Reflection 9

University of Puerto Rico in Humacao English Department Shirlenne Peralta 842-07-6270 Practice Teaching Practice Supervisor- Dr. Nilsa Lugo

REFLECTION #9 October 13-17, 2014 The first day of the week there was no class because it was a holiday. The next day there was also no class because there was a Hurricane warning. Gonzalo the hurricane, thankfully did not touch Puerto Rico and we were saved and unharmed from any damages. On Wednesday October 15, I was finally back at my practice center after being out a week. When I arrived at the school, there was a group of about five girls from my group that saw me in the office signing and ran there to hug me and tell me that I had the Chikunyunga and I told them yes but that I was back and well and that I had missed them. By the time it was time for my class, I had a lot of students running up to me and hugging me and telling me they missed me. I actually saw another side of a lot of them and got to experience their sweetness which was very nice.

My group had already finish reading the story last week with Gina and Luis, so I reviewed the vocabulary words in a power point presentation. The seats were arranged differently but it did not work at all! Even with the technology, students were not paying attention. I was a little frustrated but I tried several techniques to win my students attention back such as calling out the names of the students distracted to read to bring them in to participate. I also did not wait for students to raise their hands to participate but rather called them to read. A lot of students were not willing to read. There was around 5 students who wanted to read when I asked them to at first. After a while, the others started to participate in reading. At the end of the power point lesson there was an assessment of pictures on the projector in which students had to call out the name of the vocabulary word belonging to the pictures and I would say they got 67/9 right which was pretty good although not the percentage of mastery I was hoping for. It is still under the one I had set on my objective for the day.

University of Puerto Rico in Humacao English Department Shirlenne Peralta 842-07-6270 Practice Teaching Practice Supervisor- Dr. Nilsa Lugo

The next day my students were on a field trip so I did not give them class. I postponed that lesson plan activity for later. Friday’s original objective and activities were changed as well for a couple of reasons. Number one, my students were not ready to start with that material and number two, Friday was short period and there was no time to do that activity. So for Friday I decided to do a classroom quilt activity. I brought each student a paper with a square piece of quilt in it. I also made mine with the characters of the story the Keeping Quilt. Students had to write the title of the story in the middle, below the title their name, and their family member’s name around. In each corner students had to choose four values they consider most important in their families and write it down. For homework, the students had to color the quilt and bring it to class already cut around the edges.

I hope everybody brings it to class finished because I want to be able to display our classroom quilt before we move on to the next unit. Also, the seating arrangements were changed and my class did not work. It could be because there are so many students and there are not many choices to move the chairs to change them, then my students are too close and get distracted with one another. This day I also used a video my practice teaching partner Jaileen used for her class but mine was a total mess. I’m glad they were having fun, but not in an organized way. They were singing and dancing to the song Happy which I love, but they went completely crazy and then their level of hyperactivity stayed up there and did not come down which made the process of teaching really hard. I believe that for next time I give a song like that, I can use it for the end of the class, or if I use it at the beginning need to have the seats in the way they are used to so they can each stay in their corresponding seats.

University of Puerto Rico in Humacao English Department Shirlenne Peralta 842-07-6270 Practice Teaching Practice Supervisor- Dr. Nilsa Lugo