Halfway through Fieldwork

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!

Teaching day TWO~ complete

           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.

Teaching Day ONE; done!

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!

Preparing for Fieldwork

It is time that we start preparing for fieldwork! Since I am part of the first group we will be teaching first! We are going to be teaching a 6th grade science class. I am a little nervous about teaching 6th grade! My groups topic is properties of minerals and classifying rocks. I know this is not the most exciting topic to cover, so my group and I are trying to plan fun activities that will engage the
students as they learn.

While planning our lessons, we have to keep in mind ways that will grasp the students attention. We have to think about what students enjoy and how we can incorporate that into our lesson plans. On our first day of fieldwork, we are going to get to know the students better. Hopefully we can learn more about them, what they enjoy and what they like about science. We can use this to gear our lessons towards the interests of the students. It is very important for the students to be able to connect with the lessons to make it more fun, relatable and worth while.

During our lessons we also need to think of ways to track students progress and understanding. This can be done through assessments. We need to plan diagnostic, formative and summative assessments. We as teachers need to assess students before our lessons, during and after. We can assess the students before our lessons by giving them a pretest and after the lessons by giving them a post test. Throughout the lessons we can assess students informally. Informal assessments are very important and can be done multiple ways. One way this can be done is asking questions and having students respond by put a thumbs up in the air if they agree or a thumbs down if they disagree. There are many different ways to informally assess students during our lessons that will help us to see if the students are grasping the information we are teaching them.

Unit Plans

  Looking through all the resources, creating unit plans seems very intimidating and overwhelming. Creating a unit plan requires a lot of thought, time and preparation.  In a unit plan there should be three different lesson types. The three lessons are: Direct, Inquiry and Cooperative. A direct lesson is a straightforward explicit learning strategy. This means that it is teacher centered and the teacher is in front of the classroom presenting the new information to the students. Some of the advantages to direct instruction is that the teacher has ultimate control of the material, the time, the pace etc. The next lesson type is an Inquiry lesson which is when students are actively involved through experiences where they are creating questions and investigating during the lesson. Some advantages to an inquiry lesson is that students are constructing their own knowledge, creating their own personal experiences and have the chance to really get involved with the new material they are learning. The last kind of lesson is a Cooperative lesson which is when students are grouped together

 in small groups and work together toward one common goal. Each group member has their own responsibilities and the group needs to effectively work together. Each lesson has their own positive and negative attributes. There are so many different parts that are crucial in a lesson and a unit plan. 

I feel very nervous about having to prepare three lessons to teach and a unit plan. I am fortunate enough that I took Social Studies Methods last semester, so at least I have experience from last semester. I am part of group 1 for teaching. So, this means that we will be going first. We are working with a 6th grade class and our topic is rocks and minerals. 

Diving into the First Week

The first week of classes are always so nerve wracking. It is fun to get to know your new classmates and teachers but it can also be a little scary. Fortunately, I took Social Studies Methods with Dr. Smirnova last semester, so I had a little idea of what to expect. This week was kind of bittersweet though because it was my last first week of classes! I am a senior and I am going to be student teaching in the spring! 

I am excited to take this class because I want to be able to improve my skills and knowledge of science. I am also excited to learn about different tools that will help to make science more exciting and engaging for students. I am a little nervous about having to teach 6th grade. 

For our first assignment in class we had to draw a picture of what we thought of when we heard the word scientist. I drew a scientist named Sandra working at a desk! This was a really good assignment because it allowed us to talk about some stereotypes that are often associated with scientists. This is also a really great assignment that we could do with our class in the future! Another assignment was to write a reflective paper called a Scientific Me.  In this paper we were asked to reflect about our past experiences with science. This was a great assignment to be completed on the first day because it gave me the chance to really think about science and how I felt about it as a student. I remembered that although I never hated science, it was never my favorite subject. I hope that throughout the semester I will learn different strategies on how to make science really fun for my students! 

Our last assignment was a Digital Me project. Each person in the class chose a web tool that they would use to introduce themselves to the class. We then put it on on a powerpoint presentation and presented it to the class! Each tool is also really helpful to use in a classroom. The tool that I used was Tagxedo, which is a word cloud. You can see it to the right. This tool was really easy to use and fun. I used about 20 words that really described me. This is great to use in a classroom because you can do so many things with it. For example you can use it before you start a chapter and put all the vocabulary words in it. There are so many options!