Feedback on Current Events Presentation

Please leave any feedback you may have about Christina, Danielle, and Moira's current event presentation in a comment on this post!

Thank you for participating! We appreciate your comments. 


   


This presentation was a great learning experience for me. I learned that you can incorporate Language Arts into Social Studies by having students participate in a parts of speech scavenger hunt! Students can read Social studies related articles, and they can search for specific parts of speech in the srticle, whatever the teacher desires. Teachers may also have the students summarize the article, that way the teacher knows that the students are reading the contents of the article. Through this experience, i learned that NEWSELA is a great resource for finding student friendly articles on a wide range of topics. I also really enjoyed listening to my classmates' presentations and learning from them.

More on the fieldwork experience

Overall, I enjoyed the fieldwork experience. I believe that my group did a fantastic job. It was a lot of work! Hours and hours were spent preparing the lessons and PowerPoint presentations. I wish that we had more time to prepare and rehearse our lessons. We had ample time to plan and rehearse out direct instruction lesson, but no so much with our final two lessons. We had a difficult time meeting up to plan our inquiry and cooperative learning lessons. Our schedules were overlapping and other work was often getting in the way. In the end, we were able to create lessons that I believe the students enjoyed.

Our response paddles were a huge hit! The students enjoyed using them and the teacher loved them so much that our class purchased white board paddles for the teacher as a thank you gift for having us in her classroom. I hope they get good use out of them and that the teacher and students enjoy them. Response paddles are a great was for teachers to assess students, while having students be engaged and participating. After seeing how well the students took to this, I plan to use this as a method of assessment when I have my own classroom one day.

I am sad that fieldwork is over. Although it was a lot of preparation and work to teach the fifth graders, I will miss being in the classroom. I enjoy getting to know the students and seeing them engaged in learning. I am grateful for the experience and it will always have this memory of my first time teaching a class, even if it was with a group.

Discoveries and Learning in Fieldwork

Teaching with my classmates in fieldwork was a wonderful learning experience! 

A few things I learned....

• Planning lessons is hard work and very time consuming.
• Once teaching the lesson, expect the unexpected and be able to adapt.
• Seeing students engaged in learning is a beautiful sight. 
• Students will know more than you think they will.
• My group members and I work well together.

Planning took a lot longer than I thought it would. Many hours were spent with my classmates, working hard to create lesson plans for the students. I knew that planning was time consuming, but I wasn't prepared for exactly how time consuming this was.
Our lessons went smoothly, but one can never predict what will happen. We ended up not having enough time for one of our assessments during direct instruction.  



A few challenges...

I expected that the students in this classroom would be engaged in learning, and they were. Students were quick to raise their hands, answer questions, and participate in activities presented to them. Most students took on challenges with excitement. What I was not expecting was for some of the students to not participate at all. Often times, for every group, there were a few students in the class that put their heads down on their desk, or sat quietly, refusing to take part in group work. 

As much as I can say the students were engaged, there were many times when the students got off task, or were not listening to the groups teaching. I observed every group before me struggle with trying to get the students to focus again when they got off task. this was very difficult. Strategies to capture students attention would often have to be tried two or three times before it actually worked. This problem is one that I was not expecting.

Cooperative Learning

In class I have learned just how important cooperative learning is to student success. Not only does it encourage learning, but encourages social skills that students will need throughout their lives. Just remember PIGS. Positive Interdependence, Individual Accountability, Group Processing, and Social Skills. students will gain all of these things when involved in cooperative learning. There are many ways to incorporate cooperative learning into lessons.This can be:

-group/partner projects
-group/partner problem solving
-group/partner reading
-group/partner skits, songs, re-enactments

There are so many ways that group work can be done, and in any subject!
I am going to remember PIGS when I am a teacher, and be sure that I am incorporating cooperative learning frequently to benefit my students. The benefits will be long-term. Working well with others is not something you only have to do in school, but out of school also.

Fieldwork--Pre Teaching

Well, we have officially started fieldwork! I am nervous and excited at the same time. I am excited to teach these 5th grade students because they are clearly so engaged and ready to learn. This is refreshing to see. However, I am nervous to teach Social Studies. This was never my best, nor favorite subject while I was in school. I am worried that I will not be confident enough in the material by the time it is my turn to teach. Al i can do is study the material and become knowledgeable in my topic. This should help build my confidence when it comes my time to teach. The first group of teachers have already gone and I think they did a great job considering they were the first group to go. It was a lot of pressure being the first group! I am lucky to be in the last group that way I observe the other groups before me, and learn from the mistakes they have made. Making mistakes it not a bad thing in this case. This is a learning experience! we will only improve each time we do this. I can also listen to the constructive criticism that our teacher is providing, and keep it in mind for when I am developing my lesson plans. I really hope the students enjoy my groups lesson on the Thirteen Colonies and that everything goes smoothly. Update to follow!!

Creative Ways to Teach Geography (my 10 favorite)

I loved the slide show "103 Creatively Simple Ways to Teach Geography!" It was full of such fun ideas for teachers to use. Each one I read got better and better! I will most definitely be using some of these. Picking a top 10 was hard, but here it is:

Idea 8: Adopt a Rock

Idea 21: Geography Alphabet

Idea 23: Bingo!

Idea 28: Play Taboo

Idea 33: Become a Poet

Idea 36: Wordle Stereotypes

Idea 40: Describing Photos

Idea 51: Landscape in a Box

Idea 60: 10 Questions

Idea 62: Before, Before, After, After


I like the idea of incorporating games into teaching and learning. When students are playing games, they are having fun. My goal is to make learning fun for my students, and what a better way then to play games and learn at the same time! Projects such as Idea 51 allow students to show their creative side. I think this is important. Students should be able to express themselves creatively. How are they able to do this if they are always doing worksheets? They need to have hands- on projects that they can have fun with. Become a Poet will also bring out student creativity. 10 Questions, Describing Photos, and Geography Alphabet are all activities that will help students socially. Students will be in a situation to communicate and work with their peers. Cooperation and good communication among students makes for a stress free classroom environment. These activities will also get the students moving around the room. My 10 favorites are great to keep in mind not only for teaching history, but any subject. Learning should be fun. If learning is not fun, it is less memorable! 

                                       

10 tips to engage students in the classroom

Here are the ten tips from the video "10 Tips of Engaging Students in Active Learning."

1. Make the connection to real life.

2. Incorporate students interests.

3. Present in multiple formats. 

4. Offer choices.

5. Breakouts (groups).

6. Student lead activities.

7. Whole class participation.

8. Get students moving.

9. Chunk it out (break lessons into smaller sections)

10. Be enthusiastic.

I agree that all of these tips make for a successful classroom. Students will thrive in a classroom where all of the above are being practiced. Teachers are more likely to accommodate the learning styles of all students if these tips are used. It is my goal to be able to incorporate all of these tips into my teaching style. I have learned how important it is to provide a variety of activities for students and to make them feel that what they are learning is of significance.