BLOG Post 5- Week 5 Morgantown High School

I am very sad to say that I completed my last and final week at Morgantown High School. I feel that by time this week came around, I had the opportunity to really get to know all of my students, their interests, and their academic strengths and weaknesses. Also, I feel that I got to collaborate frequently with many of the other teachers within the Special Education Department discussing how to help out students that are in need and what strategies may be used within the classroom in order for them to succeed and do well with their academic careers. I feel that I learned quite a bit at Morgantown High School and felt that I became a part of their education teaching family. I feel that high school challenges teachers in a whole different way than elementary school for the students have different needs and concerns than those that are in elementary school. I will cherish this teaching experience forever and am thankful to have had such a wonderful mentor teacher who guided me through the entire high school experience. I will most certainly miss Morgantown High School and will be looking forward to completing some of my contract hours their this upcoming spring semester.

BLOG Post 4- Week 4 at Morgantown High School

This week was another great week at Morgantown High School! I feel that at this point in time, I am really getting to know a lot more about the students and maintaining a good student-teacher relationship. I have really enjoyed reflecting with my teacher after each and every lesson and discussing all of the students’ strengths and weaknesses, as well as how to improve lessons, etc. My mentor teacher, Mrs. Rengers, has been a phenomenal mentor and role model for me and I am so thankful to receive her guidance at this placement. She taught me this week about the students’ Medicaid files, how to organize them, as well as how to remain organized with students’ grades and keeping them up to date at all times. My mentor teacher also allowed me to assist her with writing up one of our students’ IEP’s. All of these things have really helped me understand the paperwork that I will have as a special educator, as well as how to professionally work with it and remain organized and up-to-date with it all.
Throughout the week, we continued reading within my Learning Skills class “When a Hero Dies” and have implemented more discussions on thoughts, feelings, predictions, etc. The students are really beginning to open up to the story and have been showing more confidence during the whole group discussion period due to eagerly participating and remaining engaged. Also, we received a new student within this class. I am looking forward to working with this student due to he is an extremely low leveled reader, and I am hoping that I will be able to help him increase his reading abilities.
In the freshman English class, the students learned the five elements to writing and had to create their own “hunt story”. Once the students wrote their hunt stories, they then edited them, typed them in the computer lab, and were able to make their stories digital with pictures and recording their narration. Next week the students will present their stories. During this particular period, I have had the wonderful opportunity to work with a few of the special needs students. One in particular worked extremely hard for me this past week, so I rewarded him for his excellent behavior and work ethic within the classroom as well as for being responsible and working on his story at home for homework. I feel that by creating this positive reward system with this student has motivated him to remain on task more frequently.
In the tenth grade English classes, I have been assisting students with creating their multi-genre narratives. This has been an extremely neat assignment to see the students create and I feel that through their writings, I have learned quite a bit about each individual both as a student and as a person.
In the junior English class, the students are beginning to write persuasive essays. Many of the students struggled with getting their papers started, but once they understood the format of what was expected, they tended to have an easier time with coming up with main points and supporting facts. This class is the last period of the day, so many of times they are not completely focused and need to be reminded that they are receiving grades for their work and it is crucial for them to remain on task.
Once again, I have learned quite a bit at Morgantown High School this week from my wonderful mentor teacher, Mrs. Rengers, as well as from my students. I am extremely sad that I only have one week left at this placement.

Blog Post 3 -Week 3 at Morgantown High School

I had another great week at Morgantown High School and have learned quite a bit this week from my students as well as my mentor teacher, Mrs. Rengers. Morgantown High School has block scheduling which at first was hard for me to get used to; however, now I feel that it is beneficial for all students due to the fact that teachers are able to go more into depth during their lessons which allows students extended time to understand the presented material.
In my ninth grade Learning Skills class, the students have been working within their Mega Words Workbooks, Read Naturally, and continuing on in our novel that we are reading as a whole group. We have been working on Chapter 4, working on the acrostic character booklets, and conducting discussion sessions. I really feel that these students are beginning to open up and becoming more confident during class time.
In the ninth grade English classroom, the students finished reading a story within their literature books and have had several small group activities that they have had to complete. I was excited to help my students learn their vocabulary words that went along with the story by providing them ways on how to study and easy ways to remember the definitions. I also enjoyed reading the endings that the students had to create about how they would like the story to end. Some of the students have wonderful imaginations and had very creative compositions.
During the tenth grade English classroom, the students took their quiz on Character Development and Formal Writing as well as completed typing their individual stories within the computer lab. It was interesting to see that many students still need guidance on the computer and model typing skills. The next assignment within this class will be that the students have to create Multi-Genre Narratives. I cannot wait to read them when they are completed!
Within the eleventh grade English class, the students took a quiz on two stories that they read last week, discussed school rules, and began discussing how advertisements may affect our lives. This class tends to be hard due to the fact that there are many students who are carefree about education and are not wanting to sit within the class and/or are having to take it for the second time due to failing it the previous year. The teacher is extremely kind, but sometimes has poor classroom management skills.
Also, I had a huge surprise happen this week at Morgantown High School. Mrs. Rengers nominated me for an award and the vice principal, Mr. Louis, presented it to me on Wednesday during my third period English class. It is the “Something to Crow about Award” and I received it for working with PREZI presentations in a variety of classrooms collaboratively with my teacher. I was shocked and extremely thankful and appreciative for this award!
This was another great week at Morgantown High School and am starting to get sad that I will be leaving this school within two weeks. I am really looking forward to the upcoming week!!

This week was a wonderful week at Morgantown High School. I learned quite a bit from both my mentor teacher and my students. In my first period class, we generated several discussion periods where the students began to open up and feel more comfortable reflecting on their thoughts and feelings about chapters one through three in the novel “When A Hero Dies”. There is one student within the class that has a severe learning disability that I did my best to include her within our discussions and make her feel as a part of the class as any other student that was present. This may seem like a challenge, but I learned that anything is possible with an open mind and willing to differentiate instruction consistently throughout one lesson period. Also, during this class, we used a discussion ball that tended to keep the students engaged and wanting to participate within the discussion as well as began to design individual burrito booklets where students are to write acrostic poems about characters within the story. The students have been extremely creative with their individual burrito booklets so far and will continue to add onto them throughout our reading of “When a Hero Dies”.

During the ninth grade English class, the students were required to create PREZI Presentations. The students had two days to complete these PREZI Presentations. The focus of them was on two “six word memoirs” that summed up their life. Some of the students were extremely creative as well as shared very deep thoughts. I was impressed and felt that this was excellent for students to be introduced to and learn how to work. Some of the students were able to complete their presentations fully on their own, while others needed a lot of guidance from a teacher. When the students completed their PREZI, they then had to present them to the class. Also, one day during this week, this ninth grade class was provided with a tour through the library and learned where they may find certain books, computers, etc in the near future when they will need to conduct research.

The tenth grade English class was exciting for me this week because I was allowed to design a review game for their quiz that they were having on Character Development and Formal Writing. The review game that I created went along with the game “Who Wants to Be a Millionaire”. I think that the students really enjoyed the review game and am hoping that it helped them a lot on their quizzes. I also was able to show the PREZI Presentation that my mentor teacher, Mrs. Rengers, and I designed that contained all of the class notes. This provided students with an exciting and interactive view of their notes that may have helped them remember certain facts easier.

Some other things that I learned throughout the week are organizational tips from my mentor teacher both on the teacher end as well as how to help students remain organized. I also learned how to work the Di-Cut letter machine and helped my teacher work on a bulletin board for her HI-Y Club. (High School YMCA) Also, I was able to support my students on Friday evening at their first home football game. It was a wonderful experience and was great to interact with students and their families at an informal event. MHS has a lot of school spirit which is very exciting and I am happy to be a part of their community! I am looking forward to another week at Morgantown High School!