I cannot believe that group 3 has finished and we only have one group left to teach! Group 3 did great! It is true that we are all learning from each other. The other groups get to see some mistakes that previous group have taught and can avoid making the same mistakes! It is scary, but also so helpful!
Group three started of with a direct lesson that they taught on Tuesday. The class came a little later than usual, so that was pretty stressful for them I would assume. They taught about metamorphic rocks and the rock cycle. They had two topics so they did two guided practice activities. The first activity was putting pressure on a piece of clay to represent a rock and see whether it was foliated or not. I loved this activity and the students did too. The second guided practice was group work. Each group got an index card with one or two words/processes on it and as a class they filled in a blank rock cycle poster. For checks for understanding, students were given cards with red, green and yellow dots. They were to hold them up to represent how comfortable they felt with the material. As a closure, students were given a post it note and instructed to write what they learned from the lesson, or were still confused about. As they left, they hung it on a stoplight poster. I love how these two were related! The class was unusually chatty and energetic on Tuesday for some reason! The teachers did a great job and ending their chattiness and regaining their focus on the lesson.
Group three's second day teaching went very well also! They got cut off with a lot of time so that was making them feel very nervous. Regardless of that, I still think they did excellent and the lesson was very successful. They had wonderful activities that the students really enjoyed. There were two aspects of the lesson that I thought were exceptionally planned. First, to introduce the problem to the class, they had a "phone call" from a geologist Dr. Granite. Their timing of the phone call was awesome and the kids loved it! My second favorite part of the lesson was that they got in touch with the author of a book! The author wrote the class a letter that gave them some tips about how to write a story, which was related to their independent practice!
Both of the lessons went so well! All of the groups hard work is really paying off. These are great experiences that we are getting! I am excited to see what group 4 has planned!
We are halfway through fieldwork! These first two weeks have gone very quick! There is only two more groups left to teach lessons to the sixth grade! Last week group 2 taught their lessons on igneous and sedimentary rocks! There first lesson was direct and it went really well. They had an engaging and informative powerpoint. The students participated a lot in the lesson and seemed to
enjoy learning new content! There next lesson was inquiry! This lesson was very fun and interactive for the students. They created their own rocks out of play-doh. You could tell the students were really excited and ready to get working once they heard they were going to get to use play-doh! Both of their lessons went very smoothly and were very structured. You could tell that they practiced and they were prepared. Group 2 did really well!
Although it seems nerve-wracking at first, it really is helpful and a learning experience to watch our classmates. Although my group already taught, it is good to see how other people teach as well! We can always learn something new. Since we are all in this together, it is a way that we can help each other to learn more. When you are finished teaching a lesson, the last thing you want is people critiquing you! All you want to do is celebrate that you completed a successful lesson! But, after going through it you do realize how helpful it is. Other people can pick up on things that you do not even realize you are doing!
This upcoming week the third group is going to be teaching! I am very excited to see what they have planned for the class! I think we got really lucky because the sixth grade class is phenomenal. They are all very intelligent and always ready to learn something new!
We finished our second and final day teaching! Today we did a cooperative lesson, and I think it went great! We had our setbacks during our first lesson, and I think that helped us to really do well today. We had a back up plan for everything and were prepared for other obstacles that could have
came our way. We did a little review in the beginning and then students got into their groups from Tuesday. Within their groups they created a poster for their mineral and we conducted a mineral show! After the posters were completed the students went from group to group to look at the other posters. I think it was a good idea that we kept the students in the same group as last time because this way they were all working with the mineral they worked with last time. At the end, the students voted on which mineral they liked the best with a raffle ticket. On the back of their raffle ticket they had to write why they chose the mineral, how there group worked together and the role they were assigned in their group. This raffle ticket acted as both their vote and their independent practice. The students really seemed to enjoy this activity.
Teaching today we definitely felt a lot more comfortable in front of the classroom and with the students. Going first was extremely tough and nerve-wracking, but I think my group worked extremely well together and overall I am very proud of us! I think what makes us more nervous is that we are not only putting on a lesson for the class we are teaching but we are being observed by our whole class. Having so many people watching you and then later critiquing you is extremely stressful!
Throughout this whole experience I definitely learned a whole lot. First, I learned that although technology is a wonderful thing to enhance a lesson, you cannot always depend on it. Next, I learned that you always, always need to have a back up plan. There might be some days where things do not go the way you expect. You need to always be prepared to have a plan B!
We are lucky that the students in the class are very intelligent, willing to work, and for the most part well behaved! I wish the other groups luck in their lessons and hope they go well.
So today was our first day of teaching!!!
We have been preparing non stop for the last two and a half weeks. Constantly in the library day and night, writing, editing, changing and revising our lesson and activities! Today we taught a direct/inquiry lesson to the students. We were feeling very prepared and ready to take this on. We faced our first challenge when we got to the classroom and found out that that particular classroom did not get wifi. This meant that the powerpoint and our Voki would not be able to play. I think this really crushed our spirits and we were thrown off guard. We had an older version that was not as good as our final powerpoint saved to one of our computers so we used that. I think if we would have had our final powerpoint the lesson would have been more interactive for the students. The first part of our lesson, which was teaching the vocabulary, I would say went pretty well. The students were able to keep up with the slideshow and filling out their vocabulary activity.
We had a Voki whose name was Ms. Mineral, ask the students for help to identify some minerals.
Since there was no wifi we could only show a picture of Ms. Mineral, but the students seemed to really love it. I think if the Voki was able to be played, they would have enjoyed it even more. The students were split into groups with a teacher candidate in each group to facilitate. The students were responsible to perform a streak and scratch test on the minerals. They also had to identify other characteristics of the minerals such as luster and transparency. They are a really smart bunch of students so they were able to do this activity very accurately! They also really seemed to enjoy getting the chance to work hands-on with the minerals!
Overall, I think we did pretty well. We could have prepared better for the circumstance of the internet not working. The other issue at hand was that we spent time splitting the students into groups for differentiated teaching. Putting students who we thought would work best together based on aspects such as behavior and capabilities. Unfortunately, that was on our final Powerpoint, so the groups were just based off of the students placements in the classroom at the time.I think our next cooperative lesson will be much more successful. Now we have the experience of working with these students and we know what to do! This is all a learning process and experience so we will learn more as we go!
I cannot believe that group 3 has finished and we only have one group left to teach! Group 3 did great! It is true that we are all learning from each other. The other groups get to see some mistakes that previous group have taught and can avoid making the same mistakes! It is scary, but also so helpful!
