Service Learning | Intro to Education

There is some very clear diversity in my placement classroom. You can just tell all the different kids from different backgrounds, cultures, homes etc. right when you walk in the room. From what I have noticed my teacher does use some tactics to help her differentiated learners understand. For example, there is a student in her class, that she informed me of on my first day, that is having a difficult home life, having parental issues and what not. So she told me that I will see him wandering the classroom during her lessons and not fully participating. The way she helps this student and told me to help him, is be just helping recognize his worth. To consistently be telling him he is awesome and doing a great job and that he is smart and so on. Which he is! But kids need to know they are doing a good job, they need to be recognized for their good behavior and work. Because maybe around their home, they aren't getting any praise. They need to know that they have someone who cares ...

There is a student in my classroom that does have some difficulty with English, so when the rest of the kids are busy doing a different activity with the main teacher, another teacher will come in an sit with him and help him with his english, so he can keep up with the other students, with some extra studying. This is made possible because of No Child Left Behind. He has the right to have help learning English in the school so he doesn't get left behind of the rest of the students progress. Another example is there is a student in my class, so has a medical condition where he/she has a weird smell coming off them. The teacher is aware of this and has made me aware, but hasn't told me what student, I just know that he/she is there. I am not educated on his medical issues, but if it was defined as a disability, he would have a 504 that allows him to get an education with possible accommodations to help them.

1 example of my teacher engaging students is when she was teaching the 5 senses. She started out by introducing the senses and then she played a noise over the speakers. Asking the students if they could guess what the noise was. As there were many guesses, none of them could guess it. This engaged the students by making them curious as to what the noise was. She then played the video/noise over the projector, so they then could hear, and see what was making the noise. It was popcorn. After they watched the popcorn pop on the screen. She then brought out popcorn, when she brought it out they could now smell the popcorn, they described what it smelt like. We then got them each a cup of popcorn so they could touch and taste it describing each sense in their own words. I thought this was a very good activity that was captivating and creative. And all students get a chance to actively participate. This also goes along well the quote that I read in the lesson, "If they aren't absor...