1) The author worked with 11 students from her cohort at Fruitland Park Elementary School. She helped teach science lessons in a 4th grade classroom that had students with learning disabilities and from diverse cultural backgrounds. 2) The author and her partner would come to the classroom every Friday to review science lessons and do engaging hands-on activities. Some of the activities included making metamorphic rocks and constructing boats to test buoyancy. 3) The author reflected that this experience helped her better understand how to work with students with special needs and made her less afraid of working with diverse learners. She felt more prepared to accommodate different students' needs.

1. Danielle L. Moore daniellelmoore@knights.ucf.edu April 20, 2010 EEX 4070 Spring 2010 ESOL Standards 4 & 12 Teachers in Action ProjectFruitland Park Posse

2. Early Perceptions At the beginning of this project I was extremely excited. I had never worked with children who had learning disabilities before and I knew that this would be a great learning experience. I was looking forward to doing my course work at this school because this is where I went to elementary school. This school is also one of my choices for my internship placement. One of our challenges for this project was that we were told at by our supervising teacher that we were not allowed to take pictures of one of the students in the class. Our group of eleven consisted of Rikki, Kim, Paul, Kari, Karen, Mary Grace, Anthony, Tracy, Carissa, Olivia, and myself. This was our first meeting at Fruitland Park Elementary. Spirit Day

3. Now Introducing… Fruitland Park Elementary School The school that I did the work for my Teachers in Action Project was Fruitland Park Elementary School. I had eleven students from the Leesburg Cohort in my group. Our group name was the Fruitland Park Posse. Our first day all eleven of us met with Terry Fordham. She was the ESE coordinator for this school. She separated our large group into smaller groups and divided us into five different classrooms. My group partner was Paul Holland. He and I did our course work in Mr. Marzano’s fourth grade class. Pre-planning on the first day at Fruitland Park Elementary with the entire group.

4. School Demographics 60% Caucasians29% African-Americans6.9% Hispanics.3% Indian/Mixed1.5% Multiracial2.2% Asians ~According to the SPAR results~

5. Personal Demographics~All about Me~ My name is Danielle Moore. I am a 25 year old student. I have a six year old daughter. She is my life. At this moment I am a Junior at UCF in the Leesburg Cohort. I am an active member in ACEI. I am looking forward to becoming a teacher. Some of my interests are spending time with my child, going to the gym, attending church, the beach, and going shopping. I volunteer at my daughter’s school regularly. She is in Kindergarten. I help out as often as I can. Other than that the only experience I have in a school setting is from my service learning from other courses that I have taken at UCF. My daughter and I

6. Engagement Activities Through the course of this project, Paul and Iwould come to Mr. Marzano’s class every Friday during science time. Mr. Marzano was a new teacher and was thankful for us to be there to help. We informed him that we were taking a science class at the moment. He asked if we could help him teach the science lessons that he needed to cover. So every Friday we would review the material that the students had learned in the beginning of the week. We would also incorporate an engaging activity that went along with the main idea of the lesson.

7. Engagement Activities-The Rock Cycle The rock cycle and the three different types of rocks were one of the lessons that we went over. We reviewed with the students about the three types of rocks and the rock cycle using posters as visuals. Then we incorporated an activity for the students that would help them further comprehend this lesson. For the activity we made metamorphic rocks out of crayon shavings. First Paul and I modeled how to make the metamorphic rock, then we used guided instruction to help the students create their own rock.

8. Engagement Activities-Following Directions Before the FCAT and Florida Writes, Mr. Marzano asked us if we could develop an activity that would focus on writing and following directions. So Paul and I decided we would use the “How to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich” activity. This was extremely beneficial to the ESE and ESOL students because it demonstrated how important the order of your writing is. It also demonstrated the importance of following directions. The teacher and students all wrote directions on how to construct a sandwich. Then Paul and I followed the directions exactly how they were written. After we were done with this demonstration, we made sandwiches for all of the students.

9. Engagement Activities- Buoyancy One week Mr. Marzano was teaching about buoyancy. When we came in that Friday, we did a review on his lesson. We then did a sink or float activity. We had the students break into groups and construct boats out of tinfoil. We then gave the students pennies and told them to try and see how many pennies they could put on their boat before it would sink. That week the school was also having a fundraiser called “Pennies for Polio”. Paul and I donated the pennies that we used for this lesson to the classroom, in order to help them make their goal.

10. Fruitland Park Field Day Mr. Marzano with his teacher’s assistant Mrs. Stevens and their class on field day.

11. Participant Demographics Classroom Demographics 11 Caucasians 4 African Americans 2 Hispanics 1 Marshallese 2 Others Beneficiaries The students in this classroom ranged from 9-10 years of age. The classroom we worked in had 20 students. Six of the students in classroom had varying exceptionalities. There were 3 ESOL students in this classroom. Some of the students from Mr. Marzano’s class. *Note that there are limited pictures of the students. We were informed that we were not allowed to take pictures of one of the students in this classroom. The only pictures of students that we have are from when that specific student was not present.

12. ESOL Modifications ESOL Standard 4 This classroom was extremely diverse. I was familiar with most of the cultures that made up this classroom, but there was one race that I was not familiar with. This was Marshallese. I did some research on the Marshall Islands and their culture. I wanted to familiarize myself with this culture because my partner and I were teaching science lessons and activities. The ESOL students in this class were at different levels of Fluency. Two of the ESOL students were at the Early Production stage. But the Marshallese student was at the speech emergence stage. One of the ESOL accommodations we used while doing some of our activities in the classroom was small group work. We paired the ESOL student up with students that were native English speakers. I did this in order to Enhance instruction. ESOL Standard 12 We incorporated many ESOL approaches to our instruction throughout this project. Some of the modifications that we included in the lessons/activities that we taught included small group work, pointing/gesturing, use of visuals, modeling, and hands on activities. Before the students would begin an activity, we would model it and show them how to do our activity. We always paired the students into groups because this helped the ESOL students in the classroom and it also was great for stimulating the native speakers in the classroom. We had visuals for our lessons that we taught and we did consistent pointing and gesturing to these visuals when we were teaching and demonstrating the lessons. All of the activities we did were hands on activities. They required the students to get up out of their seats, collaborate with one another, and get involved.

13. Reflection of the Experience This experience has effected me in so many ways. I now understand what it is like to work with students who have special needs. There were times during this experience that were heartbreaking, but for the most part I thoroughly enjoyed working with these students each Friday. One thing that effected me most about this project was the students looked forward to seeing us each week. They were always excited to see us come in, and they were always sad to see us go.

14. Reflection on the Experience Before beginning this project I was scared to work with students with disabilities. I wasn’t sure how the classroom environment would be and I wasn’t sure how to treat certain students. I think the most important thing that I can take away from this experience is the experience itself and that I will no longer be afraid of the unknown. I feel this experience has better prepared me in my future teaching career. I was able to insert accommodations into the lesson/activities that were beneficial for the ESE and ESOL students. As a future teacher it will be my responsibility to use different approaches that will help these particular students.