Choosing a book that is both educational and engaging for students can sometimes be very difficult. Often time you may find a book that is very enticing and entertaining for students, but it may not be very educational. On the other hand, you may find a book that is very educational and does an excellent job explaining a certain topic, but it may be very boring. I sometimes find this happening and it can be very frustrating!
I found an excellent book on rocks and minerals that was both educational and very interesting to read; Rocks and Minerals, by Kathleen Weidner Zoehfeld. The book was written in a very light and fun hearted way. It talked about the types of rocks, types of minerals, the rock cycle, where you can find these and much more. But, the pictures that were included in the book were all very relatable. For example, one page talked about how we can find rocks anywhere, while a child was rock climbing. On some pages there were even little jokes having to do with rocks and minerals. I thought this was an excellent addition to the book because it added some humor in a purely educational book. I think this book did an excellent job of covering all the important aspects of rocks and minerals while keeping the readers engaged. The book is also only about 30 pages, with few words on each page and many pictures. This is good because it is not being dragged out. It is long enough to explain everything, but a short read for many students. At the end of the book, there is a section of questions labeled "Stump Your Parents." This provides students with additional information that was not directly covered in the book. The last page has a picture glossary with some words mentioned in the book and their definition. Overall, I think this is an excellent book that I would definitely use in my classroom to teach my class about rocks and minerals.
I would read this book to my class after I taught my lesson to the class. This book
could serve as a reinforcement from the original lesson. This book could also clear up any confusion students may have about rocks and minerals. I would also set up activities relating to rocks and minerals for my class to participate in. After they complete the activities, they can go back through the book and see if they participated in anything that is explained in the book. Then students can talk about their experiences together.
I created a book trailer for this story book using animoto. The point of creating a book trailer is to show the book and make people, especially students interested and want to read it. The tool animoto is very easy to use and navigate. I was able to add in a lot of information and with the trial usage you can make a video up to about five minutes long. I enjoyed using animoto and thought the it has really great options. Take a look at the animoto I created for the book, Rocks and Minerals!
I feels like just yesterday I was so nervous at the thought of teaching the sixth graders. Now, in what
feels like the blink of an eye, fieldwork is done! This time flew by so quick. I think back to the beginning when we were planning our lessons and that feels like so long ago!
Throughout this whole fieldwork experience, I most definitely learned more than I imagined. I learned what works and what doesn't work within the classroom. First, I definitely learned so much about time management. Sometimes what you think may only take a few minutes, might wind up taking a huge chunk of time and vice versus. I also learned how important it is so always have a back up plan! My group experienced that the first day when we had an extensive lesson and that morning the internet was not working! You always need to have a plan B because you never know what might happen! It is always better to be over prepared than under prepared! Another thing I learned was that although technology is a wonderful and amazing tool to spice up a lesson, you cannot always depend on it. Technology helps to enhance lessons and make them more engaging, but sometimes it may not work.
Therefore, it is also important to not only rely on technology for your lessons. Furthermore, throughout this fieldwork experience I really mastered my skills of writing lesson plans! I got more experience writing different types of lessons plans and all the criteria that must be included within lesson plans. It is important to keep in mind that there are different ways to write different lesson plans! The way you write a direct lesson plan is not the same way you would write an inquiry lesson plan. This is really helpful because next semester when I student teach I will obviously be writing tons and tons of lesson plans! I am grateful I had this experience to really help foster and master my skills of writing lesson plans!
Another thing that was really helpful throughout this fieldwork experience was watching my peers teach. By watching them, I learned different ways to implement certain lessons and activities. I got to see different methods of teaching and how others work in the classroom. Sometimes, you think you have a great way to implement a certain activity and it goes south. But, you can watch other people try to implement similar activities and they may go great! Then you can keep this in mind and think about how you could possibly adjust your idea to make the activity go more smoothly. Although it is nerve wracking to teach in front of your peers, it really is a learning tool! We all grew so much throughout this whole experience. By observing my peers, it helped me to keep in mind how different people do different things. It is also good to see how one thing does not work for everybody. Therefore, I think it is very important to always have multiple ways for students to learn. One size does not fit all!!
Throughout this time I also got experience with creating and evaluating assessments. Before we began teaching our lesson we gave the class a pretest. This helped us to see if the students had any prior knowledge about our topic of minerals and rocks. The students actually did know a lot, so we were impressed! While we taught our lessons we assessed the students both formally and informally. Formal assessments were conducted through things such as exit tickets. We informally assessed the students by having them raise a flag as to whether they agree or disagree and analyzing the data depending on the answers of the students. While watching my peers teach, I also learned other ways to assess students. My favorite assessment that we did with the class was when we first met with them. We made a poster that we called "Sixth Grade Geologists" and the students were given pieces of construction paper that looked like minerals! On the mineral they were to write what they already know about rocks and minerals and what they want to learn. Then they decorated it with gemstones!
This time in fieldwork has also helped me to realize my strengths and weaknesses. I have realized I am not perfect and nobody is! This time to reflect allowed me to realize that there is always room for improvement! I know my strengths and I know my weaknesses. Now, I can learn how to build more on my strengths and improve my weaknesses! Teaching is an ongoing process. You will always be learning more, and learning as you go! I don't think anyone is perfect and over time I will keep getting better and better!
Spending this time in the classroom has also helped me prepare for student teaching next semester! This has given me some more insight of what it may be like next semester when I am teaching! Also, creating our portfolio and practicing with edTPA tasks after we taught our lessons is also preparing me for what I will be doing next semester!
Group 4 taught their first lesson today on Plate tectonics! They had a very extensive lesson and I thought they did a wonderful job. In my opinion, this was a hard topic to teach, but I think they did a great job and the students understood the material well! For some reason, the students were extra chatty and energetic today. Throughout the lesson they were talking so much and distracted a lot. I think my fellow teacher candidates did a great job of trying to get them to settle down and refocus their attention back on the material!
My favorite part of their lesson was their continental drift activity. They had the students fold up a piece of construction paper like a fan. Each student had the continents of Africa and South America. They students were instructed to
lay the construction paper on their desk and place the continents on top. Then, they pulled the paper
apart so the continents drifted right in front of them! This was a really great activity and captured the attention of the class. It also helped to make the content material more realistic for them, because they saw it happening right in front of them!
Group 4 taught their final lesson on Tuesday. We did not have class on Thursday, so they went a week without teaching. They did a very excellent job with this lesson. What I really liked was that they did stations. There were four stations that the students rotated to. Unfortunately, time ran out so the students only got to go to three of the stations. Overall, I think the lesson went very smoothly and you could tell the teacher candidates were a lot more comfortable in front of the classroom.
I can't believe our time at fieldwork is over! It flew by!! It was very enjoyable and definitely a learning experience. It has helped me feel much more comfortable in front of the classroom and helped to give me even more experience writing lesson plans:)
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!
