Engineering

My last visit to Brigham was probably the most rewarding. I felt that my group and the students were more engaged with each other than normal and engaged in the lesson. The students seemed to be very comfortable with us at this point and seemed to finally be really opening up to us. This is one of the more successful lessons I have taught at Brigham. Building model houses with the students was really fun. I felt that the students were talking more and having more fun than I have previously seen.

After teaching this lesson I felt that I really met my goal of gaining more experience with ELL students and a culturally diverse classroom. Brigham taught me a lot about ELL students and I hadn’t realized it until the last day we were there. I realized that pictures, books, and gestures went a long way with these students. They helped us when we couldn’t understand them and we helped them when they couldn’t understand us. As I said previously, building the houses with the students truly showed me that we got more out of this experience than I had thought. The students seemed to be genuinely having fun with building these models and then it was really rewarding when they found success when their house did not blow over.

When planning this lesson my group was unsure how it was going to go because we were unsure if the students were going to be able to understand that we wanted them to build houses with the materials were provided and to make it strong. It turned out better than we had hoped and the students did a great job. This was the most rewarding when we all high fived at the end of the lesson because all the students were able to succeed in their house building on their own. Even though we had to help the students it made me feel like they finally were able to open up to us and be comfortable.

When working towards my goal I knew that I of course was going to get more experience with these students but what I didn’t realize was how much I learned from them. They showed me that a language barrier doesn’t prevent them from learning; it just might take a different type of explanation. These students were very intimidating to work with at first because I had never worked with ELL students before, and 20 of them all at once was a lot. After getting to know the students and working with them multiple times they were not intimidating, they were very welcoming and helpful.

In my future classroom, I feel that if here is an ELL student I will be much more prepared than I would have been without this experience. It has helped me gain more experience with culturally diverse students and ELL students all at once. This has made me hope for an English Language Learning student in my future classroom because then I will be able to work with them using all the information that I have learned through the semester.

Here is an article on teaching ELL students: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/teaching-literacy-english-k-5-english-learners

exceeds: went over word count and included an article 

Clinical Lesson

 The lesson that I chose to teach in my clinical classroom was about plants. I chose this topic because that is what the student had already been learning about for the unit. I want to engage the students with an experiment so they could get more hands on learning with plants. My CT does not conduct many experiments with the students so I saw it as the perfect opportunity to do so.  The experiment that I chose to do was seed germination. The students were presented with four different kinds of seeds. They labeled, watered, and placed the seeds in the sun by the window. The students throughout the germination process, fill out a chart with drawings of what the seeds look like on day one all the way to day 21. Once a week the students draw how the seeds have changed since the last time they drew them. This allows the students to see how the seeds change and grow when they have water and sunlight.

During the lesson, my CT said that my strengths were clear directions, my demonstration, my classroom management, and giving the students responsibility. When talking the students about directions, I gave step by step what they needed to do. This was important for the experiment so the students did it correctly. Also for my directions, I gave a demonstration and drew an example on the board. I wanted the students to be able to see what their finished product would look like so they would know if something was not done correctly. Another strength that my CT mentioned was my classroom management. This is something that I feel I have a good handle on all the time. Working with children at a summer camp definitely helped me understand management and I have brought this experience into the classroom with me. During the lesson, the classroom management that I used was a tool that my cooperating teacher also uses, turning off the lights and clapping to get the students attention. These methods have worked well because they are methods that myself and my CT use consistently. Something else that I did that helped me keep control of the room was praise the students who were doing things correctly and setting an example for the other students. This is something I have found very affective in the classroom because the other students want the attention of being praise as well.

Throughout the lesson my cooperating teacher mentioned that I took chances and gave the students responsibility. I took chances by allowing the students to do the experiment mostly on their own even though they are not used to doing experiments. I allowed them to tape, write, place the seeds, and organize their seed plate all on their own after I provided directions and an example to them. Something else that I gave the students was responsibility. I allowed them to pick jobs for each person at their table to complete on their own. The students were not assigned jobs in the beginning they had to make up their mind and decide on their own. Usually my CT doesn’t allow the students to do this but I felt they could handle it because everyone would be able to do something if not multiple things throughout the lesson. Giving the students this responsibility definitely showed me that they are able to conduct an experiment on their own as long as they are given clear and concise directions to follow.

For my areas of growth my cooperating teacher did not mark anything down. In my personal opinion I feel I could of improved with my planning. I knew what I was doing for the lesson but I had not memorized the steps while I was teaching. I needed to double check for some of the steps which I should have had memorized. I think that with better planning and practicing this lesson would of gone even smoother than it did. Something else that I could of improved on was organizing the worksheet I was going to use. At the last minute I decided to do a chart where the students drew the progression and growth of the seeds instead of a worksheet where the students recorded their data on a table. I felt that the students would understand the drawing more than recording their data on a table.

At the end of the lesson I checked the students understanding by asking them about germination and what they think a plant needs to grow. The students were able to answer the question of what germination was and they were able to recite what a plant/seed needs to grow as well. This showed me that the students understood the concepts that were taught and were able to reproduce what they had learned. We also drew what day one looked like on our chart, which was basically the plate and seeds since they hadn’t germinated yet. One week later, the students recorded the germination of the seeds. The only downside was that some of the seeds molded since they were inside of gallon bags. This did give us an opportunity to talk about mold growth and the growth of the seeds. Many of the seeds germinated and a few did not or barely at all. The students were excited to see how the seeds had changed over just one week’s time. They were able to record the growth that happened for each seed and we also instructed the students to draw the mold that had grown as well. It taught the students how a plant can flourish when it has sunlight and water to help it grow.

Overall, the lesson was a success. I also enjoy how the learning can continue as time passes and the seeds continue to grow. The students still have two more weeks of growth to record so I am excited to see how the experiment progresses. I hope that the seeds continue to grow and the students are able to learn more about germination as time progresses.

This is another activity that could of been done for teaching seed germination: http://www.housingaforest.com/sprouting-seed-activity/

EXCEEDS: I exceeded the word count and included an extra activity.  

Brigham Reflection 10/30

This week my group had to opportunity to work in the preschool room. It was our first time teaching in there. It was much different than I had expected. The class size is much smaller than what we are used to. There were 9 students in the room. I'm much more used to a class size of 20 or more so it was definitely new to have such a small class. 

The lesson that the lead teachers taught went fairly well. I was surprised by how much the students interacted and participated because previous teachers have said that the preschool students do not talk or participate much at all. It was nice to have majority of the students answering questions and participating in the activities. I enjoyed being able to work with just three students at a time so I could focus a lot of attention on them. I did the egg shakers station which the students seemed to really enjoy. I think that they way the activity was set up was great for the students who were ELL. The pictures were clear and all they had to do was shake the egg and place it on the picture of the item they thought was inside the egg. 

This lesson helped me work towards my goal. It helped me better understand some of the accommodations that are needed to be made for ELL students. Brigham is the only place I have truly had to opportunity to work with ELL students. So far it has been a great experience, I have learned a lot and gained a lot of knowledge on the students and how they learn. My goal was to gain more experience with ELL students which is exactly what I am doing at Brigham. Each time I am in the classroom I feel like I have learned more about ELL students. Something new that I learned this time in the classroom was that some students will talk for their friends if they feel their friend doesn't understand or if I don't understand. One little boy told me his friends name and clarified it when I was unable to understand him. The little boy seemed very used to talking for his friend but that could also just be his personality.

In my clinical classroom, there is also a little boy who feels the need to speak for other people. This is just how he is, not because the other students can't speak English. He likes to express how he thinks their feeling or tell myself or my CT something that his friend needs. He does not give the other student an opportunity to speak up before he blurts out what he thinks his friend needs or wants. The little boy at Brigham definitely reminded me of the boy in my clinical classroom.

Teaching at Brigham has definitely showed me a different side of teaching that I have no gotten to experience until now. What I mean by this is that the school is very cultured and diverse. I have had one placement that was diverse but it was mostly African American and Caucasian students with not a lot of other races. Brigham is such a diverse setting, even the teachers show diversity. I think this is important to know about because most teachers are Caucasian females whereas at Brigham I have seen many teachers of different races.

Here is an article that talks about diversity and how parents can teach their children more about it: http://www.sesamestreet.org/parents/topics/getalong/getalong06

exceeds: over the word count and included an article.

Brigham Lesson

            Our lesson was taught on Thursday, October 16^th. The overview of our lesson was to review what the previous group taught the students about living and nonliving things, sing a song about the topic, do an interactive SMART Board activity, ask the students about the living characteristics, and then do a small group activity with the students. We were able to complete all the activities in the allotted time. I would say that the lesson went well overall, only a few hiccups that didn’t affect the lesson as a whole.

            The strengths of the lesson were the SMART Board activity and the sorting card activity. I was surprised at how well the SMART Board activity went since these students sometimes struggle with large group activities on the carpet. The students were able to use the “special pointer” to reach the things on the board. I think that this motivated the students to participate and they were able to “play” on the board. Majority of the students were able to get a turn moving an object to the living or nonliving category. Something that definitely helped this activity move smoothly was that we allow the students to pick someone that they wanted as long as they were sitting with a “ready body”. As soon as we said that, the students were more attentive and less fidgety. The rest of the activity went very smooth.

The other strength of the lesson was the card sorting activity that took place at the student’s tables in small groups. The other teachers in the room were a large help in this activity. The students were to flip picture cards over and decipher if the object in the picture was a living or nonliving thing. During this activity we also assessed if the students understood the difference between living and nonliving things. This activity went so well because we were able to have two teachers at each table of 4 or 5 students. This helped us to manage the students that were easily distracted and keep the other students on task at the same time. At the table I was working with, the students seemed to understand the difference between living and nonliving. This was encouraging because I felt the students understood the lesson that was taught. They were able to give reasons why each object was living or nonliving based on the three criteria that we spoke about (it eats, breathes, and grows).  I felt that both activities went so well because both Taylor and myself have good classroom management strategies.

Although I felt our lesson went very well overall, there are still areas that could have been improved. One of the areas that I felt we could have done better on was the beginning of the lesson. While we were reviewing we kind of rushed through it. I felt we could of taken the beginning of our lesson a little bit slower and gotten more interaction with the students this way. The students remembered the previous weeks lesson that was taught by the other teachers and were able to produce the three criteria of a living thing. This definitely aided our lesson because if the students wouldn’t of remember we would have had to take extra time to talk more about it before moving on. Something we could have done to improve the beginning of our lesson would have been to slow down and review a little bit more before jumping into our first activity. This would of have helped because it would of allowed us a better opportunity to see which students remembered and which did not.

In general I felt that the students were interested and motivated to participate in the activities. During large group they showed this because a lot of the students raised their hands when questions were being asked and when they wanted to be called on to do the activity on the board. During small group instruction the students showed their motivation and interest when they wanted multiple turns while doing the activity. Since the students did so well when using their prior knowledge and the new knowledge with this topic, I felt that they were confident enough in the information that they wanted to participate so much.

During the lesson I felt that Taylor and myself were very knowledgeable on the content of our lesson. We knew exactly how we wanted to conduct the lesson and what were going to do for it. We also knew all the background information about classifying living and nonliving things. We did plenty of research when looking for ideas and activities for our lesson that we learned even more than we did before writing the lesson and conducting it. During the lesson I felt we were pretty organized. As I said before, we could have slowed down in the beginning and that would of made us even more organized. The beginning of the lesson was hectic because we had to set up the SMART Board and get the students focused right away. This was probably the most unorganized part of our lesson because it was the beginning. Overall, the lesson had pretty good organization.

As I have stated throughout this reflection, the students seemed to understand the content very well. They were able to recall prior knowledge from the previous groups lesson on living and nonliving things. Some of the students struggled with remembered but we were able to help them remember while reviewing. Throughout the lesson I felt that the students were building more knowledge on this topic. My whole small group at the end of the lesson was able to list the three criteria to classify an object as a living thing.  Even though some students would get their words mixed up like instead of eat they would say taste because that was something we had previously taught them about senses, they were able to get the general idea. Some of the students knew the three reasons very well to the point where I did not have to ask them why it was living because they would just say the reasons right after flipping over the picture card.  I felt that the students did a great job throughout the lesson producing the information that we were looking for from them. The students also met both the objective throughout the lesson. They were able to sort living and nonliving things into the correct category, and answer questions about living and nonliving things with prompting for a teacher. As a whole, I felt that this kindergarten lesson went very well and was very organized.

website for more information on teaching living and nonliving: http://www.kindergartenkindergarten.com/2012/03/a-science-mini-unit-living-and-non-living.html 

EXCEEDS: Over the required word count and included a webpage.

Brigham Reflection 9/30

Overall, I believe that the lesson went well. The students were engaged most of the time and seemed interested in what we were doing. I think that the best part of the lesson was definitely when we split the students into small groups and worked with them in a group of three or four. Using the hands on activities for the five senses helped the students stay focused throughout the lesson.

The goal that I wrote down was to get more experience in a diverse classroom. This experience will definitely help me to achieve this goal. When going to Brigham I wasn’t sure what to expect when walking into the classroom. I knew that the class was going to be diverse, I was just unsure of how diverse. When walking in I realized that there were an overwhelming amount of Hispanic students. I am excited to work in this class because it will teach me to work with students that are ELL. I have never had the chance to work with ELL students before so I have a lot to learn from these students. By the end of our time at Brigham I hope to gain a plethora of knowledge from working with these students. The best  way to learn something is to jump right into it!

The classroom that I am placed in at Prairieland Elementary is not a very diverse room, about 75% of the class is Caucasian. Working in the classroom at Brigham keeps me in a diverse setting and working with a different age group than my current clinical setting. My clinical placement right now is in a 3^rd grade classroom. I am excited to be working with kindergarteners again!

Something we could have done different in the lesson is maybe use better attention getters for the students. Going into a new room was harder because the students did not know us and there was somewhat of a language barrier. Next time we are in the classroom I think that it would help if we knew the attention getter that the teacher uses or what she says to get the students seated and ready to go. Kindergarten is a tough age because some of the students haven’t been in a real classroom setting before so they aren’t used to sitting for a longer than 15 minutes at a time. In the future it is definitely important to remember that the students aren’t able to sit still for a long time. We thought that moving to the students made the most sense when doing the small groups but after doing the lesson I think that maybe the students would have been less antsy if they were the ones rotating. There are potential problems that could have happened though if the students were moving, things could of gotten a little chaotic.  I think that as a group we definitely got a feel for the students and it will help us with our future lessons that we will be writing for this classroom.