I am a different person..

In the beginning of this class I did not know what to expect or exactly what we were going to be learning but everything that we learned has helped me to become a better teacher in so many ways. I am different mainly because of the fact that I feel much more comfortable teaching lessons, writing lessons and presenting anything in front of my peers. When it comes to me being a teacher, I have learned how important it is to make sure that you have the students attention. Lessons may not always be fun but if you can make them interesting and connect the lessons to real world situations then the students will be more than likely to get engaged in that lesson.
The thing that surprised me the most about this class was how much more confident I am with technology. I have to admit that before this class I absolutely despised working on computers for any length of time, but now I would be more likely to do things on a computer than I am to do things on paper. I have learned so much about the smart board technology (which with be critical in my teaching) and I even learned a lot about the Google docs. I did not think I would like Google docs but now I love it and I use that more than regular Microsoft word.
I think what has made the biggest impression while at the same time made me think and discover is the fact that we presented A LOT this semester. I am not always comfortable getting up in front of the class and talking about anything. I am sure that it really helped that we only had ten students in our class but I really enjoyed doing presentations and I looked forward to them when they were coming. By presenting to each other, it made us think a lot, we had to make sure that everything was perfect because the rest of the class was depending on you to learn the content. We had to teach ourselves a lot with the help from the teacher but I think that this helped us to reach higher levels of thinking more often.
When it comes to me and my own elementary school setting, I think what has helped me the most was the smart board. Before this class began I did not know anything about it. I knew it was there but I didn't realize all the potential that comes out of it. An entire unit could be taught through using the smart board and this is great because children love computers and technology and incorporating this into the lessons is vital. I know that I will be using a smart board in my own classroom to the fullest extent.
During my journey throughout this class, I can not say that one specific person helped me the most. Everyone in our class got along so well and we all made sure we were available to help each other out all the time. When we were confused about something, someone else would step up to make sure that we understood. I think that our class as a unit worked so well together and that made the experience in the classroom that much better.
I think the one thing that I was not sure about was the peer evaluation. I think that sometimes it is good to get each others feedback because two heads are better then one and my peers have been able to see things that I have missed and that helped me so much. Besides that I think that everything else should be graded by the teacher, mainly because she knows the content the best out of all of us so her opinion and feedback would be the most important.
Besides that one detail, I loved this class and it has helped me to grow from a student and has taken me another step closer to becoming a teacher.

Jigsaw and our groups

In class on Wednesday, our teacher, Dr. Smirnova was out due to her surgery on her finger. As a class we had to figure out what was needed to complete our assignment on the jigsaw puzzle. I think that we managed pretty well without a teacher there. We worked really well together and there was no problems and Ashley did a great job being in charge and figuring out what we had to do as well.
We made our groups for the jigsaw puzzle. My part of the group is to learn about how doing jigsaw and cooperative learning can help children with their social skills. So far, I have learned alot about how it helps the social skills. I think that some things are obvious, like learning how to talk and have a social interaction with their peers. But other things like having a self value because you feel a part of the group are not as obvious and I think it is important that my group understands how doing the jigsaw can really help everyone to work on their social skills in the classroom. I think this activity is hard but I am trying to figure out how to put it into a lesson. I dont think it will be too hard but we will see!
We dont have class again until after Thanksgiving break so it will give us a couple days to try and fix our IPM lessons and I know I will be starting to work on my cooperative learning lesson plan as well because I think that I really understand the concept of this.

..........Treasure Hunt....

I have to say that my Treasure Hunt has been the hardest thing that we have been doing in class this year. I dont know why this has been so difficult for me, its possibly that it is the fact (and I have said this before) that I am not computer savy at all. I am having a hard time trying to make the pages for this even though i have all the websites and information that I want to provide into the treasure hunt. It is starting to become very frustrating.
On the up side, I have been learning so much about cooperative learning and alll the different types up lessons that we can do based off this type of theory. Kagan is who I have definietly been learning the most from. I have learned about the jigsaw, the think-pair-share and many many more types of lessons. I know that we still have to write one more lesson for this class and I am so excited to do mine on cooperative learning that I have already started thinking of the content and the grade that I want to do my last lesson plan on!!

Learning about Cooperative Learning

Next week in class, me and 4 other peers will begin to help teach our classmates about Cooperative Learning/Social Interaction Model. I have been doing some research and looking up everything that I can find about this type of lesson that we are going to be working on next. I am nervous because I dont want to teach the class the wrong thing even though I know Dr. Smirnova will lead us back in the right direction.
What I have found out from these theorys is basically: the main definition is "thinking about thinking". This is the highest level of thinking that a student can reach. Basically, this theory is like a jigsaw puzzle. Each person gets a peice of the puzzle and they all become experts at their own section. By doing this, it puts a responsibility on themselves and on the group, they sink or swim together because each person needs to teach the rest of their group about the idea that they have mastered themselves.
This is a great lesson because the students really need to work together and not only does the social interaction model have the students attain higher levels of thinking but it works on their own social skills as well.

Treasure Hunts and Information Processing Models

The last class we have started to discuss working on our Treasure Hunts as well as our lesson plans for the Information Processing Model. I am excited for completing both of these tasks. I think the information processing model is really good because the students are able to attain higher levels of thinking. Sometimes the lesson plans can be a little more difficult to write because it is natural, as future teachers, that we want to teach the students by lecturing and making sure that they are on the right track; but it doesnt work that way for this lesson. We have to give the students a question and based on the questions, we give them some information and they have to teach themselves. I think this is good because when a student(s) teaches themselves something they are more likely to remember it. You know that they have remembered it when they can teach it back to you or explain it to you in their own words and by having the students create something at the end of the lesson, this is exactly what they are doing.

I have not started my own treasure hunt yet but it seems like a new and exciting but challenging activity. Everyone in the class is working with partners on this assignment but I opted to work alone. I dont mind this because sometimes its just easier this way and I dont mind doing the extra work either. My treasure hunt is going to be on metacognition which is basically "teaching about teaching and thinking about thinking". I am excited to start this because I really feell like I am going to enjoy doing this assignment!

Indirect vs Direct Lesson Plan

In class the last few days we have been going over the differences between Direct Lesson Plans and Indirect Lesson Plans. I really enjoyed doing Direct Lesson Plans but I know that this type of teaching does not let the students reach a higher level of thinking, but Indirect teaching does.
I really like the presentations that we have been doing because we are learning about Indirect Lesson Plans but we are learning by teaching through this method also.
Me and my partner Ashley had to give our presentation last Friday. We used the balloon popper on the Smart Board to have our classmates decide which words went along with Indirect or Direct instruction. Im really excited to be learning more about Indirect teaching because I love when the students are hands on and by doing this type of lesson the students get an opportunity to do this.

Wrapping it alll up perfectly...

Tonight we had to hand in our final copies of our Direct Instruction lesson plans. As much as I was extremely nervous in the begining about writing our lesson plans, by the end of it, everything that we needed was right in front of us so it was so simple to write. Im sure mine is not going to be perfect the first time around, but I am extremely happy with how my lesson plan came out.

We learned so much in the past few weeks about Direct Instruction. I learned that this is only to have the students attain automaticity and the teachers are basically dictating to the students. The goal at the end of a Direct Instruction Lesson Plan is to have the students to be able to spit the answer right back out to you barely even thinking about it. I really enjoyed working on my lesson plan on greater than and less than symbols because I think my lesson is enjoyable enough for my students to want to learn it but at the same time they are hearing the same things over and over and by the time they have reached the end of the lesson they most likely should all have reached automaticity.

I really enjoyed using the Google Docs with this as well because it made it so easy to talk to my teacher and make sure that everything was in place and be where it needed to be. I really like writing direct instruction because the students can show in so many different ways at all different times that they are learning!

Me..and Lesson Plans

On Wednesday, October 20, we started to correct our lesson plans in class. I was Dr. Smirnovas guinea pig. We pulled up my direct instruction lesson plan in front of the whole class and went over what was correct or incorrect about it. On Friday, October 22 we started to work on our webquests and had time to look over them and see what was needed.
When we corrected my lesson plan I was so nervous but anxious to see how I did at the same time. As we went through it, I realized that what I have done was not too far off from what was needed. I know I looked through the rubric as I was writing it. What really surprised me was how comfortable I felt in front of the class. Sometimes its really nerve racking to have an entire class see your work and know exactly what you did wrong or right. I think that all the input that I got from my class was really helpful and useful. Everyone gave me really good ideas and no one made fun or laughed at the things that I got wrong. I was happy how nice everyone was to me and they wanted me to accept their opinions which I really liked.
THis class has really began to make me more comfortable in front of a classroom and I think thats really good because I have never been good with standing up and giving a presentation, let alone correcting my own work in front of a class. This experience brought me one more step closer to where I want to be as a teacher and I am so thankful for that.

Anticipatory sets and me..as one :)

On Monday, October 18 I had to present my own anticipatory set. Surprisingly I felt very very comfortable in front of the class. I thought I was forgettting everything but I remebered most of it. I was not as prepared as I could of been which is somethign that I really need to work on but it wasnt too bad because I already knew my topic and what I was going to do and say so it didnt seem like I wasnt prepared. I actually had fun up in front of the class teaching and it kind of makes me excited to do a co-teaching experience with Dr. Smirnova.

Tonight I had to write my lesson plan rough draft and I kind of thought I was going to lose my mind. It got really confusing but I think I did okay with it. Once I got all my thoughts sorted out and started to get them down onto the paper everything started to flow really nicely. Im nervous about Dr. Smirnova editting everything because I dont want her to tear me apart! I dont think she will but it still makes me nervous to have someone editting while I am trying to write a whole lesson plan! YIKESS!

I hope i did well...wish me luck!

Presentating Anticipatory Set...ahhh!

Presenting to a bunch of your peers can be really challenging, especially when you are supposed to pretend they are a bunch of third graders and they are watching and judging your every move. On Friday in class everyone presented their anticipartory sets to our class on what we are going to be teaching our Direct Instruction lesson plan on.
I didnt have mine ready that day because I was not in class on Friday but I paid close attention to what everyone else was doing and taking notes. I think everyone did an awesome job with their and I learned alot of really creative ideas on how to grab the students attention. I think that sometimes can be the hardest part when you are teaching your peers because you feel like a fool but your really not!
At the begining of the class I had no idea what to expect with the anticipatory sets but the more I watched the more I enjoyed. I loved the song that Rachel created and the money riddles that Samantha did. I thought those were really good and I give Rachel alot of credit for trying to hum the tune to us.
Im really excited to put together my anticipatory set because now I have all these great ideas swimming through my head thanks to all my peers!

Good, Bad, Ugly?

Today my partner, Samantha Conklin, and I had to give our presentation. I have to say that I did feel more comfortable in front of the class than I thought i would or could. I actually had alot of fun getting in front of the class and teaching to my classmates. I know that our presentation was not perfect by any means but I think we really did a great job with it.
I was super nervous in the begining but everyone seemed like they were participating more than usual and I really liked that. I think its so good when the class interacts with the teachers. I know that since there is only about 10 of us, not many people talk all the time, but it is nice to know that when your teaching and the students understand something you can see it in their faces.
What I realized that I need to work on more with future presentations was that I need to not read off of the power point so much. I think i should also use less words and more pictures. Its natural for students of any age to want to look at a picture rather than a bunch of words so I know that next time I have to present for this class or any class I want to be able to show more pictures or videos and just be able to talk and interact with the class that I am teaching to.

Presentations..Presentations

The last few days in our Methods of Teaching class, we have all been teaching each other the different parts of the Direct Instruction lesson planning. So far everyone has gone except for me and my partner Samantha. I think that everyone has been doing a really good job but I am still nervous to go.

After everyone has gone we have been talking about what they could have done better and some people didnt seem too happy with how their presentations worked out so far. Dr. Smirnova told us that now we have seen everyone go so we should know exactly how to make our presentations perfect but I am still really nervous because I dont want us to do a bad job on it.

For our presentation we are teaching the class about Independent Practice. It is about homework and how to assess the students while they work on their own to see how well the students learned what the topic of the lesson was on. We have pictures in our presentation and we will explain to the class what they need to ask themselves and think about while they are planning their Independent Practice. I think the only thing that I need to make sure that I do is to keep eye contact with the class and not read off of the power point and to make sure that our transitions go over smoothly.

I really think everyone did great I just wish that everyone would talk more when people ask questions, including myself, because that would have made all the presentations go alot smoother. So hopefully on Monday everyone will be answering the questions that me and my partner ask!!

One Missing Teacher..Ten Students

On Friday Dr. Smirnova was not in class but I think that it wasn't a bad class at all. We were able to work on our presentations, find out who are partners were on and even get to know each other a little better. I was kind of lost when it came to our "gmail" accounts that we created but Ashley Hastings was really nice, she sat down and showed me and my partner how to do a presentation and helped me to connect with the other students in the class online. I think that Ashley did a great job because she really took the time to make sure that I understood what I had to do over the weekend.
Tonight me and my partner Samantha finished our presentation on Independent Practice. I think it came out great and I am happy that we were able to work together and thankful to Ashley because we were able to be in two different places and working on the presentation at the same time! I think that was awesome that we could talk to each other and make edits and everything and we didn't have to be with each other.
If i ever teach in a high school class, I think this is something that I will make all my students use because then they would be able to work on presentations together but if they do not have a ride to meet up or they don't get it finished in school, this is a great way for them to complete the assignment.

Technology...Websites...Teaching..Pulling it Together

Today in class we started to discuss the text book that we are going to create online. It is going to be an on going project throughout the semester and I think it can help everyone in different ways. I know that I will be able to look back on this years from now and it will help me to look better in interviews with other members that I work with and it will especially help me as a teacher.

I think that it is not going to be easy and it will get frustrating at times but overall it will be a great experience for each and everyone of us. We also discussed Direct Instruction. I like this type of teaching but I know it only has the students reach one level of Blooms Taxonomy and that is never good for the students. In Blooms Taxonomy, it is in the best interests for the students to be able to reach all the levels of thinking, especially creating something because then the teacher will see that the students understand the topic at a mastery level.

I provided the different levels of blooms taxonomy because everyone should know the different levels. We all want to reach the highest level with our students and technology plays a big role in this also. Technoloy, like a web quest for example, will help the students to explore, analyze and create on their own so we are helping the students to learn on their own and reach all levels of Blooms Taxonomy.

Web Questing

Today in class we started our Web Quests for our lessons. I am going to be doing mine in the science content area. I am really excited for this but at the same time I am so nervous because I am not good with computers and I do not want to mess this up. I was already getting things wrong in class today because me and computers dont work well together, but i am determined to get this correct because I think it will be a great tool for me now and later down my road with teaching. Dr. Smirnova was extremely helpful and talked me through all my problems with the web quest today. I thank her for her patience because I had almost none with myself but she helped me and I finally started tounderstand what was going on. I plan on going on my Web Quest at least once a day even if its just to play around with it so that the more I use it the more common it will be to me!

Models and Strategies of Teaching

In class on Wednesday September 15 we discussed strategies and models. There are only two strategies which are direct and indirect. There are four different types of models; Behavioral Model, Information Processing Model, Social Interaction Model and the Personal Model. I learned that the Behavioral Model is a direct approach and the other three are all indirect approaches. I also thought it was interesting when i found out that the Behavioral Model usuallu only has the students gain knowledge on Blooms Taxonomy; Information Processing Model has the students reach the analysis; and Social Interaction and Personal Models reach synthesis and evaluation on Blooms Taxonomy. I really liked this because I like all these approaches so its nice to know that when I am teaching a unit and i want the students to reach higher levels of thinking then I can use all the approaches and we move deeper into the topic.

Lesson Planning

I really enjoyed class today. I think that working together to figure out what the similarities and differences are between the different types of lessons was very useful. We were able to use the smart board after that to figure out the order that we should be preparing are lesson plans in. I liked working with groups and then coming back together as a whole class because it gives everyone a little more insight on something that they may not have thought about before. Im glad that we did the order of the lesson plan because it definetly cleared up alot of questions in my mind.

Lesson Planning and Objectives

On Friday in class we helped each other fix our lesson plans. I liked this alot because I was able to get other peoples input in my group and everyone was so helpful and nice. It gets confusing at times because I want my objectives to be detailed but they cant be long so its hard to make sure that they are correct. I think working with the groups helped because we got to see that we are not the only one making mistakes and this is new to everyone so your not alone even if you feel like you are. It also helped to share with the other groups because everyone was able to get an idea of what everyone else is thinking. It was nice to share and work as a class because it makes us more comfortable with what we are doing and more people sharing their ideas can only make you smarter.

Aims, Goals and Objectives

In our class were learning about Aims, Goals and Objectives. I like working on my objectives although they may get a little frustrating at times. I wrote about A.G.O in my own words to help me remember them better:

What are the differences between Aims, Goals and Objectives?
1. Aims: They are the first thing a teacher should look into and are the most general. Most of the time they use words like; learn understand and know.
2.Goals: The goals give extra details on certain activities or areas.
3. Objectives: These are usually the most specific, they help with assessment and help teachers know how to find out if the students learned anything.

Sources for formulating A.G.O?
1. Aims: are the national standards
2. Goals: are the state standards
3.Objectives: are the teacher and district standards