Sunday, May 18, 2014

Planning & Prepping Summary

  I found it interesting that the state of Virginia has not yet adapted the common core standards.  I did find SOL to be a little confusing, as far as the testing requirements, and not enough information was found. I never got any feed back from the teacher I emailed in the beginning of the week, about the curriculum's for 2nd grade, so I'm still waiting to get more information on what Arlington County requires--mostly out of curiosity for my future.  I was able to find this document which was helpful because it compared the SOL to the common core standards.
  I found that "unpacking" a standard really can help you break down what you need to be focusing on teaching the student.  This is definitely something new I learned this week.  So I can take the list of requirements from SOL now and break it down, then create lessons and objectives from each standard.  I also found on the website of the school I am interested in, the school has 4 long term assignments in the second grade.  Each assignment has a theme: Patters, Time Machines, Mysteries and Heros.  I am curious if this is something all schools in the county do or not. I did not find it on other sites. This is something I will be adding to my list of mentor teacher questions.
  Having a daily learning objective is something I never thought about having on the board but after watching the video in Activity 3, the example of "SWBAT" i found really interesting. I think it would be nice to remind students of the objective for each subject so they are focused on what they need to be taking out of the unit. I also found the cognitive process dimension very helpful.
I think the hardest part is going to be having enough time for lesson planing. I want to find out the breakdown for each standard in SOL.  How often is the SOL testing, passing score requirements, what about kids with IEPs etc...  How much time do I have to teach each section of SOL.  Is their a time frame for each standard.  Is one standard supposed to be taught within 2 weeks, 3 weeks?  These are things I will be discussing with my mentor teacher next year and I figured all these questions and planing will get figured out then.  I am more of a hands-on-learning person anyways, so I already know most of my preparation will be from my mentor teaching experience and asking all the questions then.


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