For this observation, it was one of the first social studies lessons that I was teaching my class all year. My students were not really exposed to social studies because, and I hate to say this, but there is no standardized test in social studies. My teachers did not put a lot of focus on it during testing season because they wanted students to prepare for the reading and math tests. Students even have district quarterly checks for science, but not social studies. So social studies gets pushed aside until after testing is over. Since we were final interns and needed exposure teaching social studies, our teachers allowed us to plan for three social studies lessons a week and they could not be longer than 30 minutes. This seemed extremely difficult to do, but we were able to use our time wisely. As an introductory lesson on economics, I decided to have students tell me what they knew already about some key vocabulary words. I gave students sticky notes and I hung the words on chart paper around the room. Students would write what they knew on the sticky note and then take it to the chart paper and stick it on there. After all students were done, we watched a BrainPop video on goods and services, where students filled out a graphic organizer to take notes. I was able to complete this whole lesson with barely a minute to spare! I felt accomplished that I was able to provide my students with a social studies lesson in the time contraint given to me and hope that they were able to take something away from it.
I really love getting students background knowledge at the beginning of units to gauge their understanding. I will often times use word maps on the board but because of time, not all students would get to share with me. I like this method a little better because each student can share what they want and it gets heard. In the future, I would come up with a more organized way for students to maybe transition from each poster. I had students going back and forth all over the place and it felt a little chaotic. I might have students get up by table group to go to a poster and then switch after 30 seconds.
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For my first supervisor observation, I did an extension lesson in science on our stars unit. The standards for third grade do not expect students to know what constellations are, why they change with the season, and that the earth rotates, but this particular lesson was a fun and engaging lesson to apply their knowledge of stars to new content. Students would be creating a universe in a box and we would be learning why they constellations changed with each season. We used a Mystery Science lesson to guide us through what constellations are and how to build our box. During this lesson, I had recently implemented two new behavior management strategies - "Bean Nice" and Mystery Student, so that is what I wanted my supervisor to focus on during this lesson. Since it was an extension lesson and wasn't directly tied to third grade standards, I wanted her to focus more on my management techniques. I had had a rough start in my final internship with students not using kind words with each other and not following directions, so I implemented "Bean Nice". Students start the day with five beans in their personal jar. If they are caught not following directions or not being respectful to other students or teachers, they would lose one of their beans. At the end of the day, each student would pour the beans they have left into our class jar. When the class jar reaches a certain level, there is a class reward. The goal of this is to have students come together as a class to earn a reward. If one student loses all of his beans one day, then he has nothing to contribute and it will take the class longer to reach the goal. Every student has to come together and be nice to each other and follow directions to reach the goal. During this particular lesson, I did have to take beans away from students who were not following expectations during the lesson. One student in particular threw something at another student. I walked over and took his bean and he tried to argue with me that it wasn't his fault. I told him to simply just apologize, change his behavior, and get on task. He complied after that. They key to this behavior system is to remain consistent. If students are not following expectations, they have to lose a bean. This was hard for me the first couple of days implementing it, but I think I finally have the hang of it!
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AuthorDanyelle Estill Archives
April 2018
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