We did not have school today because MSMC was observing Columbus Day. At The Mount, we do not have off on the actually Columbus Day, we we observe the holiday the following week.
Instead of class, I took the Educating All Students (EAS) certification test with Lindsay. This was an interesting experience, but I am glad to have one test out of the way. One down, four to go!
Wednesday, October 22
Today was a current event presentation. For this presentation, Katrina, Chrissy, and Amanda taught us about a debate. I liked that they tried to keep a similar structure of a real life debate in the classroom.
The topic of this article was implementing an exercise plan into classrooms. I was part of the pro side for the debate, which is the side that was deemed the winner at the end of the debate.
I think that students would really enjoy taking part in a debate in class. I remember doing various debates in elementary school based off of Newsweek articles and topics. In some magazines, debate topics are provided, giving information on both the pro and con side. Students can be allowed to pick a side, or the teacher can pick to make sure students are evenly distributed.
Friday, October 25
Today we did not have class. Instead, I decided to do some fieldwork for my Science Methods class. I went to Arthur S. May Elementary School in Poughkeepsie. I frequently observe in this school and have grown comfortable with the way things are done.
During my observation, I got to see a readers theater, common core math modules, and classroom management strategies.
When doing fieldwork, it is hard for me to sit still and just observe. Thankfully, the teacher that I frequently observe with lets me help out and work with students. I love being able to do this. Hopefully, I can work with her again in the near future!
This week was a different then our normal fieldwork schedule because Bishop Dunn had Monday off. We had class instead in Aquinas 57. This gave us some time to reflect on our inquiry lesson and learn what our peers thought about our execution.
We first reflected as a group about how we thought our lesson went and what could have gone better overall. Once we went though a step-by-step of our lesson, which included the introduction (reflection of last class/Tagxedo), exploratory introduction (Google presentation), inquiry (artifact bag exploration), expansion (recording sheets), closure (sharing findings with the class), elaboration (independent practice homework worksheet), Dr. Smirnova opened the floor up for our classmates to share their thoughts. Overall, our peers seemed to enjoy our lesson. They liked the use of artifact bags and how we modeled our lesson and thinking process for the students to see.
Dr. Smirnova gave us the following critiques from our lesson: -Tagxedo- Use contrast to make the words on the Tagxedo more clear. -Always allow time for students to answer. If students are not answering, rephrase the question and pause to allow time to think. -Inquiry Steps: Split up list onto different slides. This would make this section of the lesson more engaging and more time for question/answer. -Give each student in the group a job. Assigning roles will save time.
This brief video clip shares important aspects of an inquiry based teaching method. Students learn life long skills by this method of teaching. It is not simply teaching to the test, it is teaching to create active thinkers. I think that it is very important to incorporate inquiry based lessons into every classroom. After hearing what my classmates had to say about my groups lesson, I think that we effectively made the students at Bishop Dunn have a positive learning experience and walk away with some valuable problem solving skills that they can throughout their schooling and in their everyday lives. I think that these critiques can be used to help us make our future lessons more effective. Some things that she points out are things that we, as a group, have not noticed or would not know how to fix. I really like this time that we are given to reflect on our lessons. Though as a teacher you will not have too much time in between lessons to reflect, this is a good practice to start now.
Wednesday, October 16
We were also in our classroom today, but instead of focusing on reflections, we moved our focus to current events. Christina, Courtney, and Kristen presented a lesson on the 5 W's: who, what, when, where, and why. The 5 W's are important in figuring out what an article is about. The article chosen was one about the government shutdown. I really liked how they chose a topic that was repeatable and students would have heard about.
After reading the article, we completed a 5 W's worksheet, filling in important information from the article. After filling out these sheets, we were to pass them to our neighbor and use the information provided to write an introductory paragraph to the topic.
I liked this method of organizing information and making this activity cross curriculum. Students learn how to pull out valuable and important facts, display them in an easy to read way, and write an introduction paragraph. I think that the idea of using this in a classroom where each student/group has a different article and then switching with a new person would be a good idea. Students would not know about the article and would have to base their paragraphs solely on the information provided by their peers.
Friday, October 18
Today marked the day of our last lesson. Though I was anxious about teaching our final lesson, I knew that we had a great group of students who were eager to learn.
We started off the lesson by playing a quick vocabulary game to get students familiar with cooperative learning. We assigned the students in each small group a number 1-3 or 1-4 depending on the number of students. Then, we passed out index cards containing one vocabulary word on each: artisan, merchant, manor, and apprentice. Students were instructed to talk with their group members to come up with a definition for their assigned word. The catch? They were not able to write anything down and all group members had to know the definition. Once the time was up, my fellow teachers and myself picked a random number 1-3 (or 1-4 is applicable) for the students with the corresponding number to share their word and their definition. We bridged this activity to our lesson by having students tell us if this was an effective method of working and if working with others is good or bad.
We based our lesson off of a Google Presentation about social skills. These skills are needed to work effectively within groups.
These hints are very important for students to remember during their group work. One of the words in this slide, respect, is a vague term. When this word was mentioned, I had the students provide some examples of what it means to be respectful. I think that in doing this, the students had a better understanding of the word.
We continued our lesson by breaking up the teachers into the four groups to create their "secret presentation." James taught the song group, Lindsay taught the advertisement, Alex taught the poem, and Madison and myself taught the skit. In my group, we first had a group mixed with two girls and one boy. Madison and I created a brief skit about the ocean to model for the students what a skit was. This group quickly caught on and created a cute skit about colonial life.
The next group that we had was all girls. They were very interested in talking, but not about the task at hand. When we finally got them to write the skit, they focused more on the children part than on the colonial part. They wrote a skit about friends walking home from school talking about a birthday party. Though this was not exactly what we were looking for, it was still a great experience for the students to have different types of activities to be a part of.
After each lesson, we had the groups share their creations with the rest of the class. The students were very happy to get up in front of their peers and share what they had done. All of the students had on big smiles and seemed to be enjoying themselves.
I thoroughly enjoyed my time teaching at Bishop Dunn. I wish that I could continue to teach, but sadly it is time for my group to sit back and observe the other groups. This has been a great experience for me and I will remember the lessons that I have learned to use in my future classroom.
According to the educational philosophy
self-assessment, I am considered to be a humanist and cognitivist, which each
received a score of 18. Behaviorism and progressivism were close behind, each
receiving a score of 17
Humanist educators “consider learning from the
perspective of the human potential for growth, becoming the best one can be.” I
believe that this is a good philosophy to have as an educator. “People are
smart differently.” Students learn in a variety of ways, and it is the
teacher’s job to change his/her teaching style to fit the needs of each
individual student. “People possess unlimited potential for growth and
development.” In the classroom, the teacher should access this potential and
help students to be the best that they can be.
This philosophy also connects to another philosophy
that defines my teaching, cognitivism. As a cognitivist, the “teachers
facilitate environmental conditions and mediate experiences to support student
learning.” Again this is a student focused method of teaching, catering to the
needs of each individual’s learning needs.
Another philosophy that I have at times is
behaviorism. In behaviorism, “behavior is [seen as] the result of external
forces that cause humans to behave in predictable ways, rather than from free
will. The teacher reinforces what the student to do again and again and ignores
undesirable behaviors.” I think there is a time and place for behaviorism. I
think that it is a good method of teaching when working with students with
special needs. These types of students need to be rewarded at times so they
know what is right and what is wrong.
My personal teaching philosophy follows this
quote: “Over prepare, then go with the flow.” I think that this is a
great teaching quote. No matter what lesson is going to be implemented, this
quote can be followed. Prepare as much as possible, having back up assignments,
extra work, and various methods. Once you are in the classroom, you need to go
with the flow. If the lesson does not work exactly how you want it to, it is
okay. Make changes as you go and do not be afraid to completely disregard parts
of your lesson. No one will know if you make changes as you go. The only person
a lesson plan is for is you.
Today was our first lesson at Bishop Dunn! Overall, the lessons went fairly well. During our first lesson though, we had every possible technical difficulty that could happen, happen. It was very frustrating, but we made it work.
I think that our group presented well, given the circumstances. We were all a little thrown off by our technology not working properly, but we tried to keep a positive attitude and work through it. Now we know to always have a back up plan in case the Internet goes down or we can't use a piece of technology.
Our direct instruction lesson was based off of a Prezi presentation. Each of my fellow teachers and myself taught a various slides pertaining to the topic of New York and the New Nation.
Looking back on our video of our teaching, there are a lot of things I personally need to work on. One thing that I noticed is that I was constantly playing with my name tag, fixing my shirt, and touching my hair. Though I did not realize that I was doing those things, they look very unprofessional. Another thing that I need to work on is to not say the word guys. There are plenty of other words I can use instead. For example, I can say boys and girls, or class to get the students attention. I have been trying to eliminate the word guys from my vocabulary altogether, that way I will never use it.
Wednesday, October 9
Today was a day used to reflect on our first lesson in class. The two other groups shared their feedback from our first lesson, commenting on our lessons and how they were implemented. Overall, the class had mostly positive things to say about our lesson, only commenting on a few things like projecting our voices and using formal language. One big comment that was made by Dr. Smirnova was to make bridges between our lesson sections and our slides. At some points, our lesson went from one topic to a completely different one without any connection whatsoever. When we created the lesson, we did not even think of that aspect. I am really glad that we get to have Wednesdays in class to reflect on our previous lessons. This will allow us to succeed in our future lessons and figure out where we can make improvements.
I really enjoyed our first day of fieldwork. I like that Dr. Smirnova wants us to video tape our lessons. This gives us much needed practice for the EDTPA that has recently been added to achieve teaching certification in NY state. I think that this is great practice for that final video, allowing us to get used to being videotaped. I thought that I would be very nervous around it, but I did not even notice the camera at all. From the video, I noticed that I play with my name tag, and my shirt a lot. I never noticed that I did this before watching our video. I also seem to sway back and forth while I'm listening to my fellow teachers teach and I tend to use informal language like gonna, wanna, and guys often. Little habits like this are things that I need to work on to become the best teacher I can be.
Friday, October 11
Today was our second lesson at Bishop Dunn. My fellow teachers and I taught our inquiry lesson based on artifact bags. We began our lesson with a Google Presentation with a review of the vocabulary from our previous lesson. We were able to show a picture of our tagxedo that we were not able to show on Monday. Next, we wanted to review the inquiry process and connect the artifact bag activity to historians and the scientific method.
Once the students were able to name the steps, we provided a slide for helpful hints when investigating through the artifact bags. While I read through the helpful hints, my fellow teachers modeled how to go through the scientific process using an artifact bag about oceans.
Overall, I think that our lessons this week went well. One thing piece of advise that I need to remember is to go with the flow, or simply pretend that it's on the lesson plan. You can not prepare for every possible event or error to occur. Sometimes you need to just work with what you have or what your students provide you with. Another big thing is to keep calm! Even if every little thing goes wrong in your lesson, if you stay calm and keep moving forward, the students may not even notice that it did not go according to plan.
Today in class we had a QR code treasure hunt. Dr. Smirnova placed numbered folders around the classroom, each containing a QR code. A QR code is a square bar-code that is scanned using a smart phone or tablet. There are free QR code readers that can easily be downloaded onto various devices as well as websites that can be used to create your own QR codes.
Dr. Smirnova told us last week to have the app downloaded on at least one device per peer group. Every member of my group had the app to use, which actually made the activity go easier for us. Before we began, we assigned roles for the members of our group: manager, recorder, time keeper, researcher, and presenter. To start this activity, we had to find each folder and scan the QR code found within. Then, we had to write down the question that corresponded with the code (each QR code led to a note page containing a questions). Once we had all questions written down, we had to search the internet for answers to these questions and type up our responses onto eclass.
This activity allowed for both cooperative learning and inquiry based learning. We were provided the questions, but had to solve the problem within our groups. I really enjoyed this activity and liked that you can use it in the classroom. Though this activity should be done with older students, there are ways to simplify it to make it accessible for younger grades.
I think that QR codes are a fun way to get students to interact in their learning. It allows students to use their cell phones in a productive manner. Using cell phones, IPods, IPads, and other technology in the classroom gets students excited and willing to learn. In schools today, it is a struggle to find lessons and activities that engage students. By incorporating technology of any sort into the classroom, teachers can encourage positive interdependence and create an engaging classroom for all students.
Wednesday, October 2
Today in class we were given time to work with our group to create our lessons to implement at Bishop Dunn. Though my group has already finished our first lesson (direct instruction), we began to work on our second lesson (inquiry based). Fro our inquiry based lesson, we decided to use the idea of artifact bags that we had previously worked with. We already had five various bags of artifacts from our own assignment earlier in the semester, but we would have to change a few things.
We also used this time to brainstorm for our third lesson (cooperative learning). At first, we were thinking of having the students work in groups to take on the persona of a colonial boy or girl and write from his/her perspective. After talking with Dr. Smirnova however, we decided that we should create a four corners type of activity. In a four corners activity, the class is broken up into four different groups, each being assigned a different project. For ours, we are thinking of having our four groups consist of an advertisement, a skit, a song, and a poem. Though we are not 100% sure if these will be our final projects, we seem to agree on these. One major concern of ours is that the students might not feel comfortable if they have to get up in front of the class to sing or act out a skit. We will have to discuss this more in depth during our next meeting.
Friday, October 4
Today is our first visit to Mrs. Benfer's third and fourth grade combined class of 26 students. We began the class time with a brief introduction of our names. After my peers and I shared our names, we broke into our teaching groups and visited each table to talk a little about what the students should expect. In my group, we decided that it was very important for us to learn our students' names. We brought pre-folded paper and markers so the students could create name tags to display while we teach. While the students were creating the name tags, we did a walk through of two different nonfiction books based on our theme of New York and the New Nation. We asked students to make predictions about the topic and we asked students to name a few of the colonies that made up Colonial America. Alex decided to read some fun facts and tips to get the students interested in the topic, which the students seemed to really enjoy.
This time helped us get to know the students that we will be working with and got me very excited to come and teach! The students seemed very excited and eager to learn. I cannot wait until Monday when we get to teach our first whole class direct instruction lesson.
Alex and I listening to a response from a student during our introduction lesson at Bishop Dunn.
I think that students would really enjoy taking part in a debate in class. I remember doing various debates in elementary school based off of Newsweek articles and topics. In some magazines, debate topics are provided, giving information on both the pro and con side. Students can be allowed to pick a side, or the teacher can pick to make sure students are evenly distributed.
