"Every successful individual knows that his or her achievement depends on a community of persons working together." - Paul Ryan

Monday, November 18

Today we got into our expert groups for the Native American Jigsaw project to refresh our memories and make sure we had completed all necessary slides. After we had a brief check, we broke into our original groups and began to present. 

For my group, we each went around and taught our peers about our Native American tribe. When it was my turn to share my presentation about the Cayuga tribe, my classmates grouped around my computer. All of the information was presented in the same order:  history, geography, culture, customs, food, clothes, famous people, a brief summary, resources used, and a quiz. For my groups quiz, we used the website JogNog which is a fun, easy to use quiz generating site. Students answer questions to receive points, which can be used to reach higher level quizzes. 

I learned a lot about Native American tribes from this activity. I think that jigsaws are a great way to teach a lot of information in a short amount of time. Students would enjoy being able to teach their peers new information that they have learned. 

Wednesday, November 20

We began class by finishing up our Native American Jigsaw presentations. My group had finished this activity on Monday, so we took this time to work on our live binders instead. Regrouping after a few minutes, we were then told that there would be two current event presentations. 

The first presentation was conducted by Madison, Brittney, and Liz. Their lessons was focused on the sequencing of events based on a current event. Madison started off the lesson by providing a brief recap of the previous current event lesson. She then asked the class to provide the definition of a sequence, and then provide examples from real life. The teachers then broke us up into two groups, each receiving sentence strips, a poster board, and tape. Our goal was to arrange the strips into the proper order from the story, using the article itself as a reference. This task was quite difficult and we found ourselves constantly checking our work with the article. 

I think that this lesson would be great to implement in a real classroom setting. I believe that students would work together well to practice both cooperative learning skills and current event information. This activity is going to go on my list of lessons I want to use in the future. 

After Madison, Liz, and Brittney were completed with their lesson, the second group had a chance to implement their lesson. This group consisted of Anne, James, Tara, and Caitlyn, who focused their lesson on facts and opinions. 

Friday, November 22

Today in class we were given time to work within our groups for our unit plans. Though my group already finished one out of the three activities we need, this gave us time to work on our next activity.  I really like when Dr. Smirnova gives us time to work in class. Though it's only for 55 minutes, this time allows us to not only work, but also ask her any questions that we have regarding our work.