The preservice teachers participating in the USA 100 Black Men Summer Enrichment Program are an outstanding group of students at the USA College of Education. This blog is a safe environment designed for journaling reflections, sharing ideas, and communicating challenges and successes during the program.
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Monday, June 13, 2011
Week Two Post Two
During Week Two, post your second reflection here. Make sure to note challenges, successes, lessons learned, and preparation in USA classes and/or for Summer Enrichment. All comments are encouraged.
Its Week two, and I am excited to be a part of continued success in the community. My challenges for this week include learning names to a point of memorization. I am excited to see a well organized curriculum manifest from a plan into ACTION!
Wow, once again, I have learned soooo much this week. My favorite strategy I have gained was the value of cooperative learning. Here, I should give a shout-out to Ms. Dubose for opening my eyes to how easy teaching can be if I just step back and let them walk each other through the process in small groups. Of course, by step-back, I mean becoming a floating monitor and guide. Once she showed me that, the game became less about keeping their attention on me and more about refocusing it on each others' ideas and methods to problem solving. It gave them an opportunity to talk and my job was to make sure their conversations stayed academic and to gauge their progress so I knew when i could throw the next challenge at them.
I try my best to share my vision about what I want my classroom to be with the kids. I see it as a place to have fun learning, to foster friendly relationships, and to find new ways to be respectful/able. However, I struggled this week with generalizing that classroom attitude into other areas. My main struggle was with my CASE boys hallway behavior. Another struggle came with one class's clicks when we went outside.
In regards to the boys, initially, I thought to myself, "Geez, what is it with these boys?! Why can they have such good class sessions, and moments here and there-- and then go and embarrass me with their WILD foolishness." Then, like most everything else, I realized that I was the first one to blame. These boys in particular thrive on structure and routine, like most other kids. I admit that I haven't put near as much time and energy in my planning for CASE as I should, and also, I need to start packing them up a little earlier so they don't feel my stress that translates to their rushed craziness.
I can't wait for the following two weeks. I hate that I will be missing two days with these guys-- I have so much to be proud of about them after today. I really felt like we worked responsibly as a team and achieved the goals that I strive for in my classroom out on the intramural fields.
Whew! This week went by SO fast! I only got to teach 3 days this week because we went on a field trip Thursday. Monday went by great. I introduced Story Elements and we watched an interactive book on the Smartboard called MacMighty by Anne Appleyard. The kids loved it! Story Elements were very easy to make interactive and fun! This week we also started reading "Julian's Glorious Summer," the book that is about African American children that is in our curriculum. We only got to chapter 2 and the kids are so excited to find out what happens!
The main challenge this week was personality conflicts. All of my classes have problems getting along with their classmates. For example, on Tuesday a girl was apparently teasing a boy, while we were waiting on Ricky Troine to start, and he called her a nasty word. That was my first write up. Anyways, the students are constantly teasing, laughing at, arguing, and blaming each other. I decide that if we get finished with our lesson, we would play a team building game that I found online. The class had to be split into 2 teams. The game went fine, until someone asked me who won. The losing team couldn't handle it!!! You would have thought that they had never played a game before! There was pouting and bad attitudes galore! I learned from the first classes failure and did not try it with any of the other classes. I am still on the look-out for something to make these kids friends, or at the least treat each other with common courtesy.
The field trip was so fun! Everything went as planned! It was my second field trip to go on as a teacher and it went much better than the first (it was at the Saenger and a kid pulled the fire alarm). Kung Fu Panda 2 was adorable, both the kids and teachers enjoyed it. The field day part was very hot, but it was about to storm so there was a breeze and clouds covering the sun. For the most part everyone behaved! I am now trying to prepare myself mentally for the New Orleans trip! :P
This week went by very quickly and was also so much fun. Not only were this week's lessons fun and engaging, but we also had our first field trip on Thursday. Once again, I am perfecting my classroom and time management skills daily and learning about my students within each class.
This week's lessons were easy to make interactive and fun. I taught story elements and sequence of events. I read each class a different story, and then each class worked in small groups to complete a class project, in which the kids were able to show their strengths in art, writing, reading, and acting. The students seemed to really enjoy this week's activities in reading. I am figuring out that my classes work better in small groups. They seem to prefer small groups versus individual or even whole group activities. The students are able to guide themselves in small groups, and I walk around monitoring each group to make sure that they are staying on task. Not only did working in small groups bring the students within each group closer together, but this week proved to show that each class is forming their own bond. My four classes do not dislike each other, but I can see that each class feels comfortable with their group of students and stick together even outside of class. Each class has its own personality, and although we still have some personality clashes within certain classes, as a whole, each class is getting along much better this week.
Thursday was so much fun! I did not know what to expect from our first field trip, but it was a fun filled success. The movie we saw was super cute and sent a great message about choosing your own future, no matter how unhappy a beginning you might have started off with in your life. My students seemed to really enjoy the movie as well, and their behavior on this trip exceeded my expectations. After the movie, we went to the park at USA, where we had lunch and outdoor activities. This part of the trip was my favorite. I learned how to long jump rope; I even had the highest count of jumping rope in my all girls group. My girls thought that I was going to "act a fool" jumping rope, but I earned more respect by showing them that Ms. Benton can indeed jump rope. We even had five girls jumping rope at the same time, and I am very proud to say that I did not mess up one time. I just really enjoyed the day getting to have fun outside of class and instruction with my students.
This week was a success and was my best week in this program so far. I am very excited for the next two weeks. I am constantly learning each day and within each class. I feel so important to these groups of children, and I love that feeling. I wish they could only know how important they are to me as well. I love my job!
Allison, I love your comment about the movie!! What a wonderful message for EVERYONE to take away from such a sweet story. Life is what we make it, not where we come from.
This week was really fun! The students are really enjoying the lessons and during our field trip a few of the girls brought me rocks that they want to do the streak test on. I have really enjoyed teaching Science and now look forward to incorporating math. I also am getting help from an assistant now and she is wonderful! She has really helped me get stuff on my walls and her positive attitude is a delight to work with. Since I did not have to teach on Thursday the week felt very short. I did realize this week that I am not as strict this summer as I will be during the school year. The field trip on Thursday was fun and super exhausting. I did not have to really worry about any students walking away or getting taken but the idea of leaving Mobile with them does cause a bit of anxiety. Overall I think some of the USA teachers have prepared me for teaching. I am always going to be learning but I feel as though I have a good understanding of what are some better teaching strategies because my teachers have talked about them so much. I look forward to seeing how next week goes.
Week two- what an adventure! This week our focus in fourth grade science was energy and the difference in kinetic and potential energy along with inertia. On Monday Ms. Cook did a demonstration for the students by having a coin balanced on her elbow and quickly moving her arm and catching it in the air. The kids were amazed (I must admit I was too. I couldn't accomplish this until the fourth class!) Our students are constantly working in groups. I love this set up because they know to ask others in their group and qork together. It gives them the chance to learn from thir peers and show their knowledge by helping others. I think it also really fosters the community attitude that is so important to a classroom. On Monday and Tuesday we completed a worksheet on the movement of our cars. (I am not usually a worksheet fan but this involved being hands on with the cars and writing about your observations) They students really enjoyed the activity. On Tuesday the classes finished much faster than we had planned so we played hangman (with vocabulary words) Eventually the students caught on to where we were getting the words from and were just reading the word wall. I decided to throw a wrench in there. Of course Mrs. Dubose walked in while I had "Ms. Cook and Ms. DeVore are awesome" on the board! It was really fun though! Wednesday morning came with a surprise- Ms. Cook was needed to teach third grade science and I would be alone. The thought of being alone really excited me. I have really enjoyed having Ms. Cook with me but I think we were both excited to see how we did alone in the classroom. The day went very well. The only class I had an issue with was my CASE class. They were a little out of hand but we got through it and worked on. The field trip Thursday was amazing. I posted all about it in my first post of this week. Again though I have to give props to Mrs. Husong and her helpers. They really did an amazing job preparing the activities for the kids to do. I know my fourth grade boys had a blast. They even talked me into participating! It was so much fun for the boys as well as for me! Overall this week has been very exciting! I am really looking forward to the upcoming week and the new ideas I have planned for the week! We will be incorporating science centers on Monday and Tuesday so wish me luck!
I have enjoyed this week, but it does seem as though it went by way too fast. My children really enjoyed the work with the roller coasters. I loved working with them and seeing how they worked together. Not every child enjoys working in groups and I understand how that can be because I do not always enjoy working in groups. I have been having mini lessons on why they have to work in groups in my class some times they do not. I explained that they will not always get the opportunity to be a loner who works on something without the help of others because out in the world when they get jobs, they are going to have to find ways to get along and deal with working together because doing things with only people they like will not always be an option for them so I want them to gain experience and find ways to work together. The field trip was very interesting. The bathroom was an issue for the movie because I had children sitting next to me doing the potty dance during the movie and almost every one of my students needed to go to the restroom after the movie was over. I had a wonderful time at the park. I loved the outside activities. I wish there was more water for the kids because they were all complaining about it being hot, thirsty, and tired. I am looking forward to the water day where I get a water gun and I can squirt my students. I plan on bringing my own water gun and I may even invest in some water balloons as well...
Let me start by saying "Thank you God for rain" haha. I loved the field trip and being able to spend time with my fourth grade girls out of the classroom. My girls were over the heat after about 20 minutes. I told them I was hot too, but let's have fun. I really felt like we got to have more of a connection just having fun.
I agree with Julie about the bathroom issue. Where do you draw the line on bathroom breaks? I didn't want anyone to have an accident, so when I let a few go... they all had to go.
Overall I really enjoyed this week. Ms. Devore and I had some great lessons this week (look at above post) and I really enjoyed teaching third grade earth science. The students really loved all of the rocks that Ms. Norton let us borrow.
Unfortunately I was unable to make the field trip because I was ill. But I did hear that the students enjoyed themselves and that their were very few behavior problems. I did enjoy coming back today and my students asking where I was and if I felt better. Their concern made me smile. I look forward to a great week 3!
This was a good yet challenging week. We started addition and subtraction with three digit numbers and word problems and everyday was a struggle for some students. Regrouping and carrying seemed like foreign concepts to some students. It was both frustrating and heartbreaking for me to see students completely shutdown because they did not know how to do something. It was heartbreaking to see my students look so defeated and discouraged and not want to try. It was frustrating at the same time to know that the reason that they did not feel like they needed to participate was because their teachers in the past did not make them. The students who did not understand just gave up immediately. After working with these students one-on-one they began to understand what we were doing and they began to have confidence in their work and themselves.
The field trip was great and the students really enjoyed it. It was good to get to spend time with our students outside of the classroom. There are some students who tend to keep to themselves in the classroom but really opened up on the field trip. I am looking forward to water day and New Orleans.
Monday we experimented with balloons and the lesson went down as one that I will never use again. The students really enjoyed it, but it was hard to maintain classroom management because they were so excited. In addition, I have been giving a “bell ringer” each day to assess my teaching and upon reviewing folders Monday evening I realized that a large majority of the students didn’t do the one that I assigned for that day. This was very disappointing because I felt that the students weren’t taking me seriously. This led to a very stern lecture on Tuesday about my expectations. I explained that these were not an option and that they would start doing them on slips of paper and are expected to do them the first five minutes of class. I walk around and collect them so that I can make sure they are completed and also clear up any misunderstandings. I explained to the students that this was not meant to be busy work it was merely a quick way to assess what I have been teaching and that if they don’t know the answer that is my problem and I would need to make adjustments in my instruction, but not doing them at all was unacceptable. As far as the classroom management issue with the balloon experiment, I believe that it was partly due to a lack of structure on my part. We usually do the experiments in small groups and each student has a job. At the last minute on Monday morning I decided to let each student work individually and it proved to be too much for them to handle. I quickly decided after the first two classes to return to a more structured method and we worked in groups. I found this to be more manageable and less hectic. Wednesday the students came in quietly and immediately started on their bell ringers without any problems. I really like using this method because I feel that it provides me with a quick assessment and also allows me to review content with the class as a whole without taking up too much instructional time. All the classes went really smooth and I realized that they like just as much structure as I do whether they realize it or not. We are learning about variables and we experimented with aluminum boats that the students created using aluminum foil. The students created various models and tested each to see how many passengers (Pennies) it could carry. After allowing them to make several models and test them I gave them new aluminum foil and instructed them to make any design they wanted but to think about what worked best from their previous models. With this final model the students tested it with different types of passengers (pennies and marbles). Then we discussed what controls we used, what the manipulated variable was in each experiment and what the responding variable was. The students really worked well and had a lot of fun experimenting. Thursday was a fun filled day! I felt that my students were very well behaved on the field trip. It was nice getting to spend some time with them where we could interact on a more personal level. I enjoyed hearing about the students’ lives outside of school as well as seeing how they interacted with each other. I had my homeroom class and I learned so much about their personalities. These are the students that I spend the least amount of time with each day so this was a nice change. The movie was fun and we really enjoyed playing the games at the park even though the heat was almost unbearable. I think that the students enjoyed seeing me play and really getting into the game. It was a wonderful end to a long and busy week! Looking ahead to next week, I have so much planned. Our time is quickly coming to an end and I have a lot that I would like to do. This week we will be investigating planes and flight lines and variables that will affect their flight. In addition, we are also conducting various experiments to display on the science project boards. I have so many plans and struggle each day with how to get it all accomplished, but I am determined to get it done!
My second week in the enrichment program went well. The weekend before I had a hard time coming up with lesson plans, but Mrs. Byrd was very helpful. One of my biggest challenges has been combining math with geology/Earth science. Mrs. Byrd helped me come up with some interesting activities that would include both.
This week we continued to study variables and we made lifeboats out of paper cups and used pennies as our passengers. The students were very engaged and most of them are really grasping the concept of variables. My CASE class is amazing. Most of the girls had some heart-warming poetry as well as get-well-soon letters. The field trip on Thursday was awesome. I think I was more excited than my students. I also believe it was a wonderful learning experience for me.
Its Week two, and I am excited to be a part of continued success in the community. My challenges for this week include learning names to a point of memorization. I am excited to see a well organized curriculum manifest from a plan into ACTION!
ReplyDeleteWow, once again, I have learned soooo much this week. My favorite strategy I have gained was the value of cooperative learning. Here, I should give a shout-out to Ms. Dubose for opening my eyes to how easy teaching can be if I just step back and let them walk each other through the process in small groups. Of course, by step-back, I mean becoming a floating monitor and guide. Once she showed me that, the game became less about keeping their attention on me and more about refocusing it on each others' ideas and methods to problem solving. It gave them an opportunity to talk and my job was to make sure their conversations stayed academic and to gauge their progress so I knew when i could throw the next challenge at them.
ReplyDeleteI try my best to share my vision about what I want my classroom to be with the kids. I see it as a place to have fun learning, to foster friendly relationships, and to find new ways to be respectful/able. However, I struggled this week with generalizing that classroom attitude into other areas. My main struggle was with my CASE boys hallway behavior. Another struggle came with one class's clicks when we went outside.
In regards to the boys, initially, I thought to myself, "Geez, what is it with these boys?! Why can they have such good class sessions, and moments here and there-- and then go and embarrass me with their WILD foolishness." Then, like most everything else, I realized that I was the first one to blame. These boys in particular thrive on structure and routine, like most other kids. I admit that I haven't put near as much time and energy in my planning for CASE as I should, and also, I need to start packing them up a little earlier so they don't feel my stress that translates to their rushed craziness.
I can't wait for the following two weeks. I hate that I will be missing two days with these guys-- I have so much to be proud of about them after today. I really felt like we worked responsibly as a team and achieved the goals that I strive for in my classroom out on the intramural fields.
Until next time,
Anthony
Whew! This week went by SO fast! I only got to teach 3 days this week because we went on a field trip Thursday. Monday went by great. I introduced Story Elements and we watched an interactive book on the Smartboard called MacMighty by Anne Appleyard. The kids loved it!
ReplyDeleteStory Elements were very easy to make interactive and fun! This week we also started reading "Julian's Glorious Summer," the book that is about African American children that is in our curriculum. We only got to chapter 2 and the kids are so excited to find out what happens!
The main challenge this week was personality conflicts. All of my classes have problems getting along with their classmates. For example, on Tuesday a girl was apparently teasing a boy, while we were waiting on Ricky Troine to start, and he called her a nasty word. That was my first write up. Anyways, the students are constantly teasing, laughing at, arguing, and blaming each other. I decide that if we get finished with our lesson, we would play a team building game that I found online. The class had to be split into 2 teams. The game went fine, until someone asked me who won. The losing team couldn't handle it!!! You would have thought that they had never played a game before! There was pouting and bad attitudes galore! I learned from the first classes failure and did not try it with any of the other classes. I am still on the look-out for something to make these kids friends, or at the least treat each other with common courtesy.
The field trip was so fun! Everything went as planned! It was my second field trip to go on as a teacher and it went much better than the first (it was at the Saenger and a kid pulled the fire alarm). Kung Fu Panda 2 was adorable, both the kids and teachers enjoyed it. The field day part was very hot, but it was about to storm so there was a breeze and clouds covering the sun. For the most part everyone behaved! I am now trying to prepare myself mentally for the New Orleans trip! :P
This week went by very quickly and was also so much fun. Not only were this week's lessons fun and engaging, but we also had our first field trip on Thursday. Once again, I am perfecting my classroom and time management skills daily and learning about my students within each class.
ReplyDeleteThis week's lessons were easy to make interactive and fun. I taught story elements and sequence of events. I read each class a different story, and then each class worked in small groups to complete a class project, in which the kids were able to show their strengths in art, writing, reading, and acting. The students seemed to really enjoy this week's activities in reading. I am figuring out that my classes work better in small groups. They seem to prefer small groups versus individual or even whole group activities. The students are able to guide themselves in small groups, and I walk around monitoring each group to make sure that they are staying on task. Not only did working in small groups bring the students within each group closer together, but this week proved to show that each class is forming their own bond. My four classes do not dislike each other, but I can see that each class feels comfortable with their group of students and stick together even outside of class. Each class has its own personality, and although we still have some personality clashes within certain classes, as a whole, each class is getting along much better this week.
Thursday was so much fun! I did not know what to expect from our first field trip, but it was a fun filled success. The movie we saw was super cute and sent a great message about choosing your own future, no matter how unhappy a beginning you might have started off with in your life. My students seemed to really enjoy the movie as well, and their behavior on this trip exceeded my expectations. After the movie, we went to the park at USA, where we had lunch and outdoor activities. This part of the trip was my favorite. I learned how to long jump rope; I even had the highest count of jumping rope in my all girls group. My girls thought that I was going to "act a fool" jumping rope, but I earned more respect by showing them that Ms. Benton can indeed jump rope. We even had five girls jumping rope at the same time, and I am very proud to say that I did not mess up one time. I just really enjoyed the day getting to have fun outside of class and instruction with my students.
This week was a success and was my best week in this program so far. I am very excited for the next two weeks. I am constantly learning each day and within each class. I feel so important to these groups of children, and I love that feeling. I wish they could only know how important they are to me as well. I love my job!
Allison, I love your comment about the movie!! What a wonderful message for EVERYONE to take away from such a sweet story. Life is what we make it, not where we come from.
ReplyDeleteThis week was really fun! The students are really enjoying the lessons and during our field trip a few of the girls brought me rocks that they want to do the streak test on. I have really enjoyed teaching Science and now look forward to incorporating math. I also am getting help from an assistant now and she is wonderful! She has really helped me get stuff on my walls and her positive attitude is a delight to work with. Since I did not have to teach on Thursday the week felt very short. I did realize this week that I am not as strict this summer as I will be during the school year. The field trip on Thursday was fun and super exhausting. I did not have to really worry about any students walking away or getting taken but the idea of leaving Mobile with them does cause a bit of anxiety. Overall I think some of the USA teachers have prepared me for teaching. I am always going to be learning but I feel as though I have a good understanding of what are some better teaching strategies because my teachers have talked about them so much. I look forward to seeing how next week goes.
ReplyDeleteWeek two- what an adventure! This week our focus in fourth grade science was energy and the difference in kinetic and potential energy along with inertia. On Monday Ms. Cook did a demonstration for the students by having a coin balanced on her elbow and quickly moving her arm and catching it in the air. The kids were amazed (I must admit I was too. I couldn't accomplish this until the fourth class!)
ReplyDeleteOur students are constantly working in groups. I love this set up because they know to ask others in their group and qork together. It gives them the chance to learn from thir peers and show their knowledge by helping others. I think it also really fosters the community attitude that is so important to a classroom. On Monday and Tuesday we completed a worksheet on the movement of our cars. (I am not usually a worksheet fan but this involved being hands on with the cars and writing about your observations) They students really enjoyed the activity.
On Tuesday the classes finished much faster than we had planned so we played hangman (with vocabulary words) Eventually the students caught on to where we were getting the words from and were just reading the word wall. I decided to throw a wrench in there. Of course Mrs. Dubose walked in while I had "Ms. Cook and Ms. DeVore are awesome" on the board! It was really fun though!
Wednesday morning came with a surprise- Ms. Cook was needed to teach third grade science and I would be alone. The thought of being alone really excited me. I have really enjoyed having Ms. Cook with me but I think we were both excited to see how we did alone in the classroom. The day went very well. The only class I had an issue with was my CASE class. They were a little out of hand but we got through it and worked on.
The field trip Thursday was amazing. I posted all about it in my first post of this week. Again though I have to give props to Mrs. Husong and her helpers. They really did an amazing job preparing the activities for the kids to do. I know my fourth grade boys had a blast. They even talked me into participating! It was so much fun for the boys as well as for me!
Overall this week has been very exciting! I am really looking forward to the upcoming week and the new ideas I have planned for the week! We will be incorporating science centers on Monday and Tuesday so wish me luck!
I have enjoyed this week, but it does seem as though it went by way too fast. My children really enjoyed the work with the roller coasters. I loved working with them and seeing how they worked together. Not every child enjoys working in groups and I understand how that can be because I do not always enjoy working in groups. I have been having mini lessons on why they have to work in groups in my class some times they do not. I explained that they will not always get the opportunity to be a loner who works on something without the help of others because out in the world when they get jobs, they are going to have to find ways to get along and deal with working together because doing things with only people they like will not always be an option for them so I want them to gain experience and find ways to work together.
ReplyDeleteThe field trip was very interesting. The bathroom was an issue for the movie because I had children sitting next to me doing the potty dance during the movie and almost every one of my students needed to go to the restroom after the movie was over. I had a wonderful time at the park. I loved the outside activities. I wish there was more water for the kids because they were all complaining about it being hot, thirsty, and tired. I am looking forward to the water day where I get a water gun and I can squirt my students. I plan on bringing my own water gun and I may even invest in some water balloons as well...
Let me start by saying "Thank you God for rain" haha. I loved the field trip and being able to spend time with my fourth grade girls out of the classroom. My girls were over the heat after about 20 minutes. I told them I was hot too, but let's have fun. I really felt like we got to have more of a connection just having fun.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Julie about the bathroom issue. Where do you draw the line on bathroom breaks? I didn't want anyone to have an accident, so when I let a few go... they all had to go.
Overall I really enjoyed this week. Ms. Devore and I had some great lessons this week (look at above post) and I really enjoyed teaching third grade earth science. The students really loved all of the rocks that Ms. Norton let us borrow.
Unfortunately I was unable to make the field trip because I was ill. But I did hear that the students enjoyed themselves and that their were very few behavior problems. I did enjoy coming back today and my students asking where I was and if I felt better. Their concern made me smile. I look forward to a great week 3!
ReplyDeleteThis was a good yet challenging week. We started addition and subtraction with three digit numbers and word problems and everyday was a struggle for some students. Regrouping and carrying seemed like foreign concepts to some students. It was both frustrating and heartbreaking for me to see students completely shutdown because they did not know how to do something. It was heartbreaking to see my students look so defeated and discouraged and not want to try. It was frustrating at the same time to know that the reason that they did not feel like they needed to participate was because their teachers in the past did not make them. The students who did not understand just gave up immediately. After working with these students one-on-one they began to understand what we were doing and they began to have confidence in their work and themselves.
ReplyDeleteThe field trip was great and the students really enjoyed it. It was good to get to spend time with our students outside of the classroom. There are some students who tend to keep to themselves in the classroom but really opened up on the field trip. I am looking forward to water day and New Orleans.
Monday we experimented with balloons and the lesson went down as one that I will never use again. The students really enjoyed it, but it was hard to maintain classroom management because they were so excited. In addition, I have been giving a “bell ringer” each day to assess my teaching and upon reviewing folders Monday evening I realized that a large majority of the students didn’t do the one that I assigned for that day. This was very disappointing because I felt that the students weren’t taking me seriously. This led to a very stern lecture on Tuesday about my expectations. I explained that these were not an option and that they would start doing them on slips of paper and are expected to do them the first five minutes of class. I walk around and collect them so that I can make sure they are completed and also clear up any misunderstandings. I explained to the students that this was not meant to be busy work it was merely a quick way to assess what I have been teaching and that if they don’t know the answer that is my problem and I would need to make adjustments in my instruction, but not doing them at all was unacceptable. As far as the classroom management issue with the balloon experiment, I believe that it was partly due to a lack of structure on my part. We usually do the experiments in small groups and each student has a job. At the last minute on Monday morning I decided to let each student work individually and it proved to be too much for them to handle. I quickly decided after the first two classes to return to a more structured method and we worked in groups. I found this to be more manageable and less hectic.
ReplyDeleteWednesday the students came in quietly and immediately started on their bell ringers without any problems. I really like using this method because I feel that it provides me with a quick assessment and also allows me to review content with the class as a whole without taking up too much instructional time. All the classes went really smooth and I realized that they like just as much structure as I do whether they realize it or not. We are learning about variables and we experimented with aluminum boats that the students created using aluminum foil. The students created various models and tested each to see how many passengers (Pennies) it could carry. After allowing them to make several models and test them I gave them new aluminum foil and instructed them to make any design they wanted but to think about what worked best from their previous models. With this final model the students tested it with different types of passengers (pennies and marbles). Then we discussed what controls we used, what the manipulated variable was in each experiment and what the responding variable was. The students really worked well and had a lot of fun experimenting.
Thursday was a fun filled day! I felt that my students were very well behaved on the field trip. It was nice getting to spend some time with them where we could interact on a more personal level. I enjoyed hearing about the students’ lives outside of school as well as seeing how they interacted with each other. I had my homeroom class and I learned so much about their personalities. These are the students that I spend the least amount of time with each day so this was a nice change. The movie was fun and we really enjoyed playing the games at the park even though the heat was almost unbearable. I think that the students enjoyed seeing me play and really getting into the game. It was a wonderful end to a long and busy week!
Looking ahead to next week, I have so much planned. Our time is quickly coming to an end and I have a lot that I would like to do. This week we will be investigating planes and flight lines and variables that will affect their flight. In addition, we are also conducting various experiments to display on the science project boards. I have so many plans and struggle each day with how to get it all accomplished, but I am determined to get it done!
My second week in the enrichment program went well. The weekend before I had a hard time coming up with lesson plans, but Mrs. Byrd was very helpful. One of my biggest challenges has been combining math with geology/Earth science. Mrs. Byrd helped me come up with some interesting activities that would include both.
ReplyDeleteThis week we continued to study variables and we made lifeboats out of paper cups and used pennies as our passengers. The students were very engaged and most of them are really grasping the concept of variables. My CASE class is amazing. Most of the girls had some heart-warming poetry as well as get-well-soon letters. The field trip on Thursday was awesome. I think I was more excited than my students. I also believe it was a wonderful learning experience for me.
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