Field Experience Teaching

I just recently taught in my field experience classroom. I was at Study Middle School with sixth graders. My lesson was introducing the students to two different newspapers. The class started by writing everything they knew about newspapers and what they liked about newspapers. They were then broke up into groups and discussed what they wrote down. The students were paired up and one student in the group was given a U.S. Today and the other was given the News-Leader. The students explored the newspapers and filled out some questions. After a set time the students then filled out a venn diagram. The students where then given a homework assignment to create their own newspapers about whatever interested them. I thought overall the lesson went well. I had a good time teaching it.

Ch 10

The two student strategies that he says his students most often use are strategies I know I have used myself and it can be very frustrating.  I thought the questions he asked himself about what he wanted his students to get out of reading by themselves and with his assistance was really good.  It is important for me to remember that in teaching it is not always about what I know for students to realize how brilliant and great I am but it is necessary to guide and lead students to deeper thinking.  Again, I  really enjoy his examples he uses in his classes about the AIDS crisis in Africa.  It is not just about the good old literature from the past but also about what is going on in the here and now.  One thing I thought was good especially for a future middle school teacher was the fact that he reads the first few paragraphs to his students before he silent reads to them.

DP Chapter 10 - Emms

Well, there was not a whole lot that I liked in this chapter as well. It seems that as the book progressed the same stuff was being said again; for me, that it completely boring. Finally a couple of pages from the end of the chapter something peaked my interest a little. "Danger 2:The Student Becomes Overreliant on the Teacher" section was so true, and not mentioned so much before. Keeping in mind that teachers are there to teach their students to learn how to read deeply is essential. If teacher don't do this and constantly guide the student(s) through every step then the teacher fails at teaching. They are there to bring the student's abilities up to par to make them ready to go out into the world so they can be successful in their future lives. Leading them does not prepare them at all and actually hinders them. The students do not acquire the abilities that they need to survive. They will constantly need to rely on other people to get them through aspects of their careers and lives all because their teacher didn't back off and let them learn how to do these things on their own. I know that this is a little dramatized but think about it. It can, and most likely does, happen.

Once again, a chapter that means something to me, this book is great. Essay questions that get the students thinking and using their own opinions...who would have thought we could do that? Gallagher's suggestion questions were great, I love the idea of getting students thinking and not trying to trick them with questions but rather continue to guide their learning by asking them to explore their own opinions of a text. I've started selling most of my books back but the ones from this class are definitely taking a permanent place in my collection.

Question of Quality

So, I'd like to think that I post good comments on this blog. Part of my brain is thinking about how useful it is to have a network of future educators sharing ideas with one another and giving ideas for the future but while I'm posting I can't help but think, "I'd better fill my quota of two posts for the week". I'm not really saying that I would post a whole lot if I didn't have the requirement hanging over my head but would you? Would your students? Honestly I don't know if I'm the only one that feels this way. I normally like to share my ideas but I really don't post with that in mind. I post because I have to. So here is my question. Is it possible to have a blog like this and encourage honest and deep conversation without stringent requirements, or do students need the motivation to post anything at all? I really would like to hear your thoughts on this.

I realized that I forgot to post about my field experience teaching, so here it is. The lesson was basically a class think aloud in which we went over a poem and they found examples of their poetry terms from the unit. This went pretty well except some of the kids were completely lost, or just talking for the fun of it and not paying attention. This is not unusual in this class so I tried to take it in stride and continue on with the lesson.
We then did an activity involving their terms again, which was a review for their quiz at the end of the class. They were extremely hyped up that day so it was hard to get them to calm down but eventuallly most finished the assignment.
In all the experience went well, though not as smoothly as I would have hoped. I like working with freshmen but I constantl have to remind myself how young they really are, and therefore how immature they can be, but it worked out for the best. I need to work on deviating from my set lesson if things aren't working out, because I know this happens pretty often and thinking on your feet is an important skill that teachers need to be successful in their classrooms.

practicum lesson

Last Tuesday I taught my lesson for my practicum at Parkview. For the most part, I was really pleased with how it went.
The students had just finished the book Animal Farm, and the teacher Mrs. Weber wanted me to focus on power and whether power corrupts and that sort of thing. I wanted to make the book relevant to them and their own lives, so I started out talking about a subject that I hoped would interest most of them: superheroes. I brought up Spiderman and the famous line "with great power comes great responsibility" in order to introduce what power means and how to use it responsibly. I then had them think about people from their own lives and who had used power responsibly and who had not. I then moved onto a discussion of the characters in Animal Farm and who had the power and how they abused the power and whatnot. Then I had them get into groups (this was relatively easy, because they already had pre-existing groups from their litcircle projects) and consider a scenario: they were suddenly put in charge of the school. What commandments (a la the animals' commandments in the book) would they come up with?

I particularly enjoyed this part of the lesson. The kids seemed pretty engaged in the activity, and I had some interesting responses. Some took it really seriously and came up with some excellent rules. Others took it less seriously and came up with such rules as "clothing optional" and "look good." Dr. Franklin pointed out that many of them were corrupt with their power and how that was my whole point. She suggested that I should have brought this to the students' attention or had them come up with that on their own by having them compare the commandments. I thought that was a great idea and I wish I had done something like that, but by that point I was starting to feel as though things were getting kinda rowdy and I was eager to wrap things up. I also felt a bit awkard in my transitioning through the different steps of the lesson, and my brief lecture on Animal Farm could have been better prepared. But overall, I had a good experience and I think the students did as well.