Interview

I interviewed my old fifth grade teacher, and my sisters current fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Sladky. Here is the interview:
1. Do you think that the majority of your class has trouble with organization? Many students do, but not all off them.

2. What types of things would help them with organization? They have an agenda, but many don’t use it to the best of their ability. They need to carry it with them to each class and write the assignments down during each class as they are given. Then they should double check all that they wrote at the end of the day when I go over it all.

3. Is the majority of your class good at studying? I would say a little more than ½ are good at studying, maybe more.

4. What would help them study better? If they started studying earlier and preparing earlier for the test, instead of the night before.

5. Do you think that educational games are effective? Definitely! We use the computer lab whenever we can to play educational games.

6.What types of educational games would work best for your class? Study Island, Funbrain, FreeRice are a few that they like.

7.Does most of your class use planners? They all have them and they all use them, but many don’t use them regularly.

8. Are the planners effective to helping the students keep track of their work? For some they are great! For others they are not. Sometimes after school, I find the planners (agendas) sitting on their chair. They can’t make good use of them at home if they leave them at school. At parent orientation in the beginning of the year, we try to stress how important the agendas (planners) are and how we use them to communicate between home and school daily. It shows their assignments, upcoming tests, and we also put a stamp or sticker in the agenda if an assignment was not complete or turned in when it was due.

9. Would your class benefit from sharing notes in an online environment? Possibly! I would love to see. I do know that a few of my students do not have home internet access. Some have said they go to the library once in a while to use the internet.

10. What other things would be helpful in a website for your students? Links to math, language arts, science, and social studies fun websites, homework/test assignments, upcoming school events, field trips, assemblies, school holidays, when progress reports are due and report cards, (a lot of this is already writing on the school calendar or in the Millridge Memo, but it wouldn’t hurt to repeat it again!). I will say that each Mayfield teacher has access to a place to make a website on the Mayfield School site. We can add homework, favorite links, etc, but it can be time consuming to go on each day and enter the days assignments. We rely on the agenda as our best form of communication between home and school, not the websites. So many teachers don’t use their.

Based on the information from this interview I think some of the most effective things for a website for this class would be, an online planner that is easy to access and fun to use, links to educational games, and some good apps to help study, such as online flashcards. A website for 5th graders should be entertaining and fun, but also structured and helpful.