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Week 7: Beyond Basic Literacy

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  Hi all!   After reviewing the materials from this week, I see so many ways that my mentor teacher implements them into her classroom!   My 1st graders have been working on opinion writing about space for the past week, and we noticed that in their writing and explanations they were making-up things rather than providing details that they learned from the text. For example, one student wrote that “They did not want to go to the moon because they could fall off the moon and never come back” - which are two things that are false and were not read to them in the story or incorporated in our discussion. For the second half of the week, we tried to emphasize that students would need to use reasons to support their opinions that were directly related in the text. To say this in a kid-friendly way, before reading each of the texts I would tell students the prompt that they would be responding to (do you want to be an astronaut, do you want to go to the moon, etc.). and tell the...

Week 6: Disciplinary Literacy

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  Lesson Objective: I can use the conjunction because and past tense verbs to describe weather patterns  Overview: This week, students finished up their unit on the weather. These lessons were taught during our English language Development block and students learned about different weather patterns while developing their english language proficiency skills. In the 1st grade classroom that I am a student teaching in, there are 4 students who are English language learners. Throughout this unit, I saw their ability to use past, present, and future tense verbs in verbal language expand. This lesson was the concluding lesson of the unit where we reviewed some of the weather patterns that we learned about and used past and present tense verbs to describe the weather.  Due to the fact that this is a 1st grade classroom, students were given broad explanations of weather patterns. Their primary job was to use proper language forms when describing what people were wearing and doing...

Week 5: Active Learning

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It was such a fun week in first grade social studies! This week, we concluded our unit on families near and far with a cumulative project where students had to propose an idea that would help solve a problem within our school community. This project was adapted from the InquirEd curriculum. The inquiry question for the unit was “how can we bring families together to form stronger communities”. For my group of students, it made the most sense for us  to concentrate on solving a problem within our school community- so this is what we did. Students used the knowledge that they have obtained throughout the unit to create a project that reflected their knowledge on how to take informed action within a community.  Ultimately, this project was a service learning experience. A service learning experience “focuses on student learning a process for activism in the community,” which students did through conducting this project. This type of learning “engages students in problem based lea...

Week 4: Inclusive Planning and Instruction

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  As I reflect on the content that was provided, I can see how my mentor teacher incorporates the UDL framework into her lessons daily. According to the IRIS Center (2024), The Universal Design for Learning model is “a lens through which educators design instruction that allows students a variety of ways to access content, engage with instruction, and demonstrate their learning”. Through this model, students are provided the necessary materials through multiple modalities and the way in which they show their knowledge of the subject is differentiated based on their various needs. Most importantly, this framework takes away barriers in the learning process and makes the content more accessible to all students.  In the 1st grade classroom that I am currently a student teaching in, I see this framework in action daily. Through this blog post, I will be concentrating on a writing lesson that I taught this week.  Learning objective:  This objective was explicitly stated t...

Week 3: Jan. 29th - Feb. 2nd

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This week in the 1st grade classroom that I am student teaching in, we continued our unit on "Families Near and Far" using the InquirEd curriculum. The lesson that I my mentor teacher instruct was on 'working together' and how working together can help solve problems within a community to improve it. This lesson directly related to Colorado State Standard SS1.S4.GLE1. It related back to the Colorado essential skill "recognize how members of a community rely on each other, considering personal contributions as applicable" (Colorado Department of Education, 2020). After reviewing the Colorado state standards, Common Core standards, and watching the lesson in action- it was evident that these skills were being taught.  She started off the lesson by activating students background knowledge by talking about the lesson that they had the day prior, where they discussed a conflict that was in the community and how it was solved. She defined the word conflict for stu...

Week 2 : January 22nd - January 25th

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This past week, the students in the 1st grade classroom where I am completing my practicum continued their unit on “Families Near and Far”. The inquiry question of this unit is: How can we bring families together to form stronger communities? Through each module and sub-less, students explore this idea through a different lens to help them further understand the inquiry question of the unit.  This week, we are in module 5 and students explored the question of “ What does diversity bring to our communities? ” Through this module's content, students explore how our differences- in terms of family structures, traditions, cultures, and backgrounds- add value to our communities.  Hence, in the lesson I had the opportunity to teach this week, ‘what diversity brings to our communities’ was the compelling question that we were focusing on to help students further understand the focus of this unit.  To start the lesson, students were shown different types of bread around the worl...

Introduction

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 Hi Everyone!  My name is Hannah Moross and I am earning my masters in elementary education from Regis University! Last year, I served as a student success coach through City Year Denver,  and my experience through that program motivated me to be a teacher. I come from a privileged educational background, and realizing the inequities that exist in our current education system inspired me to pursue a masters in elementary education, so I could best serve my future students.  Throughout this course, there are many things that I hope to gain so I can grow as an educator. I really want to work on identifying standards and creating lesson objectives that match those standards- this will help me teach any subject and a skill that I will hold with me throughout my career as a teacher. Another aspect that I hope to gain from this class is how to create inclusive science and social studies lessons that can meet all students needs, while keeping them engaged in the content. I ...