Entry 5

The most important role a teacher plays is teaching.  But, it is not that simple.  Teaching is not just standing in front of a classroom, lecturing, and then testing the students.  Teachers spend time learning themselves.  They learn new ideas on the subject matter, they spend hours planning lessons, they analyze test results, and design lesson to fit the students needs.  Teachers get to know each students interest to plan their instruction of the lesson.  Teachers are facilitators and tutors in their own classroom.  They look for tools to spark the interest of students to challenge their brains and learn to solve problems.  Teaching is the most important role for a teacher, but it is also the most challenging.
Teachers are not given a blue print of lessons and the students they are teaching.  Teachers are learning everyday of how to spark the interest of each of their students.  Sometimes they are not given the tools they need to help their students, due to funding of districts, and they have to learn to improvise.  Also, with some curriculum teachers are held to a specific learning plan.  This sometimes can limit their creativity to lessons, because students need to learn certain things for the national test they take.  Teachers want every student to be successful and sometimes trying to figure out how to help a student learn can be challenging.

Entry 4

There is a lot of clerical work that goes into teaching.  I have assisted in putting together assignments on the computer.  Some of the assignments do not come right out of a book.  So, the teacher has to take the time to put together certain homework assignment or test.  I have assisted in putting together some of these assignments.  They use a program that allows you to input graphs, equations, and type up text.  The teacher had already everything laid out the way she wanted, I just put it all into the program to create an assignment.  I have also been involved in printing up materials for the class and cutting out card stock to be a certain size for a lesson that was being taught.  The teacher also keeps track of grade on a program called 'Skyward.'  Students are able to see what grades they have on different assignments, missing assignments, and what there grade is for each class.  I have helped the teacher enter grades from a test.  I also helped correct assignments so the teacher could complete grades in the program. (end of 3rd term is coming up)
The process that I have noticed in different subject is; the teacher teaches a lesson, then she gives an assignment that relates to the lesson for the students to work through.  The desk are set up in groups of 4 or 5.  She encourages that students to help each other and make sure everyone in their section is completing the task correctly.  These are all parting of assessing the students.  But, to be sure the students understand and comprehend the material, the teacher gives a quiz or a class starter that has the same material on it for them to complete.  This is a way for the teacher to see who is understanding the material, processing, and comprehending what is being taught.  If the majority of students are not understanding, she will do a whole class re-teach, otherwise she tries to individualize the students who need a bit more instruction.