Standards in the Classroom

As I was doing these few assignments, it did get me thinking about how standards are used in the classroom, especially in the classroom that I got to spend time in. Every time that the teacher would teach a lesson, she would mention how it matched up with the standards that are written for those in her grade (5th grade). On a couple of the concepts, it was interesting to me to be able to see how she was teaching a concept in a creative way so that the students in her class would learn it most effectively.

One thing that I did notice is that science has been taking a more front seat role in the classroom. Now, science is taught in every classroom, but I felt like the students were learning so much from the activities that included lessons that I got to see as I was observing. The subject that I think is the most prominent one was spelling. There were days when spelling was the lessons that were taking up the most time in the classroom, and over the course of the months I was there, I was able to see a little how the students were improving. When it comes to one subject seemingly more addressed may also depend on the class. I do know that in the classroom I spent time in, students struggled with spelling, so it would be more important to spend more time on spelling, where science is a more easily understood project, so the students learn it easier. Although I didn't have too many conversations withe the teacher about standards, the ones that I did, she made a point that the standards are so important to make sure students are on track of where they should be. Standardized testing is one thing that she doesn't love though, it takes up a lot of time, and students often don't do as well as they know how because the stress of testing doesn't play well with some.

Overall, standards are what shapes the entire curriculum of a classroom, so they are important, even of the smaller details seem like a nuisance sometimes.