Report Cards

Sorry I haven't been able to really write in this blog, its because as we all know this weekend was black friday and I work for retail so I was forced to work a 13 hour shifts all weekend.  So Im going to continue with Report Cards =).

Report cards was something that I was always VERY nervous whenever my parents would leave to go and pick it up.  I never knew the grades that they would come back with, and I was always scared of there return.  I can proudly say that ALL of my grades till today have been very good and I can't complain.  But wow, what a nervous feeling that I would get.  In my personal opinion, I don't feel that report cards should be given out until the end of the year and I feel that progress reports should be used more often.  Why I feel this way is because I think that report cards are a little too final.  Instead of giving report cards 4 times a year, they should give them 2 times a year.  

I feel that progress reports do the same exact thing that report cards do.  It warns the students that they either need to improve in there classes or if they are doing just fine and have little to worry about.  In the progress report it will say if the teacher needs the parent to come in for a meeting about there child's work in school. I think that this would be a more effective way for the students to progress in school.

=)

My Lesson

As we all know, I taught my lesson on friday and I can honestly say that I learned so much from that lesson.  When I teach a lesson in every other Education class it is pretty much regular teaching with students who do not act up as much as my classmates did in this lesson, ESPECIALLY when a student pulled another students hair (coughcoughNORMAcoughcough) ha.  I thought my lesson was a disaster, but in the end I realized that this is reality.  This is the way that students are going to act when I am in a classroom and I am going to have to learn how to control them in a proper manner.  

When I told a lot of my friends how Dr. Luongo was having us teach lessons, they thought that it was a very interesting way to teach because not only do you get to teach, but you learn a lot from it. I honestly think that I felt like crying because everyone decided to do there index cards around the same time, so it was a bit more difficult.  I tried my best to get through it and hopefully if I ever have to do this kind of practice lesson again, or if this happens when I am in a classroom teaching, I can take the advice that my classmates and Dr. Luongo gave me in my review sheet and put it to use. 

I must say that it has been fun to play the role of a child when someone else is teaching a lesson. I have had some very interesting index cards such as having to stay quite (and those who know me, HAS to know how hard of a card that was for me =) ), and I also had waving my coat in the air, asking to go to the bathroom 3 times and being the tattle teller of the class.  It's interesting to see the way the teacher reacts to the actions that we are doing.  I must say, I think a lot of them have handled it very well =).  

I Couldn't Attend The Online Class/ Portfolios

I am so sorry guys, I was completely unable to attend the online course last week because Tommy Hilfiger kept me hostage at his store board folding his cloths.. =/ Anyway, Just to catch up on a blog post I want to discuss some positive and some negative affects of having portfolios.

Personally I feel that portfolios are good to have in a classroom because I think that it can make the student feel so much better about themselves in a lot of ways. They can look back at things they did a long time ago and compare it to things that they have worked on recently and hopefully it shows how much they have progressed and what they still need to work on.
This is also a good thing for teachers because when a parent comes in to see the teacher they can take out the students portfolio and discuss everything that has been going on in the classroom and what there child has been working on. When you have a parent/teacher conference I think that it is important to make sure you have work to prove that the student is doing good or bad in the classroom. For example if a parent comes in and says "my son is telling me that he is doing very well in the class but he really doesn't bring home any school work to show me his progress". At this point the teacher can take out his portfolio and show how well the student is doing and how well he has progressed throughout the year. This is a great thing because attending a parent/teacher conference without having any back up is not good. Which makes portfolios so much better to have in a classroom.

I did a little bit of research, because I really did not feel that there was any negatives to having a portfolio for students, But this is what I found:

WHAT ARE THE DRAWBACKS? Good portfolio projects do not happen without considerable effort on the part of teachers, administrators, and policymakers. Research shows that portfolios place additional demands on teachers and students as well as on school resources. Teachers need not only a thorough understanding of their subject area and instructional skills, but also additional time for planning, conferring with other teachers, developing strategies and materials, meeting with individual students and small groups, and reviewing and commenting on student work. In addition, teachers may need extra space in their classrooms to store students' portfolios or expensive equipment such as video cameras.

http://www.adprima.com/student_portfolios.htm

I feel that this is a very touchy statement when they said that it places additional demands on teachers and students. I feel that because it is a teachers job to make sure that the students are progressing in class that they should take the extra time and effort to make portfolios for students. Making sure that children feel confident in there work, and making sure that a student can look back at there work previously and see that they did progress in class is very important. I don't feel that it should be any extra hassle, it should simply be apart of the education process where we make sure that every student can get ahead. The students at the same time have to do there part as well, and if it is a 50/50 effort, then that should make everything easier because in the end you helped a student succeed.

I hope you all enjoyed..=)