Imari+Witten

__ Imari Witten __ toc

** Pre-Adolescence **

** W : What you want to know (curiosities)**

 * 1) **Why do students with a stable home act different at home and school?**

Poster Project

** L : What you learned **

 * ** __Physical-__ I learned that in early childhood classrooms that it is important to introduce and maintain some sort of physical activity in a students school day. This is important because they might not get any at home or outside of school. Children have so much energy and as a teacher you cannot expect them to sit in on place and learn everything you are teaching without giving them a break to release some energy. Even if teachers only do physical movements while they are doing vocabulary that is important because of our bodies muscle memory. If you as a teacher use motions to explain or describe words then students and draw back on those motions and retain them for help on test questions. **** Girls start their period around 5th grade through high school. For boys their testes get bigger and the penis and pubic hair grow also. Boys start this process at around 14. Heredity also has a huge factor in pubertal changes along with poverty regions where girls periods start later, family environment is also a factor where if a child feels they are in a safe place they reproduce later than children who have a rough family life. Brain development is also an important characteristic in the physical development of a child. The brain starts to develop more and their cognitive skills increase such as attention, memory, planning, and self-regulation. Adolescents react more intensely to stressful situations due to the neurotransmitters during puberty. It is important for parents to teach and help them through this big change in their lives. Without their parents help they could feel lost and embarrassed. It is important for children to understand what is going on with them at this crucial time in their lives. Puberty can affect their motivation to want to learn because it if a student feels uncomfortable **
 * **__ Cognitive- __ Children attend and pay more attention to what their goals are personally and adapt their attention to task requirements. They also become good at planning and making decisions which is good for motivation. If they are willing to take the time to plan they are willing to stay on task. We want our students to have their attention be more adaptable and broad so that they feel motivated to do the work. Memory is also important in the cognitive aspect. Middle school students learn how to do memory strategies, such as rehearsal and organization where they group related items together. Using these strategies require time and effort. One difficult strategy that we strive our students to succeed is elaboration where they create a relationship between two or more pieces of information that aren't in the same category. During this time of their life they are learning more and more about concepts and strategies on how to do well in school. These strategies will be used in the real world when they get out of school. **


 * **__ Emotional- __ Students social development really is focused on not only making relationships, but on their moral development as well. We have learned that pre-adolescent children are often concerned with rules and what is fair. Kohlberg's Theory of Moral Development describes the levels at which students develop morality including "The Pre-conventional Level," "The Conventional Level," and "The Principled Level." These levels of moral development help us understand how students will interact in the classroom and how they interact in play. They start to understand what is right or wrong for themselves and why it is that way instead of just simply knowing what they can and can not do. These stages help me answer my inquiry question by helping me to understand the reasoning behind students actions and how to mediate conflicts that come up between students who may be at differing levels of moral development. I mentioned this in my poster because I thought it was very important. This goes hand in hand with my inquiry question. **


 * ** __Social-__ O n the social aspect, chapter 12 focuses on the family and peer relationships. This section of the chapter does a good job of explaining how a young adults' relationships change with their family and peers. This will be useful to know going into observing and seeing how the students behave socially. The social development relates to how the 1st grade teacher I am observing. She has such a huge rapport with all of her students. It is something I think effects a students learning both positively and negatively .  **




 * Name of site: Emerson Elementary School
 * Link to site: Emerson Elemenary School
 * Contact person: **Ms. Laura Schwein**

__** B. Describe your setting **__
I will be observing my 1st grade cousin a home and I will make his in class assumptions through the behavioral plan that his school follows. My focus will be on the difference in his behavior at home and his behavior at school. This will be an informal observation because if he sees me at his school it might alter the results and my research will not be creditable. Tre attends Emerson Elementary school. Emerson Elementary is a school that includes grades K-4. There are roughly 400 students in this school building. His classroom is very diverse and includes students who are on IEPs and students who are not.

__** C. Describe what you did at the site (free-write/journal formatting) **__

 * __1st visit:__**

During my first visit to Emmerson Elementary school, I was introduced to the school officials. It was a very welcoming enviornment and I learned a lot on my first day. I observed in a first grade classroom. I observed a very passionate teacher who loved and cared greatly for her students. I was very active on my first visit. She allowed me to do things like pass out papers and read stories to the class. one thing that I did not want to do was distract Tre from his learning. I wanted to stay neutral and treat him how I treated the other students.

I noticed that the class was very attentitive because of the teachers unique activites and lesson plans. I thought she was great. My mentor teacher made sure she did not show favoritism in her classroom. She was consistent on being fair throughout the whole time I was there. Tre was a very active student during class. He listened very well and did not disrupt other students learning. It didn't seem like me being there distracted him which was very good.


 * __2nd visit:__**

Each visit I went on lasted about 1.5 hours and there was never a dull moment while I was there. During my second visit the students were more familar with me and they started to come to me when they needed help or had questions. I was beginning to feel more comfortable in the classroom as well. During this time the grading period was coming to and end and progress reports were almmost ready to pass out. Mrs. S showed me the process she took while making the reports. She looked back over each students behavior charts and then at their homework completions.

One big part of the students grades was getting their agenda signed by a parent or guardian. She made this mandatory every school night because she wanted the parents of her students to be up to date daily on their childs process. This also was important because she needed to know that the parents were checking up on their child and helping them with any homework questions. I thought this was interesting because the students grades were heavily affected if they did not have a majority of the agenda signed.


 * __3rd visit:__**

One of the students in the classroom had passed away. This was the most saddening part of the time I was there. Not only was it a classmate but it was also Tres best friend and his neighbor in the classroom. Coming into class I thought he would be very distracted and off task but I was wrong. He focused more than ever because the students death motivated him to make his friend proud in heaven. Mrs. S was very comforting to her studnets at this time because she knew they were confused and very lost.

This did not stop her teaching though, She just attacked her lessons at a slower pace. For the next couple days she did not make her students follow their behavior chart because of what happened. After school I continued my observations of Tre at home. He had taken a step in the right direction for his buddy that was gone too soon. At home he no longer had to be told more than on time to do something and he had gained many stickers on his behavior chart.


 * __4th visit:__**

Tre had been named the star of the class two times in November during the first 14 days. He was on track and doing very well. His mother continues to participate in the behavior chart at home and it is working. Mrs. S was happier than ever with his progress and challenged him to keep improving. Since it was my last day and it was Friday, I went to physical education class with the students and played gym games with them. Over my four visits I have seen so much growth in my cousin that I did not expect. I had a great time playing dodgeball and soccer with the students and they asked me to visit them over Christmas break. Mrs. S was sad to see me go but she was very happy I was in her class. My inquiry question now has a clear answer thanks to this experience.

** Physical **
Chapter 10 relates to my inquiry question because classrooms students who are younger would rather be more active in their learning by having different classroom interactions. Also because when a child is physically fit it sitmulates their learning. The student that I am focusing on in my inquiry is a very physical and hands on learner. When I visited his classroom his teacher made many of her lesson objectives and activities have something to deal with movement and physical activity.

** Cognitive **
It is important to note that kids in the grades I will be teaching and also in the program I have worked are going through changes in their developmental learning. For example, as Piagets theory kids go through stages of learning. One of the stages children go through is the concrete operational stage. This ranges but usually occurs from 7-11 years old. It is a change in thought processing where the kids begin to be more logical, flexible, and organized than it was earlier. I could see a child who has not come to this stage yet. when his peers have started this stage, may get frustrated in class and cause disruptions. So I think it is important for a teacher to realize if a student is not starting to think this way and encourage this organized more logical way of thinking. (232)

** Emotional **
Emotionally every student has different problems. The books talks about how emotional development is structured by self conscious emotions and emotional self regulation. This section goes hand in hand with my inquiry question. My inquiry question deals with behavior at home and in the classroom as well. The student I am observing might have be unstable emotionally because he is living in a single parent environment. Even though he lives in this environment the text, supports encouragement in and outside of the classroom.

154,156

** Social **
A students social life and the relationship they have with their peers matters a lot during the Middle Childhood age. I am observing someone in the preadolescent age group. Social influences come from peers as well as parents. In the preadolescent phase parents are more influential than a young students peers. Not every student will have a mother and a father in their household growing up, and not every household with both parents will be a stable one. As a future teachers we need to keep this in mind because we may be the only positive person in a students life. In middle childhood, peer interaction becomes more pro-social and by the end of school years kids have organized themselves into peer groups. Peer groups are based on friendships with mutual trust. Kids tend to select friends with similarity's. When selecting group members, peer groups are formed. It's important to be conscious of this as a teacher. Select groups based on what you know about your students. Peer acceptance refers to likeability. Two-thirds of students in a typical elementary fit into the category of popular, rejected, controversial and or neglected children. The teacher made sure that everyone in the room felt equal. She made sure that there was no peer rejection in the classroom. Around the middle childhood age boys and girls begin to extend their awareness to gender stereotyping. Children can take a harsh view of certain stereotypes, such as if a girl is showing masculine traits. She may be stereotyped as a Tom boy. Culture has a strong emphasis on Self esteem. A student in Mrs. Lyons class was from Africa where women weren't aloud to talk much. She's extremely shy in the class but performs well because her parents are Authoritative. A concept of ones image, abilities and behavior in relation to others is called social comparison. At this age kids internalize others expectations and form an ideal self and a real self. In the classroom as a teacher, it's important to know the students zone of proximal development so they feel comfortable in the classroom at all times and want to participate.

264,265 ,266

** Revisiting Your Curiosities **
[Answer your original questions as best as you can, given the course material and your observations. You must make at least 4 references to the text with page numbers.] [insert answer- minimum of 1 paragraph]
 * W : What you want to know (curiosities) **
 * 1. [insert question one]**

[insert answer- minimum of 1 paragraph]
 * 2. [insert question two]**

[insert answer- minimum of 1 paragraph]
 * 3. [insert question three]**

How can I better myself in the education field?
 * 4. What new questions emerge for you as a future teacher?**