Let's Act!

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For the past few weeks we've been focusing on drama in my arts class. I never realized how many ways you can incorporate drama in the classroom. My favorite activity was when we had to act out a scene from a book. We all put our own spin on the scenes and acted them out in different ways. I loved that almost all of us incorporated music into our scenes. One of my favorite educators, Ron Clark, told of a story when his students just, absolutely, were not into a chapter book that they were required to read. He made the book come alive by creating a murder mystery in a mansion complete with fake blooood [lol]. After that the kids waned to read the book everyday. You can also make books come alive in smaller ways like, bringing in food from the book, having the students or community volunteers act out the characters, and incorporating sound effects, music, and visual effects like fog machines. Making learning fun and an engaging experience is why I went into teaching. I want to completely immerse my students in learning and help them to become successful responsible citizens in their communities.

Flex Zone

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When it comes to teaching I am not spontaneous. I like to be meticulously planned and know exactly what I’m going to say and do. With that being said, I don’t like surprise lessons. When I taught my first mini lesson in my cooperating teacher’s classroom I was so nervous. I knew we were going to start taking over some of the small teaching responsibilities that my teacher does, but she hadn't told us about the specifics of the lessons we were going to have to teach. When we arrived on a Tuesday morning, my teacher had laid out the lessons we were supposed to teach in a few hours. Of course I start to freak out because, like I said earlier, I don’t like to teach if I’m not prepared. We had some time to prep for the lesson, and as I looked over it, the content that I was teaching was not as hard as I was making it out to be. As my peer taught, I observed her and saw how comfortable she was with teaching her part of the lesson, and knew that my part of the lesson would also go smoothly. I reviewed the material, knew what content I was teaching and what I wanted the students to come away with.

One thing I noticed while teaching was that sometimes you go into a lesson knowing everything you want to say, what you want to get across, and how you’re going to do that, but it ends up changing half way through the lesson when you see what the students understand and what they are struggling with. When I was planning the lesson I hadn't thought about students responses and them backing up their answer with text evidence, but as I went through the lesson that popped into my mind to have them practice the skill of supporting their answer, a skill that is so valuable nowadays for students.

As a teacher I will have to be flexible. Most of the lessons that I teach, will be planned explicitly, but sometimes lessons will come up that I haven’t planned for, and I will just have to go with the flow. Also sometimes students will be so into a lesson that they won't want to stop. I will have to adjust an know when to end a lesson and know when to allow my students to continue working. Teaching is all about flexibility. 

Keep Calm and Buy Candy Grams

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Every year, at the end of the school year, the fifth grade students at my school go to a local camp for a camping trip. The students are able to go with minimal cost to their parents, in part due to a candy gram fundraiser the 4/5 teachers and PTO sponsor every year. In my field placement this semester, I was able to see how to run a successful fundraiser at a school, which is important to me because I plan to integrate fundraising into my future classroom.

A lot of work goes into selling candy grams. To begin this process my teacher did a social studies lesson on the industrial revolution. The students were told they had to make candy grams, and were given the supplies to make them, but were given no other rules. The students began making the candy grams and the teacher timed to see how many they got done in a certain time period. After the time expired the teacher counted them up and recorded the number that was made. She then asked the students if they could figure out another way to d make the candy grams that could go faster. The students assembled into an assembly line where each person had a job, and greatly increased their output. My teacher then tied that into the industrial revolution and had them watch a short clip about assembly lines. This is another example of how my teacher brings concept concepts down to her students more concrete level.

After the students made the initial candy grams in the lesson, everyday for a week, different fifth graders would come down to where we were selling candy grams and put additional ones together. At the end of the day they would take all the candy grams that had been filled out and deliver them to the classrooms.

I loved the concept of this project because it taught students social studies content and taught them to work for what they want, which is an invaluable lesson in life. As a teacher, I will strive to integrate innovative, concrete, lessons into my curriculum. Innovative lessons give students an experience that they will remember their whole lives.

What Do They Know?

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One thing I know for sure in teaching is that you have to use formative assessment to see where your students are and what areas they are struggling in. If you just give the students summative assessments they won't have a chance to improve. My cooperating teacher uses many innovative assessment tools in her classroom. One of my favorite assessment tools is Kahoot. On Kahoot.it you can create quizzes that the students can answer using their chromebooks or whatever computer system they have in the classroom. The system is similar to a polling system and will show when all students have answered, and also show how the students have answered but not connect the responses to a name. However, as a teacher, the program gives you detailed reports on how your students answer and what areas you may need to work on with your students still. My teacher has used Kahoot.it in all different subjects from math to social studies and the students truly enjoy it because it feels like a game and not an assessment. 

You can find this assessment tool on: https://getkahoot.com/
...and it's FREE!

We are Family!

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I've never had the opportunity to work in a non-inner city school and the differences in the student behavior are startling. The students are so well behaved in my field classroom. They are polite, they listen, and they follow the teacher’s directions quickly. Even the students who have emotional and mental issues all follow classroom procedures. However, when I had the opportunity to speak to the teacher, she told me about all she had done to build a positive community, or family as she likes to call it, in her classroom. She emphasized to the students to look out for their peers and instilled in them that they are all important, and the classroom would not run smoothly without them. I wonder if the student behavior has more to do with procedures being established early and a positive classroom environment being built where the students feel safe to learn and share and want to be an integral part of keeping their classroom running smoothly, then where the students come from and their upbringing, or is it a mixture of both? I would like to see how some of the other classes run in the school to see if most of the children behave like this or if this class is an anomaly. 

One thing I know for sure is that student behavior can negatively or positively effect a teacher’s ability to teach. In some of my other field placements, the teacher could barely make it through a lesson without multiple disruptions. When observing my cooperating teacher teach, I notice that she almost always makes it through all of her lessons without any disruptions. When the students are attentive and engaged, you get to do more as a teacher, and can do more activities that are hands on and fun. 

You Gotta Know Your Stuff to Teach It.

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In order to be an effective teacher you must know your content. I've taught lessons before where I wasn't completely sure of the content I was teaching and the lesson bombed. Students can sense when you’re standing on a shaky foundation. Knowing your content makes lessons run much more smoothly. My cooperating teacher KNOWS her content. All of her lessons move seamlessly because the students trust her to teach them. Whenever they have a question she’s anticipated it and knows how to answer, and if she doesn't, she will get back to the students with an answer as soon as possible. In social studies class we were asked what we were most worried about in teaching social studies. I mentioned that I was worried about teaching the actual content. I’m no history expert. There are concepts that we will be expected to teach that I left back in high school. I asked my teacher how she dealt with this issue. She let me know that a lot of hard work went into her studying content, refreshing her memory, and planning effective lessons. However, the work is worth it. Having that peace of mind that you know the purpose of your lesson and what you want your students to come away with.

When I am planning my lessons, I will focus on knowing exactly what I want my students to learn, and how I want them to get there. I will pay close attention to the content I want to teach, and try to reacquaint myself with the content before I try teaching it to my students.

Whats Happening in Field... [Let's Collaborate]

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I always get a little nervous when I have to teach. It feels like there is so much pressure especially, when I am being observed by my cooperating teacher and my supervisor. However, this time was a bit different. My cooperating teacher, from the beginning of the semester, has made me feel at home in her classroom and assured me she’s not judging me, she just looking for ways she can help me improve my teaching, and that is awesome. She takes the time to sit down with my peer and I and tell us about things we did great and things that we can work on to improve. I feel like that is the type of relationship a pre-service teacher and a cooperating teacher should have.

It’s always weird trying to plan a lesson and collaborating with someone else. We all have different time tables and work at different rates. Some want to get the lessons written up right away, and people like me, like to take our time in writing a lesson. Collaborating with my peers from the university gave me a glimpse at what it’s going to be like collaborating with my peers in the field. Even though sometimes it’s hard to collaborate, if you have a good team it’s a great experience, because most of the times, two heads are better than one. The lessons my peers and I came up with this semester have been some of the best and authentic lessons, and social studies is quickly becoming one of my favorite subjects to teach.
Cool links about collaborating with your peers:
https://www.teachingchannel.org/blog/2014/07/18/power-of-teacher-collaboration-nea/
http://www.edutopia.org/blog/teacher-collaboration-strategies-ben-johnson