Final Post

I would like to thank Orchard Elementary in Orem and more specifically Mrs. Tew for giving me this experience and helping me through the stress and joy of working with students every day. When I asked to do my service learning there they asked me all kinds of questions to get to know me better and place me with a teacher and class that would best fit me and what I was looking to get out of the experience. I would recommend doing your first service-learning experience at Orchard to anyone who asks me.  They did their best to help me with the experience and show me what I would be getting myself into if I decided to continue with this career.This semester has been like nothing else I have ever experienced. The COVID-19 situation changed the way we teach children for the time being and showed the work that teachers put into their work.  As I participated in service-learning I was able to spend time with students not only in a positive setting but in a stressful one as well. Teaching isn't all sunshine and rainbows there will always be situations that don't go exactly as you planned and service-learning taught me that being able to deal with those changes is the hardest and most important part of teaching. Before I took this class I already knew that I wanted to be a teacher but seeing what it takes to be one made me want it even more. I miss service learning and being with students every day and I had planned to continue working in the classroom even after my service learning was over but unfortunately, COVID-19 made that impossible. I have been very lucky to be accepted into the elementary education program next fall. The program itself is only two years long which in the scheme of things isn't that long. But it's too long for me to wait so I've come up with a plan. I decided to be placed in the 3pm cohort so that I can work at a school even though I will not be a teacher yet I still want to work with students every day.

Blog Post 8

• Are you making connections between course topics and Service Learning?  

Yes and no, I am learning a lot form service learning but I don't see many connections between this class and my service learning unless I am looking very hard.

• Have you been able to articulate your own learning and understanding?   

Yes, I feel like I have learned a lot about classroom management and creative ways to teach the same topic.

• Is the process of blogging helping you to think and notice things in your Service Learning?  

Yes because it forces me to look hard for connections between my service-learning and this class.

• In what areas do you see growth or learning from the first blog post to the last?  

I think that I have gotten to know my students much better so I can relax much more and just focus on learning to be a good teacher for them.

Blog post 7

When I am in the classroom the students are working on their reading and writing skills. Specifically, I have noticed the students working well on Reading: Foundation Skills Standard 2. This standard works specifically with demonstrating an understanding of spoken words. The students use their poetry journals to find words that follow certain rules. They find words that contain long or short vowel sounds and words with a certain number of syllables.

I know that their teacher addresses many of the core standards but since dI am not there when they are done I can't say what they are or how she teaches them. When I have talked to her about standards and more specifically standardized testing she has various opinions. She likes that having state core standard keeps students on track and help eliminate the risk of students falling behind. That being said she does not believe that standardized tests should be given to the younger students because it puts to much pressure on them.

#6

My service-learning classroom doesn't have a ton of diversity. The class is predominantly white with only one child of color and as for as I know none of the children have any disabilities. 

Blog Post 5

Brown v. Board of Education was a landmark decision of the U.S. Supreme Court where it was ruled that U.S. state laws establishing racial segregation in public schools are unconstitutional, even if the segregated schools are otherwise equal in quality. The schools, however, were rarely equal. Colored schools were often held in cold damp basements with hand me down outdated school books from their white only counterparts. Thankfully now of days, all schools are integrated and everyone in that school has the same opportunity to learn regardless of the color of their skin.

The classroom that I am doing my service learning in is predominantly white but there are a few children of color. I luckily don't know how their education would have been different if this law was not passed but I do know that their social relationships would be. Beliefs and friendships start young, separating children only instills the idea that being different is a bad thing.

Engaged Learning

Engaged learning is the process in which students actively participate in their learning. This allows students to participate in real-life activities through collaboration, exploration, and discovery with peers. Some of the easiest ways to incorporate engaged learning are through the Five P’s: proactivity, participation, playfulness, patience, and passion. Proactivity deals with students seeking help when they need it and independently seeking extensions to their learning. Participation can simply be shown as students raising their hands and getting involved in dissuasions. Students can be playful as an engaged learning tactic by laughing in a friendly way and being eager to get involved in the class’s creative projects. Students can show patience in the classroom by being more willing to endure any transient boredom or slow progress and have a general vibe of an engaged class. Finally, one way to encourage engaged learning in the classroom is through passion, when teachers show genuine enthusiasm and a joy for the subject or activity the students will do the same.

In my service learning classroom, the teacher utilizes proactivity, passion, and patience the most. The students have a routine that they follow and are responsible for knowing when to move on to the next task. This is an example of proactivity in the classroom because they have control of their tasks and are encouraged to ask for help if they need it. I help in the classroom during the reading and writing portion of the class. Every student works at their own pace which means that there will be some students that finish with a good amount of time left in class which is where the patience comes in. Instead of complaining about being bored the students patiently wait for either the teacher or one of the aids to check off their work and tell them what their options are for free time.  The most important of the five P's to me is passion and this teacher agrees. During this period of the day, the teacher does the activity right along with the students showing that reading and writing are important and she isn't just asking them to do something that she wouldn't do herself.

Choices and Routines in the Classroom

One of the most important things that you can do in a classroom is to set up a routine. When routines and procedures are carefully established in the classroom, students know what’s expected of them and how to do certain things on their own. Having these predictable patterns in place allows teachers to spend more time creating connections with the students and having productive instructional time. The teacher that I do my service learning with knows this and does her best to give her students a routine that they can follow by having the class schedule posted in the classroom, setting timmers so students know when to move on to the next task, and clearly stating what she wants to be done during the time allotted. Because she does this the students know they have a certain period to get their work done which helps keep them on task. She also doesn't change what order in the day each subject is taught which gives the students reliability. 

I have been able to help in the classroom during the reading and writing portion of the class. During this time students are given the choice to start with reading or writing and then switch halfway through the allotted time. As an adult choosing what subject to start with first doesn't seem like that big of a deal but as a student whose entire day is planned for them, this gives them a sense of power. To much power can go to their heads however and occasionally they may act out. Instead of bringing attention to bad behavior this teacher points out the good behavior she sees in the class which from what I've seen compels the misbehaving students to be good.

Connectivism in the classroom

There are many ways to learn and even more ways to teach the trick is finding a way to teach that accommodated all of your student's learning styles. The teacher that I am doing my service learning under has found a way to do just that. Recently I have been able to help during the students reading and writing portion of the day where the teacher is using the learning theory connectivism as a teaching strategy.
Connectivism is based upon the idea that people process information by forming connections. Connectivism suggests that people no longer stop learning after formal education, they continue to gain knowledge from other avenues especially access to information with new tools in technology.

Although the students do use technology during this class time (they use a program called Lexia) that's not what I found so interesting. This teacher used street signs to help with sight words and identifying sight words. For example, seeing the word Hospital and connecting that with the picture on the street sign helped the students to remember the word and aided them in spelling it.

Week One

Service-learning is a way of learning which occurs through action and reflection. As students serve, they can achieve real objectives for their community and a deeper understanding and skills for themselves. In the case of this class serving in an elementary school like the one, we are hoping to teach in gives us a unique perspective on educating and help us determine if this truly is the career we want to pursue.

I’ve chosen to do my service learning at Orchard Elementary here in Orem. Orchard is stock full of student programs like ballroom dancing, science programs, and both Spanish and mandarin dual immersion classroom. The students I will be working with are part of the Spanish immersion program, but I will be working with them only in their English classroom. The needs of the students are the school’s main priority and although Utah does not require teachers to be fully certified Orchard element’s teachers are all certified ensuring the best education possible. The school is what I would call averaged sized for an elementary school. The student to teacher ratio is 24 to 1 which is consistent with the 23 to 1 state average. The neighborhood surrounding Orchard has a lot of different dynamics the homes very between what I would call average and large, and just down the block from the school is a large business complex. The students and their families come from all social classes but more along the lines of middle to upper-middle-class families.