Throughout this fieldwork experience, I have learned a lot of important things when it comes to lesson planning, implementing the lesson plans into the classroom, and working with my colleagues to design the lessons.
My groupmates and I were best friends so we had a really easy time getting along and designing the lesson plans. Some of the things that we need to keep in mind when we were designing the first lesson, which was the direct instruction lesson were what the students knew from the pre-assessment that we gave them and what they did not know. We also had to make sure that we were covering all the material that we included in the textbook that the students were using. It was important that we included the key vocabulary terms from the chapter and make sure that the students were taking notes down throughout the lesson. We provided the students with a special sheet for taking notes. We also had to make sure that we had enough activities for the guided practice to make sure that the students are grasping the concepts. We would also have check for understanding slides throughout our presentation to help see if the students understood the material that we just taught. During our direct instruction lesson, we ran short on time and our activities for our guided practice did not go as planned and the students were a little confused as to what was going on. I think that if we had planned a different activity than the students would have had more time to practice with the material. When we were planning our inquiry and cooperative learning lessons we needed to keep in mind how we were going to group the students since it was kind of a wild class. We also had to remember the scientific method for the inquiry lesson and we needed to make sure that the students understood that before moving on to the rest of the lesson. In cooperative learning, we needed to plan the different roles that each of the students was going to have and how the students were going to self-evaluate at the end of the lesson.
Some of the things that my group had to keep in mind when we were teaching our lessons in the classroom were if the students were paying attention and retaining the information, this is why we had the notepad and we also used different strategies to check for understanding. Some of the strategies that we used were thumbs up/down, and turn and talk with a partner.
This was the first education class where we were getting to work in groups to plan and teach lessons in the classroom, we were also teaching to the whole class. Since my colleagues and I got along well it was easy to work on the lesson plans and implement them in the classroom.
After teaching my lesson it was good to watch the other groups teach their lessons and see the different kinds of strategies that they implemented into their lessons. Each of the groups had a different way to get the students attention when the students were getting too loud.
This experience overall was a great learning experience. The different techniques and lessons that I learned throughout this fieldwork will definitely help me in my future teaching career.
Today during class we did a role play job interview. Four of our colleagues were administrators and asked us different questions on the content that we had learned throughtout the semester. We first started out by having the administrators introduce themselves and the school that they work at, also the postion that is available. Each of the administrators had a main focus that they use in their school, one was technology, one was direct instruction, one was the inquiry method, and one was the cooperative learning method. The rest of the class was interviewing for the different jobs at the different schools. The class was split up by our fieldwork groups, and the administrators rotated through the four differnt groups. When the administrators came to our group each time they would start by introducing themselve and would shake our hand and we would introduce ourselve, we kept it very professional the whole time. The different types of questions that we were asked were about Direct Instruction, Inquiry, and Cooperative Learning, and Technology. The types of questions that were asked were how would we use the certain method in the classroom? When we think of the method what is the first color or animal that comes to mind and why? For technology some of the questions were how we would implement technology into our lessons, and what kind of technology it would be? Some of the questions that I was asked were fairly simple to answer because I had the experience of teaching the different lesson methods in my fieldwork experience for the course. I was able to connect some of my experiences from the fieldwork to better answer the question that was asked. Other questions made me think a litter deeper. Some of the questions on technology were a little challenging to answer because I did not use a lot of technology when teaching my lessons in the field. After we had finished going through all the administrators they went and discussed who they thought would have been best for the postion at their school. They then came back in and announced to the rest of the interviewers the people that got the jobs.
This simulation was a really great way to end the course. It tested the knowledge that we had learned throughout the course in a different way, a way that would be useful to us. It really gave me an idea of what a job interview could be like in the future and how to prepare, also an idea of some of the questions that could be asked. The feedback that the class recieved from the administrators was also very helpful for the future. They told us to be confident in what we were saying and to connect back to previous experiences that we have had in fieldwork. Also some of the skills that are good for an effective job interview: communication, experience, and education.
Today in class we split up into different groups and did a jigsaw about Native Americans. This jigsaw that we did was different from the one that we had done last time. During this jigsaw, we all worked on the same topic together. In the previous jigsaw, we had separate topics that we became experts on and then split up into expert groups created a presentation and then went back to our "home" groups and taught them about our topic. During this jigsaw, we were already in our expert groups and we were all becoming experts on the same topic.
Learning about the different tribes of Native Americans is a very important part of Social Studies. Each of the different groups got a different tribe that we had never heard of before. The different tribes that we were going to be learning about were the Dine, Muscogee, Tlingit, and Lakota. We had to research and become experts on our tribe. My group got the Lakota tribe, this was a very interesting tribe to learn about. We then created powerpoints and fun activities for when we taught the lesson to the class. In our powerpoint, we included all different things about the Lakota tribe like their history, some of the traditions that they had, their culture and religion, and many more. The main thing that we focused on was the geography of the Lakota. Since we were learning about how to teach geography in the previous class it only seemed right that we did this activity in the next class. In our presentation, we had to include the five different themes of geography. We found that the Lakota live in a very hilly and grassy region, they are mainly located in the two Dakotas and the surrounding states. Most of the other tribes were located in the surrounding states as well. All of the tribes lived in similar homes, their homes were made out of mud and sticks. Some common things throughout all of the tribes were song and dance. Each of the tribes would have certain ceremonial songs and dances that they would do for events.
After we became experts on each of the different tribes we presented our presentations to the rest of the class. Each of the different groups had a fun activity that had something to do with the tribe that they researched. One of the groups did a tribe that was very into art. In order to get the class involved they had them color a symbol that would be found in the tribes' art, we also colored with the most popular colors that were found in the tribes' art. Some of the other groups showed videos of the certain dances that the tribes would do. For my group, we had a dance that the class was going to do. The moves from the dance are similar to some of the moves that the Lakota tribe would do in some of their dances.
In the area of geography there are five themes or areas that make up the study of geography. The first theme is location the most common way of teaching students about locations is by using coordinates on a map. Having students locate different places on the map not only teaches them about location but also helps them to improve their map skills. The second theme is place, a place is defined by everything that is inside of it. The third theme is region, a region is area that has the same characteristics. The fourth theme is movement, which is how different things are transported from one place to another. The fifth theme is human-environment interaction, this theme deals with us as humans and how we have an impact on the environment that we live in. All of these different themes are important concepts for students to know. A trick to help students remember the five different themes of geography is MR. HELP.
There are many different ways in which teachers can make teaching geography fun and meaningful to students. Some of the ways that I found interesting were having the students make a 60 second film, an activity called can of worms, and tell me a story. For the 60 second film activity the students would create a mini video summarizing a concept that they just learned. By doing this the teacher would be able to see their understanding and also their creativity. The Can of Worms activity is a great acitivity for talking about topics that are controversial. For this activity the teacher would have a can with paper "worms" in it and each of the students would pick a worm out and talk about it. The worms would be on the topic so in this case geography and the students would have to talk about the what is on the worm for a certain amount of time. For the Tell me a Story activity the teacher would have a game board with different pictures on it relating to geography and the students would role the dice and whatever picture they land on they would have to include that picture in their story. The students are getting to create their own geographical story. These are just a couple of ways that teachers can get students engaged in learning about geography, there are many more ways! The video attached can be shown in a classroom to teach students about the five themes of geography.
There are also many different strategies to use to make geography meaningful to younger students. Younger students should have a good foundation of geography skills so that they are better to able understand it more when they get older. Some of the activities to use with younger students are songs to teach them the basic concepts. Having them go out into the neighborhood and doing map making. This way they are getting the basic skills that will help them later on. When teachers use the students neighborhood it makes it more meaningful to the students because they can make connections.
