Madison Noorda EDEL 1010

One of my favorite things about the service learning assignment was making connections between what I was observing and what I was learning. One of my favorite things we learning about in this course was how to engage students. I did most of my service learning in a first grade classroom, and first grade students need a lot of engaging! It was fun to see the different ways to engage learners that we talked about in class, in my service learning! I especially liked talking about how technology can help engage students, because I see technology used in the classroom all the time!   I think blogging has really helped me articulate what I learned from my service learning. Sometimes it is hard for me to get all my ideas down on paper because I can’t write as fast as my brain thinks! So sometimes I lose ideas in my head while I am writing down other ideas. But blogging has helped me get all my ideas down before I forget them.   Blogging has also helped me think deeper about...

In my service learning classroom, I usually go about the same time a couple of days a week. Because of this, I usually only see math being taught. So I can't tell you for sure if there are certain standards that have more emphasis put on them than others. However, I can assume that there is a big emphasis on math because it is taught every day and by looking at their schedule, I do not think some of the other subjects are taught every day. I think this is because math is one of the more important subjects. You will continue to build on what you learn in math for the rest of your life. What I can tell you is how the math being taught in this classroom relates to the core standards. The first grade math standards are a lot about problem solving, adding and subtracting numbers less than 20, and looking for patterns and structure. I see these standards happening all the time. The students do math worksheets every day that require them to add and take away by using different methods suc...

In the 1st grade classroom I have been observing, it is obvious that there is a lot of students with different needs. The teacher has even said that this class has been one of the most difficult classes for her because of all the needs of specific students. Usually when I am able to go to the classroom it is during math. So I usually sit at the back table and help some of the students with math. There are some students who know exactly what to do and how to do it, they just need help focusing. There are some students who just don't get math. The teacher has had to change some of the curriculum for certain students because they were getting so far behind. For some of the students, they just need a little extra help, whether its from me, the other aide, or the teacher.  Another thing I have noticed about this class is they are all at different reading abilities. Some of them can read entire books with no problem. Some of them can't even sound out letters. The teacher handles t...

Brown vs. the Board of Education was a very important historical event for education. This was the supreme court case that made it illegal to separate black and white students in the classroom or in schools. Before this, black students were barely given any education, and what little education they got was very bad quality. Black students were not allowed to be in the same classrooms as white students, nor were they allowed to be in the same schools. The schools black students were forced into were almost as bad as their education. In fact, the Scrabble School (a segregated school for black students) did not get toilets until 1961, around 70 years after the land was bought for the school. So, the Brown vs. Board of education supreme court case was a huge thing, for black students at least. The white students did not like the fact that they were going to the same school as black students and I'm sure that there was an adjustment period after this law was passed.  In the classroom ...

No, someone in the class did not  get engaged (because they are only in elementary school), but the students were engaged in their learning! In my service learning, I have noticed a few activities that have been engaging for the students. First, a couple times I have been in the classroom, students have been playing math games on the computer. I personally think technology is very engaging. It is fun and provides experiences or games that you cannot provide in the classroom without it. I can tell that the kids love playing the math games on the computer because they get super excited when the teacher tells them it is computer time. Another engaging activity I have noticed is journal time. The students are given a journal prompt every morning that they are asked to write a short response to. Usually the questions are personal, like what the students did when they got home from school. Sometimes the questions have to do with what happened in the class the day before. I think this is ...

Last week when I went into a classroom for my service learning assignment, I was able to help the students with their reading. I pulled one student at a time to the back of the class where they read their book to me. I was able to pass them off or have them keep the same book to read for another night based on how good they read. The teacher had boxes of books grouped together based on levels. If they passed off their book they could choose another book from that level. When I was in elementary school, I remember just moving from one book to the next, I never got to choose. I liked how the student's got to choose a book that they were interested in. It gave them some control over their learning and gave them some independence. I also noticed how happy it made the kids to be able to choose their own book! While I was there, the students were also taking a math test. Some students struggle with math more than others, as I found out the first day I was there. So those students who ...