Fall 2012 Teacher Cadets: 2012

Friday was a very busy day. We came in the classroom and our lifeline projects were due. All of our projects looked excellent. I was really excited to see what everyone came up with. Then after a little while the bus came and picked us up and to Coker College we went. We had a great day at Coker. It was so fun to experience what college would actually be like. My favorite part of the day was eating lunch. We all had a blast at luch together and got taste college food. It was really good. I also enjoyed the tour of the school. It was cool to get to see the school from an actual student. We spent the whole day at Coker. We also got to ask college students questions and they would answer them. We learned a lot at Coker and it was a very good experience for all of us. We also got free stuff that had coker on it which was cool. We all had a good day together Friday.

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Lesson Plans and Lifelines

Today in class, we worked on our lessons plans. Some of the class were either finishing up with the assignments to go with the plans or were finished and printing the sheets to give to Mrs. Sutusky. Mrs. Sutusky also reminded everyone about our lifelines and what all we needed for it to be complete and about the field trip tomorrow. She told us to wear our Teacher Cadet shirts we made earlier this year. If we were finished on our lesson plans, we were allowed to work on our lifelines until the end of class.

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Halloween Party!

Class started a little different this morning. After the announcements, we began SSR, unfortunately we didn't get a chance to do our pot notes. Since today is Halloween the teacher cadet students brought in chips, drinks, sweets and other goodies, we had our own little party. While we were enjoying the party some students were in the process of completing their lesson plans that are due Thursday, other students were working on their Lifeline projects.

Monday, October 29, 2012

Lesson Plans Cont.

Today we first had SSR and then did pot notes. After that we worked on lesson plans. Everybody was working great and are trying to fhinsh their lesson plans. We have been working on lesson plans for a couple days and everybody has made good progress. The class was very quite and working hard. Mrs. Sutusky was out again today and the class misses her so much. We are glad she is coming back tomorrow.

Friday, October 26, 2012

Lesson Plans & Lifelines

Mrs. Sutusky is still at her Teacher Cadet conference so we had another substitute. We worked on our lesson plans and our lifeline projects and we also were able to watch Friday Night Lights while we worked. At first I dreaded having to write out a dialouge for our process section, but then I realized it will really help out once we go into our placements. I'm also finished with mine and then I have to work on my lifeline project. We all can't wait until Mrs. Sutusky comes back!

Thursday, October 25, 2012

Sub day

Today we had a sub, Coach Cash. We read our SSR books and then we wrote our pot notes. Then we had a choice to work on our lesson plans or we could watch the movie 8 below. It was a very fun class but we missed Mrs. Sutusky really bad!

Lesson Plans

We did lesson plans yesterday, we are getting closer and closer to completing them. I feel as if we are learning how to really teach in this exercise. This in my mind is the real transition from student to teacher. We work on these for most of the class after we did our SSR time.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Lesson Plans

Today in class we began our lesson plans which are not as bad as i expected them to be. So far it has been going well just a little challenging with scripting out every little thing. I am beginning to feel more like a teacher , having my own lesson plans. I cannot wait to get finished with these lesson plans because then we go into our placements and that is going to be great. I am going into the first grade and it is going to be so much fun working with the little kids and helping them through school.

Tuesday, October 23, 2012

What's Behind the Behavior?

Today was just like every other day we started out with our 10 minutes of SSR, and then wrote our pot notes. After writing our pot notes, Mrs. Sutusky told us what we would be doing in class. We would be working in groups on a worksheet called "What's Behind the Behavior? Strategies for Common Classroom Characters." I was partnered up with Brandon, and Courtney for this assignment. For this activity we were to read a scenario that was taped to the outside of a folder. Once we read that scenario, as a group we had to discuss possible reasons for that type of behavior. After discussing with my group, we then could open up the folder and compare our answers with the worksheet provided. I really liked this activity, it let me understand the types of behaviors that may be in my placement.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Finishing Up Classroom Procedures Plan

Today we started out by silent reading. Then after that we did our pot notes like every other day. No one had finished all the classroom procedure word document, so Mrs. Sutusky allowed all of us to finish. It was a lot of work. We had a very productive day. It took the rest of that class to finish the work. Then when we all got done we had to email our work to Mrs. Sutusky. She also gave us a packet with questions about classroom rules and procedures that we had to answer and turn in.

Friday, October 19, 2012

Classroom Procedures

Like usual, we started class by silent reading. Most of us are done with the book A Child Called "It" and some are getting close to being done. The book is amazing. I recommend this book to anyone. After the silent bell rang we got out our pot notes and wrote to our classmates. Then Mrs. Sutusky started the classroom procedures lesson. She explained to us how rules and procedures are different from one another. She told us to remember that rules have consequences and procedures don't. Then after she explained it all to us we had to pretend like we were teachers and make up five class rules that we would obtain in our classrooms. We had to make a flyer and decorate it with our rules on it. We also had to make a document and it was rules and consequences. We had to use those five rules and explain how we would teach our students the rule and then list three consequences if the student chooses not to obey. After that she gave us a work sheet wth twenty-two procedures on it and we had to explain in a word document how we would do cartian things in our class. For example one procedure was " students signal for teachers help" and i said that in my classroom if a student needs help that they can quietly raise their hand and i will be there to assist them as soon as possible. We had a very productive day. It was a lot of work but we all worked hard and got it done.

Thursday, October 18, 2012

Assessment

At the beginning of Teacher Cadet, we played a huge review game. We reviewed everyting we have studied thus far in the semester. We had to categorize everything into specific topics. Today we learned about the different forms of assessment. There are two types of assessment which include formative and summative. Formative assessments include quizzes, class discussions, homework ect. Summative assessments include standardized tests, unit tests, unit projects, ect. In this lesson, we learned about how certain things can make an assignment and/or test difficult by putting true/false mixed in with short answer and such. We even took a "Test on Testing" and had to identify the errors in the assessment. I really enjoyed this lesson.

Mid Term Review Game

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Bloom's Taxonomy, Lecture, and Technology

Like always we had our daily SSR and wrote our pot notes before class began. We had a jam packed class today, but learned a lot. Once class started, we got straight to work learning about Bloom's Taxonomy. There are six levels of Bloom's Taxonomy which include: knowledge, comprehension, application, analysis, synthesis, and evaluation. This lesson taught me new ways to question my students once I go into my placement. I learned that questions should become more challenging throughout the lesson. We also discussed techniques for effective lecturing. Then we learned about how to include technology in our lessons when we go to our placements. We also discussed the positives and negatives about technology. The most important thing we learned today is "always have a back-up plan." I think this was a very wonderful lesson.

Board activity for effective and ineffective lecturing techniques

Creating Bloom's Taxonomy questions

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

FFA day

Today in Teacher Cadet, we started out with our normal ten minutes of SSR. After we read, we wrote pot notes. Shortly after there was an announcement for all FFA students going to the fair to report to the designated area. Teacher Cadet is already a small class of twelve students, so today in class there was only Murshay, Parker, TJ, Brandon, Mrs. Sutusky, and I. We had several students absent for the FFA field trip. We finished watching Remember the Titans, and then discussed the struggles teachers faced during segregation. I love this movie.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Remember the Titans

Today we did the normal stuff, wrote "pot notes" and read for ten minutes during SSR, that we do every morning. After that, we started watching the movie Remember the Titans to evaluate struggles in the classroom. We were able to easily make the connection with segregation from our previous lessons in Teacher Cadet. We didn't get to finish all of the movie, but we will have time to finish the last bit tomorrow.

Friday, October 12, 2012

Happy Homecoming

This week has been extremely hectic because it is homecoming week. It was Spirit Week and of course Mrs. Sutusky was extra peppy. For most of us seniors, we were a little sad knowing that that is our last Spirit Week, but we all sucked it up and went thorough the day like normal. We started off the day with SSR and then pot notes. I am going to miss pot notes when we go to our placements. It has become a huge part of my day. Our lesson was about different instructional strategies. We also discussed the advantages and disadvantages of Methodologies. Methodologies are groups, questioning strategies, lecture, technology, games, worksheets, textbooks, and inquiry lesson. For the activity, Mrs. Sutusky broke us up into groups and gave us a puzzle. We could not talk as we were putting together the puzzle. I never knew how hard it was to put together a puzzle with two boys without talking. Josh really wanted to finish the puzzle so after we finished the lesson Mrs. Sutusky let him. Because of this lesson I feel prepared for my placement at MTP Elementary School.

The girls putting together their puzzle

Working on their puzzle

Keri, Veta, and Brittany with their completed puzzle

Working hard on their puzzle

Thursday, October 11, 2012

Check out this link

Here is a link Dr. Morgan's blog about Tuesday's visit.

http://kcsdblog.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/nchs-teacher-cadets-4/

Poem Assignment

After reading this poem, please answer the question below. After you have responded, please comment on two other posts by your classmates.

When you thought I wasn't looking by Mary Rita Schilke Korzan

When you thought I wasn't looking, you displayed my first report, and I wanted to do another.

When you thought I wasn't looking, you fed a stray cat, and I thought it was good to be nice to animals.

When you thought I wasn't looking, you gave me a sticker, and I knew that little things were special things.

When you thought I wasn't looking, you put your arm around me, and I felt loved.

When you thought I wasn't looking, I saw tears come from your eyes, and I learned that sometimes things hurt - but that it is ok to cry.

When you thought I wasn't looking, you smiled, and it made me want to look that pretty too.

When you thought I wasn't looking, you cared, to say thanks for all those things you did when you thought I wasn't looking.

1. Teachers make a difference when they think no one is looking. Is this true in your school?

Catch Up Day

Today in Teacher Cadet, Mrs. Sutusky allowed us to get caught up on our work. We have been extremely busy lately. I am so thankful she gave us the day to work on our assignments. Everyone worked quietly and barely anyone talked. I am excited to begin instructional methods tomorrow.

Wednesday, October 10, 2012

Q & A with Dr. Morgan

Today in Teacher Cadet, Dr. Morgan Superintendent of Kershaw County, came to visit us. The whole class created questions to ask him. When he came in, he told us everything about his job and what he does every day. He has a very busy schedule. He had an excellent answer for every question we asked. We asked him things like "what do you think about building an elementary school near the middle and high school," and he thought that was an excellent question because he would love for that to happen in the future. Dr. Morgan also had questions for us. He asked us what we thought about observing all of the students, and what surprised us the most. For me, it was how the students behaviors vary throughout the schools. He also gave us advice. Dr. Morgan told us that when being a teacher expect the unexpected.

Dr. Morgan speaking with the Teacher Cadets

Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Debate

Today we started class by doing our pot notes. In class we decided to do a debate over several issues and topics in education. There was a disagree and an agree sice. Whichever side we chose we had to defend ourselves and give an explanation of why we chose that side. There were twenty five topics that varied from religion in school to school policies. Some topics went into a deep discussion like students getting involved with school policies being enforced or being excused of an assignment because of your religion. The debate was pretty good as we got to see our views on certain topics that people talk about daily in our area and district.

Monday, October 8, 2012

Questions for Dr. Morgan

We started the day as usual by writing "pot notes." We finally got to present our elementary school projects. I think everyone did a great job. After the presentations, Mrs. Sutusky told everybody that Dr. Morgan would be coming on Wednesday for a Question and Answer session. Everybody got on their laptops and went to the school district website. The objective was for everybody to read and look at different things that were on the website; things like his blog. After reading topics that were discussed on the website and things that were happening at school, students were to type at least five questions to ask Dr. Morgan when he comes on Wednesday. Mrs. Sutsuky also directed us to research current state wide issues going on in the education world today. The majority of the students had questions about the freshmen having iPads. The other questions were about the school rules and policies. I think that Dr. Morgan will enjoy some of the questions that we came up with. I cannot wait for Wednesday to see what his responses are.

Sunshine Elementary School

Kershaw Private School

North Central Elementary School

Tall Oaks Elementary School

Friday, October 5, 2012

The History of Education

Today in Teacher Cadet, we started the day off in the normal by reading "A child called IT." After that we jumped straight to the lesson, the History of Education. We learned all about how education got its start and different ways it has changed over time. We viewed back on "Plessy vs. Ferrgusson" and "Brown vs. Board of Education" which had many factors to the change in education. The overall of the lesson was good, it broadened the idea of education to us and helped us understand where things all began. We also did a who decides activity which ask us questions and we have to answer in a who decides manner, like "who decides if we come to school on snow days?" and we would answer "the district." We also watched clips from "Remember the Titans" showing education in the movie. At the end of class we got a few minutes to ourselves to work on other things or projects.

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Development

Yesterday, on October 3rd we started class with our daily SSR and pot notes. Instead of reading "A Child Called It" we read an article about the novel "The Hurried Child". When SSR was over, as a class we discussed what the reading passage was about and our opinions on the topic. Then we watched a video called "Teens and what makes them tick" which I thought was pretty interesting. The video explained why teenagers and adults act so differently and interviewed several teens who had issues with their parents. The video was long so we had to stop it before class was over, but I think it kept everyone's attention.

Wednesday, October 3, 2012

Movie/Project Day

Today, first we read for SSR and then our pot notes. We watched "Teens Whats Make Them Tick" and it was very interesting on what some teens act like. While we were watching the video, we have questions to answer that goes along with the video. As some students watch the video they answered the questions as they watched the video. We watched the movie for half of the class. After the video we worked on our elementary school projects. My groups elementary school is named Tall Oaks Elementary. We drew a big oak tree in the middle of our poster board.

Tuesday, October 2, 2012

Continued Elementary School Projects

Today in class we did like we normally do, we read for 10 minutes for SSR. Then we wrote our pot notes to each other. After that we worked on our Elementary projects. In my group it's Jill, Veta and I. Our school is called Tall Oak Elementary School. We traced the tree for our symbol in the middle of our poster today. We aslo put glitter on it and made it fabulous!

Monday, October 1, 2012

Elementary School Assignment Continued

At the beginning of class today we did our SSR like every day. We continue to read A Child Called It which is a good book just very sad. After SSR we did our daily pot notes for our fellow classmates. After we finished our pot notes we continued to work on our elementary school projects with our groups. Today our group got the majority of everything finished, although creating the schedule was a difficult task. We have the layout of our classes and our hallways but we still have to create the playground for our students. Overall this project is going along very well at the moment and hopefully it will continue to. I am anxious to see how the finished product is going to look.

Friday, September 28, 2012

Elementary School Assignment

Today in Teacher Cadet we read for 10 minutes during SSR, and after wrote our pot notes. Then, Mrs. Sutusky passed out random numbers to put us into groups. I was put into a group with Amanda and Murshay. Our project is to create our own elementary school. So far we came up with our name "Sunshine Elementary", and our mascot is the turtle. While I was working on the layout for our school, Murshay and Amanda worked on our schedule for the day. We decided to go with a round school to fit in with our name. We also have to create a 3D model of our classrooms, along with a oral presentation. I believe our project will turn out really good, and iIm excited to get the ball rolling.

Keri and Jill working on their project

Brittany and Amanda working on their project

Thursday, September 27, 2012

Mini Lesson Presentation

Today in class we did SSR as normal then did our daily "pot notes". Afterwards we got about 15 minutes to get ourselves ready and situated to teach our classmates about our lessons. My group--Amanda, Courtney, and I--lesson was about Physical Development and we were first. We did our presentation in the form of a Prezi and it went well at first, but then we had technical difficulties with videos. Then everyone else had the same problems with their videos (the interent was being so slowwww!). The last thing we had were activites to go along with our lessons and some of them are kinda hard. The other lessons that we learned about were, Stages of Cognitive Development/ Cognitive Development According to Jean Piaget, Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development, and Erikson's Psychosocial Development Theory/Lev Vygotsky's Social Cognitive Development. All the lessons were interesting and done well.

Veta, Keri, and Josh presenting their mini lesson

Murshay and Amanda presenting their mini lesson

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Mini-Lessons

Today was a calm day. Some students read the book, "A Child Called It" while others talked quietly. After the bell rang we did our "pot notes". When we got back to our seats, Mrs. Sutusky told us to break into our groups to work on out Mini-Lessons. My group is me, Murshay and Courtney. We have to make a presentation on Physical Development. So far, all the groups are done with their presentations and are looking for a video to represent their topic.

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Still working on mini lessons

Today in Teacher Cadet, we got our test grades from last week's SPED test. The grades were pretty good, but I know that I could have done better on the test. We worked on our mini lessons all class period and thankfully we got a lot of work completed. The class worked extremely hard on their group mini lessons, nobody talked, and most importantly everybody took it seriously. Mrs. Sutusky told us to study our lessons, so when we teach the class we won't have to look at our PowerPoint. It is important to keep all eyes on the class during instruction so students are always fully engaged. This is going to be a great practice for us.

Jill, Brittany, and Parker preparing for their mini lesson

Monday, September 24, 2012

Mini Lessons

Today in class, we had our ten minutes of reading. We are reading “A Child Called It” as a class. Everyone seems to really be enjoying the book. Then after the bell rang we wrote our pot notes to one another. Pot notes are very good self-esteem boosters. We all love receiving nice notes about ourselves from our classmates. Then we all had to fill out an observation sheet about what we observed Friday when we went to different schools. Our class went to an elementary, middle, and high school. We had to discuss the differences and between schools and answer the question "When do kids begin to lose interest in school." We all had a discussion about what we thought. It was very interesting hearing what others had to say.

We continued working on our mini lessons in our groups. Each group has to make a PowerPoint on what they are teaching and a video that goes along with it. We also have to include an activity for the class to complete. They are due Thursday, and we have to teach the class about different stages of development. I’m excited about teaching the class because it’s going to help me learn how to be a teacher. It will also help me get experience before I have to go into an actual classroom and teach alone.

Amanda, Courtney, and Murshay working on their mini lesson

Friday, September 21, 2012

Field Trip

On Friday, our class went on a field trip to several locations. Our first location was Mt. Pisgah Elementary. We split up into groups and went to different classrooms with different age groups. We helped and examined the teachers in their classrooms to see what they go through on a daily basis. After going to all the classrooms, we went to Camden Elementary School to see the severe special education students around the county. We split up into three groups between the self contained, autistic, and disabled classes. Our group started with the disabled class. We had to help them paint a drawing using different things such as paint mixed with grits or flour. The students reacted well to their senses and they enjoyed paining. It was an amazing experience to be able to help them.

We then went to the self contained classroom. A little girl with Edward's Syndrom immediatly approached me and gave me a hug. She stuck to me and I pushed her on the swing and sat with her. She enjoyed me and I enjoyed her. This was my favorite part of the trip. After that we went to the last class with the autistic children. It was an amazing experience for us to see them in their learning environment and how the teachers treat them as if they are their own kids. They love their job and even encouraged us to take the same road as them. We went to Sonic for lunch after leaving the Camden Elementary.

After lunch, we went to North Central Middle School to observe the 8th graders. We went to Mrs. Kahler's class, Mrs. Mathis' class, Mrs. Peake's class, and Mr. Leninger's class and watched them teach their lessons. We saw the different types of ways they teach whether it was interaction or simply relating their lessons to everyday life topics. After visiting the middle school, we went on to the high school. We visited Coach Deese's class, Mrs. Clinton's class, Mrs. Mitha's class, and Mrs. McGee's class. They teach freshman classes. It was amazing experience for us to see the differences in the age groups as everything changed from the way the teacher taught to the way the classroom was setup. I enjoyed the field trip and I think everyone in my class can agree.

Please enjoy our pictures from the Observation Day.