Assignment 3B-Field Experience

• Teach one of your One Day Teaching/Learning Plan (any of the five) from your unit plan. The lesson plan that I chose to teach was the Tuesday lesson plan from Assignment 2A, Los Verbos Reflexivos.  This lesson consists of three parts: pre-assessment, direct instruction, and practice.  The pre-assessment will be administered in form of an “inicio” or warm-up.  I will write a total of 6 verbs on the board.  There will be 2 of each –ar, -er, and –ir verbs.  Students will need to conjugate these regular verbs with each pronoun (yo, tu, usted/el/ella, nosotros, and ustedes).  After completion I will have students come up to the board and write their answers.  The direct instruction will directly follow the warm-up.  The DI will consist of a PowerPoint presentation going over the various parts and usages of reflexive verbs and pronouns.  Imbedded in the instruction are various sentences using conjugated reflexive verbs.  Students will be called on to read the sentence in voz alta (out loud).  Following the students completion of the sentence, the class will repeat the sentence as a whole.  The final part will require students to complete an activity in the book.  The activity provides students with a variety of sentences with context clues as to which reflexive verb should fill in the blank and how they should conjugate it.
• Report findings from your Pre- Ongoing and Post- assessment tasks.  The pre-assessment went as planned.  It helped the students use the prior knowledge of verb conjugations in the present tense for each type of verb ending (-ar, -er, -ir).  The students did a good job demonstrating their knowledge of verb conjugations by coming up to the board, when called up, to write out their answer for on the verbs from the inicio.  The pre-assessment help set the stage for the PowerPoint presentation that took place.  During the PPT I was able to maintain the attention of the students by calling on them to read a sentence containing a conjugated reflexive verb out loud. These sentences appeared on every third slide.  I used popsicle sticks to make sure that I was not calling on the same student twice.  This kept things random and ensured that each student was paying attention. At the end of the presentation I had students conjugate 4 reflexive verbs: afeitarse, acostarse, ponerse, and irse.  This ongoing assessment throughout the presentation with out loud reading followed by verb conjugations allowed me to accurately assess the students verbal pronunciation skills as well as their ability to correctly conjugate reflexive verbs in the present tense and using the proper reflexive pronoun.  I believe the assessments were accurate measuring sticks with regards to their progression with the unit of study.  The post assessment required the students demonstrate their reading comprehension as well as their knowledge of conjugations.  They completed an activity in the textbook which provided 8 sentences with blanks.  The sentences provided enough context clues to help the students determine which verb they should use and how they should conjugate it.  Most of the students had a good grasp on the activity, but some seem to struggle with comprehending what the sentence was saying in the target language.  I maintained proximity and was there to assist them when needed.  I also had students that were successful work as tutors for those that were struggling. 
• Reflect upon your teaching experience. Ask yourself: A. What did you learn? B. What would you change? C. What did you enjoy?  I learned that I need to do a better job and managing my time.  I tend to over plan for the allotted period time, which isn’t always a bad thing.  I suppose it is better than the alternative, which is under planning.  I also learned that, while the majority of students were engaged, I still had a handful that were just out in dream land thinking of who knows what.  It is always a goal of mine to maintain the attention of all of my students.  I think that I could change the way in which I present things.  I could bring a little bit more energy with my voice and mannerisms to help keep things a little more lively.  I did really enjoy the instruction portion of the lesson though.  It’s always fun to talk and teach about something of which you are passionate and knowledgeable.  I just need to be careful to not get a on a soapbox and forget that there are actually human beings listening to me that might not find Spanish as interesting as I do!   

Dane Redmond-Assignment 3A

I.                   The group of individuals that I decided to assess was four adolescents all going into the 11^th grade this next school year.  They are relatives of mine (cousins) and will all be in taking Spanish III at their respective schools this next school year.

II.                I explained to the students the importance of the assessment and what I was hoping to accomplish.  They all appeared to be willing and ready to try the pre-assessment that I had planned.  It helped set the mood for the assessment as well.

III.             The assessment from assignment 2B that I decided to present to the group of four was the following: Students will fill in the blank of 5 sentences using verbs like gustar, encantar, interesar, and importar.  I made sure prior to selecting this pre-assessment that the group of students had already learned about Gustar and that they were familiar with how things work.  All but one of them still had a relatively good understanding of the content.

IV.             During the administration of the pre-assessment I found that the students were not quite familiar with the content that I had previously thought.  The assessment was given by me first briefly reviewing the verb “gustar.  I only spent about 4 to 5 minutes going over and reviewing its proper usage and giving definitions of encantar, importar, and interesar.  Following that I actually began the pre-assessment and gave each student 10 minutes to create 5 sentences using the verbs listed above.  They were told to use the verbs to accurately describe things that interested them or that were important to them.  I maintained close proximity to allow the students to have access to me if needed. 

V.                After the students completed the assessment I evaluated the effectiveness of the assessment.  When I considered all of the different challenges that doing a pre-assessment with a group of students you’ve never worked with before presents, it went fairly well.  Going into the assessment I knew that it was going to be a challenge to find a group of students that had any type of content knowledge close to what I was assessing.  This group did a good job working with me and completing the task.  Now, taking out the fact that the students were not my own and had a weak understanding of the content being assessed, I found some things that I could have improved.  First and foremost, I would have cut down on the time the assessment took.  Typically in a pre-assessment I like to have students complete the task and then go over it with them.  This is usually accomplished in a 10-12 minute window.  In this case, the assessment took closer to 18 minutes which is completely unacceptable for what I was trying to accomplish.  The rubric was still a good measurement of how to evaluate the pre-assessment results as it is very general in what its expectations are.  All of the students that participated clearly met the assignment completeness portion on the rubric.  Three of the four students fell into the fair category in the grammar column.  The one that fell into the poor was also the student that had the weakest understanding of the content upon starting the pre-assessment.  In the final column of the rubric, conjugations, two of the four students achieved excellence and the other two fell into fair on the rubric. 

VI.             Rubric:

	Poor	Fair	Excellent
Assignment Completeness	Did not attempt	Partial completion	Fully completed.
Grammar	5 or more errors	2 to 4 errors	1 or no errors
Conjugations	5 errors or more	2-4 errors	1 or no errors

VII.          It really is difficult to determine the changes I would make to a rubric and pre-assessment when the group of students that I was working with was not ideal in any way.  If I were to base it 100% off of the four students I was working with there would be a good amount of change I would make.  I obviously would cut down the amount of sentences I required them to make, as it took too much time for them to write out 5 sentences using verbs like “gustar”.  It did not allow for enough time to go over their work with them and have a class share time.  I think that is an important component to pre-assessment and it should be done without it.  Even if I had my typical classroom students that I see every day, I probably still would cut it down from five to three sentences.  I think it may be beneficial to be a little more specific with my rubric, but I’m not sure if that is necessary for a pre-assessment as much as it is for a post assessment.  Overall it was a good experience.

Dane Redmond-Assignment 1A

Hello class!  My name is Dane Redmond.  I am from and currently live in Victorville, Ca.  Not exactly the gem of California, but I don't mind it too much.  I have been happily married for the past 4 1/2 years, but we do not have any children.  I graduated from Brigha Young University in December 2010.  I majored in Latin American Studies which led me to become a Spanish teacher. With my free time I enjoy cycling and racing when I have a free weekend to travel.  

I just barely finished my internship year and will be applying for my preliminary credential following the completion of this course.  I work for Riverside Preparatory Academy out of Oro Grande, Ca.  I taught Spanish 3 this last year and will be teaching that along with AP Spanish Language and Culture this next school year.  I excited and nervous about taking on AP Spanish as it will be a new course which I have to get A-G approved.  Should be a learning experience for me :)

I went into education for several reasons, but ultimately I kind of fell into.  Upon graduating college I wanted to go into federal law enforcement, more specifically Immigration and Customs Enforcement.  Unfortunately that did not work out for me.  So, being that my mother, two brothers, 3 aunts, 3 uncles were all teachers, I figured I might as well give it a go myself.  I have really enjoyed this last school year as an intern, although it has been difficult.  I anticipate that next school year will have a whole new set of challenges for me.  Ultimately my passion for the Spanish language keeps me moving forward.  I enjoy teaching it and helping others understand it.  My background in Spanish comes from living in Puerto Rico for two years and doing a internship in the Dominican Republic. 

How did your personality affect your choice of content area?

You know, I'm not quite sure how my personality results reflect my choice of content area.  I received ISFJ.  I guess that fact that I enjoy walking around and keeping to myself and just watching how people interact and such really reflects my passion for culture.  I think to understand people and why they believe what they believe and why they do what they do.  Latin America is overflowing with cultural quirks.  I love it.

How does or will your personality affect your relationships with your students? 

I think my personality traits will help me maintain relationships, but make it difficult to initally develop them.  I'm not the type to go out of my way to introduce myself to anyone.  But once I get comfortable with someone I can maintain that relationship with carefully listening and thoughtful conversations.

How will your teaching and learning style affect your teaching and your students' abilities to be successful?

I scored moderate on all of the teaching styles except on formal authority I scored high.  I honestly am not quite sure what is event meant by formal authority.  I don't really view myself that way personally.  This past school year many students found success in my class while a few struggled and did not meet expectations.  I have a plethora of things I need to improve, but apparently being a formal authority isn't one of them.  I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing?