Current Events

Our Time to Present!

Over the last couple weeks, each group would present a short lesson on current events. This week it was finally my groups turn. My group chose the article, "In dispute over coal mine project, two ways of life hang in the balance" by William Yardley. My group got our article from a website called Newsela.com. This website was new to me and was pretty neat. I think this is a good website to use in a classroom. It is kid friendly as well. One thing I really enjoyed about this website was that after you read the article there was a short quiz you could take about it.

Once my group figured out what article to use, we had to decide how we would be teaching it. While talking to Melissa, she had the idea of doing a Pro vs. Con poster using Glogster. I thought this was a great idea because you can have mix feelings about this topic. The pros were arguing that they should use mine for coal and the cons were arguing the opposite. Once my group created the PowerPoint presentation, we decided to email the article in advance to our class and have them answer a few questions along with it. At first, we were going to have the students pick what side they stand for. But, I decided to go against that because people would pick groups with their friends in it and also some groups would be stuck with people who didn't know how to work Glogster. Now it was to present to the class. We started off by introducing ourselves and article. Once we finished that section, one of my group members went over what a pro and con was. We also discussed political posters. Once that was over the groups split up as well as the teachers and started creating the political posters. At the end of the 20 minutes, we shared each groups posters and they were pretty unique. 

  Overall, i think that the current events project was a unique activity to do in class. However, I would make minor changes. Some of these changes consist of more time being allowed while teaching it. Each group was given 10 minutes to teach their current events and it wasn't enough time. Next time I would give up to 30 minutes. I would also assign this as a solo project. From previous experience, it is very hard to meet up with my group. Also, my group chose a topic based off of Native Americans because that was their fieldwork topic.I was the only one left out and students wouldn't have this problem if they did the currents event project alone.

Here is the link to my groups current events project.

Artifact Bags

What time is it? Summertime.. 

Just kidding it's time to write about my favorite activity I did and learned in class.

What's in my bag?

This week in class, we focused on artifact bags.This type of activity works best in an inquiry lesson because you have to follow through the inquiry process. In fact, during my fieldwork experience my group did an artifact bag for our inquiry lesson.

We weren't allowed to pick any topic. Instead we focused on the lessons we taught in fieldwork. My group taught about the thirteen colonies and how they gained their independence. So for my artifact bag, I decided to do Paul Revere. He was very important during this time period because he was a patriot leader and symbol of the American Revolution. For my artifacts inside my bag I included the following:

1. A man riding a horse. 

2. English tea bag.

3. A sign that said "The British are coming!"

I chose these artifacts because Paul Revere was known for his midnight ride. This means he was riding a horse through the village screaming "the British are coming, the British are coming!". I also chose the English tea bag because he was in Boston where the Boston tea party occurred. With all three artifact bags inside the bag and a picture of a patriot uniform on the bag, I would hope that my group would come to the conclusion that my person is Paul Revere. Here is the best part, they guessed it correct!

When creating this presentation, I also included a link to a website and book I would use to elaborate more on Paul Revere. The website I used was a virtual museum on him. I think this is a cool and different approach to a website because it isn't boring with all information. Instead, it is taking you around and talking about Paul and the American Revolutionary War. The book I would use would be Who Was Paul Revere by Roberta Edwards. This is a great book because it brings Paul Revere's ride back as it is explained through text and illustrations.

I think this activity works best for any grade level. I would not make any adaptions expect have the inquiry process sheet half filled out for either first or second grade. Other then that I would leave this activity alone. I think students would really enjoy this activity because they would learn a lot through a fun and engaging activity. Beside using this activity for social studies, you can also use it for different topics/subjects.  

Overall, I think artifact bags are a great way to learn about a certain topic, time period, and/or person. When I become a teacher I will most definitely use this to help expand and challenge my students knowledge. 

Here is the link to my presentation on artifact bag.

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!