Blog #3

First Day of Placement:

This week was my first day of field placement at Bear Creek Elementary school in the Etown School district.  The school itself is amazing, this being the first year students are attending it.  It is a huge school with separate wings for each grade, my home for the semester being the fifth grade wing.  Of course, my classroom is at the very end of the hallway in a little secluded learning support classroom with an amazing teacher named Mrs. Jordan.

Mrs. Jordan has three classes in the 2 hours that I am in her classroom.  The first is a reading "fast track" program, which is basically just seven students in fifth grade who need extra support with reading due to their diagnosed learning disabilities, including ADD, ADHD, and autism.  These students are pulled out into Mrs. Jordan's classroom during their general ed class' reading classes as well so they are not missing important material in other subjects.  This is a 45 minute period, where unfortunately, little work was actually done.  The class got off topic a lot, and a lot of students were calling out and getting out of their seats.  Mrs. Jordan made an effort to get more done, but with 7 against 1, it was unsuccessful.

The second class is out of Mrs. Jordan's classroom.  We traveled across the hall to Mr. Mooney's fifth grade general ed class, where 11 out of his 27 students have IEP's.  Somehow, he seemed to have a good handle of the class and everyone seemed to be generally on task while working on group projects on Benjamin Franklin and his life.  Mrs. Jordan's job during this class was to just walk around and make sure students were on task and understanding the assignment.  She assisted students with reading and proofreading their sentences, as well as asking them questions to make sure they were comprehending the assignment.  After about twenty minutes, the class seemed to wrap up and Mrs. Jordan took the 11 students with IEP's back to her room.

The third class that Mrs. Jordan has is another "Fast Track" reading program, just with a different topic than the first group.  The Fast Track program is basically a basal for special education students that helps them with reading and comprehension.  The students receive a little magazine type book with one topic at a time so they don't get distracted, and the teacher is responsible for introducing new vocab, reading the story, and questioning the students in their predictions, comprehensions, and conclusions.  This third group was a very rambunctious group, making Mrs. Jordan stop the lesson several times to remind them of proper school behavior.  Unfortunately, the only thing the students gained from their lesson today was three new vocab words, which none of them even wrote down.

I am very excited to continue working in Mrs. Jordan's classroom because I'm sure it will be a challenge.  I am also eager to work one on one with one of the students in her first class on his ORFs and MAZEs.  Hopefully the students' behavior will get a little better so the rest of the semester will go a little smoother, but as of now, I feel like I am really going to enjoy this placement and learn a lot from Mrs. Jordan.