ELISA Journal Reflection 1

2/16/19
Standards:
1. Recognize Perspectives: Students recognize their own and others’ perspectives: Examine
perspectives of other people, groups, or schools of thought and identify the influences on that
perspective.
2. ELA Recognize Perspectives: Students recognize their own and others’ perspectives:
Recognize and express their own perspectives on situations, events, issues, or phenomena, and
determine how that perspective has developed or changed based on exposure to a variety of texts
and media from different periods and cultures.
3. Field Experience Competency: Field student has coordinated and supervised children during an
activity.
This matrix and competency are related because together they show how students can learn about other
perspectives and cultures through group activities.
Reflection:
This week was my first time in the Austrian school, so we began the day by meeting the director
of the school and our cooperating teacher. When we entered the classroom, the teacher introduced us to
the students and had us sit with them in small groups. The children had prepared introductions for us in
the form of acrostics made from their names. Each child went around reading their acrostic and telling us
things about themselves. After we were done meeting one small group, we switched small groups and met
another group of students. Next, the teacher had prepared a small ice breaker game for us to play with the
students where each person in the group took an M&M candy and had to answer a question based on the
color of the candy. We played several rounds of this and I was about to learn a lot about the students and
what their interests and dislikes were. Then we switched small groups again and played the game with
another group of students.
Before entering the school we were asked to prepare a short presentation on how Americans
celebrate the holiday of Valentine’s Day and share this with the students. After all our introductions we
started this presentation. I had created a PowerPoint to show the students about the holiday, however the
cord for the projector did not fit my computer, so I’ll have to plan for that next time we go to the school.
Instead of showing the PowerPoint, I gave a short talk about the holiday starting with the history of St.
Valentine. I then explained how people celebrate it in American culture from the kind of decorations we
use to the kinds of gifts like chocolate and flowers that people give away. Then Annika, the other student
visiting the school with me, explained to the students what valentines were and how they were a central
part to the celebration of the holiday. We then passed out craft supplies to the students and showed them
how to make their own valentines and gave them chocolates to include in their card to give to a friend.
Once we finished this activity, we had to leave the school, but next week I think we should
include another activity to assess how much the students learned or another activity to enforce the
information we give. Overall, I think we taught the students about an American perspective on holidays
and helped develop their view of how different holidays are celebrated around the world. I’m excited to
visit next week and continue this learning experience.
ELISA Journal Reflection 2
2/22/19
Standards:
1. Investigate the world: Students investigate the world beyond their immediate environment.
Analyze, integrate, and synthesize evidence collected to construct coherent responses to globally
significant researchable questions.
2. ELA Investigate the world: Students investigate the world beyond their immediate
environment. Use a variety of domestic and international sources, media, and languages to
identify and weigh relevant evidence to address globally significant researchable questions.
3. Field Experience Competency: 24. Field student has used the appropriate instructional media to
conduct a lesson.
This matrix and competency are related because together they show how students can investigate the
world through instructional media and research their questions.
Reflection:
This week in the school the class had a slightly different classroom climate. This was due to the
fact that another teacher was out for the day and we had double the students in the classroom. The other
class was a grade lower and they were a bit shyer and less fluent in English than the original class we
were working with. This was something we hadn’t anticipated, and it effected the whole class, but
overall, it was still a good lesson.
To start out, the teacher had the students arrange their tables into two large tables and Annika and I set up
our PowerPoints on our computers. This week rather than trying to set up our computers to the overhead
projector we just sat at the tables and showed the slides to the students from our screens. The teacher last
week asked us to prepare a presentation about our home states and tell the students about what it is like to
live in America. My presentation was on Indiana and consisted of pictures telling about the capital,
landscape, and culture of my area. I also included pictures of my town, my family, and my farm animals.
I sat at one table while Annika sat at another and we spent about 20 minutes giving our presentations. I
tried to speak slowly so that the students, especially the younger ones would be able to understand and
tried to give as much information as I could for each slide.
After our presentations we asked if the students had any questions, and because of the larger class and
younger students the kids were shyer and didn’t want to ask questions. So instead we turned it around and
had the students tell us about Austria. The students were a bit more active in this and they brought out a
map for me to see and showed me the provinces of Austria and told me about where they lived. I asked
what they liked about their town and they told me they loved their lake and the mountains. After this we
switched tables and I sat with the other group and gave my presentation to them and then continued with
the questions. This group was a bit more talkative and one of the kids even asked about President Trump
and the teacher told us that the day before the Leader of Austria met with the President over some trade
laws. I thought it was really cool to be talking about current events with the students over something that
we could both relate to.
Next the teacher had all the students come together and talk about what we learned. We talked about the
differences of Indiana and Colorado (Annika’s home state) and how they were both different and similar
to Austria. Then we talked about the difference in farms in America verses farms in Austria and several of
the kids told us that they lived on a farm like me and had similar animals.
Overall the lesson went very well, and the teacher was very pleased with how it turned out. The kids at
the beginning were very shy and nervous when trying to speak English with me, but by the end they
seemed to feel more comfortable with us and were able to answer more questions. I think for next time I
should prepare more questions to ask just in case the table gets quiet and the students don’t want to talk.
Smaller groups too might help too, although this week it couldn’t be helped to have larger groups. This
lesson I hope helped the students learn about the world beyond their immediate environment and now are
able to identify the similarities and differences between the two places and now have their questions
about the two states answered.
ELISA Journal Reflection 3
3/8/19
Standards:
1. Communicate Ideas: Students communicate their ideas effectively with diverse audiences.
Listen to and communicate effectively with diverse people, using appropriate verbal and
nonverbal behavior, languages, and strategies.
2. ELA Take Action: Students translate their ideas and findings into appropriate actions to
improve conditions. Use language arts skills to act, personally and collaboratively, in creative
and ethical ways to contribute to sustainable improvement and assess the impact of the action.
3. Field Experience Competency: 9. Field student has facilitated small group activities for learning.
This matrix and competency are related because together they show how students can take action and
communicate the ideas they are learning within small groups in their own community.
Reflection:
Last week the teacher told us that when we’d come this week, we didn’t need to prepare anything.
This was because the students themselves in a way were going to be teaching the English lesson that day.
So, Annika and I were more observers and facilitators in this week’s lesson, however we were able to
assist the children in communicating what they were learning with younger audiences.
We started out by meeting our co-operating teacher in our usual classroom with our language arts class.
But once we arrived the teacher lead us and the students out of the school and took us to the elementary
school right next door. When we arrived there, she introduced us to another teacher who we would be
collaborating with that day. This teacher taught a younger grade of children that were about 6-8 years old.
Then the students from our original group divided themselves into five different groups around five
different English picture books in their possession. Then the younger children were split up into groups
with the older students and proceeded to spread out around the classroom and down the hallway.
In these small groups the older children held the picture book and read to the students in English. The
group I was with was reading the book Peace at Last and would pause every few pages an answer any
questions the children had. After they finished reading the book, the group read the book again in German
so that the younger students would have a firm grasp of the story. Other groups did not do this, and I
thought it was interesting to see how the different groups of students differentiated their instruction
depending on the level of English the younger students understood.
After all the groups were done reading, they brought out paper and the students used their own school
supplies to draw pictures from their favorite part of their book. I especially enjoyed watching this part and
getting to see how different students perceived different aspects of the story and how they decided which
details to include in their drawings. This was also a creative way to assess the younger students who were
not fluent in English because it was a non-verbal way to show what they had learned. But once a student
was done with their picture, the older students wrote the title of the book on the student’s paper in English
so the younger students would learn the English words and thus have verbal evidence of their learning.
Once every group had completed their stories and drawings all of the groups came back together in the
classroom and the Headmaster put on a video of a picture book being read aloud to the class in English. In
between each page the Headmaster would ask the students questions in German and explain what was
going on for those who didn’t understand. I think this was a good way to end the lesson, and also a good
use of media and resources in a classroom where English picture books are hard to come by.
This week I really enjoyed being apart of the collaborative learning between the older and younger
students learning English. It was exciting to see the older students taking action and communicating
effectively by using their knowledge of the English language to help teach younger students in their
community.
ELISA Journal Reflection 4
3/14/19
Standards:
1. Take Action: Students translate their findings into appropriate actions to improve
conditions. Assess options and plan actions based on evidence and the potential for impact,
taking into account previous approaches, varied perspectives, and potential consequences.
2. ELA Take Action: Students translate their ideas and findings into appropriate actions to
improve conditions. Identify and create opportunities for personal and collaborative action,
using reading, writing, speaking, and listening to address situations, events, and issues to improve
conditions.
3. Field Experience Competency: 41. Field student has used appropriate procedures for questioning
and conducting class discussions.
This matrix and competency are related because together they show how students can take personal and
collaborative action on global issues and determine different approaches to improve conditions.
Reflection:
This week our usual teacher was away, and the headmaster of the school was substituting for the
class. Our teacher, however, had left us an activity she wanted us to do with the students that
corresponded to the lessons the students had been working on the past few lessons. The activity dealt with
the environment and how the government and citizens can work together to improve the environment and
keep it clean.
The teacher had Annika and I in a separate room apart from the classroom and throughout the class time
the teacher had students come in two at a time and talk with us. Annika and I discussed about splitting up
and talking to students separately but decided that the students would be more comfortable working
together and if they were together it would give them the chance to discuss a word in German together to
find the right English word. For asking questions, Annika and I took turns leading the discussion when
new students arrived in the room to talk to us. We talked to seven students and we spent about fifteen
minutes with each group.
The first question on the list the teacher gave us asked the students to think of somewhere with clean
water and air that they remembered from their childhood and then discuss if this place has changed over
time and how. The first two students told us about a lake they’d gone to and said it hadn’t changed since
they were little. The other students that came after gave similar answers. The next questions asked about
what the student thought was most in danger in the environment, and it was interesting to see the different
responses from students. Some thought the animals were most in danger, others said clean water, but the
most popular response was in regards to global warming.
The next questions asked about laws in the country that protected the environment and ask student what
they could do personally to help the environment and help protect those things they thought were most in
danger. When students didn’t know about Austrian laws we discussed with them about how Austrians
divide their trash and don’t litter, and how these things help keep their environment so clean. When we
asked the students how they thought they could prevent global warming they said using public
transportation and riding bikes were good solutions and using less plastic by drinking from glass water
bottles.
The last few questions discussed pollution and asked the students what if they thought that this was an
issue in the country. All the students that came in agreed in saying Austria does not have a lot of pollution
but other countries in Europe do. Then after the discussion was over we asked the students if they had any
questions for us. Some students asked about America and what the environmental laws were like for us,
and what the pollution was like and Annika and I talked about our States and what we knew about the
laws in our area.
Having discussions in a small group with students was a really good way to get the kids talking and to
have more questions and answers. Something that I thought was interesting was how the different pairs of
children worked together. The first pair was with two girls and they both answered the questions
separately but helped each other on difficult questions. When two boys came in they took turns answering
the questions and then the final group was a boy and girl and the boy mostly repeated what the girl had
said. Although a lot of things could be responsible for these differences I wonder if the gender of the
children made a difference in how they worked together in answering the questions.
In the last few minutes of class, the Headmaster brought in a student from the younger class who had
recently moved from Berlin from an English school so we could give him some practice with English
conversation. He was very fluent and eager to talk with us. For this discussion we didn’t use the activity
but simply asked the student to tell us about himself. He told us about his family and his favorite book
and about what his dad does as a professor.
Overall, today has been my favorite time visiting the schools because of the time I got to spend working
more on a one-on-one basis with the students. I really enjoyed our discussions and especially the last
conversation we had with the younger student, this experience has shown me about talking one-on-one
with English language learners and talking about global issues.
ELISA Journal Reflection 5
3/21/19
Standards:
1. Investigate the World: Students investigate the world beyond their immediate environment.
Analyze, integrate, and synthesize evidence collected to construct coherent responses to globally
significant questions.
2. ELA Recognize Perspectives: Students recognize their own and others’ perspectives. Explain
how cultural interactions within and around texts or media are important to the situations, events,
issues, or themes, that are depicted and to readers’ understandings of those texts and media.
3. Field Experience Competency: 13. Field student has discussed with the teacher grading
procedures and has corrected papers.
This matrix and competency are related because together they show how students can learn about the
world through different texts and media and create works from this knowledge which then can be graded.
Reflections:
This week our teacher didn’t ask us to prepare anything before class but to just come ready to
help out in the classroom. Before we reached our usually classroom the teacher had us meet with the
sister of the young gentleman we met with last week. She was a grade older than he had been and also
very fluent in English. We talked with her for about ten minutes and she told us about things she enjoyed
and what she liked about school and Austria.
Once we got into the classroom all the students were working on various worksheets about Australia, the
topic they had been studying for the past few weeks. I helped the students with their word searches and
fill in the blanks and then the teacher had me grade some of the students work. The papers I graded had
no errors and so it was a very easy task.
While assisting the students one girl told us about her aunt who lived in Australia and showed us pictures
of Kangaroos her aunt had sent her. Then at the end of the lesson she shared with the rest of the students
the pictures she had shown us as well as some souvenirs from her aunt in Australia.
This week the students looked beyond their immediate environment in learning about another country and
learned about other perspectives from the perspective of the student’s aunt. This week I felt like I wasn’t
able to do as much as I have in past weeks, but it was still exciting to just be a part of the usual on-goings
in the classroom and help with things like causal discussion and grading.
ELISA Journal Reflection 6
3/29/19
Standards:
1. Recognize Perspectives: Students recognize their own an other’s perspectives. Examine
perspectives of other people, groups, or schools of thought and identify the influences on those
perspectives.
2. ELA Recognize Perspectives: Students recognize their own and others’ perspectives.
Recognize and express their own perspectives on situations, events, issues, or phenomena, and
determine how that perspective has developed or changed based on exposure to a variety of texts
and media from different periods and cultures.
3. Field Experience Competency: 3. Field student has been able to recognize how classroom climate
affects children’s behavior and has used appropriate techniques to show positive classroom
climate
This matrix and competency are related because when a teacher creates an appropriate classroom climate
it allows students to be more comfortable in recognizing their own perspectives as well as other’s
perspectives and compare them.
Reflection:
This week our teacher asked us to prepare a lesson about American teenagers and how they differ
from European teens, specifically Austrians. Annika and I realized right away that the students in our
classroom are shy when it comes to speaking English in front of us, so for this lesson we wanted to make
sure that the students would feel comfortable asking and answering questions. By having this in mind
while planning our lesson I think we helped to create a better classroom climate where students would
feel more comfortable and be willing to speak up.
When we got to the classroom we met with the teacher and walked to our classroom, but the students
were in the middle of a German test and we had to go upstairs and wait for them to finish. This took a
little while, but while we waited, Annika and I asked our cooperating teacher lots of questions about
standardized testing in Austria and what the government controlled verses what the teacher controlled in
Austrian Education.
Once the students were finished with their test, we went into the classroom and began our lesson. We had
much less time than previously planned but we made do with the time that we had. The first part of our
lesson was asking the students to think about themselves and come up with a few points on what it meant
to be an Austrian teen. This worked out perfectly, because unknown to us, the teacher had given the
students a graphic organizer to fill in as homework about that very topic. To make students more
comfortable we had them pair up to answer questions and write their answers down so they wouldn’t be
put on the spot. Then, to make sure everyone shared something they had written we had each pair share
what they had come up with. It was really interesting what the students chose to talk about, a lot of them
mentioned skiing and school as well as sports and that you can start drinking beer and wine at 16 but to
drink other drinks you have to wait till 18. This method of questioning worked much better than had we
simply asked a question and had the students raise their hand to answer because this way students were
more comfortable sharing, and everyone had more time to reflect.
The next part of our lesson was a game that examined the perspective of American teenagers by asking
true or false questions and having students guess the answers. To make the game more interactive we had
the students get out of their seats and go to one side of the room if they thought true and the other side if
they thought it was false. At first all the students flocked together and moved across the room as a whole
group, but after a few questions students starting going off on their own more. The teacher had told us to
focus on talking about things like laws regarding drinking, driving, tattoos, and piercings so the questions
we came up with said things like “True or False, the age when teens in America can get their driving
permit is 13” or “True or False, most states require parental permission for minors to get a tattoo”. After
each question we announced which side was correct then explained the answer. The students seemed to
enjoy this game and hopefully learned a little about some of the differences from American laws
compared to Austrian.
After this we had planned to pass out slips of paper and have students anonymously write out questions
for Annika and I to ask us about our personal experience of being teenagers in America. However, we ran
out of time and had to cut the lesson short. I think that this lesson went very well and that our attempts to
create a more comfortable classroom climate were a success, however being cut off at the end left the
lesson feeling incomplete, so next time I would manage time a little better and maybe end the game a
little sooner so that we could at least get a few questions answered.