MY DIARY

First week: There was a conflict in the playground among some

students caused by a game. One of the boys was frustrated and very
angry with a classmate, the teacher decided to talk about what had
happened in the classroom with the rest of the students. The teacher
knew that the frustration of the kid had to be solved; the best option
was doing so in the classroom and talk about the issue more peacefully.
Therefore, I realized how important is to solve a real problem with all
the students in the class in order to make awareness of the bad
attitudes and to come up with different solutions.

Second week: The music teacher taught me some strategies to use the
voice properly. Due to some nodules, I don’t know how to produce the
voice with the proper air and therefore my way of speaking is not the
proper one. The teacher helped me a lot with some activities to warm
up the voice and gave me some advice as well that could be very useful
for my future work.
During the same week, we also went to the Palau de la Música, we saw
a “Cobla” performance that was very interactive and very easy for the
students’ understanding. The children really loved it, however, they
didn’t applause that much compared to other schools. At the moment,
the music teacher thought that the teachers from the school have to
start doing things with this problem because it could be also seen as lack
of respect. We have seen that students have accustomed themselves to
this, but even if you haven’t liked the performance you have to give
applause because they have done such a big effort performing it. The
teachers came up with the solution that we will let the students give
applause after someone’s presentation and avoid telling them to calm
down and be quiet.
Third week: The teacher explained to me the students more deeply and told
me those students who had more difficulties to learn. She also showed me a
little folder that some teachers from the school have started giving to those
students who had more difficulties. The folder consisted of different sheets
of paper that explained some clues and studying techniques to organize
themselves. I helped the teacher doing some folders for the students of my
class, doing so I realized that it could be a great tool for studying, no
matter how old you are, it could help you for all the rest of your studies.
Me and my practices teacher though it could be very useful for all the kids
and not only for the ones that had more difficulties but at the moment
they have started helping the students with more difficulties.
This school gives a lot of importance to board games; I honestly think that is
a good way to work contents and abilities in a non-formal context. Also,
the teacher can realize the roles that the students adopt or who play with
whom, etc. Finally, I have learned some interesting games that the teacher
does with the students in downtimes; the games are also rich in contents,
for instance, there is one called “Barrufar” that consists on playing with the
verbs.

Fourth week: On Mondays, they do a game called “The umbrella” (El

paraigües) that consists in putting each student’s name in a box and then
each of them has to take out a paper from the box. Each student will have
a name of a classmate and during the week have to take care of him/her,
helping him/her when possible, playing with him/her, etc. The next
Monday, they have to guess who has been the person with the umbrella
during last week. The game is called "The umbrella" because the person
must protect his classmate like the umbrella protects someone when it
rains.
Fifth week: The teacher couldn’t come in the morning so I had to teach maths to
the students from my class. The topic was difficult but I tried my best to make
myself understood, I gave a lot of visual examples. The topic was related to
fractions so I decided to use lego as is a good tool to work on that content. The
teacher arrived at half class and I explained what we have been doing, then she
gave them some examples as well. We end up doing the class together so we
were both attending to the students when necessary. I realized how important is
the co-teaching and how useful is to have more than one teacher in the class in
order to help each other.

Sixth week: The teacher has been doing some evaluations this week and
sometimes they had to leave the classroom or they arrived late from some
meetings; then I realized I could do something with the students while waiting
for the teacher to come back or to arrive so I did some games with them, games
to concentrate better or, for instance, in the music class, to warm up their
voice, they love it and the students still do them in the playground.

Seventh week: Every Monday we do an assembly in which children are free to

talk about what they want to. The assembly works as follows: every student that
has something to say writes about the topic on a paper with his/her name and
put it in a box. On Monday, the teacher opens the box and gives the papers to
each student, and then we discuss the problems as well as give some solutions
with all the class. This week, one student wrote about the fact that when there
is a trainee teacher, a canteen monitor, or any teacher that is not the tutor
they don’t behave the same way. After discussing this topic for a while among all
the students, we ended up with the solution that we have to treat every person
with respect, even if they are teachers, monitors, or other students. Talking
about this topic before doing my teaching sequence, kind of helped me because
the students were more aware of how they have to behave.
Eighth week: I had my first lesson teaching the simple machines. It was a
chaos, but in a good way, because in this lesson all they had to do is
experimenting with different materials and write down all the things that
they were doing. I gave them a challenge about the Egyptians and they
had to solve it trying to build mechanisms using all the materials given. As
it was a different lesson, it broke with the routine, they love it and they
very participated; I also noticed that most of the times, students need a
bit of freedom to learn by themselves. My role in the class was going to all
the groups and asking random questions about what they were doing, I
was acting like a busy bee. I felt very happy after seeing their results and
all the ideas that they came up with.

Moreover, I am being more conscious about the diversity of the class, about
the different learning ways that students have and also about the rhythms.
In this case, there is a student with dyslexia and Asperger syndrome in the
class, who constantly needs help and extra time to do the activities. That is
why; I usually go out with him in a special room in order to finish his
exercises. This week, we have been working the divisions, which is a tough
topic for him. While we were doing the divisions, I noticed that he was
getting tired, so I decided to just do one division and then give him a
break. When we were doing the break, I was amazed about how many
things he knows about the Egyptians, he also talked about the simple
machines that the Egyptians used to use (the topic that is related with my
teaching sequence). I realized that maybe this is why he was so motivated
when I did my teaching lesson because my lesson was based on the
Egyptians and it is one of his main motivations. I came up with the idea
that it is very important to work with students’ interests, so they feel
more involved and therefore motivated.

Also, I have learned that, with special need students, is better to have
breaks, don’t force them to do the extra effort, because it can be worse.
Maybe it’s better to change the topic and talk with them, and probably
you will be amazed by all the things that these students can contribute.
Ninth week: I have been helping the student with special needs a lot. This
week, the special needs teacher could not come to P.E class; so instead, it
was me who was helping him. For a child with Asperger syndrome, it is
very difficult to do physical education as it implies psychomotor skills.
One more time, it is very important to see his motivation. That day, we
were doing some of his favourite game so he was very participative, plus
I was motivating him by giving some positive feedback. As I have already
said, it is very important to work on students’ motivations; but, at the
same time, it is very difficult to work on all of them.
Regarding my teaching lesson, I also gave them the freedom to work in
groups. The main objective of this lesson was to write a text following
some challenges. However, some groups did not write the text as they
were playing the whole session. I realized that, at some point, they were
experimenting, so they were working too, but they completely forgot
about the main objective of the lesson that was the text. That is why I
felt like in the next session I had to give them like an outline, saying it
was the last chance to do the text, maybe they will work harder if I
push them. All in all, I felt happy that they enjoyed the lesson and they
learned a lot of things.

Tenth week: My teaching lesson this week went well. They had been
working again with their text, I was acting like a busy bee and giving
some extra support and guidance to those groups that needed the help.
However, I noticed some conflicts among the members of the groups as
well as different rhythms of production. The former, came because of the
different ideas that the members of the group had, plus the need of
some of the students to carry the work and be the leaders. I had to give
them some roles and split up the work so all the members of the group
work equally. I did not have to do that to all the groups, as some of
them were able to split up the roles by themselves.
The later, came when I saw that some groups were finished earlier than
other groups, fifteen minutes before the end of the lesson. I gave them
some extra activity, which consisted of watching a video about simple
machines that could also help them to write the text. This video will be
also watched by all the students in other lessons.

Moreover, we did two excursions this week. I have learned a lot of new
things, as well as the students, have. They were very motivated because
the excursions asked for a lot of their participation and they never felt
bored. Plus, in one of them, they did a kind of role play that was amazing,
explaining the life on a factory. After seeing their motivation and how they
were so attracted by the way the actors did the role play, I came up with
some ideas to do some lessons in my future. I honestly think that, for
instance, to explain history, is better if we do a role play so then the
students will always remember that. I also saw the importance of learning
not only in the class but also in museums, in the streets. We can educate
everywhere, and students can learn from everywhere as well; one more
time, breaking the walls of the class work.

Eleventh week: This week have been very short, however, I have done more
than any other week. I have realized how mess up a school can be from
one day to another; we always have to have plans B. In this case, a teacher
had an unexpected meeting; another went to the doctor with his daughter
and so on. Being in a school is also adapting to any situation, so they knew
I was in 4th grade with my tutor so they ask me to go to the other class
and be the teacher. It was enriching for me as I spent a lot of hours with
students from another grade and I could see others ways of learning,
helping in different ways, etc. I think it was very useful for me to see other
grades in the school and is the main teacher at that moment.
Regarding my teaching sequence, I felt good at this session but at
some point, I also felt lost. I had to look at all the groups to see if
they were doing the work, they were so many groups and some of
the students were playing and not paying attention to the text. I
felt like they were not used to work in groups and therefore, they
were not learning. However, I talk with the tutor and she said that
the students that were playing are the ones that when they see the
opportunity to play, they do so. So, it was not about my lesson that
was not interesting, it was about them, that they do not have the
habits to work in groups.

Twelfth week: My lesson went very well, we started doing a game

that I learned during my Erasmus in Norway. They loved it and
they were very concentrated afterward, so they did the work
easily. I planned to divide the lesson into two parts, unfortunately, I
only could do one, but this is how lessons work. Sometimes you
planned and then everything changes. I do not regret doing the
game, I mean, it was a quick game, not because of that I did not
have time to finish. I was so happy that we did the game because
they could work better and they love it so much that they ask to
play again a lot of times. The game consists of counting numbers
with the eyes closed. Each student should say one number and
should be followed by another student who says the next number
and so on, until arriving at 10, for instance. It is a game of
concentration and a way of calming them down if they are excited.
I preferred to work a lot with the first part of the lesson that
consisted of finishing the texts for the booklet. So I started the
lesson with the group that was sort of lost and with all the
members of the group participating, they finished the text. All the
three groups worked very hard, and the texts were very well done
so I am able to see all the contents they have learned.
Thirteenth week: The tutor gave some maths problems that students had
to solve individually. It was like an evaluation to see if they finish the
grade with the level that they are supposed to. So, she gave paper sheets
that contained 6 maths problems. When they finished, she corrected all
the exercises and considered if she should give them extra exercises or not.
She considered that the ones that got the best mark (6/6 or 5/6 ) they
should do 6 more problems from 5th grade, which are more difficult, but
they should try to do their best, even if they do not know about that
contents. The students that good the intermediate level did not do any
extra work, because they were in the 4th-grade level, so the level they
were supposed to be. But, the students that did not get any exercise
correct or just 1 or 2, had to do 6 more problems from 3rd grade.

There was one student that did not understand any of the problems, and
that was suspicious because she does not have any problem regarding
reading comprehension, etc. I went with her to a different room, and I
was not supposed to help her answer the problems, just helping her
reading the exercise and making sure she did understand the statement.
While she was doing the exercises, she realized that she forgot to do half
of the problems, or invented the numbers before. I also realized she had so
much pressure when doing the exercises so I started asking questions
about how she felt, she said she could not concentrate at all, like if her
mind was in another place. So, I explained all that happened to the tutor
and she said that maybe she had concentrations problems, and they
should work with that, so they immediately contacted helpers.

After all, I realized how important is to ask the children how they feel
and also do not leave behind if we see a problem or something suspicious
about a child. I realized that thanks that I could have this chat with this
student and we were able to help her with her problems. I know that
when you have 25 students it is very difficult to focus on all of them, but
we should have these private meeting with children more often to detect
their problems and try to solve them as soon as possible.
Also, I spent two hours in the “Espai Da Vinci” where they do a lot of
hands-on activities. That afternoon they were doing origami and sew
buttons, among other things. I honestly like learning about hands-on tasks,
so thanks to that I went that “espai” I could learn to do origami, which
was very useful for me because I can introduce this activity in the summer
camps as I think is a good activity to relax, concentrate and have fun. I
also improved my sewing skills, which I almost forgot. So, not only the
activities are useful for the students but also for me, because I could learn
a lot of new activities to use in the future.
Regarding my implementations, they were very motivated both in
Naturals and in Science class. In Naturals they were doing the final texts,
drawings and the glossary for the booklet, they were very motivated and
participative. In Science class, they were very motivated while building
their machine, although some of them took advantage of that time to play
around the class.

Fourteenth week: There was a student that had problems with the group
in which he was sitting with, so the teacher suggested him to go to the “El
racó tranquil”. He spent there like 10 minutes with a blanket on his head
until he heard about an activity that interested him and he went back to
sit in his place. It was useful because during this time in the •Racó
tranquil” he was able to calm down, think and when he was able to work
back again, he stood up and went back to work.
A Wednesday I went to the “Espai Marie Curie” with 1st, 2nd and 3rd
graders to help the teachers. They were creating soap, the activity was
based on melting soap, once we had the liquid, put it in a mould and then
put some dyes, flavours, glitter, etc. I had so much fun, as students had as
well. I realized that working with these students was very different from
working with 4th, 5th and 6th graders because the younger students need
constant attention and help.
Regarding my implementation, students were super motivated in creating
their machines. There were some groups that were sort of lost and I did
the best I could to help them and guide them.