Midterm Week

I cannot believe we are already half way through the semester and finishing up midterms. This past weekend, I completed the midterm for our science class. It took me a long time to complete, especially since I had to dig through the textbook, but it was all very effective and useful information. I was very glad we got to have as many attempts we we wanted too in order to get all the information correct and get a good grade. Our teacher truly wants us to know the information, and was not just giving this midterm to trick us or stress us out, which is very appreciative. 
Before the midterm, we also had to complete part 1 of edTPA. This was very challenging for me considering I have never even looked at edTPA before this. It was also difficult because we did not have enough of the information about the school or the students that we needed to complete it, so it got frustrating at times. I am really glad we did get a chance to practice with it and go through the process of edTPA to start preparing us for student teaching. It is a very important task for us that we all need to know and be familiar with, considering we will be doing all of the parts for student teaching and they have to be accurate.

Fieldwork Week 2!

What a relief it is being done with teaching!! It is nice to sit in the back, relax, and watch the next group of teacher candidates teach the class. Even though I do miss the direct interaction with the students, it is a lot less stressful and overwhelming knowing our group has completed our part of the teaching. Group 2 did a great job with both lessons. Their first lesson was a direct instruction lesson on sedimentary and igneous rocks, and the second one was an inquiry lesson on these types of rocks. The use of white boards was a great idea for the first lesson. The second lesson was very unique and the students loved it. They used play doh to make their choice of a sedimentary or igneous rock. The students would then each get a popsicle stick with a number on it and would observe a different rock and try to use what they have just learned to figure out wether the rock they have is a sedimentary or igneous rock. This was a very interesting and engaging activity that I would even consider to use in my future classroom! The teacher candidates all seemed very comfortable speaking in front of the class. Their lessons were very organized and flowed smoothly. I learned a lot from just simply observing the teacher candidates teach and being able to give them suggestions that will help everyone improve their teaching skills. Giving each other positive and negative feedback is really important because you don't want to discourage them, but at the same time you want to help them improve and be a better teacher. It is important to have an equal balance of great and not so great things each teacher or the group does because it is not an easy task at all and we are under a lot of pressure. I am excited for next class to see what group 3 will do for their lesson!!

Second Day of Fieldwork/ Teaching

The second day of fieldwork was a success! It was my groups second and last time to teach for the semester; since we went first. We had the students put on a mineral show. This was super fun and engaging for the kids. First we reviewed what we did for the first lesson, then we explained how the mineral show is going to work. Each group had to pick one mineral out of the 2 they identified. Then they had to create a poster on that mineral including at least 7 facts about the mineral and decorate their posters. 

After 20 minutes was up, the students all had the opportunity to walk around and check out their classmates posters. After this, they had to vote on their favorite poster on a ticket and on the back of the ticket, choose why they picked 
that mineral and how 
their group worked together. The winning team got a medal after we counted up all of the votes. We set up balloons and ribbon in the beginning of the class to make the mineral show as real as possible and create a fun environment for the students. All of the students got a certificate at the end for participating in the mineral show so no one was left out!

I was very happy how our second day of teaching turned out. Our group had it all together this time and since we were aware this time that there was no internet, we worked around it and were all completely prepared. This lesson was a lot more organized and it was less nerve wracking to teach. I am very proud of my group for the great work we all did and how well we worked together! It was definiltely a challenge, but I have learned a lot from both of the days teaching and got a lot of feedback from our peers that will help us for our future!

First Day of Teaching For Fieldwork

Today, Tuesday October 4 was the classes second day of fieldwork and my groups first day of teaching. It was interesting to say the least. As we were setting up, we were told there was absolutely no internet connection. This really flustered our group even though we did have a back up plan, but it was still unfortunate we could not do everything we wanted to using the computer and internet. We were unable to play our original powerpoint from google slides, and were unable to play our voki which I think the students would have loved. We did have a back up powerpoint and what the character on the voki said written on paper, so we were able to read it aloud to the class. This has showed me the importance of always being prepared for a lesson with or without technology, and you can never rely on the internet for a lesson. Today could have definitely gone different, but under the circumstances and not really knowing to much about the class and being the first group going I think we handled it pretty well. This was also my very first time ever teaching in front of a classroom so it was pretty nerve wracking.

Me teaching the slide on the definition of igneous and sedimentary rocks!

I wish I had said some things differently and was more relaxed talking to the class but I can only learn from my mistakes. The students seemed to have a very good time, and my students I was working with actually told me they had a lot of fun and wanted us to come back. They got the opportunity to go through the steps of the Scientific Method and identify 2 minerals from their mystery bag. They had to perform a streak test, a hardness test, write a hypothesis and test their hypothesis.

Helping my group identify their minerals!

After that, the students got to share their findings in front of the class and tell us something interesting about the minerals they identified. We are teaching again thursday and doing the second part of our lesson plan. I am excited for thursday and hoping that it will go smoothly.