One more week!

Well folks we only have one more week of practicum experience left before entering a school full time. I hope everyone has had as much fun as I have had working with the students. Sometimes the faculty we work with or for are worse than the students with behavior intervention plans but that's part of the gig as well. I wish all of you a very successful career in education. It has truly been a pleasure working with each of you and I am sure that your classroom will be the envy of your school. Rock on NKU Class of 2007!

Almost finished!

I had a unique experience for the first time while in a practicum location. I was observing how my CT was talking firmly to one of the boys in our class. The boy was just standing beside her with his head done and not making any eye contact. After she had been talking to him for a long time my CT finally looked up at me and asked if I could walk him down to the office. I said sure and took the form from her. Well the boy raced across the room and I thought this wouldn't take much of my time, well was I wrong! As soon as we reached the hallway, he froze on me. My teacher said I would probably have to take him by the arm and convince him to go well had to do just that to get him only half way down the hallway. Long story short I had to go down to the office to get the Principal to come and get him. The Principal had no idea who I even was (and I sat in on an IEP meeting with him before) so I had to tell him who I was. After that he was joking around with me, "welcome to education", "I will get his head you can get his feet" (he was just kidding with this as well). I must say I never had experienced anything like this before, not even when I use to sub. I just fell bad for the boy because this was totally not like him at all!

scientific revolution

I really enjoyed the class on scientific revolution. I am a better learner when i can do things hands-on. I think students would enjoy doing a lesson using anyone of these experiments. It takes time, group effort, and hands-on to complete each of the experiments. This is a great way to get students envolved and working in a group to complete something.

social studies unit complete :)

Erica and I finished up teaching our social studies unit today and it went pretty well. Our topic was kentucky history. The first day, we had the students work in groups of 4-5 for the assessment part. They had a large piece of white paper and they had to draw the state of kentucky. Labeling its capitol, two other cities, state bird, fish and wild animal. The kids seemed to have a good time with this, but they did not seem to work well in groups. There was a lot of arguing and dispute- and this took up thier time quickly. We gave them about 30 min to complete this. The time it took them to actually complete it, and the time we allowed, were way off. They needed almost an hour- just for the group work. Good thing is, our teacher is awesome and she let us have some extra time after recess to let them finish up. This made me wonder if they were not used to doing projects like this in the classroom with our cooperating teacher. Not sure~ They looked great completed, but Erica and I decided that with the group chaos, our next assessment was going to be individual. So, today, we had the kids make up thier own state, making similarities and differences to kentucky. They could call it whatever they wanted, draw it however they wanted, and so on. We gave them a rubric with the blank piece of paper for thier state and this seemed to help. The kids got really creative with this one. Overall, I think they got a lot out of it and they had a great time. SUCCESS!!! :)

Its finally over!!!! :)

So I taught my Social Studies lessons this week and they went really well. My first lesson was on interdependence and we discussed the milk process and how it was related to interdependence. While reading my book that went along with my lesson the words nipple and teet came up. Of course the students found these words to be extremely funny and laughed out loud when I read them. One student asked what a teet was and I had to explain to him so as not to cause a disrupption with the other students. Several time through out the story the word came up and thankfully I could ommit it and no one knew the difference. It was definitely interesting to say the least and if I were able to have read the story before hand I might have been better prepared for the students reactions. Todays lesson went really well and I was very pleased with how the students did and how well they paid attention and participated in my activities. Overall everything went really well but I am relieved that is is all over :)

Scientific Revolution

The most important component of the Scientific revolution lesson was the integration of science and social studies. With the lack of time in the day too many schools cut out on one or the other, I see this in my practicum classroom. It is very rare that the teacher has enough time for both subjects but she does try to integrate as in this lesson as much as possible. The hands on experiements provided an engaging learning opportunity to truly learn rather than listening to the teacher's discussion or blindly reading from a text. And i will say it, some of the experiements were "FUN". Hands on materials are a motivator for students to actively participate and when students are active they are learning. I also like working in groups, working in groups is a social learning experience and this strategy should be used in the classroom whether the students are in first grade or 11th. In addition to working in groups, i like how the groups were randomly selected by the colored erasers, by using this method throughout the school year students will get acquainted with all of their classmates instead of the select few they are friends with, this also eliminates the teacher from placing the weaker students with the stronger which is benefecial but not good to do all of the time.

Scientific Revolution

I really enjoyed the scientific revolution activity day in class. The lesson was set up in a great way to show us how we can incorporate science and social studies together. The activities were very engaging and hands-on, which students will love. One way that I could incorporate this science lesson with social studies is to have the students research the history behind each of the experiments we did in class. They could find out who tried those experiments first and how they recorded their findings. I think it would be a great way to teach students that many of the ideas we have today about the way things are stem from ideas people in history had. It is also a great way to show why recording data is important. If you want other people to hear your ideas and improve it is some way, it needs to be written down for them to see. I also think that you can study the origins of certain scientific ideas and have students study the cultures of those scientists. Overall, I see how easily science and social studies concepts can be interwoven in lessons.

Scientific Revolution

I really liked the class on scientific revolution. I really liked how Dr. Besnoy showed us how to do and how engaging and meaningful it is to use cross curriculum. In that one class period there was so many ways that you could incorporate science into social studies. In any of those experiments you could do the history of who and how they can to those concepts. You could even talk about where that person was from and their government at that time period and maybe how their government has evolved. You could even do their culture. I really liked the lesson. I thought that it was great and that I could possibly use in my own classroom.

Scientific Revolution

The class on scientific revolution was really cool. I learn best from hands on experiences. Really cool lesson for teaching social studies. The only down fall for me was that I have learned about all of the modes of learning and I know I am a kinestic learner. So I would like to see new methods that will work for students who are not kinestic learners. It may be a little too late for this semester but I was expecting to learn a bunch of new methods during my methods block.

Fossils

I taught a lesson on fossils and paleontologist last Wednesday. The lesson went really well. I was very pleased because I had teachers asking me for my lesson plan. The other really cool thing that happened was the other kindergarten teacher not only asked me for a lesson plan she asked me if she could borrow my materials. She wanted to teach her class the lesson that day. That says a lot for a pre-service teacher. I am very proud of the work that I put into the lesson. What a cool experience for me.

Scientific Revolution

I really thought this class was interesting how we can relate social studies and science for a class as a whole. I thought each activity was interesting and would really keep students interested in the task at hand. The beginning of the lesson caught everyones attention because it was eye catching and kind of "off the wall". Many students would find the whole finger thing funny and it would get them interested in why we are discussing the particular topic.

Disappointed :(

My partner taught her lessons this week and I am disppointed to say that I was not able to be there either day to see her lessons. I was expected to be at a math fair while my partner taught her lessons. I was a little upset about this because this would have been the first time we would have seen social studies being taught. I think I could have gotten more out of my experience this week if I would have seen Abby teach then if I were at the math fair. These lessons are possibly lessons I could teach and it would have been nice to be there to see if I woul change anything or adapt anything for me. I know you should adapt every lesson to your particular class but I was looking forward to these lessons because we both worked very hard on this unit.

Scientific Revolution

I enjoyed this class because it allowed movement as the class progressed. I love hands on experiences, and if I can do this in social studies even better. Many lessons could be planned around each of these stations that relate to social studies and would give students the opportunity to look at the subject in a different manner.

Done with teaching

Well I survived teaching for P2. All my lessons went great. Just yesterday I finished my unit on economics through the use of stations. Back when I had planned this day of my unit I had planned on the help of all the adults that were in the room. Well when it came to teach that day, my partner was able to be there that day due to the math fair that was going on. Because I was missing this person my stations at times were a little chaotic due to the lack of help. It still went well, and the students loved the lesson! They loved the fact that I gave each of them a blank checks, and that I brought in Japanese money for them to look at. Everything went great, I'm now looking forward to student teaching!

Scientific Revolution Class

Hey- the class with all of the groups was so much fun. Awesome way to follow up a power point! I love being able to get out of my seat during a college course. The balloon experiment was my favorite. It was cool to get all of those experiment ideas so we could use them in our future classrooms. The picutre on the power point of the finger was awesome too. That was a great way to get the class' attention- show something gross, but very interesting. BESNOY- can you send me an e-mail of where I could find that picture? thanx- (olsona@nku.edu)

soc. studies

John and I have never seen her teach social studies. I do not think that she even teaches it. Her students are missing out on a lot. She told us how she took her class last year to Build-A-Bear for an economics lesson, but she has done nothing with them this year like that. The only time her students have had social studies, from what John and I can see, was when WE taught them about maps. Why is it that when I was in grade school, we had time for every subject, EVERY DAY!!! Now, teachers complain that there is not enough time in the day. How is that? Maybe it is just an excuse to not teach them certain subjects? I do not know, I just know that her students are missing out on a lot of interesting and fun things.

crazy teacher

Okay so I really need to vent about my CT. She is crazy. John and I cannot believe how stinkin lazy she is. She does not ever try with her students. If they do not get something, she just says "oh well, they arent getting it." An example is with their math tables. My class does not understand their addition tables. So she has decided to have them to a timed tables test about 3 to 4 times a week. She said that this will get them to know them better. I COMPLETELY DISAGREE. Working with them more on this will get them to learn them. She also never feels like teaching math, or any subject at that. I do not know if she is just burned out, or does not want to do anything, BUT SHE IS REALLY LAZY. I feel the only reason she wants John and I in there is because she is lazy and does not want to teach for 3 hours of her day. And she never knows what she is going to do for the day. She is never prepared. I do not understand how she has taught for 20 years. She is a great person, but she is really lazy. I do not know what to do about this. I know we only have 2 more weeks after this week, but its just driving me crazy.