Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Surprising...
Wow, what has been my biggest surprise in the classroom so far? I feel like I’ve been learning so much about how a classroom functions everyday that something surprises me every day. Overall, I think my biggest surprise would really be what students understand and what they don’t understand (or have exposure to or not). Some things that I would think first graders are familiar with, they are still learning (i.e. what most and least mean, the difference between a question and a comment). I have to sometimes remind myself the students are six and seven years old and have only been in school for a year. At the same time, there are a multitude of things the students do understand or have ideas about that didn’t expect them to. It has been an eye-opener for me to see I cannot make assumptions about students’ background knowledge and what they know or are able to do based on their age or grade level. It has made me think about truly pre-assessing students before jumping in to a lesson or unit to see what they need to learn and also, consider parts of a lesson that might need more explanation or modeling.
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3 comments:
Hi Katelyn!
I am so glad you posted this on your blog! I too was extremely shocked and surprised (in a good way) with what my students already know. It's amazing that students already know such a multitude of things! Their level of thinking is a lot higher than what I expected, yet there are times where we need to be really explicit with our instruction. It really keeps us on our toes! It really sounds like you are enjoying your first quarter as an intern!
-Peter
That is so exciting! It is amazing how kid's minds work! It is so neat to hear about what they know and what they want to know more about, but to also see the things that they still need to learn. I am glad you are enjoying your time in the classroom and it sounds like you and the students are going to learn a great deal from one another this year! :)
I am right there with you when you talk about expecting students to know and not know certain things. I feel that we are, for the most part, all experiencing this in the classroom. Sometimes I am blown away at what the students know about a certain subject like personal narratives, but then I find out that most of them can't put together a true paragraph (6th grade). Not their faults of course, but it really opens your eyes to the fact that, as simple as something might seem, I can't expect every student to know.
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