Day 3 Coral Reef Continues

After observing the first read-aloud with second grade yesterday, my cooperating teacher, Ms. Miguel and I have discussed some questions I had about how to approach the students in this environment should a given situation arise.

She suggested to me, that should their behavior be inappropriate that they be stopped and asked to read a sign that is located near the three stairs. It has been mentioned to me that the design of the library creates a desire for the students to jump or play. I do not think that that type of architecture should be created since the design might mimic that of a playground.

I have just spent my second day working with the 5th grade on their Coral Reef projects. I see how the teacher has prepared the Media Specialist with a list of topics and the students who have chosen them. I really like having the information in front of me.

I have seen how Ms. Miguel approches their research regarding Lexile reading level and full text items. I have also observed how she modeled how to tell if a web site is credible. It was very eye-awakening and smoothly executed. She went to google and searched "Coral Polyps". She discussed the first two results, Enchanted Learning and Wikipedia. Said how high school students are not allowed to use as a source but how she uses it but not as her only form of research. She then found a page that appeared to have good information and showed how many steps it took to find out who the creators of the site were. It was obvious to the class that searching using iCONN was the best bet!

I have observed first grade as well as Kindergarten read-alouds yesterday. I assisted the students in group work working in a group with a student who did not seem to have placement as well as another one. I then assisted other students in searching for books and even reading excerpts from books for others students. I tended to focus on making sure students who were not allowed to check out book because they had not returned theirs. I spent small amounts of time with them reviewing books in the library since they would not be able to take anything home.

A 4th grade class came to the library to perform a scavenger hunt. Not much library background information was given to the students before they were released to start finding matches from one column to the next. I observed that certain students were able to match but not know were the books were located. It is easy to infer that B matches Biography but to know where a biography is located is more difficult. This hunt revealed how students approach a task as well as methods of solution.

Nely and I ended the school day by reviewing student teaching paperwork, discussing collaborative approaches, and the inquiry-based program.