Designing Assessments

Assessments. A word I hate the most. Why do we have to do it? Don't teachers know that assessments give students anxiety. I know I get shaky just by hearing the word. The worst part is we had to create one to give to our students.

Before heading into our fieldwork, we had to design a pre-assessment to test our second graders knowledge. Each group had to come up with 4 questions on their certain topic. Our topic was colonies gaining their independence. It was a bit difficult because we didn't know if our questions would be to easy or difficult. Originally we had different forms of question but once we saw the pre-test, we noticed that they were all changed to multiple choice. This taught me that when creating a pre-test I should focus on multiple choice types of questions. However, the pre-assessment didn't go so well, but it helped us figure out what we needed to teach. For example, we noticed that many of the students knew who the first president was, so as a group we decided not to spend to much time on it. However, one thing we noticed was that majority of the class didn't know anything about the thirteen colonies. As a group we decided to spend more time on this and even introduce it with a song. 

Once all the groups taught their lessons, we had to create another assessment, the post-assessment. As a group we had to come up with 5 questions this time. This helped us figure out if our students grasped the information and retained it. Creating the post-assessment was much easier than creating the pre-assessment. 

How Finland Broke Every Rule

WOW! Reading this article made me want quit school in America and move to Finland to become a teacher! The most powerful thing that stood out to me in the articles was "Instead of control, competition, stress, standardized testing, screen-based schools and loosened teacher qualifications, try warmth, collaboration, and highly professionalized, teacher-led encouragement and assessment." I think America has a lot to learn from Finland. For starters, their students are ten times smarter than the students here. They also don't focus on state testing and homework, instead they have fun with the kids and teach them real life things. I remember sitting in my high school desk and thinking when the heck am I going to need to know this stuff in the real world? The answer was

NEVER! 

Fieldwork Reflection

Well That's a Wrap!

We did it! All the groups have finally presented their lessons at fieldwork. This was such a stressful and unique fieldwork experience. It was very stressful because each group had to teach three different lesson plans: direct, inquiry and cooperative. That was very new for me so it took awhile to adapt to it. But I got the hang of it. It was unique because we taught our lessons in groups. Teaching in groups was also new to me. I usually teach alone and preferred it that way. However, this taught me how to be a team player and work in a group.

Overall, I really enjoyed my time at Bishop Dunn and learned a lot about the students and my fellow colleagues. I learned from either my mistakes or other groups mistakes in their lessons and this helped me grow as a teacher. I think everyone did a fantastic job and can't wait to see what the rest of the semester has in store for us.

Reflections and Observations: Throughout my time at Bishop Dunn, I had the pleasure of observing my fellow colleagues during their lessons. I saw many different ways of teaching, activities and use of technology. For example, group two used the online tool Voki. This actually inspired my group and we ended up using it during our inquiry process. I also learned that it is very heard to say "boys and girls", "learners", "students" instead of "guys". We have gone our whole life saying "guys" that it was very hard to break the habit. However, majority of the groups did a good job using proper academic language. While each group presented, I had to fill out observation reflections for the,. This helped each group see what they did good, bad and what they can learn/improve on. Here are the links to my observation reflections.

Group 1: 

• Direct
• inquiry
• cooperative

Group 2:

• Direct
• Inquiry
• Cooperative

Group 3:

• Direct
• Inquiry
• Cooperative

Group 4:

• Direct
• Inquiry
• Cooperative

Last Day of Teaching

THE BRITISH ARE COMING! THE BRITISH ARE COMING!

Today is our second and last day of teaching in front of the classroom. We will be teaching our inquiry and cooperative lessons. All I could think was how are we going to master the time management part. Is it even possible for any group to master two lessons in 45 minutes? Well we did it! We taught both our lessons in 45 minutes. For our inquiry lesson we broke up into groups and worked on artifact bags. It was a great experience to be able to work in a small group instead of a big group. The best part was that I got to work with my favorite kids from the extension program. After teaching our inquiry lesson, we moved onto our cooperative lesson. This was fun because the kids got to brainstorm as a group to come up with words that started with the certain letter their group was assigned. It was a bit difficult for my group because I had one student in particular that was not a team player instead she would throw her pencil and growl. Overall, my group nailed the time management part and did a great job on our lessons. I definitely would have made improvements with our lessons since it was a bit rushed. This was a great experience and I can't wait to student teach in the fall now! 

First Day of Teaching

First Day of Teaching

Today was my groups first day teaching in front of the second grade classroom. I was very nervous beforehand because not only was my professor going to be watching me but as well as my classmates. Not cool. I was use to just teaching a class by myself so teaching in a group would be a totally new experience.

My group and I started off teaching our direct lesson on the thirteen colonies and how American gained their independence. We were well prepared especially since we stayed in the library till close the night before going over our parts. Melissa started off with going over a word cloud and a song on the thirteen colonies. I think singing along was my favorite part of the lesson. The students and teachers really enjoyed it. Then Elizabeth went over taxes and right after Keilani told a story about Paul Revere. Next, it was my part. I went over two more important people during this time period and checked for understanding. Lastly, Emily went over the Declaration of Independence. At the end of our presentation, we gave the students activities to work on. Overall, I think my group did a great job during on our presentation. It was engaging and up beat. However, the actual lecture was a bit long. If I had to change one thing about our direct lesson plan was to shorten up our lecture part. I am really glad I was able to be part of this experience! I had so much fun teaching the second grade class. 

My new favorite song! 

    

Native Americans

This week I observed my colleges first lesson plan on Native American tribes and their cultures. For starters, I think they did a great job for being the first group that got thrown into a pact of wolves. They handled the smart board breaking down well, and overall did a fantastic job. I hope that when I go up with my group in two weeks, we are as confident like they were. Unlike the rest of my group members, last semester I had to teach a lesson in front of a 1st grade classroom and hope I nail it again this semester. 

Anxious

FIRST DAY OF FIELD WORK!

I guess you could say this week flew by! I had my first day of field work for social studies this week and well it was a bit overwhelming. For starters, I wasn't nervous about the class and the types of students I would have in my classroom but the fact that I wasn't prepared enough to start so fast. I knew 95% of the second grade students before coming in, because I use to work as one of the extension teacher. I have seen these group of kids grow the past few years since they started Kindergarten. It was an honor to be able to come back and see them again. I hope that next week, I am not overwhelmed and nervous about teaching. I hope to make an impact on these second grade students.