Engineering Lesson

This week Taylor, Lisa, Alicia and I taught an engineering lesson to a small group of kindergarteners. We focused on the standard K-2-ETS1-2, which states: develop a simple sketch, drawing, or physical model to illustrate how the shape of an object helps it function as needed to solve a given problem. To go along with this topic we chose the book the three little pigs story. We began by reading the students the story. We then asked them questions about the story such as “Which house blew over?” and “Which house was the strongest?”. We used these questions to gauge the students’ understanding of the topic. We then gave the students the opportunity to build their own houses out of a variety of materials. We then put their house to the test by seeing if they stood up to the big bad wolf (the hair dryer).  After this we discussed with the students what houses stood up to the wolf and why.

Before beginning our experience at Brigham elementary, I set a few goals for myself. These goals included how to effectively communicate material to a group of diverse students and gain experience with a group of diverse leaners. The first goal I set for myself was to learn how to effectively communicate material to a group of diverse learners.  One way we tried to accomplish this goal during this lesson was to read a book that included the words in both English and Spanish. This way the students have the opportunity to see and hear the story in two languages. We also tried to accomplish this goal by giving the students the opportunity do a hands on activity to increase the students’ learning on the topic. Another goal I set for myself was to gain experience working with a group of diverse learners. Each and every time I was in a classroom at Brigham, I made more progress toward this goal by learning new things.

To go along with these goals, I came up with a few steps to take in order to reach my goals. These steps included getting to know the students better, learning the students’ learning habits, and getting involved in the classroom.  I worked toward the first step of getting to know the students better every time I have the opportunity of being in the classroom with either the kindergarten classroom or the preschool classroom.  By working with the students so often, I get to know them better and better. Another step I determined was to become more familiar with the learning habits of the students.  Each time I observed a lesson in the classroom, I learned new information about what worked and what didn’t work for this group of students. This gave me insight into the students’ learning habits. The final step I determined was to get involved in the classroom.  This week it was much easier to get involved with the students. Since we had four teachers teaching this lesson and only four students participating, each teacher was able to focus their attention on one of the students. This was helpful in getting to know the students and really helping them succeed in the lesson.

Here is a link to a website to help other teachers work with a group of diverse students. https://www.teachervision.com/teaching-methods/resource/6039.html

Exceeds: I included a link to a website with tips for working with a group of diverse learners.

Clinical Site Science Lesson

At my clinical Professional Development Study student teaching site, I taught a science lesson on weather. For this lesson I read the students a book, showed them a science experiment, and had them complete a large group activity on the topic of weather. My kindergarten class has twenty-three students. Among these students there are some English Language Learners, some with speech services, some receiving intervention services, and one with an Individualized Education Plan. This kindergarten class makes up a group of very diverse learners. They all combine to create one enthusiastic group of kindergarteners. They all have a different type of learning hat works best for them, and I attempted to meet many of these throughout my weather lesson. I used many different teaching methods and different forms of presenting the materials.  

            I felt that my lesson had multiple strengths. The first strength was my attention getter. I created a snowstorm in a jar to go along with the topic of weather. The students were very intrigued by it and listened closely for the rest of my lesson. Another strength of my lesson was the book I chose as well as the manner in which I read it. I read “The Snowy Day” to the students. I also included some comprehension questions during the reading to make it an interactive read aloud. This way I could be sure that the students were really listening to the story. The students were eager to answer the questions and even applauded the book when I finished reading. The final strength I saw in my lesson was the use of an interactive SMART Board activity. In this activity the weatherman told the students what the weather would be like for that day. The students then had the job of dressing the bear in the appropriate clothing based on the weather forecast. Each student got the opportunity to come up to the board and help the bear by giving him one item he may need for his day cased on the weather.

            Although I do feel that my lesson went very well overall, there is one area that I feel I could have improved in. While I did let each student have an interactive part during the SMART Board lesson, when it wasn’t a child’s turn they seemed to get bored and restless. I attempted to ask the whole class questioned based off of the items we were giving the bears, however it only seemed to get the attention of a couple of the students. Next time I would want to plan ahead for this potential problem. It is very important to keep all of the students engaged throughout the entire lesson. One idea to fix this problem would be to put the student sin small groups ad give each group a type of weather to focus on. They could then brainstorm ideas of how to dress the bear and what items to give him. Then I could have one small group come up at a time to dress the bear and explain to the rest of the class why they chose those particular items. This way all of the students would be involved and there would be less down time for each individual student, cutting down on the restlessness of the majority of the students.

            Like I stated before, there were a few things that really got the students’ attention during the lesson. The first thing that got the student’s attention was the use of the attention getter. The students were really interested in the snowstorm in a jar and were excited to continue the lesson. They were also very engaged during the interactive read aloud. They seemed to really like the story and being able to answer questions throughout the reading of the story. The students also showed a great interest in completing the SMART Board activity dressing the bear. Each student wanted to share their input on what the bear should wear. After all of the students had helped dress the bear they had the opportunity to draw a picture of themselves doing their favorite winter activity. They were very excited to draw their favorite winter activity and share it with the class. 

            Overall there wasn’t much knowledge I needed to know before teaching this lesson. I needed to know the types of weather that frequent the area the students live in. I also needed to be aware of the types of items we would need with us during the different types of weather. Once I decided to use the snowstorm in a jar as an attention getter I then needed to find the information on how to create one. I decided to begin with the snowstorm in a jar to get the students’ attention and get their minds thinking about the topic we were about to discuss as a class. I then decided to continue the lesson with the book “The Snowy Day”. I hoped that the use of the story would only further the students’ thinking on the topic of weather. I then continued with the SMART Board activity to get the whole group thinking and working on what items are needed in different types of weather. I completed with a drawing activity to let the students reflect on what they had learned in the lesson.

            The students were very engaged during the snowstorm in a jar and were curious at how I had created it. The students then were very engaged in the read aloud of “The Snowy Day” and were eager to answer the questions throughout the book. They seemed to really know about winter and the activities that occur during the season. While completing the SMART Board activity, most of the students were able to correctly dress the bear based on the weather being referenced. They also were very knowledgeable about some of the activities that are common during the winter months.

Exceeds: My CT has a copy of the lesson plan; I also set out additional books on the topic for the students to explore during the rest of the week

            

Brigham Preschool Classroom- Sight

            This past week I was back in the preschool room at Brigham Elementary School. This time Brittany and Laine taught a lesson on the sense of sight. They included a song, story, craft and game in their lesson. The students reacted very well to their lesson and seemed to learn a lot as well.

            Before beginning my experience at Brigham Elementary School I set a few goals for myself. These goals included determining how to effectively communicate material to a group of diverse learners as well as gaining experience working with a group of diverse students. To go along with these goals I also came up with some important steps I needed to complete in order to help me reach my goals. These steps were to get to know the students better, learning the students learning habits, and getting more involved in the classroom.

            The first goal I set for myself was to determine how to effectively communicate material to a group of diverse learners. I saw a few great examples of this during this past week. One great example I saw was the song used to begin and conclude the lesson on sight. The use of a song is a great way to get the students engaged in the lesson. I also liked the idea of creating binoculars to go along with the topic of sight. The students loved creating them and wanted to keep using them in order to find things around the classroom and at home. Another great example I saw during the lesson was the use of the game I Spy. The students really enjoyed playing the game and it went perfectly with the topic at hand. They enjoyed finding different objects and having their classmates guess what they had found. All of these examples kept the students very involved in the lesson at hand and therefore they seemed to learn a lot on the topic of sight.

            Another goal I had set for myself was to gain experience working with a group of diverse students. Each and every time I get the opportunity to go to either the kindergarten classroom or the preschool classroom I gain a lot of experience working with a group of diverse students. This is a great opportunity for me to broaden my knowledge on teaching many different students.

            To go along with my goals I had set for myself I also determined a few steps to take in order to reach these goals. These steps included getting to know the students better, learning the students learning habits, and getting more involved in the classroom. The first step of getting to know the students has been somewhat difficult since I have only been in the preschool classroom two times for a thirty minute period The next step was to become familiar with their learning habits. From what I have seen the students react very well to hands on activities as well as visuals and interactive components of lessons. This goes along with what we have learned about all students. The final step included getting more involved in the classroom. During each lesson I have made effort to become more involved. However with six teachers in the room the need for help is less. It is also harder to get involved with the students when we are attempting to take detailed notes on all of the students in the room at the same time we are to be helping them.

            Overall, I have come closer and closer to reaching my goals each week. I have learned a lot from my experiences at Brigham Elementary School.

Exceeds: I went over the required word count.

Recycling Lesson at Brigham

This past week Lisa and I taught a lesson on recycling to the Kindergarten classroom at Brigham. We talked about four materials we can put in our recycling bin including plastic, glass, aluminum, and paper. We also talked about what recycling can do to our community with the help of the book Michael Recycle.

            The students seemed to react very well in the beginning of the lesson to the physical items we brought to discuss the four materials that can be recycled. We brought a piece of paper, a plastic water bottle, a glass jar, and an aluminum pop can. I would say that this was one of the strengths of the lesson. We felt that having physical objects there for the students to see would help them to better visualize things made of each of those materials. I would also say that the book we chose to use for this lesson was another strength. It went into a great detail of how the town looked prior to the citizens recycling, what they did to clean up their town including recycling, and what their town looked like after the citizens had cleaned up their town.

            There are a few different pieces of evidence to prove that these strengths helped the students learn better. As the lesson went on if the students were confused about a certain material we were discussing we could show them the physical objects. Once we showed them the physical objects they were able to pick out which one was the material being discussed. They could also reference the materials we brought in when discussing the topic of recycling and the reasons why we recycle those materials. The students later completed a sorting cut and glue activity with different objects based on the material they were made out of. If a student didn’t understand what the picture was trying to portray we could show them one of the objects it was like and they knew where to sort that object. The students also seemed to better understand the reasoning behind recycling after we read the book Michael Recycle. Before the story they couldn’t really tell us why we recycled. After reading the story they had something to reference and were able to tell us why we recycle.

            There is one area that I felt we could have improved on. I felt that we could have implemented the use of some Spanish words for the materials as well as recycle in our lesson. I feel that the use of the actual objects was a great help and it would have been even better to include the Spanish words with them. This would have been an even bigger support for those learners. That way they would have been able to see the visual as well as hear the word in both English and Spanish. That would have most likely reached more of the students in the group we were working with.

            The students seemed to be very interested in our recycling lesson. They were very excited that we brought in concrete object to use when discussing recycling. They also liked that could relate it to their home and classroom. We asked the students what kind of things they had in their room as well as at home. We also asked them about the things they recycled in their homes and in their classroom. We got to reference their recycling bin in the classroom as well. They also responded well to Michael Recycle. They liked the idea of a super hero helping a city to recycle and clean up their town.

            Overall I felt that both Lisa and I had good knowledge on the topic of recycling. We know what materials can be recycled and we know what recycling actually means. We began our lesson by seeing what the students knew about recycling and the things we can recycle. We discussed what they recycle at school as well as at home. We also discussed why we recycle things. We then read the story Michael Recycle and discussed how the city was in the beginning. What Michael and the people who lived in the town did and what their town looked like after. After we had discussed all of this we had the students try to do their own sorting of recyclable materials in a hands-on manner. Each of the teachers in the classroom walked around and helped students as they worked on sorting their pictures by the material they made of. After we had given enough time for most of the students to complete their sorting we asked them to clean up their areas and hand in their sorting. We wanted to keep their sorting activity to see if they had truly understood the material we were implementing.

            The students seemed to have a great knowledge of what recycling meant. They also knew what the materials of the recyclable items we brought in were. They seemed to be a little hesitant when we asked what it means to recycle beyond putting the object in the recycling bin. They listened very intently to our story Michael Recycle and were able to answer the questions we had about the story. Once we began the sorting activity many of the students seemed to be able to complete it by themselves. A few students had questions about what was being pictured. Some had never heard of certain objects. This is where the teachers used the objects once again. We were able to show them an object their picture was similar to. This really helped them to better understand what the object in the picture was without the teachers telling the students.

            While teaching this lesson, I moved closer to reaching my goals. One goal was to learn how to better communicate material to English Language Learners. By implementing my lesson I learned that the use of concrete objects is a great way to strengthen the students’ learning. They seemed to better understand what we were teaching them when they got to reference those objects. The use of our story also seemed to intrigue the students. They liked seeing the book’s character participate in recycling and discuss why we all need to recycle. Another goal I had set was to gain experience working with English Language Learners. Every time I am in a classroom at Brigham Elementary school, whether it be the kindergarten classroom or the preschool room, I gain experience working with a group of diverse students.

Exceeds in Blog Reflection: I went over the word limit. I also included the progress I made toward my goals for this clinical site.

Exceeds in Teaching: We left a copy of our lesson plan with the teacher as well as a copy of the cut and paste sheet the students completed.

Brigham Kindergarten Classroom

This was my first week in the Kindergarten classroom at Brigham Elementary School. The classroom includes around twenty bilingual students. Most of the students’ first language is Spanish. Katie and Kristie taught their lesson on living and non-living things. It was a very engaging lesson for this group of students. I think it was a great idea to have the students go outside and pick out things to determine whether they were living or non-living. I could see many students in my small group who didn’t seem very comfortable raising their hand to talk during class, yet when we went outside they were very excited to show me things and then tell me whether it was living or non-living.

            Looking back at the goals I have set for myself while being at Brigham I have feel that I have started to move closer to them. One of the goals I set for myself was to determine how to more effectively convey the material to a group of diverse students. I saw a couple of great examples during the lesson I observed this past week. One example I saw was the use of a video that included a well-known character and subtitles on the screen. The students reacted very well to this video and seemed to retain what it was telling them. Another example I saw was when they let the students find physical items to determine what things were living and non-living. The second goal I set for myself was to gain experience working with a group of diverse students. Every time I get the opportunity to work in either the preschool room or the kindergarten room I gain valuable experience with a group of diverse students. Both rooms include students form diverse backgrounds and provide me with a great experience to learn from.

            Last time I was in the classroom at Brigham I set some steps to help myself reach the goals I had previously set for myself. These steps included getting to know the students and their learning habits better and getting involved in the classroom. Since this as my first time in the Kindergarten classroom I just began getting to know the students. I felt that I was very involved with the students while I was in the classroom this week. After the large group intro each of the teachers got a small group of children to work with. As I already talked about, I did learn from my small group that they reacted well to the video and the hands-on activity. Next time I hope to get to know more of the students in the classroom. Each of the upcoming times I am in the classroom I hope to continue learning more about these groups of children.

There are many methods used when working with a group of diverse learners. Here is a link to some tips for teachers who work with a group of culturally diverse students. https://www.teachervision.com/teaching-methods/resource/6039.html

Exceeds: I included a link to tips for teachers who work with a group of culturally diverse students.