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.