Weekly Reflection Logs:

A Collection from Student Teaching

Name: Leah Bromaghim
School: Jackson Elementary School, Third grade
Date: 2/01/15
Week: 4
How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have?
This week was a busy one, with ramping up for bell to bell, I basically started
taking over all of the classroom teacher responsibilities throughout the week.
My mentor teacher came and went in and out of the classroom, but I was
mostly in charge. A woman from the program Pick a Better Snack visited us on
Monday and we had a PBIS celebration day on Friday. It was interesting to see
an assembly! I finished up the science unit with Ingrams class on Friday. We
completed the SMI computerized math assessments on Tuesday and are
continuing to work on the division chapter in our Go Math curriculum. I had my
first and second observations this week. One was of me teaching math and one
of science this week. We also did my midterm evaluation. It was a busy week
but all of the events were good experiences and I took a lot away from them. I
know what I need to work on and am focused on incorporating those items into
my teaching as I head into the two full time weeks.
What were your most satisfying experiences? What were your most challenging
experiences?
I think getting good feedback on my first observation was really satisfying
as well as getting pretty good marks on my midterm evaluation. I still have
plenty to work on and I always want to keep improving, but I felt like I was
really getting the hang of this whole thing this week. I still had moments were I
kind of freaked out a bit and felt like I didnt know what I was doing at all, but I
managed to get through those as well.
Some of my biggest challenges are timing and pacing. I think I need to really
schedule out my lessons, time-wise and be realistic about how long example
problems and activities take. I also have a hard time getting students attention
sometimes so I need to figure out a plan to fix that.
What are the plans for the upcoming week?
The first full week of my full time bell-to-bell teaching! It is sure to be an
adventure with a roller coaster ride of ups and downs. I am going to try to
remember to think about the feedback I got this this week and work to improve
on items from the InTASC standards as well as the feedback from Bills
observations.

Date: 2/08/15
Week: 5
How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have?
This week was my first week of official full time bell-to-bell teaching! Yay full
time teaching! So I had all of the responsibilities. This included Math for all
three classes and back to the beginning of the science water unit for Mrs. Hs
class. There were many ups and downs this week, but I managed to get
through and was mostly successful.
What were your most satisfying experiences? What were your most challenging
experiences?
My biggest challenge in the beginning of the week was getting the
students to take me seriously enough to cooperate and listen when they
needed to pay attention. My mentor teacher saw that I was struggling a lot with
the classroom management, so she and I made a game plan after school early
in the week. I basically started my lessons out with giving the students the
expectations of being in math class. We are going back to square one. Lets
check ourselves and see if we are meeting these expectations: hands on desks,
feet on floor, raise your hand to talk, do not call out or blurt answers, and do
not talk back if you need to be redirected. I told them that the stakes were high
and if at anytime they arent following the directions from the teacher or the
expectations posted on the board, I will start taking corners of jamboree cards.
I warned them that I wouldnt be giving warnings since they know the
expectations and need to be responsible for themselves. I also let them know
that if they talked back they would miss two corners. Ms. T advised me to being
serious, but calm during this talk with the students. She also encouraged (and
kind of required) me to take as many corners as possible to show the students
that I mean business. Ultimately this worked very well! Once I took a couple
corners in each class, the rest of the students would shape up and cooperate
because they didnt want to loose theirs! If they still have their jamboree card,
students will get to attend a pizza party toward the end of my stay at Jackson. I
think this whole classroom management issue and implementation of
expectations/putting my foot down was both a big challenge and a satisfying
experience with the results. Ah, classroom management is what it is all about!
Another challenge for me is getting ahead in lesson plans. Even if I have
a plan, when I go over it again I end up completely changing it around. I also
have always been a procrastinator, but with real teaching, it would be so
rewarding to be ahead on planning! This is something I still need to work on.
What are the plans for the upcoming week?

The plans for the next week are bell to bell again, but I will start easing
out on Friday to start the phase out process, at that time trout will take back
over. Math will include two-step story problems and order of operations; I still
have my health lesson plan from last week that I will try to get in this week. We
will still have Mrs. Hs class for science with the water unit so we will be starting
the second week of that. There will be a Valentines party on Friday as well. It
will be a busy week with seminar on Tuesday and portfolio class on Saturday!

Date: 2/15/2015
Week: 6
How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have?
This week was my second week of full time teaching! Over all, it was pretty
chaotic and crazy. My mentor teacher attended an all day hiring meetings on
Monday so I had the favorite substitute (a first grade teacher who retired last
year) who was awesome. Although I had found her intimidating when I first met
her, it was nice to have her observe me teaching and get some feedback and
tips from a veteran teacher of 40 years.
Ms. T was back on Tuesday, but with seminar that night, it was a very
overwhelming day. She was absent Wednesday and Thursday due to sickness. I
managed to get through Wednesday with the extra support of a substitute, but
Thursday was a little scary when the substitute that had signed up, didnt show
up. I was on my own with a whole crazy mess of three different third grade
classes throughout the day. Teachers from the building stopped in on me
throughout the day. One of the first grade teachers also has a student teacher,
so during the afternoon when I have the very challenging behavior class she
split her time between both her room and ours. Even though the plan was that I
would be full time bell to bell those days anyway, so really nothing changed
that much. However, it was certainly a challenge to not have someone to send
the students out of the room to when they needed to be sent out of class
(typically Ms. T camps out in the library to do work while I am teaching). I
actually had to kick a few students out in the hall or sent to another room for a
timeout because of how bad their disruptive behaviors and aggressive
outbursts during the afternoon class were. Overall though, even though there
were some crazy days in crazy week, it felt cool to kind of feel like I had my
own class and classroom for a few days. Teaching felt more real not having Ms.
T there and it was funny because many of the students didnt even realize she
wasnt at school those days because she had been out of the room so much! I
didnt tell them anything about her being gone, because I was okay with them
continuing to think she was in the building.
What were your most satisfying experiences? What were your most challenging
experiences?

The most challenging experience was being overwhelmed on Tuesday night

and having a big old melt down and freak out while talking to my parents on
the phone. It was all fine and I was fine, I think just a lot of pressure was built
up and after a completely overwhelming first seminar on Tuesday night, it just
all came crashing down on me.
Mrs. Hs class with all of the behaviors was of course a challenge every
day this week. As I said before, I had to send some students to the instructional
coach and the office, a few time outs in other classrooms, and time out in the
hallway happened as well. I think it was good I kicked them out though. If there
is anything Ive learned it is to be tough and firm and dont let them get away
with such horrible behavior and attitude.
One of my satisfying experiences was Ms. T coming back on Friday after
being sick and taking her class back. It was a relief to see her and she
congratulated me on surviving alone with the third graders. The most satisfying
experience though was completing the week! I made it through full time bellto-bell teaching fairly unscathed. I feel like I was mostly successful as well! The
students still listened to me and we got things done despite my mentor teacher
not even being in the building and one day not even having a licensed teacher
in the room! It was kind of a cool feeling to really be in charge I really felt like
a teacher or at least like I was doing a good job of pretending to be one. Even
though Ms. T was gone, I still ate in the teachers lounge and people would stop
me in the hall to talk to give me a friendly greeting. This week I finally felt
comfortable and like I fit in at school.
What are the plans for the upcoming week?
Phase out: observing a few other teachers in the school and teaching social
studies and health a couple of the afternoons. The week will also include two
field trips back to back and a pizza party!
Im going to have a hard time leaving at the end of next weekIm really
going to miss these third graders! I know Ive learned SO much! I finally feel
like I have it all (well no, not all, but most) figured out and now I am going to
have to leave and start ALL OVER AGAIN. Itll be tough.

Date: 2/22/14
Week: 7
How did you spend your time this week? What responsibilities did you have?
This week was my last week in third grade at Jackson Elementary School in
Des Moines. Although it was a fairly easy week as far as teaching goes, it was
very overwhelming and a bit emotional. The school and students have really
grown on me throughout the last two months and I knew it would be hard to
leave. I honestly didnt expect to be so attached and have such strong feelings
in just seven short weeks.

My responsibilities included teaching a few social studies and health lessons

in the afternoons. We had two field trips this week so I help out and go on
those. I got to attend the first night of parent-teacher conferences on
Wednesday. On Monday I did a mock interview with the dean of students/math
instructional coach at the school, Ive interacted with her quite a bit so I wasnt
too nervous and it wasnt terribly bad, but I am SO glad I did it and Im so glad
it wasnt a real interview! It could have gone a lot better, so Im glad it was in
an easier, comfortable setting and wasnt a real interview. The instructional
coach gave me some awesome feedback as well so I feel a tiny bit more
prepared for those real interviews in the (not so) far distant future. On Monday
we also did my final evaluation. It went well and I felt really good about it! I got
really great positive feedback from mainly Ms. T and Bill a bit as well. I passed
all of the InTASC standards
And last but not least, we did the positive behavior pizza party this week! It
went well and it was fun to celebrate the students good behavior, pretty funny
to see the ways students who didnt get to attend were sucking up to myself
and other teachers and trying to convince us to let them come watch the movie
and eat pizza, but they knew the expectations and the rules of the jamboree
cards!
What were your most satisfying experiences? What were your most challenging
experiences?
The most challenging experience was getting students to stay quiet at
performances on the field trip and maybe getting their attention at the end of
the day to get in the last lesson. Also, another challenge was not falling over,
hurting myself, or hurting anyone else when my students mobbed me in giant
bone crushing whole class hugs on my last day.
There were tons of satisfying experiences this week! One was bringing in
some of my favorite picture books to do read-alouds with. The students REALLY
enjoyed the books, especially The Day The Crayons Quit. Another satisfying
experience was watching the students enjoy the field trips and enjoying it
alongside them. Getting 75 cards from all of my favorite third graders on Friday
was pretty awesome (a few kids even wrote in them apologizing for their bad
behavior and included that they hope I have better students when I am a
teacher. It is pretty cool to see them reflect on themselves like that!). Playing
some games on my last day. Doing a photo shoot for my e portfolio and
making a game that we couldnt see their faces, looking at the photos
afterwards and giving the kids whose faces we could see some flack for it. The
pizza party for positive behavior was awesome. It was great to celebrate those
students who did well and the party, pizza, and movie went really well. I
stopped in the rooms of the students who werent allowed to attend and they
all were trying to get me to let them come over. We ended up sending them
cupcakes, but they did not get to attend! They should have thought of the
consequences of their actions.
Writing thank you notes to my amazing mentor teacher: Ms. T, the other two
third grade teachers, administrators, the janitor, and other teachers in the
building who helped me along the way was a really good reflective activity for

me. I also think it was a good move on my part, it is fun to see a face brighten
into a smile when you give a card or gift. The janitor caught me later and told
me I had made his day. This, in turn, made MY day!
One thing I really didnt expect was how upset the students were with the
fact that I was leaving. The last couple of days a ridiculous amount of them
would ask me Why are you leaving? You should just stay! Dont leave us! I
got a million hugs (what could be better than that?!) and really enjoyed giving
them all a pencil and a fun little hand-held maze toy that they were SUPER into
on the last day when they got theirs! At some point during each math class we
went around and did 20 compliments for Ms. Bromaghim where the students
raise their hand, I call on them and they give me a compliment. I have never
felt so special in my life!!! It was both satisfying and a challenge to know that
they all liked me and wanted me to stay. I will always remember this class of
third graders; I am very attached to them. I teared up many times, but am
proud to say that I didnt fully cry in front of any of the students! (I did on my
drive home though) At the end of the day, after they swarmed me with hugs,
when we were walking to our lockers, one of the boys in my class (the one who
is ALWAYS reading his book during the math lesson and doesnt always listen to
directions, but is a charming, cute, happy kid) was very upset and crying that I
was leaving. THAT was hard. I walked up to him at his locker and asked if he
was crying and he turned and gave me the biggest sob-filled hug, and then ran
away.
I can say now, though, that I am a third of the way through student
teaching! I couldnt be prouder of myself and of the progress that Ive made! I
love love love third grade, despite the challenges I faced. I couldnt have asked
for a better mentor teacher and am SO thankful for such a great first student
teaching experience.
What are the plans for the upcoming week?
Next week I will be starting my next placement at Waukee Elementary
School in the ESL classroom there! On to the next adventure, I am both excited
and nervous and kind of like: Uff-dah I have to do all that again! Here I go,
trying out a new roller coaster, well see how the ride compares to the first one.