Time to Reflect!

In every class that I have taken with her, what Dr. Smirnova has emphasized most is the importance of reflection. You can never learn if you do not take time to reflect and progress. So what better way to end my blog than to reflect on my experiences?

     This semester I definitely felt a lot more comfortable than I did in science methods. I felt more prepared and a lot less overwhelmed. Because I knew what to expect I was able to actually learn and take in the material rather than sit lost in class. I also felt that I was able to complete assignments more efficiently because I did not have to rely on anyone else. It was a relief to not look to anyone else to help me because I knew that I had the skills and information to do it on my own.

     That being said, as always this semester came with some challenges. Although we only had to teach one extra lesson it felt like it added a lot more to my work load. Looking back, I feel that I should have had better time management skills. We spent so much time perfecting our direct lesson that we did not leave a lot of time for our inquiry and cooperative lessons. Our goal was to have every lesson finished before we even began teaching, but when it came time to teach we only had our direct completed. In addition, I feel that I need to work on having more confidence in myself and my abilities. I was hesitant to create lesson ideas until I ran them by Dr. Smirnova, and when she did not have a chance to review our inquiry lesson I was very concerned that it would not be good enough. I need to have more confidence in my own work, and understand that no matter what I will do things could still go wrong. I learned to depend on myself a lot more this semester but I feel there is still a long way to go. 

     Educationally, this semester has further prepared me for my future career. I am happy that I got the opportunity to teach three more full class lessons because with each one I felt more comfortable in front of the class. The students did not always respond in the ways that I thought they would, and things that I believed were easy turned out to be more difficult for them. That taught me to think on my feet and to always be prepared to adapt. My first plan should not be my only plan, and if I see students are not understanding I need to change my teaching so that they do. 

Although I have learned a lot I understand that I do not know everything. But I am excited to do what I love, and that is to teach! 

Artifact Bag

The artifact bag is a project that we, unfortunately, get a chance to do in class. But luckily some students in our class incorporated it into their inquiry lesson, so I was able to see how it worked!

Artifact bags are associated with Inquiry Lesson Plans because they require students to conduct an investigative process to figure out what and who the artifact bags are representative of. In addition, students need to figure out why these artifacts are significant. During group 4 inquiry's lesson, the students had to pull one item from the bag and form a hypothesis on where they thought the items were from. The students then pulled one item at a time and identify its significance.

According to the article "Building literacy skills across curriculum: Forging connections with the past through artifacts", "Using artifacts" can be used as a "motivational strategy that can tie readers to a variety of genres and bring a period of history to life in the process". This article discusses how it is important to integrate teaching with research-based teaching strategies such as scaffolding, activating prior knowledge, predicting, modeling, think-alouds, questioning and summarizing. Having good classroom practices is vital before you can begin using an artifact bag. Below is a list of the steps to take when utilizing an artifact bag. 

What I enjoyed most about the article was how it gave a wide array of examples of where to continue with this project. For example, one way was to have students read books in literature circles tied to the topic to integrate reading and social studies more closely. Another way is to focus on social studies and use this project as a way to motivate students to begin the new unit. A final direction is to do an in-depth research project and have the students do a multigenre presentation. Multigenre writing is important because it offers teachers and students a thought-provoking way to explore literature and integrates social studies and writing. 

The article concludes by discussing different ways to acquire these artifacts, something that I feel is very important. I know that when my group was debating whether or not to utilize an artifact bag one challenge was where to find the artifacts to use. The article suggests calling a local library or to an art or historical museum. You also could search in second-hand stores or antique shops. Even using the internet and sites such as eBay could be helpful!

Regarding social studies learning, the artifact bag forced students to take time to observe and reflect in an interactive manner. Students had to go through the 5E cycle and ask the 5 w's (Whose bag is this? What is in this bag? Where is this bag from? When should I figure this out by? Why do I have to figure it out?). 

This was an activity that my group wanted to incorporate into our inquiry lesson but did not get the chance to. Our original plan was to split the students into three groups and each give them a bag. Each bag was to represent a different type of climate (cold, warm, mild) and have objects in the bag to reflect the climate. Students were to pick items from the bag one by one and hypothesize what climate they had. 

Although I did not get a chance to physically do this project, it is definitely something that I will keep in mind for the future. I want to use this in my future classroom to educate students in inquiry and social studies. 

Stop and Think: Fieldwork Reflection so far

This fieldwork experience has taught me a lot, and since it is almost over I feel that it is important to take time to reflect on how it is going so far.

Teaching Social Studies:
Social studies was one of my favorite subjects in school, so I was very excited to begin this class and teach something that I enjoyed. But I quickly learned that teaching social studies was not as easy as I thought it was. With science, hands-on learning came easily. You could do an experiment or some interactive activity. We struggled to try to come up with exciting activities that did not just include writing and reading. I learned that social studies required some extra work to make it exciting and interactive, but with thought it became possible. We also had a lot of material to teach in a short amount of time. My partner and I had one 55 minute period to teach all of the information in an entire chapter. We had to try and condense the information which meant leaving out certain information.  

Working in Pairs:
Last year in science we worked in small groups, which was very different from working in pairs this year. With four people it was easy to monitor groups, but with two it was a struggle to be in many different places at once. But it was an interesting experience for me because I was able to see how it would be in a real classroom. When teaching in an ICT classroom, you are not going to be with four different people. There might be two of you, or it might just be you. This was great practice for my future. 

What I learned from the students:
The students in this class taught me a lot about classroom management and adapting. I may have had a plan but when seeing the students' reactions I would have to quickly change to help the students understand. It also was difficult to try and manage the class, and even with the "Students vs. Teachers" game things could get difficult. I learned that I had to stay calm and be patient and not just yell right away. They were good students, and sometimes just got excited. But they taught me a lot about how to run a classroom. Things are not always going to go perfectly, and you have to be prepared to work with what you have. 

This semester has taught me a lot about my teaching ability and has made me more confident about student teaching. I am excited to see where the future takes me!

Oh the Lessons You'll Teach

For our fieldwork this semester we were required to teach three different types of lessons: direct, inquiry, and cooperative. Each of these lessons has a significant purpose and end goal for the students involved. Reflection is vital in teaching, and now that I have taught I wanted to take time now to reflect on what I have experienced while teaching these lessons.

Direct:
Direct lessons are meant to teach the students the material. A direct lesson is teacher-centered with little student involvement. It is scripted with a very specific end goal: for the students to learn the information being presented. Direct lessons include a lot of repetition in the form of a choral response. For every definition that you present you must have the students repeat it after you. I find this lesson boring, and it was very difficult to maintain the students' attention. But I also find this type of lesson necessary. Students can not progress onto more difficult and engaging tasks until they learn the basic material. I felt this lesson went pretty well for my group because the students seemed to learn what we needed them to. I know that because the students did very well with the direct practice, and out of 12 students, only 2 struggled on independent practice. We took that information to heart and made sure we reviewed that material with the students. 

Inquiry:
During inquiry lessons, students are meant to answer a question. You pose a problem to students and it is up to them to solve it. This lesson type is student-oriented, meaning that the teacher takes a step back and does not teach the entire time. This type of lesson is great for science because it goes with the scientific method, but we struggled connecting this lesson to social studies. A hypothesis is apart of science, not social studies. We also struggled thinking of hands-on activities for our students. We wanted to do more than just give them articles to read, but we could not think of many things to do. I think inquiry lessons are great but maybe just for science and not for social studies. 

Cooperative:
This was my first time doing a cooperative lesson, so I was a little nervous about it. But in the end, it is a really great lesson for social studies. Cooperative lessons involve making a project and working in a group to do so. Each person in the group has a job that they have to accomplish. This lesson type does not only focus on academic skills but also social skills. It is important that students understand how to work in a group. This lesson is also student orientated and was engaging and interactive for them.

Teaching all of these different lesson plans this semester was great, and I can not wait to see what else I can incorporate into my classroom!

Celebration of Learning!

Today we had our celebration of learning! We were given the opportunity to take a break and celebrate all of the hard work that both us and the students had put in this semester!

To begin the celebration we did the "Walk the Carpet" gonoodle. Gonoodle is an interactive video in which the students follow along to the dance or directions displayed on the screen. These dances not only help students take a break and mentally refocus but also improve gross motor skills!

Next, we played 7-up with the students and teachers. The students seemed to love this because they were able to interact with us. We were now on the same level as them instead of being above them by being in front of the classroom. After playing a couple of rounds, we ended our time in thrid grade by giving the students certificates and globe stress balls as presents. 

I have learned a lot in my time in third grade and can honestly say that I will miss my time here. But I know that it is time to move on to new classes and new challenges. I am grateful for all that I have learned for my students, and can not wait to have a classroom of my own to apply my learning too! But for now, it is goodbye until next semester!

Fieldwork Group 4

This week was Group 4's turn to teach! I can not believe that we are already in the last week of fieldwork. I feel like we just began! Group 4 is teaching about culture and celebrations, which is a great way to end our time in 3rd Grade!

As always, they first began by teaching a direct lesson to introduce the vocabulary that needed to be known. They introduced the word culture, and then went into aspects of four different cultures: African, Indian, Chinese, and Hispanic. They discussed the languages, religion, food, and clothing of each of these cultures. I like how they gave examples like this instead of just doing vocabulary words. They then went over holidays and traditions and gave examples for both. Throughout the lesson, they did "stop and thinks", which was a great way to check for student understanding. For guided practice the group did matching, guess the symbols, a matching game with a partner to match the pictures and definitions, and a think pair share. I thought that the group did a great job of thinking of creative guided practices. It is hard being the last group since most ideas have already been used, and they definitely tried their hardest to be unique which really showed! The group did kahoot for independent practice, which got the kids a little too excited. In the end, though it was clear that the students understood what they were taught. 

The teachers began inquiry by introducing mailman Tom. Tom needed help sorting packages. The students were provided with boxes with symbols on them. Based off of the symbol they had to hypothesize where they thought that the boxes should be sent to. The students then got to open the boxes and pick out one item at a time. The students then read letters that came with the boxes and highlighted important information. I loved this idea because I felt that it was so creative! The teachers did a great job of picking items to include. The students presented their findings to the group. Once they were finished the students were to write a letter back to the pen pal who sent the package. They were to tell the pen pal everything that they had learned while looking at the package. This was a great lesson and I can not wait to see what they come up with for cooperative!

For cooperative learning, the teachers split the class into four corners. Each corner had to do a different type of project. The projects included a collage, a skit, a poem, and a news report. I loved this idea because it gave students an opportunity to demonstrate their creativity. The teachers did a great job organizing everything. I'm sure it was a lot of work to set everything up, and the group did great! The students were very excited and loved doing different things. 

Everyone did great, and I can not believe that fieldwork is over already! I can not wait for the celebration of learning!

My Turn to Teach!!

This week my group got the opportunity to teach. I was very nervous but happy that I got the experience of being in front of a class!

My group was given the task of teaching about community environments. This was not a topic that I had previously known a lot about so it was interesting exploring the different vocabulary. We began with a direct instruction to give the students the knowledge that they needed. We started by pre-assessing knowledge with a world bubble containing vocabulary words from the previous lessons. The students did a great job with pointing out what words they learned and telling us what they meant. We then moved on to teach vocabulary, like environment, region, landform, physical environment, ecosystem, Northeast Region, climate, temperature, adapt, fuel, natural resources, recycle, and conserve. After teaching the vocabulary words we moved into guided practice by doing multiple-choice, matching, and true or false questions. The students did great with the guided practice, so we felt confident to move on to independent practice! After grading the independent practice we knew that the students had a solid understanding and were ready to move on to inquiry!

For inquiry, we introduced the students to Mr. Robinson, a YouTuber from California. After our "getting to know you" activity we learned that the 3rd graders loved YouTubers, so we thought that it would be a great idea to include one in our lesson. Mr. Robinson told the students that there were wildfires where he lived and he was unsure if he should move. If he moved, he wanted the students to help with what type of climate he should move to. We began by having the students pick which type of they felt Mr. Robinson should move to. Then we assigned them climates and had them form an argument. We gave them letters from people living in their climate that stated the pros and cons of living in that specific climate. Students had to sort those pros and cons and then form an argument for their climate. Some students struggled with this because they did not agree with the climate they were assigned. We explained to them that it did not matter if they agreed, because their job was to support using the facts that they were provided. After some assistance, students did a good job forming an argument and were ready to move on to cooperative! 

For our last lesson, we had the students combine everything that they had learned. To do that, the students were to create their own environment. They were to pick a name for the environment, include three pictures of landforms, show natural resources found in the environment, pick a climate, and explain how their environment is going to recycle or conserve. The students had a lot of questions, but once they began they seemed to have grasped the directions. Leading students to not be distracted was difficult but what they created was amazing. They did not want to stop when the time was up because they were so excited. It was great to see all of the information that we had taught them!!

Teaching is always scary, but I am so happy with how my lessons went! It is a relief to be finished, and I can not wait to see what the final group does!