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Group Work

Group work!!! Working with a group of people has been so helpful as I have done my Arts Bridge visits. In my particular classroom, there are 16 fifth graders and 16 sixth graders. Sheri Davis, the teacher, has been given the challenge to teach both 5th and 6th grade curriculum at once. This is a tricky task, but she handles it creatively. As I observed her classroom before teaching I noticed that one tactic she used was group work. She split the students up and let them work together as groups while she circled the classroom and instructed where needed. The students were mature and responded well. I knew in that moment that I needed to incorporate group work into all of my lessons. So far it has worked like a charm. Last week we worked on fractions in my lesson. In the end of the lesson I split the students up into 2 groups and gave each a "fraction dance". The "fraction dance" was a piece of paper with a list of various instructions that they had to follow. All
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Mentor Visits

During my last couple of visits to Pony Express Elementary my mentor, Karen Jensen, came to observe. Afterwards she gave me some feedback about my teaching. I was so grateful to have an outside pair of eyes watching as I taught. I realized that even in the moments when I felt that I had done a very good job, there were minor things I could improve to make the overall experience even more meaningful for my students. One small example was that of the volume of my music. I had originally been bringing a small portable speaker to class to use to play my music. My mentor observed that there was a sound system that played over the entire classroom. I had not even noticed that before. The following week I used the sound system in the classroom and it seemed to help the kids become more fully involved in the movement experience. Sometimes it makes me nervous to have mentors or teachers there to watch me teach, but the more I teach, the more I realize that they are a fountain of knowledge and
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