Katie Feehan

Ed 2500
Journal Entry Week 3

Journal Entry One

There are 23 very different and bright children in my TA's classroom. Many of the
students are at different levels of knowledge and skill and have high needs or behavioral issues. I
have observed these needs and behaviors and also discussed them with my TA and the
Educational Assistant. There is a stand-up table, noodles in elastics on table legs, and seat
cushion for a particular student. These are examples of the physical accommodation that can help
students focus on feeling more comfortable staying at a desk for a long time. As mentioned
before, there is an Educational Assistant within the classroom, and she is there to help the
students who are far below the grade level or have any behavior problems. The class has a larger
percentage than normal of students who would be deemed below grade level. The weaker
outcomes include writing, reading, spelling, math or any other subject. Mornings are focused on
math and language arts. Therefore, all the adaptation and modifications I witness are mainly in
those two subjects.
All of the grade fours were doing a novel study and had to answer a booklet of questions
for each chapter. To make sure this activity was inclusive they split up the grade in groups that
matched their level of reading. There would be an adult with each group, and each time the
adults would change groups. These groups allowed students to progress at their own speed as
some could read faster and had a better understanding of the questions while others needed to be
guided or read some questions. I worked with my TA and two students that can barely read or
write, so for them, we would verbally discuss the question then write their answer on a small
white board. Reading out loud and providing visual aid allowed these two students to understand
the same book everyone else was reading.
An example of differentiating in this educational setting would be when the students were
writing their math assessments. My TA broke up the tables and had them either alone or in new
table groups. The students who were at a lower level in math went with the EA and could use
calculators. I got put with three students who are slightly below or were unconfident in their
knowledge. I was given a colored pen so that my TA would be able to see how much I had
helped them with the question. The accommodation my group got was they were allowed to use
their multiplication chart during the assessment. This accommodation or adaptation tries to get
the students to have the potential to answer as many questions as they can right. Repetition is key
so giving calculators or charts allows the student to still see the question and know at least one
way to answer the question.
Regarding learning style, there are some students that do better working with peers and
others that do better alone. For example, when it is reading time, they have peer readers that will
read to or with them. For the stronger readers, it gives them a helping role and encourages
teamwork and peer bonding. For the weaker readers, it gives them the needed one on one
attention they should get. The class has a couple of students that prefer to work by themselves, so
my TA will allow some assignments to be done with a partner/group or solo.
 When teaching multiplication, I have relearned that there are many ways to get the
answer. One learning style would understand that to find the two multiplication number and
times them while more visual learner would need to draw an array. My TA class has small
whiteboards which the students can write on for more space. Students can also use blocks of 1's,
10's, and 100's to assist them. When talking about the questions, I liked that my TA reads them
out loud, shows them on the board and goes over how to solve it in many ways.