And That's a Wrap!

It is hard to believe that four months have gone by so quickly.  As I reflect on the road that I have traveled through those few short months, I begin to see how the pieces really did fit together.  I began the semester feeling overwhelmed by the amount I felt I needed to learn before I was comfortable to walk in front of students.  Now, I feel comfortable knowing that in only a months time I will be able to take responsibility of my students educational experience.  I truly believe that I would not feel prepared without my lab experience.
We have learned to live by John Dewey's Learning by Doing concept.  Throughout the course of the semester, we were allowed to learn what did and did not work for us by actually getting up and teaching.  We were able to take what we had spent class time learning about and apply it.  Personally, I found it completely beneficial to receive both peer feedback as well as instructor feedback.  I was able to take both and then effectively reflecting on my performance. However, I feel that the most beneficial part of lab for me personally was the video recordings of our lessons.  I learned so much more by taking the time to go and watch my video after the fact.  I picked up on the things that I did that may have been a little off, and was able to set standards for myself to improve in those areas, and reevaluate myself upon watching the next weeks video.

Through the experience I have had this semester, I feel that I was given the opportunity and encouragement to grow as an educator.  We started small and built up to working in a classroom with actual students.  I now have confidence that I have developed skills that are needed to take on the responsibility of my future students.  I can say this confidently because I have not merely learned about the techniques, I have had the chance to apply them.  I look forward to taking these experiences with me as I take my next step into the classroom.

Creativity at it's Finest..

This week in lab we took a road trip.....to the Dollar Tree!!

We were given no direction up front other than to be sure to bring a unit plan with us the day of lab.  We knew that we were traveling somewhere to bring out our creative juices, but we had no idea where that would be!

We were each allocated $5, before tax, to find 5 things that would help add to a single unit of instruction.  The unit I brought along was Electricity.  At first I was concerned because I didn't know how to think outside of the box.  I spent the first ten minutes aimlessly walking around just to see what all the Dollar Tree had to offer.  I first picked up a pack of pipe cleaners, thinking my students could practice wiring with those before using actual electrical wire.  I thought this would be a fun, creative thing to bring into the classroom.  However, my attention was then caught by the colored glitter glue.  I really liked the idea of the students practicing before they started wiring with wire, but the pipe cleaners they wouldn't be able to take with them easily.  The glitter glue on the other hand, they would be able to use that to draw on a worksheet where the different wires need connected, and they would be able to take it with them afterwards.  I liked that they would have this example available to go back and refer to, whereas the pipe cleaners would likely be disassembled.

I then went on to pick up a pack of light bulbs and batteries to have for the students when they are learning about an open and closed circuit.  I also picked up an extension cord so that I could demonstrate an open and closed circuit to them.

I was stuck.  I had four items and I didn't know what else to get.  After reviewing my unit plan, I remembered that I was teaching students how to calculate electricity bills.  I picked up a pack of large fake money with intentions of using this to give different students different amounts of money to then determine what appliances they can run that would add up to that total. 

After an hour in the Dollar Tree, I finally felt that I had a few really creative things to bring into my classroom for my students.  I believe that we all had a lot of fun completing this task.  Creativity is important, but it can also break a bank.  It was good to see what all we can get for only a dollar that can be useful in our classroom.

Life Knowledge Lesson

This week I had the opportunity to teach my actual students.  A class filled with freshman who I will be teaching very soon.  I was excited.  I was nervous.  But, I was ready.  We have been working so hard all semester to prepare ourselves for the minute we walk into our class.  I was ready to put everything I have learned to work with students whose learning I am soon to be completely responsible for.  That being said, Thursday may have been a difficult day to do that.

I will be teaching at Athens High School, and for those of you who don't know, that is basically the North Pole of PA.  The Tuesday before Thanksgiving turned into an unexpected short day, thanks to snow, and Wednesday was canceled all together.  That was followed by their Thanksgiving break which ran through Tuesday.  When the students came back Wednesday morning everyone helped pull together the fruit sale delivery and pick up, and Friday the State Officers were scheduled to come.  If you were keeping a tally, that leaves one completely structured day in well over a weeks time, Thursday. 

I walked into first period, Introduction to Agriculture with a room full of non enthused freshman.  This class is held in a Biology classroom that belongs to the other Agriculture teacher, so many of the students made it into the room before I did, big mistake.  As a result, I began to feel rushed, so I breezed through the beginning without truly captivating the students attention.  I wanted to be sure to get to the fun group activity I had for the last half of the class, because I knew I only had a short 39 minutes to get through everything.

I had eight different behaviors of servant leaders, and instead of just lecturing about them, I wanted the students to get into groups and draw pictures to symbolize the behavior.  To do this, I had the class count off by 8's to ensure that everyone was included.  I believe that this worked well once the activity actually got started as well because some students were more into it than others, and if I would have let them pick their groups on their own, I believe that some groups would not have taken the assignment seriously.   As they worked, I walked around to each group to talk through their ideas with them and to ensure they were staying on task.

 After the groups finished I had each group present.  I originally threw this in because it made sense, but after I was in the classroom I realized it was great to get the students up speaking in front of a class.  Some were much more comfortable than others, but I had every student speak.  I think this was a great added experience to the lesson.

After each group finished, we reviewed the 8 behaviors as a class.  I then had the students write on the back of the card that was provided to them as bellwork a complete sentence explaining how they could implement these behaviors into their everyday lives to make themselves better servant leaders.  This then served as their ticket out the door.  As students finished up, I had them put the desks back how they were since I was not going to be in that classroom the following period, and that went right up until the bell.

Overall I think it was a good experience.  I wish I would not have rushed through the beginning and spent more time developing the felt need of the lesson, so that is something I will be working on.  I also plan to be in the room before students enter so that I am better able to be prepared for the lesson.

This experience left me excited to go back.  I realize I still have a lot left to learn, but I truly enjoyed teaching my students.