Student Teaching Weekly Log

Directions: Answer these questions each week and email them to your student teaching
supervisor by Sunday evening.
Name:

Erin Dobey

Week: 4

1. How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have?
This week I spent my time teaching Math and Writing, while my teacher taught
Social Studies, Reading, and Spelling. In Math we have been reviewing topics that
students learned last year as second graders, like telling time, comparing numbers,
adding and subtracting, and counting money. In Writing we have been working on
writing paragraphs and the different parts of speech.
2. What were your most satisfying experiences? What were your most challenging
experiences?
One of my most satisfying experiences this week was my paragraph mini-unit. In
Writing this week, we were talking about how we construct good paragraphs and
what components a paragraph should contain. After discussing it using anchor charts,
sharing my model, and creating our own as a class, it was the kids turn to write their
own. I gave them a picture of an Amusement Park and said that their paragraph had to
relate somehow to the picture. We brainstormed some possible prompts that students
could write relating to the topic and then they were free to independently write.
Although a few of them needed more prompting about how to start their paragraph,
many of our kids were eager to start and wrote descriptive, well-written, and
interesting paragraphs. All of the kids followed the proper paragraph outline and I
could tell that our work with the anchor chart was really engrained in their minds and
at the forefront of their writing. Now we just need to work on making sure their
spelling is better J
My most challenging experience has been getting our kids to transition better.
They are very sweet kids and we have no behavior problems, but they can be very
noisy and off task at times if you let them. It has just been exhausting making sure
that they are on task and I feel as though sometimes Im constantly giving them
reminders during our lessons.
3. What are the plans for the upcoming week?
I will be teaching Social Studies full-time next week, which will be new. We will
be talking about the three branches of government and some of the history that led to
us having three branches. Im excited to be taking on more responsibility in the
classroom; Im more just nervous about making sure I get enough rest! Next week we
will continue to look at other parts of speech and how we can use them to be more
descriptive and clear in our writing. It will be cool to see two separate concepts that
we have talked about (paragraph structure and parts of speech) come together.

Student Teaching Weekly Log

Directions: Answer these questions each week and email them to your student teaching
supervisor by Sunday evening.
Name:

Erin Dobey

Week: 5

1. How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have?
This week I spent my time teaching Math, Writing, and Social Studies. This was my
first week teaching Social Studies and I have to say that I think it is my favorite subject,
thus far. The kids have a strong interest and desire to learn more about our government
and how it functions that sometimes I have to hold questions and comments until the end
because we just wouldnt get through our lesson! In Writing we have been working more
on friendly letters, writing good paragraphs, and parts of speech. In Math we have been
learning about graphing and what the median, mode, and range are.
2. What were your most satisfying experiences? What were your most challenging
experiences?
One of my most satisfying experiences this week was probably yesterday when we
did an activity with median, mode, and range. Earlier in the week we had made a class
graph about how many family members were in each students family. I had students get
up and arrange themselves in a sequence based on how many members were in their
family. They then had to figure out what strategies they would use as a class in order to
best determine the median, mode, and range. The students seemed to need some
movement since they were especially chatty, so this was something I had adapted to get
them up and moving. The students figured out the solutions quickly, worked together to
come to the correct answer, and even wanted me to give them more problems similar to
this.
My most challenging experience this week was just classroom management. Getting
students to be engaged and attentive in the middle of lessons, especially with all of our
testing has been particularly difficult. However, we have talked about a couple of new
attention-getters that have seemed to be more effective than counting-down all of the
time. As we have gotten more and more into routines, students seem to have a better idea
of what the expectations are although we still have a few students that struggle with this.
3. What are the plans for the upcoming week?
I will be bell-to-bell teaching this week! I am both excited and nervous just because it
is going to be a demanding week, but I feel as though I have had good preparation up to
this point and now know what sorts of things I need to work on improving. This will be
my first week teaching Reading, which will be knew and I will also be much more
involved with students spelling groups. I have now begun to look at students assessment
data and pull small groups if I think they need additional support in that particular content
area.

Student Teaching Weekly Log

Directions: Answer these questions each week and email them to your student teaching
supervisor by Sunday evening.
Name: Erin Dobey

Week: 7

1. How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have?
This week I spent my time finishing my second week of bell-to-bell teaching. My
responsibilities included teaching all content areas, (Spelling, Social Studies, Math,
Reading, and Writing) using both formative and summative assessments,
differentiating for students, and attending and participating in PLC, Staff, and gradelevel meetings.
2. What were your most satisfying experiences? What were your most challenging
experiences?
My most satisfying experiences were seeing how much fun my students had in a lot
of our assessments like our Graphing and Three Branches of Government Game.
From my data, I got an accurate sense of who was secure and who still needed more
help, so it was very useful if I had more time to pull small groups. I can definitely
attest to what Alex Lancaster said in the Classroom Management portion on Tuesday,
when she stated that students love anything you can turn into a game when it comes
to learning. The students were engaged, eager, and wanted to participate and get the
answers right.
My most challenging experience has just been a lack of time and the feeling of being
rushed the past week. I had so many things planned for the week that I feel we just
didnt have time for and didnt get to. There were times that I felt students hadnt
completely grasped the content, so we had to backtrack and review the lesson from a
different approach. With the large amount of tests for third grade and our need to
review the content more, I can definitely understand how time can be an enemy for
teachers when it comes to planning and making sure that they are efficient with their
school day. Another setback, although not as big, has been the infinite amount of
papers I get a day from students. They take over my space at home and at school
because I like collecting them to assess where students are with their skills and
abilities.
3. What are the plans for the upcoming week?
I will be observing Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and will have my Mock
Interview with our Vice Principal on Tuesday. After that, I will be traveling home and
heading to Ireland on Saturday!