Reflections....

Wow, I can not believe that this semester is over! There was so much work and so much learned. This methods class has taught me so much that I don't think it is possible to fit every piece of knowledge in my blog, but I will reflect on everything I have learned about myself, as a person and future teacher. Academically and personally, I feel that I grew a lot since the beginning of the semester. Academically I learned how to create lesson plans, including Direct, Inquiry-Based, and Social Interactive Model. Before this class I never knew how to write a lesson plan, or even that there was a difference. Personally, I feel that I am different in the fact that I am much more confident with myself, and teaching. This was the first time that I created lesson plans and taught them in front of a class. I learned a lot about being a teacher this semester. It was amazing being able to see your lessons come to life, and how the students react to them. I realized that I am much more confident and comfortable in front of a classroom of students than I thought I would be. I realized that I can get the class in order when they become rowdy in group work. I was also always nervous about teaching a lesson in front of adults in the classroom. When I got in front of the class I completely forgot that other adults were in the room and taught the lessons with no worries. It surprised me that I could discipline the students. I have always been scared that I could not control a classroom and raise my voice at students. During my fieldwork, the students were getting rowdy in their groups and not listening to me. As soon as I gained their attention I told them that whoever is not listening to me and being quiet is going to get their flashlight taken away, which was being used in their project. After I said that, every student was silent and had their eyes on me. It made me much more confident that I was able to control a classroom of 28 rowdy second graders.

Being in the classroom made me think of when I get my own classroom. Looking around the classroom inspired me for what I want in my classroom. Seeing the students interact with the teacher, and how much they look up to their teacher for advice and help with their work. It made me realize how much I love teaching and how much of an impact that teachers have on students lives. I am also so grateful for my cooperating teacher. She allowed me into her classroom and to teach lessons to her class. I know that when I am a teacher I will have the door open to my class for any student who wants to come in and do fieldwork for class. It made me realize how teachers want to help others who are studying to become one of their own. The cooperating teacher also helped me feel comfortable in the class, and shared stories of her first times teaching. Having her share how nervous she was in front of the classroom to see how she interacted with the students made me realize that one day I will be in her shoes, with my own classroom, and made me realize that all the work I am doing now is going to pay off in a big way.

There is always room for improvement, and I have a lot more to learn. The more experience I have in the classroom and creating lesson plans will give me more knowledge than I thought I would ever have. I take everything I learn to heart and know that one day I will be using it in the classroom. I am still learning how to react when different situations arise in the classroom, such as "This student is crying etc." But I know once I have more experience under my belt I will be able to handle any situation as it approaches.

I had no idea what to expect from this class. Besides the fact that it was with Dr. Smirnova and I would be engaged in technology! All I knew was that we learn how to create lesson plans with Methods. I never knew everything else I would learn. I never knew that I would go into a classroom and teach lessons to students who after two times of being in the classroom knew my name and would come up to me with questions while I was just observing. I experienced being able to be in front of the class and what kind of teacher I am shaping into. I experienced students learning what I was teaching them and how excited they are to learn about new things. I got to experience the joy in the student's eyes when they were watching things be created, and how they felt when they understood something new.

Overall, I am so grateful for Dr. Smirnova and my classmates. I feel like aside from Dr. Smirnova, I learned so much from my classmates with group work and peer and self evaluations. No other class has had so much focus on evaluation our own work and each others. It is great practice for teaching that is for sure. I got to evaluate my efforts and focus on places where I could improve which was a great experience for me I never would have thought to do if I was not assigned it. This was one of my favorite semesters and one that I will never forget.

The takeover of technology

Technology is taking over beyond Dr. Smirnova's classroom! I came across this article and decided that it fit perfectly for my methods class and decided to share!

Here is the link

Enjoy! Hope you like it as much as I did!

Let's process this information....

I don't want to even believe that it has been a month since I have blogged! I do not even know where to start. Needless to say this has been the craziest semester yet. Taking three grad classes I have come to find is not the easiest thing in the world. On the other side, I have been learning to much. So as I look back on my blog I have not talked much since Direct Instruction. While I think that DI is great for introducing the lesson, Information processing model, and Social Interactive model has turned out to be two other great teaching models! In Information Processing, the teacher poses a question for the students, and the students have to find solutions on their own. A great example of this is the WebQuest! My WebQuest, "Adventure with Plants" was made for second graders to learn all about plants. I presented them with a problem that people did not believe that plants were living, and they had to research websites to prove that they were in fact, real! Information Processing allows students to practice their problem solving skills, and a chance for the students to take the lead in the classroom. In this model the teacher is there as a guide. They are there to answer questions if they come up, but for the most part the students are in charge of the classroom. This is a great model to use for science in particular. By providing students a problem and asking for a solution, you are giving students an opportunity to take charge and experiment. I will be sure to use this model in my classroom as I teach science lessons. I had an opportunity to use the IPM lesson plan in a second grade classroom this week. The students loved being able to experiment and find a solution to a problem. Being so involved in the lesson made them learn and understand the lesson more than if they were sitting in their seats listening to me lecture. Overall, I love this model of instruction, especially for science. This will be another thing I will carry with me to the classroom!

Making differences....

It is hard to believe that I have been in graduate school for a year now. Over the past year I have completed six classes and am enrolled in three as I type. Throughout these nine classes I have had the chance to participate in many hours of fieldwork. Even though a lot of these hours have been reserved for purely observing, there has been some where I had the pleasure of teaching/ co-teaching. I hope that I had made some sort of impact during my hours in school, incorporating all the lessons I have learned at Mount Saint Mary. I believe in taking everything I learned in my classes and incorporating them into my fieldwork hours. Even though all I have done so far is observe this semester, I have yet to teach...I would hope that taking the lessons I have put so much time in creating will stick with the students over time. I am very excited to be able to use technology into my teaching. I feel that students learn more when they are actively engaged in the lesson, and technology is the best way to do this, I feel. My cooperating teaching has been amazing with me, and helped me along the way. She allows me to have my freedom and take over class, I can only imagine how hard that must be! But it is so nice knowing there are teachers out there that are willing to hand over their classes to an education student and teach their students. Even though I can not comment on this Fieldwork yet, there has been a classes fieldwork that has stuck in my mind. In my Emergent Literacy class I was able to work one on one after school with a student at Bishop Dunn. It was probably so far one of the best experiences I had during Fieldwork. Week after week I created lessons to be done over the span of an hour to help with the student's literacy. I hope she had as much as I had creating the lessons, because it was quite fun for me! I got to create stories, posters, and drawings with her as we read tons of literacy, while introducing punctuation, and quotations. Seeing her grasp the information I was giving her was a great feeling. I loved seeing her enjoy these lessons I created and being enthusiastic about what we were going to do the next week. I feel like I didn't have to do anything differently and noticed that she was grasping the information by having her tell me what we did the week before in an activity. It was hard figuring out ways to engage the student week after week, but the easiest part was seeing her have fun learning, which is what I hope will happen many more times during my fieldwork experiences here at Mount Saint Mary College.

Time Flies....

Wow, it has been a month! I have no idea where the time goes, but it sure does fly when you are busy with three classes! Methods is continuing to be a huge learning experience with lots of new information being learned. Our latest adventure has been Direct Instruction. Remember all the countless hours you sat in class listening to your teacher lecture non-stop? Yup, that is direct instruction! And there is a point behind it! It is a great way to introduce a topic and promote automaticity! By repeating the basic information over and over again, you drill it into the students heads. It is actually a great way to introduce topics because it allows you as a teacher to deliver the information to students with no distractions. For example, I created my direct instruction lesson plan on Plants. I was sure to incorporate technology into my direct instruction plan. Just because you are delivering the basics, does not mean you can't have room for a little creativity! I incorporated using the SMARTboard by showing a picture of a plant.. Then slowly I showed each part of the plant and describe what the part's function is for. The students join in by repeating the parts of the plants and functions throughout the lessons.
Aside from my Direct Instruction lesson plan, I created a WebQuest. This allows the student to take the information they just learned and create a book on TikaTok. The students are on an adventure to prove that plants are living things. The students are split into groups and are assigned to research different aspects of plants. This Webquest is a great interactive lesson for students to get a hands on experience on learning. I hope that when I have my own classroom I am able to create tons of WebQuests on different topics because I believe in the students right to be creative.

One month down...

I can not believe that it has already been a month! There has been so much covered, and so much review. The more that it gets drilled into my head, the more I understand it and how it is important for the classroom. This website has probably one of the most viewed websites in my history lately. I think it does an excellent job in covering the Models, Strategies, Methods and Skills. I keep referring back to this particular reading because I still get mixed up sometimes on all the different types. I realize that this is a very important important of lesson planning, because you want to incorporate all of the different styles. Whether Direct, Indirect, or Interactive this reading has showed me there is a huge range or teaching methods out there. Another article , about direct instruction has also taught me a lot about this important style of teaching. "I do it, We do it, You do it" is the most important part I took out of this article. It put into my head that the I do it part is important because you are teaching the students new information. By having your students do it with you, you are taking a small step to independence for the students, when the "you do it" stage is occurring you are giving your students complete independence. You are letting them know that you have complete faith in them. These two articles plus the many more I have read over the past month have made me realize that my feelings about teaching and learning has changed. I never knew that when a teacher was standing in front of the classroom giving a lecture that they were actually direct teaching. I now realize that there was a point when the teachers would lecture, go over problems together, then let the students to problems by themselves. The layout of classes finally makes sense to me. This all hit me the past few weeks. By reading, class lectures, and group work I realize that there was a reason to everything. Group work has made me understand this even more. When I am talking to my classmates it makes me understand things more. When I hear other peoples views and thoughts on a topic it makes me look at something in a new light. Doing projects, such as the Direct Instrution lesson, shows that collaborating in education is very important. I feel that you will never grow as a teacher if you do not share views and ideas. Another way that I get to see what my classmates are thinking is by looking at their blogs. Sally's Blog is one that I enjoy reading because she really covers all aspects of what we learn in class. I also love all the side links and pictures throughout her blog, I wouldn't even know how to do half of that! Another blog that is great to read is Wendy's. She really reflects everything in depth. It is great reading how other classmates view the material. It is also a great review! Well I am glad that another semester is in full force, and another semester full of information is overwhelming my brain. I can not wait for the next few months! I can't imagine what is ahead.....but I am looking forward to it :)

Presentations Galore!

Group work! It is an important part of teaching and learning. This was a huge week for group work. The whole class took turns in teaching this week a different part of Direct Instruction.The first group to go was the Anticipatory set, with Dawn, Jessica and Heather S. They did a great job describing how to start up a Direct Instruction lesson plan by using a Voki. It was also great that they had us split into groups and had our create our own Anticipatory set. For example, our topic was rainforests. They followed the "I do it" "We do it" "You do it" model perfectly! The next group to go was "Explanation, Modeling, and Demonstatrion. Christina and Nicholas did a great job presenting. They started out with giving us spider rings and singing the "Itsy Bitsy Spider". They also showed modeled demonstration by creating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. It was a great example on how the teacher shows "I do it". Our group was next with "Guided Practice" It was me, Dennis and Laura. I feel like we did ok but could have done better. I know I would have spoken less from the PowerPoint and my paper. Overall, I think we did give all the information that covered Guided Practice. Guided Practice helps the students grasp and understand the lessons. There are three ways to check for understanding, Didatic Questioning, Reciporcal Teaching, and Recitations. Feedback is also very important in this stage. The next group to go was Drill and Practice with Pam, Wendy, Kelly and Sally. They had a great way of getting the classes attention by marching into class. They were very knowledgable about Drill and Practice by following the I do, We do, You do. Homework was up next with Bridgett and Brian. They did a awesome job going through the pros and cons of homework. Such as it gives the students a chance to practice, but a con is that parent involvment can be to much. I also like the 10 minute rule, by Harris Cooper. When the grade should determine how much homework they get. For example first, should get ten minutes. Fifth should get 50 minutes. I think its smart because of course the older a student gets the more homework they can handle. The last group to go was Closure and Evaluation by Kellie, Susan and Emily. I think they did an awesome job decribing how to close a Direct Instruction lesson. They had a great opener, they showed all these pictures such as doors, drawers, and gates. They got the point across that whatever you open you have to close.
Overall, I think that everyone did an excellent job and it gave us a great practice of teaching. It also really drilled in our hand the Direct Lesson Plan.