Last week Lauren and I finally presented our lesson to class. We were one of the last groups to go. After, seeing everyone present and the terrible behaviors they had to deal with. Luckily, my nervousness was unfounded. Although, there were a couple minor behavior problems that ranged from "lizard noises, to constant bathroom use" the behavior was relatively easy to deal with. This was partly due to our use of a behavior chart. The chart recognized student’s good behavior by putting a sticker by their name. Lauren and I chose not to harp on student’s bad behavior. Before the lesson we discussed that that if we made a chart that emphasized their bad behavior they would become more encouraged to act out.
Our unit was based on Valentine's Day. The objective of our lesson was “students will be able to write a beginning, middle, and end to a story given a picture prompt.” At the beginning of the lesson, we showed students a picture of the book Countdown to Valentines Day by Jodi Juelin. Students were then asked to write the beginning of what they story would be like. The students then exchanged papers, and wrote middles to other student’s stories. Unfortunately, we didn’t have enough time to complete the lesson. If we could of the students would have wrote the ending to the story, and shared their stories with each other. To conclude the lesson as a class we would have listened to the podcast of Countdown to Valentines Day. I think the class would have really enjoyed the podcast. For the future, if I do this lesson again, I would let the students listen to the podcast after each section of writing. As teachers, Lauren and I would have assessed the stories by participation. This would have been a form of summative evaluation.
The most important thing that I tried to teach my students was the importance of being authors. To open up the lesson, the students wrote on the smart board their favorite authors, only one person wrote themselves. I wanted to show the students that they can possess the same traits as their favorite authors, by writing. I learned that one of the most important things is for the students to enjoy their work, and not to sweat the small stuff. I was very stressed at the end of the lesson, due to the behavior. However, looking back I realize that they enjoyed the activity, and were authors. That is what is important; all the stuff in the middle didn’t really matter. Overall, I think we had a successful lesson. I think we should have allowed the students to read what the person before them wrote so they could grasp the concept that the story needs to flow together. Not have different themes.
I definitely feel that going last had its benefits. Lauren and I got to see what worked and didn’t work for the other teachers. The main thing I took from my fellow classmates lessons were how they dealt with behavior. I can’t remember who used this technique, but in one class, the teacher had already made spelling lists for children to use while they were in timeout. I thought this was great and really deterred me from acting up in that class. I also learned that too much of anything can loose its effectiveness. For example, one teacher constantly used clapping to get the students attention, and eventually it stopped working.
Regarding everyone’s content I thought it was great. Everyone had an interesting and unique topic. I was intrigued during every lesson. I loved how some people did integrated lessons. One lesson that stuck in my head was the lesson, where Katie and Kathryn brought in a live animal. Another lesson was the lesson, where the teachers incorporated music, and had everyone dance and run around the class, to get rid of extra energy. Taken as a whole, the teaching experience I got from taking this class, was awesome, and I feel more prepared for the future.
