What Makes a Classroom 10/21

Sunday was the 20th annual Rays of Hope Breast Cancer benefit walk held in Springfield. It was a lot of fun and awesome to participate in such a great cause! We want to thank Stephanie, Callie and Kelsey for joining us in the  walk!

Monday marked our third meeting of the year! The theme of the meeting was What Makes a Classroom! The instructional strategy introduced was a word wheel. A word wheel is a great use for teaching vocabulary! The word that is being taught goes in the middle and around it are words that describe it or synonyms. Word wheels come in many shapes and styles. They can be adjusted in many different ways that will fit the needs of a classroom! Below is an example of a word wheel:

 

To continue on our theme of what makes a classroom as a whole group we talked about lesson planning! The board provided examples of lesson plans that they have done here at Westfield State. Topics like the curriculum frameworks, where to find lesson plan ideas and the format where discussed. Listening to suggests, concerns and questions allowed for a great discussion! One great suggestion offered by one of our members was to buy a 5 subject notebook and label each section a content area (ELA, math, science, social studies, ETC.). When you think of an idea or see one write it down in the notebook so you have to reference later on!

 

The next topic we discussed was about time spent in the classrooms! Tips about apparel, what to do in situations and what to expect were provided. Important topics like restraint training and being seen as a teacher in the classroom were discussed. As a whole group we also discussed past practicum experiences. We got to hear some real funny stories!

 

To wrap up the meeting was a Bigs and Littles activity. As a whole group we arranged ourselves in certain orders (height, birthday and first name) then chatted with our neighbors. A few topics we discussed were sibling order, one interesting fact about yourself, one thing that is going well in your life at the moment and what is your favorite class this semester!  Do not forget Littles to come up with some fun field trip ideas :)

 

Don't forget to check out our Pinterest: WSUSNEA that is run by our two underclassman reps!

Let us know if there is anything that you need :)

See you at our next meeting; November 4 at 7:00!

Julie

Editor

 

What It Means To Be An Education Major 10/7/13

Our second meeting was jammed packed with lots of different things that allowed us to get this year started! We held elections and are excited to welcome both Sara Hootstein and Megan Juchno to the board as our Underclassman Reps! We are also thrilled to have Liz Aspinwall on the board as the Special Education Rep! To learn more about our new board members check out the meet the executive board page! After reviewing all of the questions, comments and concerns from our previous meeting we designed our workshops around those themes!

The theme of our second meeting was What It Means To Be An Education Major! To facilitate this information to our members the board first each discussed a general question. The questions were:
1. What is a concentration?
     > A concentration is basically your minor where you "concentrate" on a certain area such as reading, English, psychology, science, history, Spanish, ETC.
2. What is a prepracticum?
     > Any hours (15s or 30s) you do before you student teach, there are different requirements for every major.
3. When do we student teach?
      > Normally during the second semester of senior year, but a lot of people postpone it until the first semester of a fifth year.
4. How many classes should I take every semester?
     > It sort of depends on your major, but if you can handle 6 classes/semester do it during your freshman and sophomore years so you do not have to do it when you're taking difficult classes!
5. What is an MTEL
    > Massachusetts Test for Education Licensure
6. Can you take spring break while student teaching?
     > NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
7. How many credits do you need to graduate?
     > 120, but our program are pretty full so most if not all of you will take more than 120!


Then we held break out sessions based on majors (Early, Elementary, Special and Secondary). The sessions were run by board members whose in that particular major. The upper classman also provided valuable insight by providing their own personal experiences and ideas. The topics that were discussed are advising, registering for classes, the sequence of classes, professors to take, practicums, studying abroad and MTELS! The upperclassman also wrote down helpful tips for being an education major that we will be providing for our underclassman in some form!

We had our first Bigs and Littles meeting! The Bigs and Littles met with one another and got to know each other a little. The Littles were able to ask some questions or express some of their concerns! As a quick ice breaker and future planning activity we played was Four at the Door. The Littles wrote down four stresses they have about being an education major or freshman year and stuck it to the drawing of a door we had on a poster board. The concept of this was so that they could leave their stresses with their Bigs and know that they will get the supports they need!

This year we are also going to be modeling teaching strategies for our members. This week we did "ticket out the door". Tickets out the door are used for assessments or feedback. One way we modeled this was with the Bigs and Littles four on the door activity. The other was with our F-Back box. The members were given a piece of paper with an empty head on it that read "whats on your mind". At the end of the meeting they wrote any questions, comments, concerns or ideas on it and put them in the box. These slips will help us when we plan future meetings!

Another instructional strategy was the use of anchor charts. Anchor charts are hung up in the classroom during the year that provide important information. Our anchor charts contain MTEL information per major and will be hung up at the meetings all year!

 

At the meeting we had two volunteer sign up opportunities!

• Our volunteer positions for Kids Zone are full! An email will be sent out soon about who is volunteering and when!
• Rays of Hope is a Breast Cancer benefit walk that we will be attending on October 20! Registration begins at 10:15 so we will be leaving campus at around 9:15! We will meet in front of Scanlon! If you want to attend please email Alyssa(aperry0320@westfield.ma.edu ) by October 17 so she can get everything organized! When you contact her please give her your phone number and if you are willing to drive!

As always please email us if you need anything!
Our next meeting is on October 21 at 7:00!
Julie!