Blog Entry #8

From rereading all of my blog entries I saw many different concepts that we learned.  There was at east one in every post.  I feel that I have articulated my own learning and understanding as clear as I can.  I wrote academically as often as I could, but the majority of my writing was done conversationally to convey how excited I was to get to see these things up close and personal and not just watch them from the confines of my normal job there.

In general, the blogging was not my favorite part of this course because it felt a bit like busy work.  But, I did have to examine my experiences more closely to try and find connections to our learning.  It made me at least think back on my experiences and determine what they meant more than once.  I feel that I have remained pretty consistent through out my writing.  The best example of growth throughout is just seeing me really apply and describe our learned concepts.  It's like a map of what I have experienced, paired with what I've learned.

Blog Entry #7

The evidence I see of the students in my service learning getting the standards met is in the things Mrs. Wilcox has me help out with.  For instance, I am helping kids with their counting, writing numbers, and recognizing numbers.  I know that they are supposed to be able to count to 100 by the end of the year.  I am helping them reach that goal by assisting them when they are having troubles with the numbers.  Numbers seem to be taking the most emphasis.  The second most would be writing. Third most would be letter names and sounds.  This may vary a little though as I am only in there during a certain time of the day and I might just see their numbers the most because its their math time.

The subject that seems to be put to the side most often is science.  I would say that is what I see the least amount of.  I have seen them learn about flowers and how they grow, and their five senses, but other than that I have not seen very much emphasis put on science or anything to do with science.  This could be because they don't start testing on science yet. I am not sure how Mrs. Wilcox specifically feels about standards and standardized testing because I have not asked her.  I would say, she is definitely putting in her best effort to teach to the standards by what she seems to be putting emphasis on.  She loves her job and always has good energy when teaching so as far as I know she is fine teaching to the standards and helping kids to learn so that they can meet them to the best of their ability. 

Blog Entry #6

The areas of diversity I see in Mrs. Wilcox's classroom are mainly cultural and racial.  She has many pacific islander children, many Hispanic children, and one black child.  This is common in Franklin elementary as we are the most racially diverse school in the Provo school district.  She addresses this by teaching many different ways to look at families and traditions.  She has touched upon both subjects with racially diverse story books and even powerpoints to teach about different traditions.

The diverse learners in Mrs. Wilcox's class are being addressed through me and other instructional assistants and volunteers.  She gives us many different activities to do one on one with the kids that are learning at a different pace or who learn better with different tactics and environments.  They also have a time everyday where each kindergarten teacher takes all the kids who fall into a certain category in their learning process into their classroom.  This way, all the students are at the same level and they are receiving help in the areas that they need it.  All these extra learning times and opportunities include games, reading activities, writing activities, interactive computer time, and rewards.  And from what I have seen it seems to be creating progress in their learning.