Week 4

This week was a little difficult when it came to getting my internship hours in.  Fifth grade had back-to-back benchmarks on Monday and Tuesday, and Wednesday was our Valentine's parties.  Thursday, however, we were back on track and I had the chance to meet with both my robotics group and my homeroom group to continue our Seesaw lessons.

Today I put the power of programming back into the students' hands as they worked together to navigate through the learning modules on the Wonder Workshop application.  Our first programming session was a teacher-guided lesson on nested loops using the Blockly app, so this was a different approach that students had not yet had a chance to discover. 

Through trial and error, and by seeking help of fellow "programmers,"  the students continued to surprise me with how quickly they worked through the modules, as well as how they were able to customize the modules to make them their own as they also fulfilled the tasks at hand.  It was very rewarding to sit back and watch as they problem-solved and helped each other through some difficult steps in the programming process.

However, as much as we are having with programming, the STAAR test is lurking just around the corner.  I am going to begin using Quizziz on the Kindles to help this group of students refine their knowledge of content before they are able to continue with the learning modules on Wonder.  Students will still be getting to program as well as receive refinement along the way.

My home room also got to work with Seesaw a little this past week as well. This past Thursday students completed lesson 6, which had them post a selfie to Seesaw that included positive words about themselves.  Students really enjoyed seeing their posts projected on the board as I approved their comments.  Students also enjoyed helping out eachother and bringing eachother up as they encouraged their classmates to take selfies.