First Week in Washington Complete!

Week five of classes was a very exciting week. I got to visit Washington Elementary for an hour on Monday and four hours on Tuesday. Monday I was in a 5th grade classroom and only observed for the first week. However, Tuesday I was in a second grade classroom and was thrown right in to help.
     Tuesday was the most experience I have ever had in a classroom working with students, and it was awesome. I first gave a ORF test to students, which is an oral fluency test. The students had one minute to read as many words as possible. We as the teachers had to mark off how many words they got in total, and how many they said incorrectly. The students then had a minute to retell the story to evaluate if they actually understood what they read. We then graded them on their retell. This was great practice for when I actually have to give my own students these types of tests. In class when we have talked about DIBLES and other tests I will have to give my students, I have been nervous that I would have a hard time with that. I have now learned it was very easy and the kids cooperate very well. I will now be more relaxed going into my future classroom when I have to give oral tests.
   After giving them the test, Colleen and I graded papers they had completed. They read a story and then they had five different boxes to fill out. Some of the questions were "what was the problem in the story? How did the girl fix the problem? Draw pictures of what happened in the beginning, middle and end of the story." For the most part the students got those correct, but the last question asked, only one student out of 19 answered it correctly. The question was "What was the authors purpose of the story?" It was clear that the students did not understand what the question meant or how to find the authors purpose because 18 students got it wrong. I told our clinical teacher that they all got it wrong and she said that it is a concept she was going to have to go back and reteach. She did not blame it on her students or make up excuses, but she was following NC teacher standard five which is teachers analyze student learning. By grading the papers she realized that she would have to go back and explain it a different way. She had collected and analyzed student performance data so that should could then improve her effectiveness of teaching. The first week in Washington was definitely successful and I have already learned a lot. I am so excited that we get to continue going to Washington twice a week for the rest of the semester.
  To continue on with my outside research this week, I have researched about the website called Wonderopolis. Caroline told me that her clinical teacher uses it in her class and they have a "wonder of the day". I have explored the website and think it is a resource that will be beneficial in my future classroom. I would also like to do a wonder of the day. I will let my students take turns with something that they are wondering so they can have their question answered. There are also other students wonders on there that anyone can look at. The website is colorful and welcoming so I think it would be a fun way for students to learn and to see what questions other students also have. This is the website if anyone wants to check it out!
http://wonderopolis.org/wonders?order_by=recent