Looking Back on 2016-2017

This is my end of the year animoto video for my senior year. It consists of many Education and Training activities as well as pictures from the 2017 school year. Enjoy!

Field Trip to SMU and the President George W. Bush Museum and Library

This blog assignment is found on Mrs. Kallas's wiki, which you can view here.

On March 30, 2017, our class took a field trip to Southern Methodist University. Here, we got to view an Education building and go into classes to learn about both augmented reality and virtual avatars. I thought the avatars were extremely interesting. I thought it was cool that they could be programmed to play the role of different types of students. This would be great for new teachers to practice how to teach and control their different personalities. I learned that there are many ways to practice lesson plans, even with computer automated students! I also learned how important it is to be aware of the personalities of all the students, because talking to one in a specific voice, may not be okay with the another. For example, we did not talk to Maria using the same tone that we addressed Cindy (CJ) with.

Click here to view the SMU Department of Teaching and Learning.

This is a picture from SMU of my sister, Emily, and me.

Next, we went to the George W. Bush Library/Museum. Click here to view the museum's website.

• One cool aspect of the museum was the Oval Office. This was an exact replicate of the President's office. Given by the name, it was an oval shaped office with white walls and a ceiling. It had sofas and a desk with a big chair like that of President Bush's office. Also, there were two flags. There were many windows in the office that gave a view of out into the rose bush garden. The office had a replicate of a yellow sunbeam designed rug, chosen by Mrs. Bush, and an oil painting, A Charge to Keep. On the ceiling was a large presidential seal, which you can view below.   

The Oval Office

Presidential Seal on the ceiling

Education Initiative Exhibit

• George W. Bush's famous education initiative was "No Child Left Behind", and it was his idea of taking accountability to the national level, in order to help failing children and schools in need. He wanted to get all students capable of reading, because he believed that that was the foundation for learning and education. Many students were failing in school because they were never taught to read, which made every lesson and topic difficult to understand. His idea was an education system "that's based upon sound fundamental curriculum, one that starts teaching children to read early in life, one that focuses on systems that do work" (George W. Bush). This was one of his ways of making a difference, and helping promote a successful education community. He even went to several elementary schools and read to them as part of his program.
  

Fred's Tools for Teaching (Chapters 1-4)

This prompt can be found on Mrs. Kallas's blog, which you can view here.
Click here to view our Book Study.

In class, we recently started a book study on Fred Jones's "Tools for Teaching". It is a great read for new teachers, giving them motivation, instruction, and ideas to prevent discipline issues. After reading just the third and fourth chapter, I am excited to continue reading and learning more about the great occupation of teaching!

Chapter 3 -"Working the Crowd":

    At my field site classroom, the desks are aligned in two parallel lines, running from the front of the class near the board, to the back of the class. Each line is composed of two desks facing eachother, and five or six desks long. This makes for an easy way to get to each student, and while walking down the middle aisle, the teacher keeps all students in the red zone, with just a few steps. By standing in and walking through the middle, the teacher would be no more than two desks away from each student. However, it is difficult to get to one side of a column of desks because they are roughly two feet away from the teacher's desk. With chairs pulled out, and jackets on the floor or on chairs, it makes it difficult to squeeze through the tight walkway and help students in need. Also, in order to help a student in the corner opposite of the teacher's desk, the teacher would have to walk around and through the aisle, or around both columns to get to the back corner. Overall, it is easy to work the crowd with two columns, keeping everyone in a near zone, however it can sometimes be difficult to get to the opposite side of the room. 

This is an example of my field site classroom, with the two columns of desks.
One is on the left, one is on the right.

Chapter 4- "Arranging the Room":

     According to Fred Jones, a teacher's desk should go either in the back, in the corner, or on the side of a room. As long as the desk is not right in the front of the class, it will work, and not "cost you eight feet of proximity with every student in the classroom!" (Jones 39). In my field site classroom, I would honestly leave the desk in the same location that it is in. Although it is may be described as "in the front of the room", it is in the far corner, and does not block the whiteboard or get in the way of the teacher. The students that are in the front row of the class are roughly four or five feet away from the board. With the teacher's desk in this location, she can easily get up and assist her students, and she is close enough to them to hear and watch over them when they are working. If her desk was in the back corner, she would not be able to always keep an eye on the students. In this location, she can still watch the students, and it does not prohibit them from being close to the whiteboard. Also, if she is teaching and needs to grab a book or an example from her desk, she is close enough to get it, and her computer is close to her in case she needs to click or project something.

Since it is an elementary classroom, the current location of the desk successfully helps "facilitate mobility and proximity".

Absenses Add Up

Click here to view the blog prompt on Mrs. Kallas's blog.

In order to prevent a student from getting behind due to absenteeism, one should:

1. Hire a tutor for them. This will provide extra help for them, so they can stay on track with what the class is learning. Instead of trying to catch up during class, missing even more classwork, the student can make up work after class, and still continue on with current classwork in school.
2. Keep the student in from recess/P.E.. This would give the student one on one time with the teacher, and not take time away from learning in class. (This has been done many times in my field site classroom, and though the student may not be thrilled about it, the extra time is always beneficial.)
3. Send a video of the lesson and handout home with the student. Last year this was done for me when I was absent due to TAFE State, and it was very beneficial because the video took the place of taking notes in class. A video allows for the teacher to talk through the steps, and also show notes and examples. If a student did this, he/she would no longer be behind in his/her schoolwork because they would complete it in their spare time at home. If they have questions, they could ask the teacher the next day, which takes less time than the teacher having to reteach the entire lesson.

Click here to view a website on absences from school.

    In order to encourage good attendance, teachers should talk to parents and persuade them into bringing their children to school. They should note how two absences per month can lead to failure in graduating high school. They could also provide incentives such as letting them bring a stuffed animal to school or picking an item out of the treasure box (depending on the grade) if they have perfect attendance for a certain amount of days. Teachers could also provide consequences, such as not getting to do a fun activity or having to sit out at recess to finish the schoolwork they missed. Whether teachers decide to provide incentives or consequences, it is important for students to attend school so they do not get behind, ending up with suffering grades.

Teachers Go Beyond the Call of Duty-- What's Your Calling?

This following blog post came from Mrs. Kallas's blog, which you can view here.

      This year for the TAFE Region and State Competitions, I am competing in four events. These events include the ELF Test, Portfolio, Chapter Scrapbook, and the Breakout Session Presentation. I chose to do these based on my observations from last year. For example, the Chapter Scrapbook competition seemed very fun last year, since I love doing crafts. Also, I had my portfolio done last year, so I decided to do that competition since it wouldn't need much work. Breakout Sessions was also chosen because I helped do it last year, so it seemed fun to be able to do a presentation, while also interacting with other students.  I enjoyed each of these competitions, and would not have changed my choice! My favorite part of these competitions was the fact that I got to work with a group in two of them. Also, I enjoyed the fact that portfolio and scrapbook both consisted of the activities we do in this class. Those two competitions highlighted all of the great opportunities and experience available to us in Education and Training. However, one issue that I came across while creating my presentations was the lack of time. We had to miss many days at our field sites, and also had to rush the week before contest to finish scrapbook and portfolio. I never had time to run through each of my competitions and practice presenting until the day of competition.

Scrapbook group at the awards ceremony

     Since I was so stressed trying to hurry and complete my projects, the only thing that I would change is that I would have started earlier on the projects. This would reduce the stress and rushing that I had to do in the final week before competition. However, through competing at Region, I have learned how to work productively with a group, and also make something acceptable and presentable even if I do not have much time to prepare. After this recent competition,  I am very excited for the State Conference that is held at UT Arlington in February. I plan to add more artifacts to both my portfolio and the scrapbook, and also rehearse the breakout session presentation before the state competition.

What Would You Do?

Click here to view this blog assignment on Mrs. Kallas's webpage.

Scenario 3:

     If I were stuck in this situation, and the substitute told me that he/she did not need my help, and told me that I could leave, I would first inform him or her that I have to stay at the field site for my full class time, and ride the bus back to campus. I would ask if there is anything that I need to assist with, such as grading papers or helping a student in need. If the substitute still wants me to leave because he or she has it "all under control", then I would go into the class next door and ask the teacher what I could help with. Based on experience from last year, there is always extra work to do in the classroom or in the hallway, and I know that even if my mentor teacher doesn't need help, I'm sure that a different teacher would appreciate the extra set of hands. It is not acceptable to start working on homework, because that is our time to assist our field site teachers and students, and our full attention needs to be focused on the classroom.

Habits of Mind; Thinking Flexibly

This is the tackk I created to explain Thinking Flexibly. Enjoy!

View ThInKiNg FlExIbLy;By: Allison Beam full version on Tackk
Create your own customized Tackk page

My First Day as an Intern

This blog prompt came from Mrs.Kallas's blog, which you can view here.

For my second year of interning, I am interning at Walker Creek Elementary, with Mrs. Lacey. Click here to view Mrs. Lacey's webpage. Mrs. Lacey has been teaching for twenty one years. 

Mrs. Lacey

Here is a silly picture of my sister Emily and I before we
went into Walker Creek and met our new field site classes!

  This year, I decided to intern with a first grade class, instead of kindergarten. During the time interval that I am at my field site, the class is learning mathematics.

    I am extremely excited to get to know my new students this year, and to watch them grow individually. Since I moved from kindergarten to first grade, it has been so exciting to see how much information the students already know, compared to last year. Before my first day, I edited and made some changes to my introduction poster from last year, and emailed my field site teacher, to ensure she knew that she was expecting me. I wore jeans, converse, and a red tank top with my button down Education and Training shirt over it. I brought my introduction poster for the first day. When I walked into my classroom, I was extremely excited to meet my class, and see which students I had from the year before. I was also a little nervous to meet them, and introduce myself to a class of about eighteen students. During my first week at my field site, I gave my introduction, using my About Me poster, and then I helped with a mathematics addition lesson. Surprisingly, I also got the opportunity to work individually with a few students in the hallway. This makes me extremely excited for this upcoming year, because I know that I will get a ton of experience through teaching lessons and individual work.

This is a picture of me in my field site classroom.

So far, this year has been extremely different than last year. Last year, since it was my first year, I sat at a table for the first few days to observe the classroom. This year, however, I started working one on one with students the first day that I was there! Almost every day that I go to field sites, I go in the hallway with two or three of my students to assist them. Since I am interning at the same school, and have many of the same students, this year's experience has been similar to last years, however it is different because I am doing an older grade. The students are already so much more mature than last year.

My Plan of Attack

The following blog assignment came from Mrs. Kallas's blog, which you can view here.

Now that school has started, it is time to start thinking of competitions to compete in this year. Last year, I competed in Ethical Dilemma with three of my classmates. We excelled at Region, and competed at the State competition. Though it was great, and I enjoyed doing it with my classmates, I am not going to do that competition this year. Since I have less time in class to work, I am thinking about competing in the Portfolio Contest, and the Scrapbook contest. 

Click here to view a list of all the TAFE competitions.
Click here to visit the Educators Rising website.

Click here to view the guidelines for the Chapter Scrapbook competition.
Click here to view the guidelines for the Portfolio Contest.

   The Portfolio Contest is individual, however the Chapter Scrapbook is a team project. Since we kept up with a portfolio in class last year, I already have mine done and almost ready to go for the TAFE event. I will need to add some extra things on it, but majority of it is complete. On the other hand, my two classmates, Emily Beam and Makaylia Mcdonald, and I are starting to work on Chapter Scrapbook, and more of our classmates will join us in the future. In order to be successful, we will need to use our time wisely in class in order to get the scrapbook done by the date of competition. We will need to work together in order to get the scrapbook to look flattering, and have all of our past events and activities in it. 

Steps to get started on Scrapbook:

1. Agree on a theme (Patriotic)

2. Design an outline/plan for the scrabook

3.Begin creating pages for previous events from last school year

4.Continue to add in pictures and activities from last year before Region

To achieve our goal and finish the scrapbook on time, we only have a couple of months to get it complete. Region Conference is in the first week of November, so we do not have a large amount of time to prepare for contest.

Welcome to the 2016-2017 School Year!

    Last Monday, August 22nd, brought the first day of our 2016-2017 school year. For me, it brought the first day of my last year of high school. 

I am so excited for this upcoming school year, and all of the opportunities it will bring. This year, I will be sure to make the best out of every opportunity and event, because it is my last year with many of my close friends and family. After this year, I will be on the road to college, and one step closer to having my own classroom! As my second year of being an Education and Training Intern, I am so excited for all of the adventures that this year will bring, so follow and join me as I make the most out of my Senior Year! 

2015-2016 End of Year Video

This is the BCTAL Education and Training video for 2015-2016!

Looking Back on 2015-16

This is my end of year animoto video!

 

End of Year Final Exam

Below is my book trailer for the book, The Smartest Kids in the World, by Amanda Ripley.

Book Study, Part 1- The Smartest Kids in the World

This following blog came from Mrs. Stevens' blog prompt, which you can view here.
Click here to listen to an interview with the author, Amanda Ripley.

The Smartest Kids in the World

  While reading the first part of this novel, I found it very interesting to read about education in different countries. Though each country has the common goal of preparing their students for their next big step in life, they have their own way of doing so. So far, I think this is a great novel which helps us understand how different we are from other various cultures around the world.

      Out of the three students, I most relate to Eric. Eric is the graduated senior whom went to study in Korea, and is the only one of the three whom enjoys math. Just like Eric, math is not only my favorite subject, yet it is also my best subject. As I was reading, this grabbed my attention right away. Since I have always loved math, and even sometimes look forward to taking a test because it is "fun", I have never fully understood why some people think math is awful... or even impossible. This immediately connected me to Eric because Kim and Tom both loathe math, yet Eric actually enjoys it. Throughout the novel so far, Eric is very empathetic and positive about his amazing opportunity that he got to travel to Korea. This was very significant to me, because I, too, always try to stay positive and look forward to see what opportunities may arise, even in the scariest of situations.

     After reading about the three schools in the various countries, I was extremely surprised to see how different each and every one of them were. Even though I obviously knew that each school wouldn't have the exact same education system that we do, I was not expecting the dramatic changes that appear when comparing schools in America to those in Finland, Korea, and Poland. Even though each school has it's pros and cons, I think Kim's school in Finland would be the best in the United States. Since schools in Finland stray from using technology, and use classic chalkboards instead, I think the students would be forced to actually pay attention in class, rather than procrastinating on iPads or phones. Also, it is noted in the novel that the teachers are talented, creative, and actually love their jobs. I think this would greatly impact American students because having teachers that are actually excited to teach would encourage students to participate and engage them in learning. Having more satisfied teachers, like those in Finland, would greatly impact the education in America. 

Tech Tools

These are some of the awesome tech tools that my classmates explored!

http://www.livebinders.com/play/play?id=1985434 

Tackk

This blog assignment came from Mrs. Kallas's wiki which you can view here.
Click here to visit the Tackk webpage.
Below is my Tackk that I created to show how to use it, and emphasize the pros of using it in the classroom.

Click here to view a student's school essay made on tackk. This shows how there are easy ways to use it in the classroom. 

Below is an example of a tackk that a teacher made for the last day of school. 

View Tackk full version on Tackk
Create your own customized Tackk page

A Visit to the Perot Museum

This blog assignment came from Mrs. Kallas's blog, which you can view here.

On March 8, 2016, our class took a field trip to the Perot Museum in Dallas, Texas. Below is a prezi that I recently made to present all of the fun exhibits we saw and interacted with.

Creativity Counts!

Click here to view this blog assignment from Mrs. Kallas.
Click here to view Sir Ken Robinson's TED talk.
Click here to view Sir Ken Robinson's website.

Creativity Counts

1. What is Creativity? Creativity is the ability to be imaginative and create original, artistic ideas using your talents.                     
2. Why does Creativity matter in Education? Creativity is important in education because it allows for the students to increase their individual creativity while growing up, rather than destroying it. Without creativity in school, all students would be similar and turn in the same school work, thinking that they are supposed to be the same as others. Instead, students should be taught to be different, independent, and unique.                                   
3. Have you ever been in a situation where you felt as if a teacher didn't let you be creative? Yes, currently in many AP classes in school, we are given projects with multiple requirements. Sometimes, so many requirements where we feel that we can not do anything our own way, because our teacher's idea of the final product is what the requirements say we need to do, not what we want to do. Being an AP student, I've learned that if there is a specific way for something to be done, it needs to be done that way.                
4. Have you ever had a teacher that let you be as creative as possible? Yes! Rather than my last answer, we have also had teachers this year that assign us projects with little requirements. For example, we recently had a "Selfie Project" in AP English. In order to do this project, we had to take extremely creative selfies that argue a certain topic. We could use whatever we wanted to, and take selfies of whatever we wanted to.                                   
5. How do we fix the problem(s) described by Sir Ken Robinson? To fix these problems, the school system should change by getting rid of required courses. The students should have many class options that give them an insight on many occupations. Once they figure out what occupation they may be interested in, they should only be required to take classes needed for that job. For example, I want to grow up and be a kindergarten teacher, so what is the point of forcing me to take Physics and Pre-Cal? That's right, there isn't one. Students should only be required to take courses that benefit their future, and courses that they will need in college. In doing this, students will be more focused in their classes, for it will actually interest them and benefit their futures.

Sir Ken Robinson

My State Teach Tomorrow Summit Highlight

Click here to view this blog assignment on Mrs. Kallas's blog.
Click here to view the TAFE Teach Tomorrow Summit webpage.

    On this past weekend, our state TAFE competitors all travelled to Houston, Texas for the state conference. Out of all the fun activities we did, and all the exciting adventures we went on, my favorite part of the conference was the breakout sessions on Sunday.
   I enjoyed the breakout sessions the most, because not only were there many to choose from, they were all very unique. In the sessions that I went to, we made teacher-created materials, listened to Dave Burgess, and learned about hearing and vision impaired students. This was exciting, for we all got to explore new things, while having fun with it.
    I would definitely, without a doubt, recommend this trip to all my classmates who did not get to participate. It was a great experience to reach deeper into teaching, and to get to listen how to become a better teacher. The whole experience was also exciting, because we got to get closer with our classmates, and meet new students from other TAFE chapters. Overall, our trip to Houston, Texas was an unforgettable time for the books! :)

All smiles during our fun weekend!

Fold it!

Click here to view this blog assignment from Mrs. Kallas

One more/less than...

• These two foldables cover a topic in the Kindergarten TEKS, which includes knowing how to identify one more and one less than a certain number.

Materials needed:

1. Any color (I used green) of printer paper
2. A colored marker (Blue)
3. A yellow highlighter
4. A pen or pencil
5. Scissors

Directions for "One more than...":

1. Crease one of the pieces of paper hot dog style (vertical) leaving an inch of room on the side
2. Fold the paper 
3. Draw 8 even lines across the flap, with about an inch in between each
4. Cut on the lines, but only on that one side of the paper
5. At this point, you should have 9 flaps on the front of your foldable
6. Starting at the top, write one more than (2) on the first flap
7. Behind the flap, write the answer (3)
8. Move down the foldable and repeat steps 6 and 7 for numbers 3-10
9. Highlight the word more on each flap
10. On the extra inch room on the right or left side of the foldable, write the title (One more than...)

Directions for "One less than...":

1. Crease one of the pieces of paper hot dog style (vertical) leaving an inch of room on the side
2. Fold the paper 
3. Draw 8 even lines across the flap, with about an inch in between each
4. Cut on the lines, but only on that one side of the paper
5. At this point, you should have 9 flaps on the front of your foldable
6. Starting at the top, write one less than (2) on the first flap
7. Behind the flap, write the answer (1)
8. Go down the foldable and repeat steps 6 and 7 for numbers 3-10
9. Highlight the word less on each flap
10. On the extra inch room on the right or left side of the foldable, write the title (One less than...)

Instructions for the students:

1. Start with the first flap, read it.
2. Once you have an answer in your head, flip the flap to check it
3. Repeat steps one and two for the rest of the 7 flaps

Knowing this information, the students should be able to easily identify which number is one more than or one less than a certain number. These foldables will help them speed up these concepts, and make it easy for them to practice. These foldables will also help them view the patterns of counting, and how counting is just adding one to each and every number as you go along.