Entry #8 Video

This teacher was amazing to watch. She constantly was engaging her students and utilized a variety of strategies that she came up with or allowed the students to guide. The teacher created a community classroom where every student had ownership and an important role. She honored students home languages by allowing a student to share background knowledge of current classroom content in Russian and she also identified her students lack of language skills by listening to several students speak in Spanish. During the road name lesson, she used roads that were familiar to her students as she made the connection that Mexico was once part of Spain and California was once part of Mexico and that is why the streets have those names.

The teacher enhanced comprehension by having the students read the directions to play the math games. She also stopped often during the tape reading to check for their understanding, encouraged children to predict what was going to happen or to infer on what was happening and she use gestures and body movements to define words and actions. She stopped briefly and began a quick preposition lesson with materials ready to go in a moments notice.

The students were engaged throughout the video. She kept their attention through questioning, behavior management and by keeping their interest. The students initiated the use of spinners to aid in vocabulary words review. The teacher also utilized a teachable moment and placed her students in charge of teaching her how to make a spinner and also using something of their interest as a teaching resource.