Tessa Swiger

Practicum PreK-4

Mrs. Spudys LS Classroom

3rd Grade ELA

Monday October 23, 2017

1:30-3:30 PM

To begin class today, Mrs. Spudy has continued on with listening to songs

about multiplication while the students participated in singing along. The song

today was about the 10s group. After singing to the song, they took their mad

minute practice, but were given two minutes. Most students finished less than a

minute thirty, which was good! They have been slowly improving. What I thought

was interesting though, was when I was in school they went in order of the times

tables (0, 1,2,3). But now, their curriculum is set up to do the 2s first, then 5s,

then 10s, then go back and learn the 3s and so on. This is because the students

(should) be able to count by twos, fives, and tens already. After, students were then

prompted to get out their activity books. They discussed their weekends, and

answering Mrs. Spudys follow up questions to further expand their conversation.

All four students were present on our side today which was exciting! One student

made a comment about how she was jealous that someone (either brother or peer)

got a cellphone, and she doesnt have one. Mrs. Spudy explained how its okay to be

jealous sometimes, but we must respect our parents wishes. The students

statement was incredible to me because cell phones were not even a thing when I
was in third grade! Its such a part of our everyday life now. The students started a

new unit today. To begin, they looked over pictures from their new story and made

inferences. The discussed if the story was fiction or non-fiction, and what the

difference is. The two words they work on defining are detective and mystery. The

group practiced together the sound ladder. Following this, students worked on their

sound blending and tricky words. Students went through individually and

highlighted words that they either didnt know the definition or how to

read/pronounce it. Then went through the page as a group to practice reading and

blending the words.

While this was going on, the student who was having issues prior on the

other side of the room was continuing negative behaviors (attitude, doodling,

talking back, rolling eyes, not caring). The teacher would continuously tell him to

stop, pay attention, etc. Eventually it was disrupting both side of the room, so Mrs.

Spudy asked student J to come to her. He ignored her. She asked him again to come

there, and he ignored her. She counted back from 3 and he ignored her for the third

time. Mrs. Spudy got up, and dragged his chair with him in it over to the other side

of the room, which he was not expecting. He then continued the attitude by stating

What do you want now? And Mrs. Spudy laid into him. That he was not going to

disrupt the class anymore, and that if he wants to sit and do nothing, he can sit at the

back table and do nothing. No sound, no talking, no rocking in the chair, nothing. He

was huffing and puffing the entire time. She went back to teaching her students, and

throughout would prompt him to not talk, rock the chair, etc. Her learning group

was really struggling with some of the words on their blending page that day. This
took up a majority of the class. Students were struggling with the term fee, stale,

and male. While students were working on the next activity page, I looked after

the group and answered any questions they had while Mrs. Spudy went across the

hallway to the ES teacher to discuss student Js behavior. After returning, the

students opened their story book and began the new unit chapter. This story is

about the Case of the Missing Cards. Mrs. Spudy was prompting questions

throughout the story about the characters, pictures, and text. The students wrapped

up their conversation because it was time to go. Mrs. Spudy went to the other side of

the room to write down the work that Student J had missed out on during class as

well as homework, which she told him he will be doing during recess. He continued

to say how he did not care and would eye roll. After, Mrs. Spudy took student J over

across the hall to the ES teacher and explained the situation.

When she left the room, I asked Mrs. Newingham what was going on with

him, because I had noticed behaviors in prior weeks. She told me how there a few

things going on, one of which was his parent telling him that they have cancer.

Student Js parents had died of an overdose when he was very young. So, he now

lives with his aunt, who he refers to as mom. There also might be an imbalance in

his meds that could be causing some of the issues as well.

Now, I know I am not there every day, and do not have the rapport that these

teachers do with these students. His teacher told me how last year he was the start

student, and now its a total three hundred an sixty degree turn. And how I thought

hed be upset for a day or two, but this has gone on long enough and hes using it as

an excuse to bed bad. I am twenty five years old with a parent who was diagnosed
with cancer about a year ago, and I still havent been able to fully accept the fact. To

expect that a child, whos in third grade, who has lost both of his parents already,

and who already struggles immensely with emotional support issues, can just get

over it in one to two days, is totally unbelievable. However, I am an outsider and

do not get to see him as often on a daily basis as the teachers do. I know my mom

would say some upsetting things on a daily basis in regards to her diagnosis, so who

knows what is being said at home, that could be contributing to this behavior he is

exhibiting. It seems that the teachers are trying to correct this bad behavior, without

getting to the root as to why it is happening in the first place. Its like if there was a

leak in the pipe, and to fix it someone just puts towels down instead of fixing the

source of the leak. Not that this problem can be fixed, but help to teach coping

strategies, how to manage things he does have control over (such as school work),

and different ways to help him. With teaching, although there is a focus in

academics, there needs to be an equal focus on the person, their development, and

their overall skills. And this is not only issues that special education students see,

but general ed as well. It will be interesting to see how this issue becomes resolved,

if ever.

After that discussion, Mrs. Spudy showed me a writing activity that student E

(who misses Mondays a lot) did. There were lots of words spelled wrong,

punctuation in the wrong places, and no capital letters. This was a Rebus writing

that she had completed in workshop class (done by the homeroom teacher). She

also asked me if I had ever heard of the acronym KUD. Apparently, teachers are

doing away with learning targets, and using KUDs in their rooms. This stands for
Knowledge, Understanding, and Doing. Mrs. Spudy had never heard of it, which is

why she was asking me, but apparently when administration came to observe they

asked where the classrooms KUD was at. So this might possibly be a new buzz word

we hear in schools, and Im interested to see if this happens in any other classrooms.

She said how this was a thing that they were doing in the high and middle schools.