I learned a lot through my teaching placement over the course of the semester, and, looking back, I may have learned more from the problems that inevitably popped up that from the lessons that went smoothly. I think the biggest lesson was about the way I relate to my students. As much as I'd like to be, I am not their friend. I have to learn to distance myself in order to maintain a professional role while still letting them know that I care about them and will be there for them. That has been a challenging lesson for me to learn, especially coming from a background where I have done A LOT of babysitting. As a babysitter, your job is to keep the kids safe and let them have a good time, and I think, without realizing it, I carried that perspective with me into my teaching placement. I started off measuring success by how interested the kids seemed or how much they were enjoying the lesson. I still think those things are important-- if kids are interested and engaged, they are more likely to pay attention and more likely to want to learn more. However, not every lesson can be or will be an activity that leaves students begging for more. I learned that success is measured by how well the students learning met my objectives for that lesson. Even though we talked about this in class, it took actually putting it all into practice for the understanding to sink in.
Another big thing I learned was the time that goes into many good lessons. It takes much more effort that I ever realized to sift through the information and make lessons that are interesting but not overwhelming for students, and to come up with activities that effectively reinforce the KUDs and formative assessments that reflect student learning. I also saw that new twists on old activities can make even the typically pointless activities I did as a kid into useful tools to reinforce learning.
A third big thing I observed was the way that time limits and curriculum influence teaching. While I see the benefits of standardized testing in creating a standard for all schools so that students ideally enter each grade with similar knowledge and understanding and can move forward together, the time limits and important facts that our students had to know became a driving force behind our curriculum, and sometimes drove other things out. In coming up with ideas for my lessons, I encountered a number of really great activities I would have loved to do, but based on our schedule and time restrictions, the activities were impractical-- they involved having students spend time studying and creating projects related to explorers, which just wasn't feasible. And I encountered similar issues related to the SOL content. Even when I found what appeared to be great resources, I found myself scouring them to make sure they covered the desired content, because I knew we didn't have time to stray too far from the SOLs. While I hope that in my own classroom, the pace will not be so frenetic (our teacher told us they usually spend at least 2-3 weeks on the content we taught in 5 lessons), I know that these aspects of teaching will continue to play a role in my life as a teacher.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
OUR FINAL LESSON!!!!!
This was the last of the 5 lessons we taught this semester, and we used it as a review of all four explorers before the summative assessment we had planned. M and I planned the basics of the lesson together, and then we split it up and each did the preparation for one of the parts. We planned to start off with a detective activity to tie into the rest of the unit. We decided to have four different boxes (one for each explorer), and to place them at each of the four table groups. Each box would be filled with clues about one explorer, and based on the clues (which came from the lessons we had taught), the students had to decide within their table groups which explorer the box belonged to and explain how they knew. I went to Michael's and bought some things (like fake flowers to represent Florida), printed related pictures offline, borrowed things like spices and silk scarves from my apartment, and created what appeared to be very old letters and documents using tea bags to make printer paper look yellow and a lighter to burn the edges. I was really excited about the activity, and it went really well. M and I walked around to the tables as the kids examined the contents of the boxes and helped them to think about why certain objects or pictures might be included, and we encouraged them to listen to each other's ideas. After each table finished one box, we moved the boxes and let them examine another until all of the groups had examined all four boxes. After that I reviewed the contents of the boxes with the class and asked the students to explain the various objects. Once we had gone through the boxes together, M introduced the Jeopardy review game she had created, and the students worked in teams with the others at their table-groups to answer the questions about the explorers and earn points. It went well overall, but because there were 5 categories and only 4 groups, and the questions went around in a circle, one group had an unfair advantage and the other groups complained. M's explanation that points aren't important quieted them down some, although they weren't entirely satisfied. However, they quickly forgot their annoyance when we handed out cupcakes as a goodbye treat. This was my favorite lesson that we taught. It showed that despite the rough patches of learning to teach, the students really did remember the things we had taught them, and it was fun for us as well as for the students. I am definitely storing this one away for the future!! :)
Christopher Newport Lesson......
When we came to class to do our science lesson last semester, the students were always REALLY excited to see us. They couldn't wait to see what we were going to teach them, which was really fun. I liked being the cool teacher that the students couldn't wait to see. This semester has been somewhat different. We weren't getting groans or anything, but with each explorer lesson, the students seemed less excited about us being there. With this lesson I wanted to fix that, so I put a lot of effort into making it interesting and fun, as well as educational for the students.
There is surprisingly little information about Christopher Newport himself. Most of the information seems to focus more on Jamestown than on Newport. So I tried to blend the two together in my lesson, which was probably a good thing anyway since probably the most important thing to know about Newport is that he founded Jamestown and that it was the first permanent English settlement. The kids had demonstrated on the preassessment that they knew very little about Christopher Newport, and since we only had an hour to teach about him, I settled on another direct instruction lesson. This time, though, I wanted to get the kids more involved, so I decided to have them imagine they were on the ship with Christopher Newport on his journey to found the new colony. They didn't seem to be getting into it at all, so when I passed out the "sea-biscuits"-- examples of the food sailors really ate (which are just flour and water baked for an hour), I totally lost them. The sea biscuits didn't taste good, which was the point of having the kids taste them and imagine eating that for four months, but instead of cementing an understanding of the life of a colonist travelling to america, I ended up with kids running to the trashcan to spit them out, asking if they coudl go get water to rinse out their mouths, one little girl who took a tiny nibble complaining about her stomach hurting, and one kid in the back continually asking for more. It was chaos. M said kids at one tablegroup were throwing them at eachother. This was definitely not a good start, and when we moved on to the online Jamestown simulation I had planned, things got worse. The kids could not settle down, and I kept tryign to yell over them to be quiet and raise their hands, but they ignored me. Instead of getting the idea I had hoped they would understand from the simulation, they focused on building the biggest fort and killing all the native americans. It was a disaster. As soon as I finished teaching and their teacher took charge, she lectured them for being so rude and had them sit silently until they had to leave for specials.
When I talked to her about it, she said that she has the same problem with this particular group of kids-- that they get overly excited with anything fun or different and that she has to be really strict with them. I definitely failed in that area. I realized later that I was kind of in babysitter mode, which is a much different kind of relationship. I wanted to be the nice one, so I tried to gain control without being strict or punishing them. But instead of listening, they walked all over me. That is definitely going to be a challenge for me, because it is not my natural inclination. I also felt better that at least the lesson itself wasn't a total bomb, it was more about my classroom management skills. Hopefully the next time I end up teaching a lesson on Newport or Jamestown, I will be much more capable of managing behavior since I've had this experience.
There is surprisingly little information about Christopher Newport himself. Most of the information seems to focus more on Jamestown than on Newport. So I tried to blend the two together in my lesson, which was probably a good thing anyway since probably the most important thing to know about Newport is that he founded Jamestown and that it was the first permanent English settlement. The kids had demonstrated on the preassessment that they knew very little about Christopher Newport, and since we only had an hour to teach about him, I settled on another direct instruction lesson. This time, though, I wanted to get the kids more involved, so I decided to have them imagine they were on the ship with Christopher Newport on his journey to found the new colony. They didn't seem to be getting into it at all, so when I passed out the "sea-biscuits"-- examples of the food sailors really ate (which are just flour and water baked for an hour), I totally lost them. The sea biscuits didn't taste good, which was the point of having the kids taste them and imagine eating that for four months, but instead of cementing an understanding of the life of a colonist travelling to america, I ended up with kids running to the trashcan to spit them out, asking if they coudl go get water to rinse out their mouths, one little girl who took a tiny nibble complaining about her stomach hurting, and one kid in the back continually asking for more. It was chaos. M said kids at one tablegroup were throwing them at eachother. This was definitely not a good start, and when we moved on to the online Jamestown simulation I had planned, things got worse. The kids could not settle down, and I kept tryign to yell over them to be quiet and raise their hands, but they ignored me. Instead of getting the idea I had hoped they would understand from the simulation, they focused on building the biggest fort and killing all the native americans. It was a disaster. As soon as I finished teaching and their teacher took charge, she lectured them for being so rude and had them sit silently until they had to leave for specials.
When I talked to her about it, she said that she has the same problem with this particular group of kids-- that they get overly excited with anything fun or different and that she has to be really strict with them. I definitely failed in that area. I realized later that I was kind of in babysitter mode, which is a much different kind of relationship. I wanted to be the nice one, so I tried to gain control without being strict or punishing them. But instead of listening, they walked all over me. That is definitely going to be a challenge for me, because it is not my natural inclination. I also felt better that at least the lesson itself wasn't a total bomb, it was more about my classroom management skills. Hopefully the next time I end up teaching a lesson on Newport or Jamestown, I will be much more capable of managing behavior since I've had this experience.
Jacques Cartier Lesson
Today was M's turn to teach again. She spent a lot of time trying to come up with good Jacques Cartier ideas/lessons, but she was really struggling, so she ended up adopting an idea we had thought about using for our final review lesson, and then we shifted our review lesson slightly.
M used the direct instruction model again, and, as an observer, I thought the kids looked really fidgety without the detective books to keep them attentive. However, our cooperating teacher said that is typical for them and that they really were paying attention. I guess it is unfair to expect third graders to sit completely still durgin a lesson. Maybe fidgetyness is something I need to get used to.
After she taught the lesson and traced Cartier's journey and the class helped locate where the Cartier icon should go on our timeline, the class completed a wordsearch about important terms related to Cartier. Maybe you are like me and your first impression when you hear "wordsearch" is to think "busywork," but M did a good job tying it to the lesson. The kids searched for the words, and then they discussed why those words were significant based on the things they had learned about Cartier. I had never seen a wordsearch used productively until this lesson. After they finished going over the wordsearch, M had them each write letters home (the part she adapted from our review lesson), pretending to be Jacques Cartier during one of his expeditions. While there were a few kids who didn't seem to get it (they would write things like "Dear__________, I miss you. It's cold in canada..."), some of the letters were really great and showed that the kids had been paying attention and could apply what they had learned to understand how Cartier might have felt.
The class had to leave early again (only slightly early this time), so M didn't get a chance to go over the explorer detective books with the class and had to leave the information with the cooperating teacher so she could go over it with them later. Even I learned some interesting facts from this lesson-- did you know the Iroquians taught Cartier how to cure scurvy using tree bark?
M used the direct instruction model again, and, as an observer, I thought the kids looked really fidgety without the detective books to keep them attentive. However, our cooperating teacher said that is typical for them and that they really were paying attention. I guess it is unfair to expect third graders to sit completely still durgin a lesson. Maybe fidgetyness is something I need to get used to.
After she taught the lesson and traced Cartier's journey and the class helped locate where the Cartier icon should go on our timeline, the class completed a wordsearch about important terms related to Cartier. Maybe you are like me and your first impression when you hear "wordsearch" is to think "busywork," but M did a good job tying it to the lesson. The kids searched for the words, and then they discussed why those words were significant based on the things they had learned about Cartier. I had never seen a wordsearch used productively until this lesson. After they finished going over the wordsearch, M had them each write letters home (the part she adapted from our review lesson), pretending to be Jacques Cartier during one of his expeditions. While there were a few kids who didn't seem to get it (they would write things like "Dear__________, I miss you. It's cold in canada..."), some of the letters were really great and showed that the kids had been paying attention and could apply what they had learned to understand how Cartier might have felt.
The class had to leave early again (only slightly early this time), so M didn't get a chance to go over the explorer detective books with the class and had to leave the information with the cooperating teacher so she could go over it with them later. Even I learned some interesting facts from this lesson-- did you know the Iroquians taught Cartier how to cure scurvy using tree bark?
Juan Ponce de Leon Lesson
This was my first lesson to teach for our unit. I think I must have spent a completely inordinate amount of time on it, considering. I really wanted it to be fun and engaging for the kids. There was a decent amount of info on Ponce de Leon online, but not a ton of good lesson plan ideas that were doable in one day. I found a really good poem that shared some of the important facts about his life in a fun way, and I found a "scavenger hunt" activity that had to be seriously modified, so that by the tiem I was done with it, it was more of a matching activity, and it had completely different facts included (the original definitely didn't reinforce the lesson I was teaching). I guess I basically took the idea and made my own version of it. But by the time I finally finished with it, it must have been 3 in the morning.
We got to school and M and I made copies of all our materials. And then I got ready to teach. I was really nervous. I thought it would start to get better with time, but so far it definitely hasn't. I chose to make my lesson direct instruction. That format seemed to definitely fit the best considering the time frame we had and the fact that the students were totally unfamiliar with the content. So, I quickly reviewed the Christopher Columbus info (kids had gotten slightly confused about the fact that although he was Italian, he was funded by Spain, so I made sure to emphasize that). Then I introduced Juan Ponce de Leon. One of our students, who is part hispanic, was really excited about the meanings behind his name (Leon= lion) and Florida, and I was glad I included the information about "florida" meaning "full of flowers." It was cool to see her get so excited. I was also really glad for my years of studying spanish-- I never thought that would tie into an elementary social studies lesson :).
We traced Ponce de Leon's journey on the large classroom map, and then we read the poem as a class, taking turns, which seemed to work well. After that we put Ponce de Leon's icon on the timeline, and I handed out the matching activity-- they were supposed to match the events in Ponce de Leon's journey to the corresponding picture. The events were numbered, so they could glue them in order into their social studies notebooks. They weren't as into it as I had hoped they'd be, given the time I put into it, but I guess it is somewhat similar to many of the activities they do in class. I realized that there were a couple of items on the matching sheet that were slightly confusing. For example, one of the clues said that Ponce de Leon discovered silver, but I had a picture of gold coins, which I had forgotten to change from the activity I found online. It wasn't a disaster or anything, and I jsut explained to them what it was supposed to be, but it did help me to improve the activity for the next time I use it.
M noticed that during my lesson, the students were more focused on filling in the blanks in their explorer detective books than they were in what I was saying. She thought that having the books in front of them during the lesson was too much of a distraction for the kids, so for our next lesson, I think we are not going to hand out the detective books until after the instruction. We'll see if that works better.
We got to school and M and I made copies of all our materials. And then I got ready to teach. I was really nervous. I thought it would start to get better with time, but so far it definitely hasn't. I chose to make my lesson direct instruction. That format seemed to definitely fit the best considering the time frame we had and the fact that the students were totally unfamiliar with the content. So, I quickly reviewed the Christopher Columbus info (kids had gotten slightly confused about the fact that although he was Italian, he was funded by Spain, so I made sure to emphasize that). Then I introduced Juan Ponce de Leon. One of our students, who is part hispanic, was really excited about the meanings behind his name (Leon= lion) and Florida, and I was glad I included the information about "florida" meaning "full of flowers." It was cool to see her get so excited. I was also really glad for my years of studying spanish-- I never thought that would tie into an elementary social studies lesson :).
We traced Ponce de Leon's journey on the large classroom map, and then we read the poem as a class, taking turns, which seemed to work well. After that we put Ponce de Leon's icon on the timeline, and I handed out the matching activity-- they were supposed to match the events in Ponce de Leon's journey to the corresponding picture. The events were numbered, so they could glue them in order into their social studies notebooks. They weren't as into it as I had hoped they'd be, given the time I put into it, but I guess it is somewhat similar to many of the activities they do in class. I realized that there were a couple of items on the matching sheet that were slightly confusing. For example, one of the clues said that Ponce de Leon discovered silver, but I had a picture of gold coins, which I had forgotten to change from the activity I found online. It wasn't a disaster or anything, and I jsut explained to them what it was supposed to be, but it did help me to improve the activity for the next time I use it.
M noticed that during my lesson, the students were more focused on filling in the blanks in their explorer detective books than they were in what I was saying. She thought that having the books in front of them during the lesson was too much of a distraction for the kids, so for our next lesson, I think we are not going to hand out the detective books until after the instruction. We'll see if that works better.
Saturday, March 24, 2007
Christopher Columbus Lesson
Ok, so last Thursday my TP taught our first lesson. Things have been really hectic and complicated as far as scheduling goes, so what would normally be a 45-60 minute lesson had to be condensed into a less than 30 minute lesson, because the class was leaving on a field trip immediately after she taught. We did, however, on our last observation, discover the copy room, which has been majorly awesome-- there aren't even quotas, which is also really nice. We had like a million copies to make, and I really wasn't looking forward to giving Kinko's all my money. We had planned certain aspects of the unit together before Mary planned her lesson, and we both agreed that it is MUCH harder to design an interesting 3rd grade History lesson than it is to design one for science. Science is hands on by nature, so it was easy to incorporate activities into the lesson. History is much more fact-based, and you have to make sure you get the main points across through whatever lesson you choose to do. We decided to make the kids into "Explorer Detectives," and we gave them each explorer handbooks with a page dedicated to each explorer, and blanks to fill in for the important facts about each one. They seemed excited about it, but I think they might have been slightly disappointed that there wasn't much more to it than that. Mary also read them a poem that had a lot of good info in it and had them do a readers' theater activity where they pretended to be part of Christopher Columbus' expedition. They seemed to like it but were definitely not as excited as they were about our science lessons. We are also creating an explorer timeline that we add to with each lesson. Mary and the class put a Christopher COlumbus icon on the timeline and labelled the date "1492". As soon as the lesson was over the class got in line and hurried out the door to their field trip. It was pretty hectic.
Saturday, March 10, 2007
Observations 1,2, and 3
Ok, so this is me trying frantically to catch up. So, although these posts are very very late (except for #3 which is mostly on time), I did write down the observations while I was in class, so it is mostly a matter of copying.... thanks Mary, for reminding me about this blogger thing :)
Observation #1 (22 February 2007):
As I entered the class for the first time in a few months, I found myself reminded that the SOLs are coming up for these students. The instructions the teacher has written on the board for the students direct them to put away their belongings and to begin studying their SOL booklets. Ms. K usually has some kind of quiet, independent activity for the students to complete when they first arrive, while they wait for morning announcements and she completes morning tasks, such as organizing and handing out the students' BC folders, which they are to take home to their parents. Apparently there have been problems with students not being responsible with their folders, and Ms. K gives the students a brief lecture about the need to take responsibility for their assignments. She is pretty strict with them, which is interesting, because I think when I was in elementary school my teachers were pretty lenient, but maybe I was just really careful about doing all of the assignments.
Class begins with a review about soil. Ms. K asks students to contribute the things they remember from prior lessons. She directs the conversation and helps to clarify when students' statements are unclear. She writes things on the board as students say them.
Today they are talking about weathering, which also seems to be review for them. After discussing it pretty briefly as a class, they are to complete an activity meant to simulate weathering. Ms. K hands out sugar cubes and plastic easter eggs to each group of students. For activities like this, the arrangement of the classroom is ideal (students desks are clustered into groups of 4 and 5). The students are to make observations about the sugar cube, then place it inside the egg and shake it. Each student in the cluster gets two minutes to shake the egg, and after each person in the groups has gotten a turn, they open the eggs and make observations about the sugar cube after the "weathering" process. It was cool because I think the students could see a couple of things. First of all, none of the sugar cubes were as "weathered" as the students had expected. They originally thought their cubes would be broken into tiny pieces by the end of the activity, but even the most weathered cube was only beginning to get round at the edges. I think this helped to emphasize that it takes a very long time for the weathering process to occur. the other thing I think this activity was good for was to help kids visually see the change in rocks due to weathering, which Ms. K reinforced by passing around real rocks to the students, both weathered and unweathered, so that the students could see that the weathered rocks were round, like their sugar cubes, while the unweathered rocks still had sharp or jagged edges.
Another thing I liked about this activity is that all of the children were engaged in it. Even Student I, who rarely pays any attention at all during class. I wonder about him. He seems like a smart kid, but he never does ANYTHING in class and hardly ever pays attention. Anyway, the reason that makes me curious is that this is supposed to be the advanced science class. I wonder if he performs well even though he doesn't pay attention, or if maybe his teachers just saw potential, or if maybe his mom wanted him to be in this class. I should ask Ms. K about that.
Anyway, after shaking the egg and observing the sugar cube, students were to record their observations on a worksheet, and then Ms. K asked them to fill in a flow chart of what a rock might look like over millions of years as the weathering process occurs, based on today's lesson and on what they'd learned the day before.
Overall I think this was a good lesson, because it definitely helped to illustrate the important concepts and it got the students engaged. I was glad Ms. K emphasized the length of time that the weathering process takes, because I think that point can be easily missed, and it is hard to convey that image to elementary schoolers who have only lived 8 or 9 years.
It was nice to be back in our classroom, and it was nice to see how excited some of the kids were to see us. By third grade, kids tend to be less affectionate, but it was clear by the expressions on their faces and their eager waves that they were excited to see us. :)
Observation #2 (1 March 2007):
Today the kids come in as usual and work quietly at their desks; however, immediately after the morning announcements there is a fire drill, and the whole class lines up and walks out to the parking lot, where Ms. K calls roll, and then we all trek back in, along with the rest of the school. Ms. K keeps apologizing that today's lesson is going to be really boring-- the class went on a big field trip the day before, and she was exhausted by the end of the day. I can definitely see how that might happen-- I have felt exhausted after teaching a single lesson! Sometimes I wonder how teachers do it all day every day. I hope it gets easier. Anyway, the lesson wasn't bad, just not as hands on as usual. The kids read as a class out of the science book, with Ms. K calling on one student at a time to read out loud. She had to ask student I to take a comic book out of his book, which I had honestly never seen tried outside of cheesy TV shows! I had no idea that kids actually tried it. Student M was obviously not following along, and when she called on him he got flustered and couldn't find his place, which reminded me of myself during choral reading when I was in elementary school. I hated waiting for the other kids to read. Anyway, he straightened right up after that. Ms. K handled it really well-- she moved on to the next student and told him she'd come back to him, so he had an incentive to get to the right spot. I had a teacher once who wrote my name on the board for not following along, and it ended with her having to take me out of the classroom to get me to stop crying. Anyway, to get back on topic, Ms. K's approach seemed to work well.
After reading, the students each created their own "Soil Scroll," which consisted of pictures of the three layers of soil (topsoil, subsoil, and bedrock) that the students colored in, and then a description of each of the three layers. These four parts were stapled together in a long column like a scroll, and then the students were supposed to cut out pictures of the animals that inhabit each of the three levels and place them in the appropriate places on the scroll.
Although the lesson was not as interactive as Ms. K's lessons normally are, it seemed to address the subject matter really well. And it helped the kids to rethink and to apply the information they were learning to create the scrolls. I wonder if there is a better way to do choral reading, or a way to get around it? The information from the book was relevant to the lesson, but to be honect even I wasn't paying attention to what the students were reading, although it may have been partly because I didn't have the book in front of me. The students were allowed to refer to the book as the created their soil scrolls, so it wasn't essential that they pay attention to the reading. I don't know..... I mean, I guess it's important for the class to go through the material together, and I am definitely a fan of incorporating reading in the other subject areas, but I can't blame the students for not paying much attention. Textbooks can be so dry.
Observation #3 (7 March 2007):
Today when the kids came in their warm-up activity was to read and hi-light a short passage about Thurgood Marshall. After announcements are over, the class discusses the passage. The kids seem to be really focused on the physical building of the Supreme Court, and not on the institution, which was supposed to be the main point of the story, since the class had apparently discussed the branches of government recently. I didn't feel like Ms. K really clarified that in addition to being a building, the Supreme Court is an institution. But she may not have picked up on it-- sometimes it is easier to notice as a passive observer, especially if you just intended the lesson to be a quick review and you have other things to teach and the SOLs are coming up and you have 2 student teachers who are also interrupting your schedule. Seriously, the idea of being a teacher stresses me out sometimes. Anyway, I was also wondering if the students' difficulty distinguishing between the institution and the place might be more of a developmental level thing. Like maybe that concept is just hard for students to grasp at this age? Oh yeah, and another thing I forgot to mention about today-- Ms. K is feeling really sick and while she is trying to teach, the office is in the process of tracking down a substitute for her, but she can't leave until they do. So that is probably the main reason she didn't pick up on the Supreme Court thing.
Anyway, after that, Ms. K has the students sit on the floor on a rug while she reads "From Seed to Plant" by Gail Gibbons, who also wrote another information book that was in our text set for EDIS 530A, about how a house is built. She does a good job of stopping to discuss things in the book with the students, which I think helps keep them involved in what she is reading, although not everyone is paying attention. After she reads the book out loud, she introduces the activity for the day, which is to begin growing bean plants, an activity which will go on for a few weeks, and will involve the students making observations over that time period about what is happening to their plants. Ms. K gives everyone a paper towel and a baggie, and while my partner and I walk around and label the baggies with the students' names, the students get their paper towels damp and get their lima beans from Ms. K. She asks them questions throughout the process, and it becomes clear that they know that their seeds need sunlight to grow, and that they know that the roots are the first part to grow, though it is unclear how much they understand about the process.
After all the baggies had been taped to the window in the classroom (Ms. K put hers in the closet, just to see what happens :) ), my partner and I gave our preassessment about the explorers unit we're going to teach. Our original was a contructed response assessment, with short-answer questions on the front and a space on the back to write anything else they know about explorers; however, when we showed it to Ms. K, she suggested that her preassessments are usually multiple choice so that the students can guess if they don't know. I guess I understand the reason behind that. It can be unsettling to be unable to write an answer on an assessment, even when you knwo it's not graded. But my problem with that is that if students are guessing the correct answers, then we are not really getting an accurate picture of what they know. We changed it anyway, though, since we are guests in Ms. K's classroom. After giving the preassessment, it was pretty obvious that the students did not know much about explorers, except that Christopher Columbus was the first European to discover America and that Jamestown was the first permanent European settlement. So I guess it wasn't such a big deal that we changed it, since the students were pretty uninformed about the subject across the board, which means that our lessons will basically be starting from square one. And the planning begins..............
Observation #1 (22 February 2007):
As I entered the class for the first time in a few months, I found myself reminded that the SOLs are coming up for these students. The instructions the teacher has written on the board for the students direct them to put away their belongings and to begin studying their SOL booklets. Ms. K usually has some kind of quiet, independent activity for the students to complete when they first arrive, while they wait for morning announcements and she completes morning tasks, such as organizing and handing out the students' BC folders, which they are to take home to their parents. Apparently there have been problems with students not being responsible with their folders, and Ms. K gives the students a brief lecture about the need to take responsibility for their assignments. She is pretty strict with them, which is interesting, because I think when I was in elementary school my teachers were pretty lenient, but maybe I was just really careful about doing all of the assignments.
Class begins with a review about soil. Ms. K asks students to contribute the things they remember from prior lessons. She directs the conversation and helps to clarify when students' statements are unclear. She writes things on the board as students say them.
Today they are talking about weathering, which also seems to be review for them. After discussing it pretty briefly as a class, they are to complete an activity meant to simulate weathering. Ms. K hands out sugar cubes and plastic easter eggs to each group of students. For activities like this, the arrangement of the classroom is ideal (students desks are clustered into groups of 4 and 5). The students are to make observations about the sugar cube, then place it inside the egg and shake it. Each student in the cluster gets two minutes to shake the egg, and after each person in the groups has gotten a turn, they open the eggs and make observations about the sugar cube after the "weathering" process. It was cool because I think the students could see a couple of things. First of all, none of the sugar cubes were as "weathered" as the students had expected. They originally thought their cubes would be broken into tiny pieces by the end of the activity, but even the most weathered cube was only beginning to get round at the edges. I think this helped to emphasize that it takes a very long time for the weathering process to occur. the other thing I think this activity was good for was to help kids visually see the change in rocks due to weathering, which Ms. K reinforced by passing around real rocks to the students, both weathered and unweathered, so that the students could see that the weathered rocks were round, like their sugar cubes, while the unweathered rocks still had sharp or jagged edges.
Another thing I liked about this activity is that all of the children were engaged in it. Even Student I, who rarely pays any attention at all during class. I wonder about him. He seems like a smart kid, but he never does ANYTHING in class and hardly ever pays attention. Anyway, the reason that makes me curious is that this is supposed to be the advanced science class. I wonder if he performs well even though he doesn't pay attention, or if maybe his teachers just saw potential, or if maybe his mom wanted him to be in this class. I should ask Ms. K about that.
Anyway, after shaking the egg and observing the sugar cube, students were to record their observations on a worksheet, and then Ms. K asked them to fill in a flow chart of what a rock might look like over millions of years as the weathering process occurs, based on today's lesson and on what they'd learned the day before.
Overall I think this was a good lesson, because it definitely helped to illustrate the important concepts and it got the students engaged. I was glad Ms. K emphasized the length of time that the weathering process takes, because I think that point can be easily missed, and it is hard to convey that image to elementary schoolers who have only lived 8 or 9 years.
It was nice to be back in our classroom, and it was nice to see how excited some of the kids were to see us. By third grade, kids tend to be less affectionate, but it was clear by the expressions on their faces and their eager waves that they were excited to see us. :)
Observation #2 (1 March 2007):
Today the kids come in as usual and work quietly at their desks; however, immediately after the morning announcements there is a fire drill, and the whole class lines up and walks out to the parking lot, where Ms. K calls roll, and then we all trek back in, along with the rest of the school. Ms. K keeps apologizing that today's lesson is going to be really boring-- the class went on a big field trip the day before, and she was exhausted by the end of the day. I can definitely see how that might happen-- I have felt exhausted after teaching a single lesson! Sometimes I wonder how teachers do it all day every day. I hope it gets easier. Anyway, the lesson wasn't bad, just not as hands on as usual. The kids read as a class out of the science book, with Ms. K calling on one student at a time to read out loud. She had to ask student I to take a comic book out of his book, which I had honestly never seen tried outside of cheesy TV shows! I had no idea that kids actually tried it. Student M was obviously not following along, and when she called on him he got flustered and couldn't find his place, which reminded me of myself during choral reading when I was in elementary school. I hated waiting for the other kids to read. Anyway, he straightened right up after that. Ms. K handled it really well-- she moved on to the next student and told him she'd come back to him, so he had an incentive to get to the right spot. I had a teacher once who wrote my name on the board for not following along, and it ended with her having to take me out of the classroom to get me to stop crying. Anyway, to get back on topic, Ms. K's approach seemed to work well.
After reading, the students each created their own "Soil Scroll," which consisted of pictures of the three layers of soil (topsoil, subsoil, and bedrock) that the students colored in, and then a description of each of the three layers. These four parts were stapled together in a long column like a scroll, and then the students were supposed to cut out pictures of the animals that inhabit each of the three levels and place them in the appropriate places on the scroll.
Although the lesson was not as interactive as Ms. K's lessons normally are, it seemed to address the subject matter really well. And it helped the kids to rethink and to apply the information they were learning to create the scrolls. I wonder if there is a better way to do choral reading, or a way to get around it? The information from the book was relevant to the lesson, but to be honect even I wasn't paying attention to what the students were reading, although it may have been partly because I didn't have the book in front of me. The students were allowed to refer to the book as the created their soil scrolls, so it wasn't essential that they pay attention to the reading. I don't know..... I mean, I guess it's important for the class to go through the material together, and I am definitely a fan of incorporating reading in the other subject areas, but I can't blame the students for not paying much attention. Textbooks can be so dry.
Observation #3 (7 March 2007):
Today when the kids came in their warm-up activity was to read and hi-light a short passage about Thurgood Marshall. After announcements are over, the class discusses the passage. The kids seem to be really focused on the physical building of the Supreme Court, and not on the institution, which was supposed to be the main point of the story, since the class had apparently discussed the branches of government recently. I didn't feel like Ms. K really clarified that in addition to being a building, the Supreme Court is an institution. But she may not have picked up on it-- sometimes it is easier to notice as a passive observer, especially if you just intended the lesson to be a quick review and you have other things to teach and the SOLs are coming up and you have 2 student teachers who are also interrupting your schedule. Seriously, the idea of being a teacher stresses me out sometimes. Anyway, I was also wondering if the students' difficulty distinguishing between the institution and the place might be more of a developmental level thing. Like maybe that concept is just hard for students to grasp at this age? Oh yeah, and another thing I forgot to mention about today-- Ms. K is feeling really sick and while she is trying to teach, the office is in the process of tracking down a substitute for her, but she can't leave until they do. So that is probably the main reason she didn't pick up on the Supreme Court thing.
Anyway, after that, Ms. K has the students sit on the floor on a rug while she reads "From Seed to Plant" by Gail Gibbons, who also wrote another information book that was in our text set for EDIS 530A, about how a house is built. She does a good job of stopping to discuss things in the book with the students, which I think helps keep them involved in what she is reading, although not everyone is paying attention. After she reads the book out loud, she introduces the activity for the day, which is to begin growing bean plants, an activity which will go on for a few weeks, and will involve the students making observations over that time period about what is happening to their plants. Ms. K gives everyone a paper towel and a baggie, and while my partner and I walk around and label the baggies with the students' names, the students get their paper towels damp and get their lima beans from Ms. K. She asks them questions throughout the process, and it becomes clear that they know that their seeds need sunlight to grow, and that they know that the roots are the first part to grow, though it is unclear how much they understand about the process.
After all the baggies had been taped to the window in the classroom (Ms. K put hers in the closet, just to see what happens :) ), my partner and I gave our preassessment about the explorers unit we're going to teach. Our original was a contructed response assessment, with short-answer questions on the front and a space on the back to write anything else they know about explorers; however, when we showed it to Ms. K, she suggested that her preassessments are usually multiple choice so that the students can guess if they don't know. I guess I understand the reason behind that. It can be unsettling to be unable to write an answer on an assessment, even when you knwo it's not graded. But my problem with that is that if students are guessing the correct answers, then we are not really getting an accurate picture of what they know. We changed it anyway, though, since we are guests in Ms. K's classroom. After giving the preassessment, it was pretty obvious that the students did not know much about explorers, except that Christopher Columbus was the first European to discover America and that Jamestown was the first permanent European settlement. So I guess it wasn't such a big deal that we changed it, since the students were pretty uninformed about the subject across the board, which means that our lessons will basically be starting from square one. And the planning begins..............
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