Blog #6: Clinical Science Lesson Plan

                For my clinical science lesson, I was given the opportunity to co-teach with Alaina about food chains. Both Alaina and I have been teaching science lessons to all of the 1^st grade classrooms every Friday. We are in charge of teaching 78 students in the commons. Because we are familiar with teaching the same group of students, that helped us prepare for this lesson even better, more specifically, when it comes to classroom management. What we have experienced in the past lessons is student’s involvement when using technology such as learning games on the SMARTboard. We made sure to include an interactive technology game to support our main topic of food chains. Our goals for our lesson were to teach the students how a food chain functions using vocabulary such as food chain and energy throughout the lesson. As a way of assessing the students we had them create their own food chain by having them draw pictures and labeling a food chain that was in sequential order and was visible that the students understand the food chain concept. This worksheet gave the students the freedom to think creatively and use whatever animals they could think of to complete a food chain. This was the way we decide to assess the students because it was an opportunity for the students to work independently or with a buddy, allowed the students to move about the commons.  Also with the large amount of students being taught at once, we thought this strategy for assessing was most appropriate with the time allotted.

            When reflecting on how our lesson went, I feel there were areas that needed improvement and areas of strength. A part of our lesson that stood out to me as a strength, was the technology support we used. The first technological support was a PowerPoint where we had the children create a food chain as a class. Instead of showing the students a finished picture of a food chain and explaining it, we had the students piece is together as a class. For example, we showed the class a picture of an eagle and had them guess how an eagle might get its energy. We provided guided questions so that the students would answer the animal or plant we had prepared for. Another technological support was an online game. The website provided pictures and blank boxes to drag the picture in the correct order. We completed a few example food chains together. What was most beneficial for the students was how after the food chain was completed, the website would show an animation of the animals actually eating each other. This was a part of my feedback form that my CT liked as well. I think we should have worked on more food chain examples from that website instead of only the three we did. I think that website was a good support for the students. A strength of our lesson was the classroom management and how we dealt with loud noise. The students have been taught by Alaina and I enough to know how they should respond to the quiet chant. A saying we use is, “3,2,1 ZIP” and also T:“When the teacher is talking”…S: “You are not!” This classroom management strategy really helps when the students are doing turn and talks or working independently and need to come back as a group to get them to quiet down and look back at the teacher. Lastly, I thought that Alaina and I co-taught very well together. We made sure to divide up the lesson evenly so that we both got our time to speak. I feel we were prepared with the amount of activities and potential extension activates as well. For our lesson, I am glad we had an extra book to read that would support our lesson because we needed it. In addition to the strengths of the lesson, there were also areas of improvement that I would change if given the opportunity to teach the lesson again.

            An area of improvement that I noticed in the lesson was the hook activity. I was in charge of leading that. The hook activity had the students stand up and link arms. I used that to help the students connect their 1^st grade chain to a food chain. As I was leading it, I found that the students were being crazy, swaying back and forth,  and being loud as they laughed with their neighbors. I found it challenging to get the students attention. If I could do the activity differently I would change it up a little and have the students sit down and link arms so that they are not tempted to move back and forth like they did. When discussing this activity with my CT she suggested I introduce the main topic of food chains before I do the activity so the students know the correlation and reasoning behind this instruction. I would also change the way we introduced new vocabulary. I think it was harder to explain the vocabulary word, “energy.” What we could have done to further the students understanding and give them more visuals would be to make a web and have the students share what they think energy is and maybe some examples. I would also add an individual activity where the students cut out picture and put them in the correct order by cutting and pasting. This would allow the students to have more concrete examples and would be clearer for the teachers to see if the students understood the food chain concepts.

            Overall, I feel our lesson was well thought out and prepared for in advanced. I feel we were prepared and were able to keep the students engaged throughout the lesson. I think the turn and talks really benefited us in order to prevent the students that were not sharing to get off task and get distracted. With experience we have gotten so far in our clinical teaching the students every Friday, we were able to get to know the students and understand their tendencies and learning levels. As a student teacher, I am constantly learning from my lesson I teach in order to better my teaching.

Below is Pinterest link for ideas for teaching Food Chains to young students:

http://www.pinterest.com/search/pins/?q=food%20chains&term_meta%5B%5D=food%7Ctyped&term_meta%5B%5D=chains%7Ctyped

Exceeds: Included a Pinterest link to support Food Chain science lessons and gave my CT a copy of the lesson plan to keep for further instruction or a lesson for next year.

Blog #5: Pre-K Classroom Part 2

                Last Thursday was my second opportunity to co-teach in the pre-K classroom. This lesson was focused around a review of all five senses and had the teachers help lead individual centers. There were 2-3 students at one center at a time. I think the small groups for the majority of the lesson helped me work on my long term goal for this clinical. My goal that I have slowly been working on is to get to know the ELL students and through that, find ways to differentiate instruction and accommodate for their needs.

When reflecting on this goal, I realized that the pre-k classroom had fewer ELL students than the kindergarten room and also had few students total in the classroom. I think there are some benefits and down sides to having a smaller classroom and fewer ELL students. For one, in the pre-k classroom, it is easier to get to know the students and their needs when there are fewer students. Also having fewer ELL students means there could be more chances to get to know the ELL students in order to accommodate for their needs. The second point would be the amount of conversation I had between the two classrooms. I found that the kindergarteners were more talkative than the pre-k classroom which is to be expected. The more talkative the students are, the easier it is to get to know the students in the 30 minutes that I have every time I am in the classroom. Like I talked about in my earlier blog post, I feel that the lack of conversation also had to do with the new teachers coming in to the classroom and the students not know us. I’m sure the students would be more talkative with their everyday pre-k teachers.

Last Thursday was the last time I would be teaching in the pre-k classroom. I think I learned the more outgoing students from the more shy students. I also learned n situations like that were communication is limited, focus on body language and hand movements to be able to really understand the student and what they are trying to say or answer. That was the difficult part of teaching the younger students. I think that the lesson that I helped teach accommodated well to the student’s needs by how they had hands on centers prepared and ready.

For my particular center I focus on the sense of touch. I think the items that the students were feeling throughout the center time were item that the students are familiar with. I think that is very important when preparing lessons for young children, just like it is important to teach the students using vocabulary they are familiar with or would understand. That is part of the differentiating instruction process. I am learning from clinical experiences what the students at certain ages know already or are working towards learning. I have seen a great jump just from the pre-k and kindergarten clinical the ability levels in each classroom. Overall, I feel my goal in the pre-k classroom was harder to accomplish and, as a result, I feel with more teaching experience I could have gotten closer to my goal. Pre-k needs hands on learning with many visuals which is what I consistently saw in the pre-k classroom. This type of teaching is great way to accommodate and differentiate instruction for ELL students.

http://www.ldonline.org/article/36679/

EXCEEDS: I provided a link to help pre-k teachers learn strategies for teaching ELL students

Blog #4: Pre-K Classroom

This week was the first day I was in the pre-k classroom. From what I heard from other people about the preschoolers, I knew going into the class that communication would a challenge.  I also was told there was much less students than there were in the kindergarten classroom.  My first reaction to that information was that the students would get more one on one attention from all the student teachers, which would be helpful for the students. By having more teachers, the students might open up more and communicate. I was not sure if this information would affect the lesson positively or negatively, but was interested in getting to know a new class that I have never worked with or taught before.

My long term goal for this clinical experience is get to know the ELL students and through that, find ways to differentiate instruction and accommodate for their needs. I know now after reflecting on this same goal while I was in the kindergarten room, that getting to know the students and their needs will take time. I don’t think the half hour that I was in the pre-k classroom I was able to get to know them that well. I believe a big factor in getting to know the students would be through communication. The preschoolers did not talk that much at all. I think there were about three students that contributed to the introduction and sharing time on the carpet. For the most part, the students would just stare at you and the teachers would have to answer their own group questions. The teachers did a good job providing guided questions. For the preschoolers, they needed a lot of prompting for most of the lesson.

The students were learning about hearing for this lesson. For the center I was assigned to, I lead the string cup telephones. This required the students to talk with one another so the other student could hear them in their cup. This was where the communication played a big factor and had an impact on how smoothly the lesson went. From what I observed,  the students needed guidance on what to say in the cup or they would just yell in the cup without conversation with the other students. It was challenging to understand what the students were saying and it was not clear. I think going back to my goal, I feel I did not accomplish it in the time allowed. I did, on the other hand, learn about their tendencies. I learned who the quiet one and talkative one were in the group. The quiet ones needed more direct instruction and the more talkative students needed less. I also felt that some of the students were quiet around me because they were shy and did not know me. For all I know, the students could have a more outgoing personality around their teachers and family because they have known them for so long. I think if I continued to teach in the pre-k classroom the students and I would get to know each other better.

Something that I feel would be beneficial to me in reaching my goal would be to know their names. Even when I asked the students their names I could not understand them. I also feel that it would help if I knew who the ELL students were. Even though I struggle with speaking Spanish, it would help because it would make me more understanding for not communicating.  Going forward, I think I would try to accommodate for the pre-k students by incorporating a lot of visuals and pictures in my lesson. I would also make sure to model what is expected of them clearly so the students can participate as much as possible and,  in the long run,  get the most out of the lesson being taught.

Below is a link for more 5 senses lesson plans that could be taught for further instruction:

http://www.pinterest.com/janamarie76/5-senses-preschool-theme/

EXCEEDS: I went over the word requirement by 150 words and I incorporated a link to 5 senses lesson ideas.