Week 9 Reflection

Post #1

Today my host teacher and I delivered the items that were collected throughout the past two weeks for HOPE, Inc., a local shelter for abused women. I have to say that, while the students seemed to be excited about doing something good for less fortunate individuals and interested to find what items their classmates were bringing in for donation, for a project involving the whole 5th grade, the turnout was pretty low. Although I was glad that this project at least got students thinking about good deeds and random acts of kindness and those working at HOPE were very grateful for our contribution, I still pondered why this project wasn't as big as I had initially thought it would be. Almost immediately, an answer popped into my head that stood out from all of the others: the majority of my students come from low socioeconomic backgrounds. Of course! While some students may have wanted to contribute, their families simply might not have had the means to do so. After realizing this, I felt bad. However, I tried to think of some ways that I could still enforce the idea of good deeds to my students through a similar project in the future and came to the conclusion that if I were to do something like this again, I would try to keep the donation recipients within the school population. This way, those who have the ability to help still could and those who might not would benefit in ways beyond the mere satisfaction of knowing they did something good for another person.

Post #2

For the past four weeks, the students in my English/language arts classroom have been spending Thursdays in the computer lab. To begin class, they take the selection test for the story that has been read throughout the week on the Scott Foresman website. Once the tests are completed, students have the opportunity to engage in some other activity on the computers, which typically includes exploring an Interactive website dealing with whatever skill we are focusing on in grammar, spelling, reading, or writing. Past activities have included a tutorial on composing and sending an email, listening to stories read aloud by famous individuals at storylineonline.net, playing interactive grammar games, viewing video clips and blogging reactions, and typing spelling words in Microsoft Word. While I think that all of these activities are worthwhile and keep the students engaged and somewhat in control of their own learning, my host teacher and I have noticed that several of the students seem to be rushing through their tests so that they can partake in the next activity. I am at a loss about how to respond to this problem. Should I go back to having students take a paper-based test and then accompany them to the lab? I've also thought about keeping the schedule as it is, but if a student completes the assessment quickly and performs poorly asking him/her to retake the test on paper before moving on to the web-based activity. Are there any other means I should take in response to the issue? Does one seem "better" than the other?