Tara Luke

9/30/14
Student Teaching
CURRICULUM ANALYSIS
OPENING
My student teaching experience takes place at Margaret Black Elementary which
is a division of Warren Consolidated Schools and is located in Sterling Heights,
Michigan. I am teaching in a second grade classroom of 23 students. Students are
aged 6-7 years old and there is definitely a gap between the quantity of females to
males. There are 16 female students and only 7 male students. There are also a few
special needs children in our classroom. Three students in our classroom rank in the
top ten list of focus students for the entire second grade student body. These students
are not cognitively impaired or necessarily special education students, but they
struggle mainly with reading and writing skills. These particular students have also
been diagnosed with ADHD and so they struggle with concentration as well. These
students are taken out of the classroom daily for about an hour and receive academic
attention in the resource room. One of these students focuses on fine motor skills
(writing practice) as well while in the resource room and the other two students receive
attention in regards to reading. Those students are reading at a Developmental
Reading Assessment (DRA) level of 4 which is far under grade level. Two students are
also taken out of the classroom for about an hour twice a week for speech practice.
Most students are being raised in middle-class families. Most of their parents have
obtained a partial or full college degree.
Black Elementary is one of 14 elementary schools in the district. Warren
Consolidated also contains 4 middle schools and 3 high schools. Additionally, the
district provides career preparation centers, performing arts integration schools,
science/mathematics/technology centers, and alternative schools at the middle and high
school level. The mission of Warren Consolidated Schools is to, in partnership with
families and community, achieve a level of excellence in teaching and learning which
enables all students to become knowledgeable, productive, ethical, and successful
citizens. The mission of Black Elementary, in partnership with students, parents, and
community, is dedicated to providing a positive atmosphere for motivating and
challenging students to become contributing citizens and lifelong learners. The schools
vision is to develop meaningful learning experiences that inspire students as they
evolve as lifelong learners and contributing citizens. Black Elementary classroom each
contain a whiteboard, ELMO projector, and each teacher is also provided with a light
pen to further enhance technology. Black Elementary is considered a Focus School
this year because it had a large achievement gap in 30% of student achievement scores
for the 2013-14 school year. Black Elementary is a School of Choice for any student
who lives in a Macomb County district outside the Warren Consolidated district and has
no history of suspension or expulsion.

OBJECTIVES & CONTENT

The goals and objectives of my classroom curriculum are to meet and exceed the
Common Core standards. They align exactly with the Common Core and GLCE state
standards. Black Elementary also abides by the I Can statements that are required
to be displayed in the classroom and presented in teacher lesson plans as part of
Common Core. A great deal of curriculum in second grade is language arts and
mathematics focused. Reading Benchmark guides, Pearson mathematics booklets,
and Battle Creek Science resources are all provided by the district to my cooperating
teacher to ensure that all of her lessons align perfectly to state standards. To
accommodate diverse learners, my classroom curriculum supports the assistance of
reading and speech specialists, provides strategies to lessen or challenge students
based on their learning levels, and the school allows the assistance of student teachers
in classrooms.
CLASSROOM ACTIVITIES
All classroom activities align with Common Core/Grade Level Content
Expectation standards. Our reading activities are derived from Benchmark Literacy.
Kits are given to the classroom that contain sets of various sets of fiction and nonfiction
books for student reading and a large book from the same set for classroom viewing
and discussion. Scaffolding questions, activities, and handouts are contained in the
supplemental teacher guide and are implemented during the reading mini-lessons.
Major strands that are currently being addressed are questioning while reading,
identifying the differences between fiction and nonfiction, and developing understanding
of main idea and supporting details. For mathematics, the classroom receives Pearson
math kits which contain access to math videos and activities online, math workbooks for
each student, and supplemental teacher guides. Major strands that are currently being
addressed are understanding how to identify between addition and subtraction
problems and adding and subtracting double-digit numbers. The classroom receives
Battle Creek Science kits which contain experimental materials/supplies for life science,
physical science, and earth science hands-on activities, science journals for each
student, and teacher resource handbooks that contain Grade Level Content Expectation
(GLCE) alignment explanations, handouts, and directions for the completion of
activities. The major strand that is currently being addressed is plant life and growth.
Because data and research is constantly changing, the activities and content
standards at the school consistently reflect those current changes. These activities not
only reflect up-to-date research, but also the needs of diverse students. My cooperating
teacher provides her own ways and strategies for those students with different needs to
be successful whether it be adapting a broad lesson to fit their accommodations or
spending individual time with particular students. Technology is also greatly embedded
in the classroom curriculum with the usage of computers, an ELMO projector to
enhance visualization, the teachers creation of a classroom website and iPhone apps
to communicate with parents, and light pens to engage students during lessons and
promote enthusiasm.

ASSESSMENT
Because many of the subjects are taught with kits provided by Common Coresupported organizations, many of these kits contain assessments for students. These
assessments are usually in the form of verbal questioning or multiple choice written
assessments. Some written questions are open-ended, but the content or question in
mind is usually quite simple being that second graders have not yet developed great
writing and critical thinking skills. My cooperating teacher also assesses students by
observing their level of participation and work ethic during work time. We also hand out
supplemental activities (i.e. Drops in a Bucket) for morning work and go over answers
as a class to ensure that each student has a better understanding of grade level content
and also to assess for student focus (i.e. changing wrong answers to the correct ones
while checking). A state assessment that was recently completed was DRA testing for
individual students. This test was adapted for diverse learners in the way that the books
from which students read were catered to their reading level and slower learners were
able to simply answer verbal questions. It also challenged advanced students to write
responses and sequence story events versus answer questions verbally. The students
will soon take the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (ITBS). All the questions and answers will
be verbally read to students. Compared to state assessments, I feel that my
classrooms means of assessments are less formal, more reflective (for both the
students and the teacher), more qualitative versus quantitative, and more subjective.
CONCLUSION
I feel that I need to know this information about curriculum in order to be a more
qualified future teacher who is familiar with the grade level standards. This way, I will
be able to manipulate those standards to fit all the diverse needs of my students so they
can all be successful at learning to their fullest potential. Because I am considered a
new teacher at this stage, I am grateful that this district provides so many of these
subject kits to its teachers because they provide meaningful information on planning
and instruction, but it is also very guided and straightforward which makes teaching a
little easier for inexperienced educators such as myself. Being familiar with the school,
district, and state expectations will make me a more accountable teacher because it
shows that I am an educator who is serious about teaching students the content they
need to know. This information will help me in my future teacher career in terms of selfreflection on lessons and student assessment, building upon new teaching and behavior
strategies that will help more of my students succeed, and will simply help me become a
more knowledgeable individual.