Performance Tasks

(Pictures included in Document)

Introduce yourself to the class. Learn all of your students’ names

Since day 1, I was encouraged to introduce myself to the classroom as the new adult that would be there to help out. I began my first day in fifth grade with a presentation about myself and the exciting adventures that I took this summer. I found this to be a very valuable time for me and my students because they got to know more about me than that I would be just another adult in the classroom. They began to learn some of my interests and I think that is a very valuable part of beginning a relationship with another person, especially in the classroom. Since I have had some practice, I found it pretty easy to learn all of my students names. Because my students and I immediately started off on the right foot when building our relationships, I believe that it made the learning environment much more comfortable.

Take the lead on the dismissal routine

This semester I had the opportunity to completely take over the dismissal routine, which I learned from the beginning of the semester can be very hectic. Although it was not a semester filled with little ones to take to the bus, fifth graders can still be very challenging to keep up with. Every day I would grab the bus list and take my students around the bus loop to send them home. This seems like a particularly easy job but I realized quickly that some of my students no longer feel the need to have someone take them to the bus loop, making it harder to keep up with them. Overall, I am happy that my CT was so willing to give me this opportunity because it is a management skill that is often overlooked but still very important.

Organize the materials for a lesson (particularly one with many manipulatives such as in science or mathematics)

Luckily, I had the opportunity to complete this performance task multiple times during the year. Throughout my own lessons and my CT’s I was able to fully participate in the gathering and organizing of materials to make each lesson successful. I found this to be extremely beneficial because I think this semester taught me how much preparation is needed for each individual lesson. I also got the chance to completely head a two day lesson where I collected all materials for a science experiment and I loved the independence of actually being the head teacher. I think because I am a busy body and like to be useful/productive I will succeed in this area of performance tasks when I have my own classroom.

Line students up and take them to specials or lunch

Every day, I was in charge of lining students up to take them to both specials and lunch. I realize that it was so hard for this performance task to be effective since I was only there two days a week, but I noticed many things I would do differently. Often I would observe the students would get very noisy when being lined up because they were “released” but I think that was because that is how they were facilitated when I was not in the classroom. I plan to take this valuable information away and apply it to my classroom by learning how to more explicitly deliver simple instruction such as lining up.

Write something on the board or on a poster

Throughout this semester I have created 15+ anchor charts to help serve my current classroom. Not only have I used these when teaching lessons but I have also made them for the different teachers in my classroom to use. These have proved to be very beneficial because all students are able to reference back to the information we learned to help them with the current content. Because these anchor charts are stimulating and colorful, students are drawn to them and more interested. I have also used them within my lessons to create an “outline” of material with my students. Sometimes I would write on the anchor chart using their ideas and sometimes I would allow my students to contribute their ideas through sticky notes to make certain lessons more engaging.

Try the attention-getting strategy your CT uses

This semester was a little different since I have always used “whole-brain” teaching strategies. MY CT this semester only used one teaching strategy which was, “Hocus Pocus” and then the students would reply with “Everybody Focus”. This particularly would not be my ideal attention getting strategy to use as personally I do not like it and it proved to be not very effective with getting my students attention. I prefer to use the whole-brain teaching methods which are used to better stimulate the students’ brains.

Bring students to the carpet as a transition for continuing a lesson

Because my inquiry this semester was all about increasing engagement, there were often times that students were moving in the classroom especially from the carpet to their desks. Most of the lessons I taught involved transitioning students to the carpet to either share or participate in a collaborative discussion about the content. I feel pretty comfortable with this performance task as it went very well. My students know how to quickly get to the carpet to continue a lesson because I believe I have given explicit instruction to do so.