March 11th and 13th – Student Presentations

Today and Tuesday students were presenting their final projects on the Aztecs. I was very excited to see what they had created and also how they would go about presenting their information. In this class period, I first went over the presentation rubric (all of the criteria of a 4) to remind students of the expectation for their presentation. I also allowed the students about ten minutes to practice their pronunciation with a partner while other students asked me questions. Allotting students ten minutes of time to practice allowed me to talk to students who were absent and did not have their final projects. When the students were ready to present, everyone in the audience actively listened and were expected to give positive feedback when the presenter had finished. Allowing students in the audience to give positive feedback to the presenter created a safe and positive learning environment where all students felt accepted. I was overall very impressed to see what the students did with this project. Some students really played out their role as a reporter form the 21st century and spoke to the audience as if it were really filled with Aztecs. I was impressed to see that many students empathized with the Aztecs, saying “I am sorry to tell you but…” showing a high level of respect toward the Aztecs. I was also extremely impressed with the level of understanding that all of the presenters showed. I was happy to see that many of the students went above and beyond my expectation, adding many extra vocabulary words in Spanish. Every presenter did a great job is some aspect, and succeeded in this project because of the research that was done. I was impressed to see my students’ language skills as well. There was a handful who told additional information (that was not required) about themselves in the target language. Overall I was very impressed. It felt really good to see the level of excitement of the students, the level of respect for their peers and the Aztecs as well. I am so proud of them and their success! I feel that my students’ success is also my success. After reading some feedback from the students, I feel that I have certainly accomplished one of my main objectives for the class, to excite students about a foreign language. I was very sad to say goodbye to these student who have made my first student teaching placement a pleasure. I would love to thank them dearly form making the experience a positive one!

March 6th Review of Research

Today students were asked to bring their completed research graphic organizer to class. I allowed the students to work on this ditto with a partner for the first 15 minutes of class. The reason I allowed student this time to work with a partner was to strengthen their research by sharing ideas with a partner. I was happy that I allowed student to work during this time for this cleared up misconceptions that some of students had. As a future teacher, I am aware that in many activities I will act as the facilitator, and not the teacher who is the “know all”. I do not want to constantly be dictating what is correct or incorrect, nor do the students want to hear this. I am aware that peer editing helps students immensely. It is also helpful that struggling students are supported by their peers, and not just the teacher. I was happy to hear the conversation that was going on during this “peer research review”. Once students showed me that they were ready to talk about their findings, I directed the class to a full class discussion about what they had found. I encouraged everyone to actively listen, for they may hear something that interests them or information that they had not included that they could add to their own research. I was very excited to see the turnout on the research that the students had done and very impressed to see the level of conversation. I observed that students were connecting their own culture and typical Mexican culture to the Aztec’s culture. The level of conversation showed me that the students had worked hard researching, writing about information that interested them. This activity gave me confidence that students were ready to do their final project, the newsletter to the Aztecs. The project was passed out in class today. I asked for volunteers to read the project expectations and guidelines and also checked for understanding of these guidelines through student explanation (in their own words). I assured student that they were more than capable to achieve a four on this project and encouraged them to continue researching at home. I offered students without computer access to come during lunch and homeroom times to work on their projects. Allowing students this support allows every student to succeed.

March 3rd and 4th – Library Day

On these two days I had reserved the library to allow the students to work independently on researching for a future project. I provided students with a graphic organizer which included websites on both the Aztecs and Mexico and questions relating to the unit on the Aztecs. I was not completely happy with one of the sites that I had provided the students, for it had come up differently on many computers in the library. I told the students not to worry, for they could find the information needed on the other sites provided. I observed how many of my students are “technological natives” and enjoyed being able to work on the computer. I was happy to see the amount of work many students got done during the class period; navigating around the websites was not a problem for these students. I told the students that their self-directed grades for the day would depend on their behavior and work completion. I controlled this by putting a dot next to the names of the students who were off task, who were not many. Once I informed these students that their grade will be affected by the amount of work the complete, the students took the research for the projects very seriously. I had a set of rules in the library; one, of course was to respect the equipment in the library and the other was to not stray away from the sites that I had provided them. I was very happy to see that all of my students obeyed these rules which also helped them achive their goal of gathering information for their final project on the Aztecs.

Febuary 23rd and 24th

In this lesson the students were asked to fill in a map of Mexico that depicted Aztec culture. I was surprised to see how many students had retained information seen in the movie. The students were working on a large plain map of México where they were asked to fill in cultural information about the Aztecs. I asked the student to list some main food items of the Aztecs, while also listing representations of the Aztecs (i.e. agriculture, music, religion, landscape, etc.) I told the students that I would be grading these maps, which held them accountable for the assignment. I was happy to see that many of the students put effort into this assignment and I encouraged them to go above and beyond my expectations. While the students were working on this assignment, I met one on one with the students to talk about their grades on a previous assignment about the movie on the Aztecs. I first talked to the students to see if they understood what they were to do in their current assignment, and then went on to talk about the previous assignment with them. This previous assignment was a graphic organizer (that was graded as an informal assessment, on effort, not content) that the students were to fill out while watching a video.

This graphic organizer, I handed back to the students because I felt that having an extra resource to refer to while creating their maps. As I have been receiving their maps, they seem that thy have gained a great deal of information about the Aztecs while finding much of the information very interesting.

Day two of Unit - Video - 12 February 2009

On this day the students were to build more background about the Aztec civilization by watching a video. The video I showed was from the History Channel. I was very impressed with the content and the excitement of the descriptions of the Aztec civilization. The students were asked to fill in a graphic organizer. This assignment was graded as an informal assessment, on effort, not content. My main purpose for grading this assignment was to assure that all students were on task. I informed students that they would be getting a grade or effort on this assignment, which encouraged them to say focused during the video.

The graphic organizer asked students to:
· Name three things that you learned while watching the video:
· What did you see that was the most interesting to you?
· You would like to learn more about…
· Lingering questions that you have:

These questions were written in Spanish as well as in English. The students who exceeded the standards went above and beyond listing things that they had learned and found were interesting to them. Overall I was very impressed with the amount of effort the students gave me on this assignment.

Day one of Unit - 9 February 2009

This day was my day one of the beginning of a unit (see weekly check-in to see plan for day 1). I had set up the room for a chalk talk and three cultural stations. The chalk talk was quite successful; in my first group, I saw that not all of the students were taking the chalk talk 100% seriously. As I saw different groups, I reminded the student that they are highly capable to finish the task in a mature manner; this made a difference in these groups. I saw that in the chalk talk there was a great deal of misconceptions, especially on the side for “Mexico”. Many of my students wrote: Taco Bell, sombreros, mariachi, ponchos, and so on. I thought that this is a huge opportunity to address misconceptions and really teach some truths about Mexican culture, reminding my students that much of what they had written were stereotypes. I was happy to see that many students wrote questions on the “los Aztecas” side, showing that they wanted to learn more about what the Aztecs did, who they were, what they looked like and so on. It seemed that there was a need to know more about the ancient civilization. I was also happy to see that on the “los Aztecas” side many students had referred back to a pervious activity (a brief paragraph in Spanish which talked about the Aztecs). I was shocked to see how many students remembered some valuable content from this text.
After the chalk talk and mini discussion on the content of the chalk talk, students were assigned to stations where they would be able to listen to instruments and sounds that pertain to the Aztec culture, eat the typical foods of the Aztecs and discover the art of the Aztecs. The students really enjoyed this activity because they were able to discover independently and create their own learning and build their own background knowledge. I was very excited to see how well the student responded to this activity. While working in stations, students were asked to fill out a graphic organizer (below in blue)


¿Cuáles instrumentos oíste?
What instruments did you hear?



¿Qué sonidos oíste?
What sounds did you hear?
Nombra los cuatro elementos de la comida de los Aztecas.
Name four main foods of the Aztecs.

¿Por qué esa comida fue tradicional para los Aztecas?
Why was this food traditional for the Aztecs?
¿Qué tipo de arte tenían los Aztecas?
What type of art did the Aztecs have?

¿Que viste que crees que es interesante en el arte de los Aztecas?
What did you see that you thought was interesting about the art of the Aztecs?

This organizer would help students gain some general knowledge about the Aztec culture. The entire day gave me a pathway which I would plan the remainder of my unit. In the chalk talk, I saw that the student wanted to learn more about the Aztecs, their religion, human sacrifices, the food, where they settled and so on. I was excited to get this information and I absolutely used my students as a resource in the planning a development of my unit.

4 February 2009

The lesson that I did today I felt was a bit too unstructured. This lesson branched off of the previous lessons I had done with both the Element and Evolution teams. I find it hard many times to maintain good classroom management when the students have more freedom. It is always important to imagine that I am a student and I will be taught this lesson. I need to ask myself, if I would be able to understand this material presented in this particular format. In my lesson today, the students were to label and color out all the countries in Latin America. I had planned on just using an overhead transparency that the students could copy the names of the countries down from. It was too late when I realized that the font on this overhead transparency of a map of Latin America was too small. For about twenty minutes of my first period class students were up in the front of the classroom copying down names of countries. Almost every student had to get up out of their seat to clearly see the names of the countries. I could have planned this much better. Therefore for the next class I had decided to read each of the names of the countries on the overhead transparency and I saw a great improvement and less frustration on the students part, but this lesson still needed improvement, for many of the students were working on other parts of the map when I was reading off while showing the countries. In the third class I saw a much better improvement. I supplied books to the students where every two students looked on together and copied the names of the Latin American countries onto their own maps. I found that when each student had a book in front of them they were able to see everything clearly and further able to complete the assigned task. I have modified my lessons throughout the day because I know that there is room for improvement in my lessons. I constantly self-reflect and ask myself, “How could this lesson have gone smoother” I did this with the cognate lesson as well.

One of my biggest challenges is going to be classroom management. Maria constantly tells me that the students will test me and see how far they can go, and she is right. I have noticed that the students are sometimes more relaxed and feel that they cannot listen and not get in trouble. I am not scared to tell students to stop talking or to get back on task, but I do not want to send students out of my room. I need to find a system that I am comfortable with that promotes discipline, but also learning. I do not feel comfortable taking a student out of the classroom because I feel like I am taking their opportunity to learn away. I feel that there are more effective was that discipline can take place. I will experiment with different forms of discipline that promote learning as well as a respectful and safe classroom community.