Words of the Day

I enjoyed reading and putting the ppt together on this particular chapter..I
liked it that much to share what I had learned from my reading...I was able to connect my chapter highlights on vocabulary to today's events..." planning vocabulary instruction to relate to a child's personal, previous experience,.."

Well, what an eventful week....after a whole month of planning for actually only 2 days of excitement ...I did not make it to class this past Monday evening as I had mentioned....A ribbon cutting ceremony took place today at CDR W.C.McCool Elementary Middle School (PHEW!) with many important people in attendance...Our school was graced with the presence of CDR William McCool's family, our Dept. of Defense School's higher ups, many people in brass uniforms....and other island leaders...and the most important guest was an astronaut from NASA- who had trained with CDR McCool .

Astronaut Dr. Garrett Reisman inspired the students with his experiences as a student. Writing was important to him and remembers writing on that he wanted to be an astronaut in one of his 5th grade writing assignments.

The faculty and staff of McCool were able to visit with our head director- Dr. Shirley Miles from DODEA headquarters- who shared her vision and direction of our school district...In relation to my chapter presentation Chapter 14- Adapting Instruction to Focus on Vocabulary, I picked a couple of "words of the day" from today's visit. Words of the day - "differentiated learning" , congruence, "competent and nice"...

Between the astronaut and Dr. Miles, vocabulary plays an important role in both lectures. As Reisman wrote about what he wanted to be when grew up, he used vocabulary words that were a result of his personal experience of visiting space museums and studying about space.

Dr. Miles chimed off words that left an impression on me and others....to make our teaching styles reflect differentiated learning, to be competent and nice teachers and to have some congruence in our teaching throughout the district...Again, vocabulary plays an important role..After listening to the talk, my vocabulary experience stretched...

I am done for the week...and will see you all on Monday....

Is Something In The Air?

I just recovered from lack of sleep since Sunday night. It's been a very stressful two nights. My daughter who can be so dramatic developed a high fever Sunday afternoon and what a mother I am by just treating it with Tylenol. Well, the fever never went lower than 101. When your child complains of having neck pain and sensitivity to light along with a high fever, any worried parent would panic. I did! That's ok even if the only public hospital will charge you $483. 72 for two teaspoonfuls of Tylenol #3, some drawn blood and a shot of the famous fast-acting antibiotic, Rocephin. I must've been that tired yesterday afternoon because I was supposed to call back my pediatrician around 4 before his office closed. I didn't because I was in snoozeville. He called me. I felt so bad because he must've waited for my call. He just might charge me more next time! Well, I have taken sick leave for my daughter and tomorrow I will be taking off again for my mother's doctor's appointment. I am going to top Cef's big number of absences this semester. Ha!

Hey! Where's everyone?

Monday's class seemed like a course by conference for Kate and I. Regardless, we found ways to entertain ourselves. We even learned how to hyperlink an image. How cool is that! Kate's presentation on the QRI, gave me a better understanding of how I will do my assessment of my child. Her presentation was straight to the point! Kudos.

My Chapter 13 presentation reminded me of all the fun activities that I had the privilege of doing for Dr. Stoicovy's class such as Choral Reading and the Shared Reading Experience. I miss my Ulloa students! Have a great weekend everyone and I can't wait until Monday when we get to do our first session with our students. Until then :)

The Inner Arc

That's what class was tonight without the sisters...the inner arc instead of the inner circle. Lucille I hope Angela is ok!! Lorna, I am looking forward to your presentation next week because I really liked the chapter too.

We did a good review of the last section of the QRI so I have a better idea of which assessments I'd like to try next week. I'm glad we have the rest of the semester to practice giving assessments; it should give us a good idea of which ones we like, which ones are fairly easy to administer and which ones involve more in depth processing.

I hope everyone has a good week and is feeling better soon.
Kate

Monday night

I enjoyed Monday's class as usual and I'm really looking forward to meeting the students and starting the assessments. Reviewing the QRI was very helpful and informative and I'm starting to get an idea of which assessments I'd like to try. I'll be working on my power point for Monday and I plan on going to the other microsoft website to see if I can find nicer backgrounds...wish me luck!

No more gagging! We can do this!

Kate

ALL IS WELL!

All my jitters and gagging stopped, but I think I caught the flu bug! I liked Chapters 9 and 10 rather than my chapter. We got to discuss the QRI a little bit more which made me more comfortable when we do begin our clinicals. I liked Lucille's presentation. I was reminded of the good old days of when I did DEAR and SSR. Have a great week everyone!

YIKES!

I think after tonight's class, I will pick up Cef's motto.."I think I can, I think I can..." Just looking at the thickness of the sample diagnostic reports...phew! Cef's ppt presentation only reiterated what my school district's superintendent's key word during her video conference on Friday during a teacher in-service training....differentiated learning....as educators, we need to meet our client's needs- which happens to be our students...according to Dr. Vaughn-Wiles, "the children are our customers, we need their sales.." In comparison to what Cef's chapter revealed to us was to match teacher and student expectations.

On second thought, maybe I could re-phrase my motto.." I will make it...I will make it..." A, A minus here we come...! Have a good week!