Teaching Social studies

Fieldwork has come to a close! Everyone can now relax and reflect on their experiences. I really enjoyed the entire fieldwork experience and I learned a lot from my own teaching and the teachings of my peers. I chose this quote because it ultimately sums up how I felt from the fieldwork. We were teaching the students, but in return they ultimately taught us how to be better teachers. It was a beneficial learning experience all around! I learned about the three types of lesson planning. (Explained in my blogs below). Direct lesson planning involves main instruction from the teacher with limited involvement from the students. Our group learned how to instruct a lesson directed completely by the teacher. We learned how to check for student understanding as well. I knew that this was the foundation of the lesson to provide the important information to the students so we worked hard to make sure that all types of learners needs were met.

Before our class and group began teaching the students took a pretest. The pretest was used in order to see how much the students knew from the year before and from this year and also to see how much the students knew about the topics we would be teaching them.

The pre-test is a type of pre-assessment that helps teachers to see what misconceptions or information students may know so they can approach their lessons and teaching in a certain way that will maximize the student’s learning. Formative assessment was also used throughout the process. Formative assessment helped the teachers and the student’s see what information they were understanding from the lesson plans and what they were having trouble with. This can help a teacher to see if the majority of students are understanding the information in the way it is presented to them. Teachers may need to alter their instruction based on how well students are doing. In our case, we were able to see how several groups conducted their assessments and were able to learn which ways would work best for our second grade class. Overall, this class was well-behaved and very intelligent! There were several struggling students but we made sure to help these students to understand the information. We tried using a mini booklet in order to take away from traditional note taking sheets. When the pre-test was given to the class, many of the students had a hard time answering the questions and answered many of them incorrectly. By the end of teaching, our students improved greatly and learned a lot! Attached below are also examples of student’s work of varying levels! We also used many informal methods of assessment throughout our lessons. When a student would answer the question, I would ask the students if they agreed or disagreed by putting their thumbs up or thumbs down or standing up and sitting down. This was a quick way to involve students to express their answers without completely singling each student.

Pedagogical content knowledge is knowledge that is gained through experiences and preparation. Teachers develop this knowledge the more they teach and from this they can develop skills to help them become a better teacher. In the direct lesson students learned through repetition and explicit instruction of the content. The direct lesson gives the main focus on the teacher and it involves a structured lesson to present the information to the students directly. The inquiry method is a little different and it involves the students using the information they just learned to conduct an investigation. It is important to present an activity that fosters exploration.

It promotes independence and using the scientific method. Third is a cooperative lesson in which students learn to work together with one another to create a group project that they will present and reflect on. Collaboration I feel is very important in the classroom because it builds on social skills. It also engages the student in learning because it allows they to talk and work together instead of just taking notes. When presenting a cooperative lesson it is important that each student has their own role in the making of the project. It is important for student's to reflect on their experience in the end to see what they learned and how they felt about the project and others projects. The most important part of instructing lessons is making sure that all student's needs are met. Each student is much different and it is the job of the teacher to encourage all types of learning. I think my group did a great job in reaching the diverse learners of the classroom!

   

 

As we do in class, I will give three pluses and a wish for each groups teaching as part of my reflection.

Group One: Bryanna LeBron, Payge Yerks, Heather Nolan, Joseph Timmons, Melissa Kochoves

1.   The project was fun for the children and hands on.

2.   The teachers showed improvement and confidence.

3.   The teachers spoke loud and clear to students and provided support throughout the lesson.

Wish: I wish that the group planned their time better in order to make sure all of the parts of the lesson were addressed.

Group Two: Erin Correa, Paola Martinez, Christina Moscatello, Samantha Mullarkey, Lauren Skinner, Moira Tolan

1.   The transitions were fast pace, which kept the students under control.

2.   The lesson was well thought-out and planned/practice.

3.   I like that you gave the students time to work on their independent practice in class.

Wish: I wish that the students had more time to work on their papers and the word wall.

Group 3: Melissa Kelly, Elizabeth Pozzulo, Emily Meehan, Keilani Wilhelm, Kim Cruz   

1.   I like the use of an American flag for student’s to agree.

2.   I loved the song at the beginning of the lesson, it definitely engaged the students.

3.   I loved that your group switched up the way they answered the questions. (Hand signals or saying things like “the british are coming”)

Wish: I wish that the timeline in the guided practice included pictures.

Group 4: Kimberly, Mallory, Kelly, Rose, Jenna, and Sarah

1. I liked how well practiced and thought out the lesson was. Each teacher did a great job explaining their information and the lesson flowed great.

2. I liked that we had the opportunity to get the students out of their seats during the independent practice and that they were all involved.

3. I liked that that the teachers worked well to involve students in the lesson in their own way and talked clear, concise, and loudly.

Wish: I wish that our lesson didn’t end so early and that we had enough time for another guided practice or made one of the other ones longer.

Overall, fieldwork has been a memorable experience. I learned a lot from watching my peers teach. I really enjoyed working with my group, Ms. Pozzulo at Bishop Dunn and especially with the students.

xox,
Kelly