creative for my future classroom. I have never been a very creative person until I had to start creating my own lesson plans. Doing observation hours at Berry Middle School this semester really helped me grow as a future teacher.

    I believe that a quality lesson plan have the following characteristics:

• The topic relates to the students
• Uses technology in the classroom
• Differentiated instruction
• power point lectures
• the flip that we have talked about in class
• videos
• online tutorials
• inquiry-based labs
• debates
• picture analysis
• reflective notebooks

     Coming from a background where I knew nothing about different methods of teaching I have learned a lot about lesson planning and how to teach in the classroom this semester. I grew up with just lecture and I always just assumed that teaching is just lecturing in front of the classroom each day but it is way more than that. It takes a lot to teach in the classroom each day and I never realized that until now. I have grown a lot with my teaching methods and I hope to gain more each semester to become the best teacher that I can be.