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. 

First Day of Fieldwork

Yesterday at Sacred Heart Catholic Elementary School we met our sixth grade class that we will be working with for fieldwork. There are 19 students in the class and they are all on different levels. It is a very diverse classroom and two of the students have autism. It was very good to know who the students are that will be needing extra attention so we can plan our accommodations better for our lesson plans. The first day we were instructed to do a getting to know you activity with all of the students. The students set themselves up into groups and our group of teacher candidates rotated every 10 minutes. Each group of students got the opportunity to participate in each of our activities. My group made a sixth grade geologist poster using cut out minerals. The students wrote their names, something they knew about rocks or minerals, and something they want to learn about rocks and minerals on their paper. Then they were able to decorate it and stick it onto the poster board. The students seemed to highly enjoy this activity and it helped a lot seeing where the students stand in terms of knowing about rocks and minerals. These students surprised me about how much they knew. They are all brilliant young kids and I cannot wait to work with them and teach them more. I am very excited for Tuesday to start actually teaching them about minerals and I think our group will do a great job.

Digital Me Projects

As we are in the middle of the third week, approaching the fourth week of classes, I am feeling very overwhelmed. It actually helps to take a breather and just write in my blog about some of the positives to remind me that I will get through this! These positives include how many different ways I have learned to make a presentation. We learned these through our digital me projects. Everyone in the class was assigned a different way to present a project telling the class about themselves. My app was called "tellagami", where you record yourself and get to dress up a character that speaks for you. Tellagami is a great way to differentiate the instruction for students. The students might be really interested in the new character on the board and focus and listen more to her. This would be a great tool to use when you want to explain classroom expectations and rules, or directions for an activity or project. You can only record for 90 seconds, which is why it is good for something that requires a short period of time. This project was a great way for everyone to get to know each other and teach how to use technology is many different ways in a classroom. We then got to give each other feedback which helped me out tremendously. Seeing what I did well and not so well has really been pushing me to fix those things I did not do so well, and keep improving on the things I did do well. This project was very motivational for me and began to excite me about becoming a teacher and using different means of technology that I believe my future students will be interested in and have a blast with.

an example of what the app Tellagami looks like!

Another positive that excites me but also has been stressing me out at the same time is starting fieldwork! Last class we went to the cirriculum library to have a mini tour and got to see where all of the books and resources are located for us. After our mini field trip, my field work group met for a short amount of time just discussing what we are going to do for our icebreaker activity. Our group came up with a great idea that our students will love. It is super fun and exciting and will give the students a great opportunity to share something about themselves, and give us teachers the opportunity to tell our students about ourselves. Our ice breaker activity goes along with our topic of minerals which is also really cool. I am very excited for our first day of field work and to meet the students.

Scientific Me!

When I was younger Science always fascinated me. From what I remember in elementary school, videos and notes were always very boring to me. When we would do hands on experiments, I was very intrigued and excited to be in the classroom learning about Science. The earliest memories I have about my Science experiences are in 6th grade. I highly enjoyed going to Science class mainly because the teacher was awesome. She was very enthusiastic, made the class fun for everyone, and did a lot of activities and experiments. It was not just the teacher talking the whole time and having us take notes, or watching boring videos. Reflecting back on 6th grade, I remember an extremely humiliating story that happened in our science class. We were doing an experiment on weight and measurements, and I was telling the class my results from my groups experiment and forgot to add the unit after I said the number. I don't remember the exact measurement, but I’ll guess something weighed around 5 kilograms. So, forgetting to say “kilograms” after I said 5 , my teacher asked me, “5 what? Seashells, mermaids, dogs, cats, butterflies?” I stared at her for a second and was very confused. At that moment, I thought I just had to pick my favorite thing out of the list, so I chose seashells. I said “10 Seashells Ms. B”, not thinking that she meant a unit for weight. The whole class was hysterically laughing and I could feel my face turn bright red because I was so embarrassed about how dumb I sounded! The reason why I am telling this story and hope for people to read it is because of how the teacher handled the situation. She noticed that I made a silly mistake, and the whole class laughed and I was almost in tears from being humiliated. The first thing she said to the class was “why are you guys laughing?” and she told the class that she had told me to say that on purpose to see who was paying attention, and to see who would notice the mistake. I was so relieved when she said that to the class and couldn't thank her enough. This is super important as a teacher, especially in younger grades. Embarrassing your students will only discourage them and they most likely will not want to learn or participate ever again. We need to teach our students that everyone makes mistakes, and it is perfectly okay to make them. As humans, we naturally make mistakes to learn from them. Nobody is perfect, and nobody is stupid!

 Science was never a strong subject for me to begin with, but I do enjoy the principle of it. I went through stages of passions for different fields of Science. For example, I was not a big fan or strong at Earth Science, but I absolutely loved biology and did very well in that class. This was mainly because of how different the teachers taught the courses. My Earth Science teacher in middle school was simply awful. She made the class so boring and the majority of the class dreaded going because of her. She made learning about science horrific. She gave us an absurd amount of notes to take for a Jr.high class and made us watch videos that were probably made for high schoolers. I actually failed the state test in the class, and had to get a tutor to pass the test. I ended up passing with above an 85 compared to scoring in the 50’s. My tutor even agreed that the teacher was most to blame for the first, not so great performance on the test, because I was very eager to learn and succeed. On the other hand, my Biology teacher was amazing. He made the class so interesting and exciting. He would bring in real life marine animals to do experiments with. Our class could tell he was truly passionate about his job and teaching us, unlike my Earth Science teacher, which highly influenced our desire to learn. 

Over the years, this specific example has really showed me how important it is for teachers to have an extreme interest in the subject they are teaching and to teach in a way that shows their students how much they enjoy being there and how much they love it. If teachers don't love what they are doing and the subjects they are teaching, how are the students expected to love it and learn the material? I hope to make my future students experience with Science different than mine and as enjoyable and exciting as possible. Even though it is not one of my stronger subjects, I will still try my best to demonstrate my passion for Science and show them how interesting it can be without solely taking notes and watching videos for every lesson.

 Science to me is an interactive, engaging way to prove an observation or hypothesis. Scientists are able to generate real facts supported by real evidence. The reason I said interactive is because Science experiments should be taught mostly hands and be very collective to prove one's theory and in order to gain more knowledge on that specific theory. I view Science as a way to help us understand the world we live in better. It is a way to solve our natural curiosities and to eventually be able to learn more about them and solve our questions. We use Science in our everyday lives whether we realize it or not. It affects all aspects of our lives in different ways and is approachable for everyone. Teaching Science in a way that will engage students and keep them interested is essential. Through my experiences, I truly believe the best way to do this is to have your own personal love for Science and be very passionate about it. Whether it is not your strongest subject, it is still important to want to learn more about it and try to be successful by practicing how to be good at it. As future teachers, we need to find ways to show that we are just as interested and excited to be in the classroom teaching and learning about Science as our students are.