Department of Education

Student Teaching Reflective Journal Cover Sheet

Please attach this completed form to the front of the Weekly Journal Entries.
Candidate

Cooperating Teacher

Kayla Grossman

Rose Wagner
Week

Start Date

End Date

Site

10/09/2014

10/15/14

Sacajawea Elementary

- Please check all that apply

Classroom Duties
X
X
X
X
X
X

Observation
Bulletin Boards
Assistance to the Classroom Teacher
X
Lesson Plans
Work with Individual Students
Unit Plans
Work with Small Groups
X
Parent Communication
Work with Large Groups
Substitute Teaching
Direct Instruction in Math, Science, ELA, Social Studies.
Other:
Quick Thoughts: Teaching lessons has become easier, but lesson planning especially for ELA is
difficult. The district has not chosen a curriculum yet.
Duties Outside of Classroom
X
X

Hall Monitor
Lunch Duty
Bus Duty
X
After School Study Group
X
X
Other: Parking lot duty before and after school
Quick Thoughts:

Study Hall Monitor

Playground Duty
Curriculum
Parent Conference

Meetings
I.E.P.
Student Assistance
Faculty
District
Grade Level
Curriculum
PTA/PTO
X
Parent Conference
Other
Quick Thoughts: I think it was a good thing this was a short week because we had two 12 hour days
for parent teacher conferences.
Extracurricular Activities
Coaching
Attending Special Events:

Chaperone

Other:
Quick Thoughts:
I was nervous this week to attend parent/ teacher conferences, but I was pleasantly surprised. I
took a lot of notes on how my cooperating teacher prepared for her conferences. First, the kindergarten
teachers discussed what material would be covered in the conferences. My teacher then made a one page
assessment sheet for herself and the other two teachers which covered most everything students have
learned so far in ELA, Math, and Science. I thought this was a great idea since report cards do not come
out for two more weeks and the grades are not all filled in for this quarter. She was able to cover a lot of
information in a short amount of time with the parents. She chose one piece of work from each area to
share with parents that went along with the assessment sheet. I think her planning and uniformity made
the conferences pertinent and beneficial for parents and teacher. She received a lot of positive feedback
from parents about how much students have learned so far and how much they enjoy coming to school.
It felt good to be a part of that.
She also set a timer for 14 minutes and told parents it was because she talked too much (this was
an inside joke, because she did not want to run behind on conferences). The timer works well because
not all time slots were taken, but many times families have conferences back to back with the students
siblings teachers or there was parents waiting outside for their conference. This was a way to wrap
things up without seeming too rushed or rude.
The last thing she did, which I will be sure to do in the future, was create folders with
construction paper for each student. On the outside, she wrote the students name and time of their
conference. On the inside she had all her paperwork in order. She then put the folders in order for her
conference schedule. For students who had not completed paperwork for the office, she put it in each
folder and had parents fill them out before they left. I think being organized and having everything you
need right in front of you can save a lot of time and effort and reduce stress.

The only negative part of conferences that I noticed was the parents we needed to talk to the
most did not show up for their scheduled time. My cooperating teacher said that is usually how it goes.
We had three no shows and of them only one parent apologized and rescheduled on her own. One
student was diagnosed by his doctor in Head Start as having ADHD, but they wanted to wait until he
was older to go on medication. Both the classroom and resource teacher wanted to see if they would
consider medication now. Another student is falling behind because he misses so much school. He is
now scoring at the bottom of the class in every area, and the teacher does not believe this is an accurate
recording of what he is capable of scoring. If he would just show up to school, he would be on target
with most of the class. The last student is really bright in math and his parents want to take him out of
school two afternoons a week to work with him. Both the principal and the classroom teacher think this
is a bad idea. One, because he would be missing out on ELA time where he is not as strong, and two, he
is advanced in math, but he has gaps of information and skills he has not practiced or been exposed.