Final Reflection

 My goal that I set at the beginning of this practicum included; become familiar with Goal book, how to use a break out room in zoom, and to design effective strategies. I used Goal book to find assessments, progress monitoring tools, and measurable goals for students. I think that I will use Goal book more often this school year after I have had the opportunity to navigate it and discover applicable features. I am not like the queen of break out rooms but I have gotten much better at this. Overall, I have learned how to use different features on zoom. Being able to feel confident in my ability to use zoom helped me relax when teaching. The last goal was to design effective strategies that would lead students to meeting their goals. I think that being able to work with a co-teacher really helped with that. We could share ideas and things that worked for us in the past. 

The first week I was really anxious. I was worried about jumping right in, the workload, and the smoothness of lesson delivery over zoom. I am glad that Sydney and I met before giving the students their assessments and after. We were able to quickly decide what goals to give the students and get right to teaching! We met every day before and after the zoom classes which was a nice way to chat about what worked and what did not. We also met to discuss and type out weekly parent reports.  We also met on Sundays to lesson plan for the next week and decide on what materials to have parents print. I really enjoyed working together as a team. 

The first week was full of pre-assessments necessary to build our students' goals on. We needed to see where the students were at. It was a little rocky because 4 of our students did not show. This worried us about how the flow of the next week would be. From the assessment data, we were able to separate the students into small groups. For the 2nd and 3rd weeks we worked with small groups on their reading, writing, and math goals. We had designed lessons that would give students the knowledge and practice they needed to be successful on their post assessments. The 4 kids that did not show the first week, did not show, and ended up not joining our group after all. This past week, we did some review lessons and have begun the post-assessments.

 I have really enjoyed this experience. I was nervous at first but got into the groove of things pretty easily. Co-teaching with Sydney has been a great experience, I think we got along nicely and took care of business! Getting to know the students was a joy. By the 2nd week we could see their personalities shine through and they were such a sweet group to work with. Overall it has been a wonderful learning experience!