Mentor Log
Mentor Log For ATP_600______________________
Mentee _Cassie Bay_____________________________
Mentor _Kelly G________________________
Date: 9/8/15
Activity Content
Discussion about being my We discussed the ATP I am very excited to be working
mentor. program and the time frame with Kelly and am grateful that
for completion. Kelly also she has agreed to be my mentor!
asked me how I learn best
and what I am looking for in
a mentor.
Date: 9/15/18 Content
Activity 1. Q: What is your philosophy
of education?
Mentor interview
A: My first responsibility to
the kids and parents is to keep
the kids safe. Then, I guess I
would have to say I like to get
the kids, down on the floor
sorting things or grouping
things, opposed to doing
worksheets. I guess you would
call that hands-on learning. I
like to give students options
and differentiate. I never ever
thought I would work at a
Christian school and it kind of
just fell into my lap. Because I
work at a Christian school, as
often as I can, I try to bring in
what in the world does this
Comments/reflection
Comments/reflection
After hearing Kelly’s responses to
these questions, one of my
favorite things that she does is
getting to know her students
before they ever enter her
classroom. I love that she talks to
them at recess and learns their
names the year prior to having
them. I think this is a great idea.
This gives the teacher a chance
to prepare themselves for the
students that will be entering their
classroom, and it also gives the
students a chance to feel
somewhat familiar with the
teacher.
I do agree with the advice that
she says she would give to
another teacher. Anticipating
what will happen during a lesson
is very difficult, and it is
something I often forget to do. I
have to do with Christianity
and God?
2. Q: How do you build your
relationship with students?
A: I actually start the year
before. Towards the end,
maybe the last trimester, I start understanding the material the
talking to the first graders at
recess and talking to them and students aren’t as engaged as I
learning their names. We also thought they would be, there’s a
do a rotation where students
rotate up to the next grade
level for about 20 minutes.
During that time I do a fun
activity with them to. We also it’s necessary to be flexible. But, I
have an Ice cream social a few do believe that it’s important to
days before school starts
where teachers get to meet the
students and families that
they’ll have that school year.
Then, there’s a thing called
consensugrams where you
make posters and stick them
around the room. They have
questions on them. I got dot
paint and students go around
the room and mark posters to
answer “yes” to a question. On
a weekly basis, students get
table points. Whoever has the
most table points on Thursday
gets to come and have lunch in
the classroom with me. They
don’t know this, but it’s
completely rigged so everyone
has a chance to earn it. I also
have students answer journal
questions are about their
weekend, and when they write
about it, I learn what’s going
on in their personal lives.
love planning great, engaging
lessons and I always imagine
them going a certain way in my
head. However, there has been
many times when it doesn’t pan
out the way I expected—there’s
interruptions, classroom phone
keeps ringing, students aren’t
way I thought they would,
behavior issue with one or more
students, a student gets sick, etc.
I think it’s impossible to plan what
will happen, and, as a teacher,
have a backup plan just in case
something doesn’t work out the
way you planned it.
Although I didn’t put it in the
actual Q and A, Kelly did mention
that she struggles with answering
the question “What is your
philosophy of education?”
because it’s hard for her to put
into words. I have always had a
difficult time putting my
philosophy into words. I always
feel that it sounds too cliché, or
that maybe I’m not really
answering it the way that I
should. In her answer to me, she
broke it down into what she does
and what she feels is important in
the classroom.
I also agree with Kelly’s stance
on what she feels is the hardest
part of teaching—parents,
administration, and behavior. I’ve
met many different types of
parents during my 5 years of
teaching (and I know there are
3. Q: What’s your favorite still many more to come), and
“success story”? you never know if parents will be
supportive or if they’ll be difficult
A: I know there’s been a lot to work with. I’ve also worked at
but it’s hard to think of one a few different schools, so I do
right now. I guess the most see how administration directly
recent one I can think of is affects the staff and school. It’s
there’s a poster on Pinterest difficult when you don’t have
that says “The struggle is administration that’s supportive of
real”. I love it. It’s like an their staff. It makes doing your
anchor chart. I put that up and job as a teacher challenging.
there’s three columns “What is Students with behavior
challenges can also be very
struggle time?”, “What can I
difficult. This year I have several
do during struggle time?”,
students who have behavior
“What can I not do during challenges, and it definitely takes
struggle time?”. We’ve been a lot of my time and energy.
talking about it a lot and the There are days when I want to go
kids think it’s funny. During home and just crawl in bed
morning work sometimes because it’s been such a long
there’s not really a direction day with these kids. But I also
on the worksheet, and we talk know that when these difficult
about “How could you solve students succeed at something,
this? What do you think is the it’s a reminder of why I’ve
correct answer?” There’s one become a teacher.
little girl in my class this year
that is hilarious. During Jiji
math she raised her hand and
wanted to whisper something
to me. She cupped her hand
and whispered “I struggled
through”. I don’t know what
she struggled through, she
didn’t tell me, but I thought it
was so cute that she
remembered what we talked
about and applied it to what
she was doing.

4. Q: Why do you teach?

A: I’ve asked myself that a
lot because I absolutely love
teaching. I love kids, I like
talking to kids, reading to
kids. Even before I was a
teacher I liked whenever I
explained things to someone,
people would say “Oh, you
explained that really well, now
I get it”. I like having that skill
and I really enjoy it. Why I
enjoy it, I don’t know, but I
just do.
5. Q: What do you think is the
best part of teaching? The
hardest part?
A: I would say, for me, the
best part is getting to be
creative. I think I have more
flexibility to do that at a
private school than you do at a
public school, although I’m
not positive. But I love the
excitement of being creative
and coming up with different
things.
The hardest part—
three things: parents,
administration, and behavior.
For me, I am a people pleaser.
I’m aware that when I’m
planning things and grading
things, I want the parents to be
happy about that. But I don’t
like that I put that pressure on
myself. If you have kids that
are so behaviorally different
from the rest of your kids, it’s
very time consuming to think
of what works for them and
the student can disrupt the
lessons, which makes it hard
on everyone. Administration
really tries to change things
and please people at private
school, and it’s really difficult
on teachers. For example, they
took away custodial work to
save money recently, so now
we have to clean the
classrooms and vacuum. Also,
they took away our Spanish
program, so now teachers
have to teach the Spanish
program through a computer
program.

6. Q: What is one piece of

advice that you would share
about teaching?
A: My best advice would be
anticipate the problems that
might come up or the students
that might struggle or the
interruptions that might
happen during a lesson. Stop
and think what could go
wrong and be ready for that. I
forget that some students don’t
get as I excited about writing
as I do and during one writing
assignment, the students did
not like copying what I had on
the board onto their own
paper. They were commenting
that their hands were tired. I
forget that at the beginning of
the year, they are more like
first graders instead of second
graders, so they aren’t used to
doing as much writing. To go
along with that, remember to
break it down, then break it
down again, and then break it
down again. My students are
 in second grade and
sometimes I forget what they
can’t do. They need to have
things, like directions and
steps to solve a math problem,
written down so they can refer
back it.
Date: 9/23/18
Activity Content
Reviewing goals Kelly and I discussed my
two specialization areas:
Instructional Literacy and
Digital Literacy. The next 4
classes in the program will
be for Instructional Literacy.
Since most of the students
in my class are
academically low in both
math and reading, I am
hoping to learn new
techniques and how to
effectively design
instruction to help meet
their needs.
Q: Are there any
instructional strategies that
you currently use that you
feel are helpful for
students?
A: * Learning contracts.
This is all the week’s worth
of language arts pages the
students will need, and is
stapled into a packet.
Students can work through
much of it at their own
pace, and have choices on
Comments/reflection
I appreciate the feedback that
Kelly gave me about my goals
and the advice that she gave me
about reflecting on my own
teaching. I love her idea of writing
things on post-its. I’ve just been
writing things down at the end of
the day, but it might be a good
idea to quickly jot down things on
a post-it right after the lesson so
that I remember it later. I also
liked hearing about the
instructional strategies that she
uses. Like me, she likes being
able to give students learning
options to choose from and
allowing them to work at their
own pace, when applicable. I
would love to try using some of
the strategies she uses in my
own classroom, especially the
learning contracts.
Next steps: Begin to implement
strategies that will help me
achieve my goals. Document and
reflect on these strategies. Meet
with Kelly again in 2 weeks to
which pages they do; there discuss progress with goals, as
are differentiated activities well as discuss my next class
in the learning contract. It with her.
allows them to be
independent with their work
* The learning contracts
have partner/group work
activities where students
get out of their seats and go
to "centers" to collaborate
on a given skill. There is a
recording sheet for each
activity in their learning
contract
* while my students are
working in their "centers" I
pull small groups to the
back table where we will
work on reading, fluency,
phonics skills, flashcards
etc., whatever skill that
particular group needs.

The following 4 classes will

be about Digital Literacy.
My hope is to be able to
learn how to use different
technology tools in the
classroom. I’ve used
Google Classroom and
Google Docs, as well as
some educational software
programs, but I’d really like
to learn how to incorporate
technology into my lessons.

Q: What kinds of
technology do you currently
use in your classroom?
A: *online Rosetta stone for
Spanish
*document camera,
projector, powerpoint
*ST Math, Lexia, Xtramath,
mathific, SpellingCity
*educational apps
*AR

I informed Kelly of my 2
goals that I recently set for
myself during ATP 600

1. During the 2018-2019

school year, students will
track their progress on
weekly and unit
assessments, as well as
write weekly academic
goals for themselves in a
student data binder.
2. During the 2018-2019
school year, I will keep a
reflection journal in which I
document specific incidents
and assessments
throughout the school day
and reflect on how I could
improve upon these items.

We discussed my goals
and why I chose them. We
discussed the student data
binder (we both used to use
it).
Q: How do you feel about
the student binder? Do you
still use it?
A: I do not use the student
binder currently, however I
recently came across it and
thought that I would like to
re-instate it somehow. I
remember there was
something about it that my
students never quite "got"
but I do not remember
exactly what it was. I think
perhaps it had something to
do with it being too many
pages or steps or
something. So I guess
something quick and simple
would probably be best. I
also think I did not do a
good job of explaining it up
front, so they may never
have really understood or
bought in to the purpose of
it. Probably an anchor chart
the kids could refer to
somewhere on the
classroom wall would help
too. And probably lots of
follow-up conversations as
you go along. Also set
short-term goals with
rewards, as well as long-
term goals.

Q: Do you keep a reflection

journal?
A: Yes I have kept a
reflection journals in the
past, but nothing recently -
no time. I reflect in my
head. What I do when I
reflect now is write it down
on a post-it. So for
instance, if I did a particular
activity with my kids I will
write a post-it with my
reflections on it and slap it
on to the hard copy so that
when I go back and get it
out next year I will be
reminded of how it went. I
do this all the time, and it is
soooo helpful because I
forget things so easily.
When I find the post-its, I
have time to modify or
adjust the assignment
before I teach it. I learn a
lot from these post-its, and I
am always glad I took the
time to write them.
Speaking of reflecting, I
think it is really good to
meet with the students one-
on-one to help them reflect
on their progress and give
them feedback. Just
choose one or two things
even. I think oftentimes the
students don't really have
any idea why they are
doing what they are doing
in school. They just do
whatever the teacher tells
them and don't connect
their grades with what they
are doing. Just a thought.

Kelly then gave me

feedback on my goals:
I really like your goals,
especially the first one
because I think that most
students don't realize they
have power to affect their
learning. They just kind of
bumble along. I think
teaching the students to
track their goals and
progress will give them an
awareness that they can
directly influence their own
learning. Great idea.

And "reflecting" is probably

one of the best life skills
you can have. I am a
"reflector" but many people
never ever do that.
Personally, I don't know
how you can grow as an
individual unless you
reflect, so that is a wise
goal for you to set for
yourself.