This week, my CT and I spent the morning in a professional development pop up. The pop up part means that it is done in the school during normal working hours to make sure that the teachers have opportunities to attend professional development. I attended one of these before so I was expecting a presentation with a packet to follow along with and some questions and group discussion... this one was different. We walked in and were offered treat bags with chocolate and candles along with relaxation gummies, then we all sat on the floor in a candle lit classroom do yoga. We were sent away with a packet on why a teachers calmness helps students, but we didn’t go over the packet. It was a nice start to the day although I’m not sure where the professional development part happened.
In other news, I have posees in the past about how my CT was running out of ideas for teaching sight words and that students were not regaining them. This week I was able to see a new strategy that she added in that students seemed to enjoy because it was like a game. After using flash cards and have students read the cards, find the cards, hand get the cards and so on, she gave them letter tiles to arrange into the word. This is not only a fun activity for the students, but also a different way of learning sight words. Rather than reading the word they are spelling it. In my opinion, it’s very different to know what a word is by looking at it and to know how to spell a word. The students did well with spelling the words after going through the cards as they typically do.
Kaylie, I think it's great that you were able to attend the pop up. I think a teachers attitude can change how the learning environment feels for the students and is important to remember to remain calm and show positivity for the students to feel safe and positive as well. I am glad your CT is using different approaches for teaching it's great to take into consideration how often we should try new approaches and try changing things up for the students so they don't become bored or not interested in the material. I like the approach you mention of it feeling more like a game to them students enjoy work more when it's fun and interactive for them rather than just sitting down doing a worksheet.
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