Blog #1: My Workplace: Tuesday Oct 11th
My workplace is an elementary school and at Eldridge School they teach grades K-6. It is located on Eldridge Avenue in Hayward, California and it looks like multiple buildings with playgrounds and lots of field space. There are also parking lots on both sides of the front of the school. In the classroom that I work in there is only one teacher and myself. My workplace employs teachers, principals, office help, custodians, safety moniters, after school and daycare workers. All the teachers have degrees of different levels and still continue to earn higher degrees. My workplace serves the students in our community as well as the parents. The strengths of my workplace are being able to work with a teacher who has years of experience with younger kids and it helps me to learn what I need to do in order to accomplish how to be the teacher I want to be. The weakness of my workplace is that there are too many students per teacher so its harder to give extra attention to the students that need it.
Blog #2: My Mentor: Tuesday Oct 18th
My first mentor's name is Julie Rubia and she is the lead kindergarden teacher at Eldridge. She also assists the principal and is the teacher liaison. My second mentor's name is Maria Rosinski and she is the daycare provider for the Eldridge community. Ms. Rubia's typical day is coming to school early, having her students come into class and into their seats, the students sing their morning songs as she checks their homework, next she goes over the calendar, and informs the students of what the schedule will be. Afterwards she does activities with the kids and soon it is lunch so she takes them to Y.E.P. ( youth enrichment program) or the front of the school for their parents to pick up the kids. On Tuesdays, she stays after school because some of the children need intervention. Maria's typical day is taking children to and from school, helping them with homework, giving them snacks, and watching over them until their parents come and pick them up. Julie was interested in this field because she always enjoyed children and for this field she needed a Bachelor's degree, but she went further and received a Master's degree. Marie wanted a career where she could stay home and raise her family as well as help others. She did not need any college for this career, but she needed to take safety courses and be liscensed with the state.
Blog #3: My Role: Tuesday Oct 25th
My main responsibility as an intern is to interact with the children and learn from my mentor what I need to do before teaching a lesson and what I need to do while I am giving a lesson. My title in my workplace is Ms. Madi. Other tasks that I am completing are helping the children with their work, correcting their work, reading to the kids, and at times teach the interventions. A regular day begins with collecting the folders, then the kids sit in their rug spots, sing their morning routine songs, and go over the calendar with Ms. Rubia or me. Next Ms. Rubia gives me instructions on what I'd do next such as read a story. When I read the kids a story I have to make sure that the kids are focused and not playing with each other that way they don't distract others and can concentrate on what's going on. After Julie and I take them out to recess, give them snacks, and when we get back into the classroom we work on letters and matching them with pictures that the letters begin with. During this period I go through each folder and give them green stars if they've been good that day. Once they finish their projects or work they pack up their things and get ready to get picked up or go to Y.E.P., but some of the kids stay and come back for intervention. In intervention, Julie and I help them get a deeper understanding of letters such as knowing capitals and lowercase letters as well as writing them out.
Blog #4: Project Brainstorm: Tuesday Nov 1st
For my WLE project I would like to teach a lesson to the kindergarden students and have Ms. Rubia grade me on the materials she has taught me. I came up with this idea because through the day she teaches me how to run a classroom and other techniques for teaching the students and it made sense for me to use these skills and put them to work. I'm excited to do this project because the skills that I'm learning in my WLE are skills that I need and plan on using in my future. In order to accomplish this I need to ask Ms. Rubia if I can do a lesson, continue learning skills, and create a rubric so that Ms. Rubia can grade me.
Blog #5: Progress on my WLE Project: Tuesday Nov 8th
Today in WLE we had an assembly for the students who had perfect attendance so all the students went into the multipurpose room. After the assembly another volunteer and I began working on the Christmas project for Ms. Rubia. During the project we would take a few kids at a time, ask them which stocking they liked best , wrote their name with glue, drizzled glitter over the glue, and TA DA ! Once the excess glitter was removed, their was a colorful name on the stockings. Afterwards, I helped the kids with their writing skills while Ms. Rubia was teaching a lesson and then they were off to lunch. After lunch the students go home, but some stay for intervention so I would say a word and tell them to write down what letter they think it started with. Regarding the WLE project , I asked Ms. Rubia if I could do a lesson on the techniques she's taught me
two weeks before the WLE ends and she said that it would be fine with her. So far I have accomplished on getting permission and learning new techniques.
Blog #6: Leadership Skills: Tuesday Nov 15th
The Leadership skills that I am using the most in my WLE are thinking critically and communicating powerfully. I think I am using these leadership skills very well at my WLE because today we had a substitute teacher and at times the class would get out of control, but I'd talk with the sub on the different ways that Ms. Rubia would use to keep them on task and the students were able to stay focused. These leadership skills help me to do my work because when working with little kids not everything goes as planned so there has to be communication between my mentor and I on what needs to be done. I also need to be able to use the skills that I learn anytime I am asked to do a certain task. I think my mentor uses all of the leadership skills because she has so much experience that she knows how to communicate to the classroom and grab their attention, think of ways that she can improve upon herself, interact with the classroom to see if they understand the material and complete her agenda at the same time.
Blog #7: What I learned, Reflection: Tuesday Nov 22nd
Through this WLE experience I've learned that I really love to work with kids and I am good at directing lessons as well as keeping them on task. Challenges that I have faced during my WLE were reading to the students because at first I was shy, but after time had passed reading to them became easier and easier for me. From this experience I've learned that I love interacting with the kids, helping the kids learn material and see them get happy when they understand it, and it motivates me to push forward with my goal of becoming a preschool teacher. My creativity was put to use during this experience when we would do projects including paint, glitter, glue and cutting out shapes to make fun hats. My WLE placement made it easier for me because I was use to the environment and I knew the people that work their. Something that I believe now that I didn't know before about this profession is that teaching isn't boring at all as long as you are able to use creative methods. Skills that I learned and practice during my WLE that are important in this profession are that no matter what that even if one student isn't on task, you have to quiet the whole classroom because they are taking away focus from other students therefore not all the students are learning the material. If someone asked me why what I did at my WLE was important, I would say that it was important because I was helping students learn material that they need in the future and I was also gaining knowledge on a profession that I want to get into. What I've learned from my WLE affects the choices I make in the future because it's like a taste of the work life and a glimpse of what profession I am interested in working in.
