Mendoza 1

Journal 1

My student and I have made the transition in person instruction from long
distance learning. Because only a few students stayed for long distance learning, I
became a little sad. It was a little hard for me to accept that my students will be
continuing their learning online, since I know that in person learning would greatly
benefit them tremendously from being able to have face to face interactions; making it
easier for myself and the students to ask any questions they might have. I have made
some rapport with most of my students by now and they are comfortable when they
come into the classroom in person. I have observed that the overall amount of
participation now in comparison to the first time has increased. They are more willing to
answer questions and read in front of the classroom. They ask questions when they are
confused and do their best to articulate where they are most confused. This week the
main focus was writing; students are asked to write in their journal, focusing on their
writing abilities. Writing in the journal consists of writing about what they are grateful for,
what they have done over the weekend, and describing their favorite childhood toy.
They also worked on constructing an argumentative essay. Each day students tackled a
paragraph at a time. They first worked on an outline, then wrote it out and finally typed it
out in google doc. Furthermore, in math the focus has been finding the area of different
types of shapes. Most students are understanding how to solve for the area of the
shapes, although there are a few who are struggling I go ahead and work out a few
problems with them. While assisting them on the problems they are struggling with I
have come to see that the main struggle that my students are having is plugging in the
numbers into the formula, multiplying, and dividing. A strategy that seems to help my
students is partnering them up to workout a few math problems together. I am
continuing to use white boards. I have also incorporated Nearpod activities increasing
student engagement and other ways to evaluate students' understanding. The main
focus has been English Language Arts and Math due to the limited amount of time
given. Overall, it has been a good week.