Taught My First Lesson

Wow, what a day Thursday was! I am excited to say that I taught my first lesson of the semester! Overall, I felt that the students really enjoyed the lesson and understood everything that was taught. I had a few disrupitve students, but i felt that I handled the situations okay. My cooperating teacher was very impressed with how I handled teaching the material and dealing with the distruptive ones as well. I know feel that my copperating teacher that I am placed with have a better understanding with one another. I feel that I had to prove to him that I was cable of doing what I say that I can do. Overall the whole lesson was great and this has been the highlight of my whole practicum so far!

Management, then Learning

I did a lesson today and it went amazing. A bunch of students have IEP's in the class I teach in and the first time I taught it was horrible. This lesson I went in there and listed the expectations and had the students moving and I addressed the issues and explained the activity and set them loose. The two students that are behavior issues I immediately addressed in class by asking them just for today if they would behave for me, and they did. Once I was done with my bellringer and expectations/explanation, the students worked individually and in groups to construct their own learning and all 23 students were engaged. I didn't know what to do with myself because usually someone needed my help but this time they didn't need me. And when they did the assessment, they did really well. They didn't have the material down perfect yet, but they were confident and they did well. I was really impressed.

I was saddened though by one little boy in the room. I did the lesson and he had fun in the group, but I gave him the individual work and he put it away. I asked him where the work was, and he said he had put it away to do at home. I told him that was unacceptable and he had to do it in the room and if I saw it put away before I instructed him to do so, that he would get a demerit. The choice was his. Then under his breath, I heard him say, "I can't read." I turned around and acting as if everything was casual, I sat with him for two minutes and orally read him the instructions, and he did the assignment. I returned for about five minutes and I read number one, and I helped him read number two, I read three, he read four, etc until he was done. It was the first time he did his work all year, and my teacher was impressed by this. He was a bright kid, he just never had anyone take individual time with him to help him so he was lost. I understand its best to serve 22 students than to serve just one, but doesn't every student count? However, the design of my lesson and the students being engaged and pushing themselves allowed me some time with him. I stayed with him for may be a total of ten minutes, but it made all the difference.

I'm not saying I'm the perfect teacher or my lesson was perfect because I am far from it - but once the classroom was managed, the learning fell into place. I feel hopeful to improve because today was amazing. I had fun, more importantly the students had fun, and I left the school with energy and I did not feel drained. The only other thing I could have asked for was for Dr. Faulkner to have observed that lesson. Today has reassured me that this is what I want to do with my life.

It's slowly coming together

At my last Practicum placement, teachers weren't allowed to photograph the kids. I asked, thinking I could give the school the photos of a special assembly they had. So when I learned I'd need photos to complete some of my assignments, such as a mock newsletter, I was a bit worried. I was even thinking of staging a few of my nephews and nieces sitting at desks.

Last week, however, I learned of a field trip that my Practicum teacher was helping to plan. I offered to go, since it was on a Friday that I had no other pressing plans. I dropped an idea that I could shoot a few pics to help document the trip. AND GET this...the teacher said, "Great."

So a lot of the things I have to get done are slowly but surely coming together. Also, I think this field trip will be a good experience for me, having not been on a field trip since the late 1980s. I'll also get to observe how my teacher's team works together, which is so crucial to the middle grade teaching teams.

It's still nearly a month off, but I find I'm looking forward to it. I know the kids are. My teacher said that some of the students' parents don't own cars. When they recently went on a field trip north of King's Island, he said many of the students had their noses pressed to the windows ooing and awing. For many, it was the first time they'd been near KI. That, boggled my mind. I didn't grow up wealthy, and my parent's could rarely afford for me to go to King's Island, but I did get to go on special occasions. I know a lot of people might not think that field trips are very useful, but I still remember many from my youth--and that was a ways back. I think they can be (to borrow a phrase) very meaningful and engaging.

Interview Lesson Plan

Last Thursday my practicum teacher finally had a humorous lesson pan which got the students laughing and interested. One of the lesson plans from 'History Alive' requires students to role-play and perform skits with teh teacher acting as the t.v. newsperson. Teacher named himself "Jim Shoo" the t.v reporter which many students found humorous. He then proceeeded asking questions to a group of students who were pretending to be the French settlers. The teacher asked many questions but none of the 'French settler' students took the skit seriously. Many of their responses to his questions were "i don't know" or they gave random answers that weren't pertaining to the topic. The second group of students were representing the Iroqious Indians and they did a better job at answering the questions than the first group. When the teacher asked one of the students (who was representing the indians) a question she responded with, "we (Iroqious Indians) are enemies with the French and we all live together". Obviously that doesn't make any sense. I think it was a good opportunity for the students to have engage in a different style of learning but once again I'm not quite sure that it was effective. Some students used their time as a 'social hour' instead of practicing their skit and roles. Next time I think their needs to be discipline during a lesson which involves the students preparing a skit. Otherwise, they'll use their time incorrectly and the lesson plan may once again be ineffective.

More hands on

Throughout my practicum I bet we've done group work 80% of the time. It seems like a lot to me, but I'm only there two days per week. I'd love to watch more a leceture type scenario to pick up ideas for future teaching experiences in his class. This past week the kids took a quiz on tuesday which is really boring for me, all though i did get to grade them which is eye-opening for me. Thursday the kids got back into groups and created a museum on their assigned sections in the book. It's really neat to watch how creative the groups can be. the only problem I've seen is that he lets the kids pick their groups which is tough on classroom management. Plus, there is always "the group" who gets absolutely nothing accomplished in a 40 minute period. Hopefully next week is more eventful, which it should be because it's my turn to teach!!!

ESL Student

This past week we did KATS like testing both days that at my placement. In my homeroom I have a ESL student. This student speaks hardly any English to none at all. The student does not even have a translator or any other kind of help through out the day. He does what the other students do by just observing. He has no clue what any one is saying to him. I find this very interesting since he took the same test as everyone else and will be graded the same as everyone else. I feel that the student should have some type of assistant through a translator or something. I have not had to deal with this type of situation before, but I now feel as a future teach I am letting a student slip through the cracks. If something like this starting now, what will it be like when I have been teaching for 5 years or more? If anyone has any suggestions on how to get through to this student please let me know.

Observation on Thursday

Last week went well as I was able to spend a ton of time with the students. I worked with them individually, which I particularly like and also address them as a whole class during different points of instruction. It seems that my co-operating teacher and I get along very well and are able to communicate effectively. Especially after this past week of discussing what I would be teaching for my upcoming observation.

I have done some research through the 2 given school text books and several outside resource books- anthropology books that give many visuals, to come up with the material to cover and provide for Thursday. Since this is an introduction to civilization through exploring Sumer, there are about 7 or so vocabulary words to cover along with how to distinguish a civilization.

What I really hate about developing a lesson plan is that I can't stop obsessing about it. I initially feel I have a really cool lesson, but the more I work with it and on it, the less fun and interresting and even worthwhile the lesson seems. Anybody else have that problem? I will be teaching this lesson twice on Thursday, so wish me luck!