Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Cfa - Student Teaching
Cfa - Student Teaching
Katie Richards
Student Teaching
January 2017
Over the course of the next few months, I will continue pursuing my degree in
Elementary Education. I fortunately have been given the assignment of being a student teacher in
a 3rd grade classroom in Ocean Avenue Elementary School. I requested to complete my student
teaching semester in Portland due to my interest in working with more of a diverse student
Skowhegan, both wonderful experiences but both have similar characteristics and student
students who come from a variety of backgrounds and languages in order to encourage myself to
Ocean Avenue Elementary is located just outside the heart of Portland, Maine, found in a
quiet, residential neighborhood near other busy schools. Portland is a continuously growing
smaller city that is home to just over 65,000 people, yet reaches over half a million people in the
greater metropolitan area (4). Portland is located in Cumberland County on the Southern Maine
coast right along the Atlantic Ocean. Portland is home to seventeen other public schools, all
spread out throughout the city parameters. The eleven elementary schools located in Portland
are: Cliff Island School, East End Community School, Hall Elementary School, Longfellow
Elementary School, Lyseth Elementary School, Ocean Avenue Elementary School, Peaks Island
Elementary School, and Bayside Learning Community. The three middle schools in Portland are:
King Middle School, Lincoln Middle School, and Lyman Moore Middle School. The three high
schools located in Portland are: Deering High School, Casco Bay High School, and Portland
High School. Portland is made up of a variety of races, with more and more races other than
Caucasian living in the city with each passing year. Portland is primarily made up of 85%
Portland has a flux of immigrants coming from Somalia, Syria and other lesser-developed
Ocean Avenue Elementary School is a newer school that was just opened in 2011 and has
approximately 440 students. These students are dispersed throughout 23 classrooms, making the
classroom size averaging to about nineteen students per class. Ocean Ave consists of students
that range from Kindergarten to the 5th grade (5). There are two special education rooms found
within the school that offer students a variety of additional services and assistances to make
every students education as strong as possible. Ocean Avenues school mission statement is,
Empowering every learner to make a difference in the world (5). Ocean Avenue Elementary
implements the Positive Behavior Intervention System, which is known as PBIS. The PBIS
system is a commonly used and effective system for students, where positive reinforcements are
encouraged among teachers to use with students to help students grow to become kind, patient
and well rounded people. Teachers are instructed to use positive language and positive phrasing,
and to instruct without use of negative language. Signs are located throughout the school, with
both pictures and words, encouraging students to remember how to act and behave properly and
positively (3). The school-wide rules associated with PBIS are, We are Responsible. We are
Safe. We are Respectful. Each classroom has these rules posted near the entry door of the room
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and has student signatures on the sides, showing that students have discussed the school wide
expectations and guidelines. PBIS strategies aim to help minimize classroom disruptions,
increase instruction time, and work to improve social skills among all students (3). Additionally,
Ocean Avenue works to update their technology and provide students and their classrooms with
state of the art resources. Each classroom is equipped with a Smart board, projector, document
cameras, and a shared laptop cart. The laptops are dated MacBook Pros, but they are well
working to fit the caliber of students needs. On the laptops, students learn how to write their
own blogs, learn typing skills, play educational games, and often times complete their own
as a grant fund in association with the University of Southern Maine (5). Two local Portland
artists, Laurie and Gretchen, work with this program and come to the school every day during the
wintertime to help each grade create an art sculpture/mural and a play that depicts the current
unit being learned within that grade. This grant is evident that the arts are very valuable
components to have within public school education systems, as it helps connect new art
techniques to the students own unique learning opportunities. Of the entire student population at
Ocean Avenue Elementary School, there are 108 English Language Learners within the school.
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As seen in the chart to the left, the red fraction of the chart consists of students who were not
taught with English as their first language. The chart shows that 26% of students learned English
as a second language, and the remaining 74% of the student population learned English as their
first language. Thirty-three percent of students at Ocean Avenue Elementary School speak more
than one language. Aside from English, the top ten other most common languages at Ocean
Avenue are: Spanish, Somali, Arabic, French, Portuguese, Kirundi, Vietnamese, Khemer,
Kinyarnanda and Acholi (5). These languages contribute to the very diverse population of
students, and show that students have settled in Portland after personally coming from or their
families coming from parts of Asia, Africa, Europe and South America (1, 4). The diversity of
the school population and the variety of languages that students speak is shown throughout signs
and posters all over the school, which shows that the school not only encourages diversity, but
that the school also seeks to make students comfortable who perhaps dont speak English as their
first language. Another obstacle that students and educators face not only just in Ocean Avenue
Elementary School, but other Portland schools as well is the amount of students who are in
poverty. As seen in the chart below, the blue fraction signifies students who qualify as being
below the declared poverty line. Approximately 21% of students at Ocean Avenue fall below the
poverty line and the remaining 79% of students are at the poverty line or above (5). This data
signifies that almost of the entire school population struggles with money, thus likely
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struggling with food, shelter, safety, at-home care, etc. Within the Portland School districts, the
approximately 91% of parents have obtained their high school diploma, and approximately
45.6% of parents have obtained a Bachelors degree from college. This data is important to look
at because it can give a clear indication of potential jobs and careers that students parents or
caretakers might hold. In addition to examining the degrees that are held by parents, it is
essential to look at median household income. The median household income not only portrays
the type of lifestyle the most students likely experience at home, but it is also a crucial indicator
for which children receive free/reduced lunches. The median household income for families in
States average annual income reaches $56,516 (1,4). This data is not too surprising since Maine
and Portland consists of many immigrants who might not be able to work, but it is surprising to
be over $10,000 less than the countrys national average. Unfortunately, at Ocean Ave, there are
more homeless students than in any other Portland district school. Teachers and other school
faculty must know this because the lack of consistency, safety, and stability could undoubtedly
affect the student in school. As educators, it is essential to examine this data of average
income/students home lifestyle prior to meeting the classroom of students because it can
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Currently, our country is facing extreme political and social division after the election of
the new president. Unsurprisingly, the tension and lack of clarity has certainly impacted students
at Ocean Avenue. Students are hearing words that make little sense to them and make their own
conclusions of concepts that they arent mature enough to comprehend. As of lately, Donald
Trump has implemented an Immigration Ban, impacting the lives of thousands of people all
across the United States. A large majority of the students at Ocean Ave are from the countries
that are banned from travel, which has upset and scared numerous students and their families. At
multiple staff meetings, the faculty is at a standstill of how to handle this situation and if teachers
are even authorized to be talking to students about this unique and uncommon subject. In this
type of environment, students are picking sides for which candidate their parents voted for,
wondering if their family members are going to be deported, or questioning their worth based on
their ethnicity, religion or origin. This type of unhealthy climate is very much present among
these children in grades K-5 and the fear of safety that they have in school is truly alarming. At a
faculty meeting I learned that students are seven times more likely to feel unmotivated to learn if
they dont feel safe. For many students, even from my own experience of answering questions
that students have regarding this topic, proves that they dont feel safe being at school or even at
home in Portland. This topic is incredibly difficult to stay unbiased in because it is necessary to
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maintain a professional relationship among students, but its important to also console students
and make them feel as safe as possible. Political division, new laws and regulations dont appear
to slow down any time soon, so teachers all across the United States, even here at Ocean Avenue
Elementary, need to find ways to answer the questions and fears that students when they come
into school. We are all experiencing this immense division, with no thought out answers of what
we can do to better help the students. Based on this data, there are many implications that could
result from this state of unrest. Students will likely be on edge, and not mindful of learning,
students might not feel safe when walking around school, around the town of Portland, or even
their classroom, and it is likely that students feel unwanted and dont have a place to feel
together to find ways to make students feel more safe and secure at a place where they should
This semester, I have been placed in a 3rd grade classroom on the second floor of Ocean
Avenue Elementary School. The teacher that I am working with is named Mrs. Riley, and she is
a seasoned teacher who is well disciplined within her field. Mrs. Riley was looking forward to
having a student teacher due to her team teacher, Mrs. DiCarlo being due to have her first baby
in February. With the help of Mrs. Riley, a long-term substitute named Miss. Vaznis, and myself,
the students would hopefully not skip a beat and still continue remaining focused and able to
maintain their regular routines. Mrs. Riley and Mrs. DiCarlo do much of their teaching together,
with Mrs. Riley often teaching both classrooms writing, Mrs. DiCarlo teaching reading, and both
When I arrived in the classroom, the students appeared to be very comfortable with this
routine and understanding of what their behavior and expectations should be when amongst a
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larger group. Mrs. Rileys classroom is a large, colorful, open space, with lots of room for kids to
walk around and work comfortably. The desks are arranged in four clusters, and students have
open seating, after earning that privilege at the beginning of the school year. All over the
classroom are many different posters and charts that serve as a guideline/reminder of the
different topics that students have learned thus far, and being major decorations of the classroom.
The classroom is filled with lamps, overhead lighting, and large windows, so the classroom is
always comfortably lit for students. The classroom has two large whiteboards placed across from
each other in the room, as well as an easel whiteboard that carries chart paper, and a Smart
board. All of these boards are consistently used, especially the Smart board. The Smart board is
used in connection with a projector and doc camera, to help display students work or display
work from the teacher for classroom lessons. In front of the Smart board is a large rug, where
students are directed to sit during morning meetings and other lesson times of the day. Students
keep their belongings in lockers located directly outside of the classroom, which maintains a
clean and organized learning space. Each week, students receive a new job that they are expected
to complete, such as: water the plants, feed the classroom fish, line leader, attendance monitor,
board eraser, etc. These jobs are in connection with the positive reward system that both Mrs.
Riley and Mrs. DiCarlo have in place for the classrooms. At the end of every week, if students
did their jobs accordingly, they receive twenty-five dollars (this is fake money). They put their
money in their created wallets and keep the money in their mailbox. At the end of each month,
the teachers put on a marketplace at the end of the day. At the marketplace, students are able to
use their saved money and go around to the two teachers and buy things at the marketplace (such
as: puzzles, play-doh, chalk, pencils, etc.). Students are also able to make proposals and create
their own individual stores for other students to buy items. Some of the items that students have
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made are: joke books, paper planes, drawings, necklaces, key-chains, etc. This concept of
students creating their own stores is a fantastic way to teach young children about business and
how it works. Marketplace is also a wonderful incentive for students to do their classroom jobs
and be awarded with something fun at the end of every week and month.
Mrs. Rileys classroom is made up of seventeen students, only consisting of four girls and
thirteen boys. Two students are English Language Learners, one being a young girl who recently
moved from Somalia, and one a young boy who only a week ago moved from Angola. The
student from Somalia is able to speak English, but minimally, and is very quiet so it is often hard
to gauge where she is learning wise. The young boy from Angola speaks little to no English, and
his native language is Portuguese and Spanish. I have learned Spanish for five years in the past,
so I am doing my best to speak with him through that language. This young boy receives trauma
counseling, as he is a refugee and has been housed at several refugee camps in Central America.
There is one student who has an IEP, and receives constant support from a behavioral specialist.
This specialist is in the classroom and with the student at all times, and steps in when the student
needs to be redirected, be taken out of the classroom on a break, or gives gentle reminders of
what the expectations are. Due to trauma early in life, this student struggles with impulse control
and social behaviors. These students were discussed with me before entering the classroom, so I
knew what to expect of them. I think that ELL students are so valuable to have in the classroom
and in Portland community. I truly love diversity and I envy these students who get to grow up in
such shared cultures. Students are learning new languages from ELL students, learning about
their cultures and customs, and most importantly, learning to become tolerant of people of
different races and ethnicities. As educators, we have a unique opportunity to teach young people
The other fifteen students were up to me to learn more about, so I dove right in once I got
to the classroom and examined their learning and progression in two different ways. Before
looking at assessment data, which Mrs. Riley shared with me, I chose to do a multiple
intelligence survey with the students. After conferring with a peer of mine, I decided on The
Kagans Multiple Intelligences Structure, to look at the eight different areas of learning that
students are most connected to (2). This fairly lengthy survey has twenty-four questions, asking
students a variety of questions that they rate from zero to five, zero meaning they dont like
10
a little longer than
8
expected, likely due to the
6
4
language difficulty, but I
2
ended up with fifteen
0
Learning
Style
individual surveys from the
Naturalist
Mathematical/Logical
students. I decided that this
Verbal/Linguistic
Musical/Rhythmic
was far too difficult for the
student who is ELL, so I created my own survey for her. I asked her five questions, consisting of
one/three words (such as: Math? Drawing/Art? Going outside? Etc.), that way I could still learn
about her learning style, without having her try to navigate through English words that she didnt
understand. For the remainder of the students completing the intelligence survey, I followed the
directions for how to add up the sum of the numbers in the according categories. The eight
completing this procedure for all students, this is the data that I learned. Looking at the graph up
above, I split the data into two different graphs, that way I could focus on the learning styles in a
more visually appealing way for me. After finding each individual childs score for the learning
style, I compiled all the data and found the average total for the class. I chose to do it this way
because while I certainly do think it is important to keep each childs learning preference in
mind, I dont think it is realistic to be able to plan lessons and assessments around sixteen
different opinions. However, looking at this data, I am able to see what the majority prefers and I
can plan
Childrens
Preferred
Learning
Style
(Median)
accordingly to that.
Students'
average
score
When looking at
am unsurprised to
outdoors and with science/nature concepts. I was impressed that mathematical/logical received a
higher score than I had anticipated, since in my experience students havent been overly
enthused during math times. I expected musical/rhythmic to be higher for the class average, but I
will still consider including song into learning lessons or mind breaks. Looking at the second bar
graph, I was expecting students to score high in visual/spatial, and I was correct. I thought this
category would have a high score because I think students learn best when they can connect
higher, because it seems that kids love to be moving around constantly, even when learning. The
most interesting score of both bar graphs for me was for interpersonal and intrapersonal. While
scoring very close, I was surprised that intrapersonal scored higher than interpersonal.
Intrapersonal is when students prefer to be by themselves and to work independently. The class
that I am working with is a very social class, so I was surprised to see that more kids prefer
independent work to group work. While I do think this intelligence survey is very accurate data,
mainly because the answers are coming directly from the students, I think there could be some
error to the data because of the language difficulty used or lack of understanding of the question.
However, I think this test is incredibly useful for myself because it means that I can guide my
instructional plans to directly fit with students learning styles, and maybe they will be able to
After examining the student survey data, I wanted to look at the students reading level
scores and the NWEA testing scores. I feel pretty strongly that students knowledge should not
be associated with a test score, because I think there are many factors that go into why a student
tests the way they do and that there are factors behind how they learn that cant be accurately
depicted by a number. However, this is how public schools work, so it is essential for me to still
examine this data. Reading records are a great way to track how far students jump in the fall and
through the mid-year mark. The reading records show that one student went from a reading level
H at the beginning of the year and jumped to a reading level M at the beginning of the year.
Another student went from a reading level M to a reading level P. Other than those two scores,
students didnt jump more than one letter grade. I was surprised to see that there wasnt stronger
progressions, but the data also shows that there are seven students who read at a high level of Q,
so at their age it isnt too likely to increase much more beyond that point, except for outliers.
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Looking at the NWEA scores, for each student they receive mathematics and reading score
during the fall, Winter and Spring. According to Mrs. Riley, the winter score doesnt matter as
much as the fall and spring do, because those two seasons truly show where the students started
when they entered the third grade and when they are leaving the third grade. The aim of Ocean
Ave is to show progression of learning for each individual student, regardless of the score. I
notice for the five students who receive extra help in math and reading, their scores show
significant improvements from fall to winter. For example, one student who receives extra help
scored a 187 in the fall, and a 198 in the winter for math. While this student didnt necessarily
meet the third grade goal, he showed significant improvement. This pattern is very common for
the lower students, to start out lower and show significant gains. However, for the higher
students who work more independently and at higher levels, they score higher, but dont show as
much growth. For example, one student scored a 201 on math in the fall, and a 206 on math in
the winter. It appears like she shows little growth in her math knowledge, but that is difficult
because she already started much higher than her peers. This pattern is also common for the
higher students, to start high in their scores and not score much more than 6 points during the
next testing session. All of this data is valuable from an administrative perspective because this
shows what teachers are doing their jobs effectively and that the schools students are properly
learning. However, there are so many factors that go into why a child tested the way they did
during that day and it is hard to label their intellect based on a single test score. Students could
have been having a bad day, been tired, or misunderstood questions, so it is tricky that a teacher
is the first one to be assessed for his/her teaching style, rather than looking at the students in a
All of this data, both through the intelligence test, reading scores, and NWEA testing
scores are very important to consider when creating instructional plans and assessments. As a
teacher, it is of the utmost importance to do whatever possible to make sure the students learn. I
styles, opposed to standardized test scores. While this data is crucial for the Department of
Education and for the schools funding and distribution of resources, I dont see myself teaching
to these tests or getting the students worked up about the scores of these tests. Standardized tests
certainly show the progression that students make throughout the year, but I am more concerned
on the daily assessments and day-to-day learning happening within the classrooms. The
standardized tests are certainly powerful in the sense that they can help refer a student to get the
added help or services they need, so I certainly understand the value and impact that they
maintain. I really care about the types of learning that students want to do and how they prefer
help guide their learning, rather then only use ways that I learn best. I believe that I need to cater
my teaching style to directly and positively impact the student in the best way possible. The
graphs that I created can help me plan my lessons and provide me with guidelines for creating
interesting and captivating lessons that the students are likely to learn best from. When creating
lessons, I will create them so that students can work in groups and independently, move around,
have visual pictures, or allow students to create visuals, and use as many manipulative as
possible to help them learn. I will use the reading test scores to know which students to pair to
work together and which students might need further assistance from me or other teachers. I
think it is important to learn all of this information right away when working in the classroom
because students are more than just a test score. Students are a product of their school,
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communities, families, and interests. I think teachers must look at the whole picture when
working with students so that they can get at the deep-rooted cause at why they learn the way
they do or why they behave the way they do. Teachers have a wonderful opportunity to step into
a childs life and to take introduce ways for them to learn and grow as students. I feel very
fortunate to be placed in such a diverse school, experiencing a divided nation, and helping
students navigate their learning. This is truly a wonderful career and opportunity for me to
experience, and I am so fortunate to learn from the mentor teacher and students in the classroom
Citations
http://www.maine.gov/doe/
http://www.lauracandler.com/strategies/multipleintelligences.php
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3. OSEP Technical Assistance Center .(n.d.). PBIS in the Classroom. Retrieved February 03,
data.com/city/Portland-Maine.html
5. SchoolMessanger Presence (Ed.). (.n.d.). Ocean Avenue School. Retrieved February 01, 2017,
from http://oceanavenue.portlandschools.org/