Week 2
Wow, this is going by extremely quickly! We're already finished with Week 2!
The beginning of the week was used to fulfill benchmarks in geography, science, and writing. However, Thursday and Friday I was able to teach my first two lessons to all three social studies blocks! My cooperating teacher was really helpful in giving me feedback and tips while I was planning these lessons.
For Thursday, I created a "geography skills lab". We spent a lot of time the beginning of this school year pre-assessing their geography knowledge and skills. I thought it would be a good idea to do some hands on activities that would simultaneously show my cooperating teacher and I what they know while making the lesson more engaging than the paper assessments we have been doing to this point. I originally created four centers: 1.) An interactive map on the Smart Board that required the kids to drag the continent or ocean to the correct place on the map 2.) A latitude and longitude workshop, 3.) putting together a puzzle of the United States, and 4. a scavenger hunt- the students would pick a location in the school, and use specific and cardinal directions to give us hints and lead us to the location they picked. They had 12 minutes at each center, and then would rotate to the next one. some centers required more time than others, so I had to cut the scavenger hunt for the last two blocks. This lesson taught me a few things. To do centers, time managements is imperative. Also, the directions for each center need to be crystal clear and easy to follow. The kids loved skills lab centers, and want to do a lesson like that more often. I was thinking I could work centers into lesson plans every 1.5 to 2 weeks for reviews on what they learned. The last thing I learned was centers take a substantial amount of planning, and I have to always back up the lesson with planned adjustments! I think I did a good job of planning the centers and adjusting the lesson as needed, but the next time I do centers, I will know exactly what I need to work on!
Friday's lesson focused on HOW we study geography: the 5 themes of geography, parts of a map, and different types of maps. I used a YouTube video that explained the 5 themes of geography using the video game Fortnite to explain it. Here is the link, if you want to check it out! www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFDvrvp33EA The kids LOVED it! It was something they all knew about and could relate to. Their eyes were glued to the video- even the kids that I've come to realize have a hard time focusing. This really opened my eyes to how significant it is to use materials and resources that the kids can relate the lesson to. I did some guided practice from the text book to identify parts of a map, then had the kids collaborate as a group at their tables. They were each assigned a type of map ( physical, elevation, historical, and regional maps), and were responsible for putting together a presentation for the class explaining what their map shows and identifying parts of their map from the example in the textbook. This lesson also required careful planning. I underestimated how many questions the students would have about what was expected for the group presentation. I adjusted my lesson to take time with each group as they worked to make sure they understood what was expected, and to answer questions. Once again, I was working against time constraints. For all the blocks, only 2 of the 4 groups were able to present before we ran out of time. I learned that I need to be flexible with time. That is, I have to leave some wiggle room with the time constraints of a lesson in case one activity takes longer than expected.
I learned a lot this week in regards to executing lessons. One can make a lesson look excellent on paper, and sometimes the execution faces some obstacles. I'm really grateful that my cooperating teacher has given me the chance to work with all three social studies blocks this early, because it's teaching me a TON about polishing and refining planning my lessons and executing them. This coming week, I will be teaching all three social studies blocks from Tuesday through Friday. My goal is to develop directions for activities more clearly, and develop some more experience in monitoring multiple groups working on different tasks at the same time.
I'm excited to teach all week this coming week and gain some more experience. Signing off until next week!
Lisa P.
The beginning of the week was used to fulfill benchmarks in geography, science, and writing. However, Thursday and Friday I was able to teach my first two lessons to all three social studies blocks! My cooperating teacher was really helpful in giving me feedback and tips while I was planning these lessons.
For Thursday, I created a "geography skills lab". We spent a lot of time the beginning of this school year pre-assessing their geography knowledge and skills. I thought it would be a good idea to do some hands on activities that would simultaneously show my cooperating teacher and I what they know while making the lesson more engaging than the paper assessments we have been doing to this point. I originally created four centers: 1.) An interactive map on the Smart Board that required the kids to drag the continent or ocean to the correct place on the map 2.) A latitude and longitude workshop, 3.) putting together a puzzle of the United States, and 4. a scavenger hunt- the students would pick a location in the school, and use specific and cardinal directions to give us hints and lead us to the location they picked. They had 12 minutes at each center, and then would rotate to the next one. some centers required more time than others, so I had to cut the scavenger hunt for the last two blocks. This lesson taught me a few things. To do centers, time managements is imperative. Also, the directions for each center need to be crystal clear and easy to follow. The kids loved skills lab centers, and want to do a lesson like that more often. I was thinking I could work centers into lesson plans every 1.5 to 2 weeks for reviews on what they learned. The last thing I learned was centers take a substantial amount of planning, and I have to always back up the lesson with planned adjustments! I think I did a good job of planning the centers and adjusting the lesson as needed, but the next time I do centers, I will know exactly what I need to work on!
Friday's lesson focused on HOW we study geography: the 5 themes of geography, parts of a map, and different types of maps. I used a YouTube video that explained the 5 themes of geography using the video game Fortnite to explain it. Here is the link, if you want to check it out! www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFDvrvp33EA The kids LOVED it! It was something they all knew about and could relate to. Their eyes were glued to the video- even the kids that I've come to realize have a hard time focusing. This really opened my eyes to how significant it is to use materials and resources that the kids can relate the lesson to. I did some guided practice from the text book to identify parts of a map, then had the kids collaborate as a group at their tables. They were each assigned a type of map ( physical, elevation, historical, and regional maps), and were responsible for putting together a presentation for the class explaining what their map shows and identifying parts of their map from the example in the textbook. This lesson also required careful planning. I underestimated how many questions the students would have about what was expected for the group presentation. I adjusted my lesson to take time with each group as they worked to make sure they understood what was expected, and to answer questions. Once again, I was working against time constraints. For all the blocks, only 2 of the 4 groups were able to present before we ran out of time. I learned that I need to be flexible with time. That is, I have to leave some wiggle room with the time constraints of a lesson in case one activity takes longer than expected.
I learned a lot this week in regards to executing lessons. One can make a lesson look excellent on paper, and sometimes the execution faces some obstacles. I'm really grateful that my cooperating teacher has given me the chance to work with all three social studies blocks this early, because it's teaching me a TON about polishing and refining planning my lessons and executing them. This coming week, I will be teaching all three social studies blocks from Tuesday through Friday. My goal is to develop directions for activities more clearly, and develop some more experience in monitoring multiple groups working on different tasks at the same time.
I'm excited to teach all week this coming week and gain some more experience. Signing off until next week!
Lisa P.
Lisa, I like how you used centers and especially what you learned by doing this. That's a really important part of what you wrote. I would recommend doing centers again soon so you can make the adjustments. One of the biggest lessons that many student teachers learn is how to manage their teaching time. It will come with experience.
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