Journal #9 Fieldwork Week 2

This week we finished teaching our WWII lessons. It was such a great learning experience. I had so much fun practicing the different teaching methods I have been learning in school. In fact, one day we used the Synectics model for our lesson and our field supervisor was so impressed with the way the lesson was presented, she cried tears of joy!

I've also been learning different management techniques. I've learned that I need to give very detailed instructions before the students start their assignments, or it can create a lot of confusion. My partner and I decided we wanted the students to perform a reader's theatre. For our last lesson, we had them write their reader's theatres with their groups, and the entire class was confused on how to write them and ended up not writing anything for a long time. When they got back from recess, we gave them an idea on how to write the reader's theatre, and every group except one was able to complete the assignment. Tomorrow I am going to work with that group and help them write their reader's theatre while the other groups are practicing to theirs.

We also taught our "Technology Rich" lesson this week. Each of the students enjoyed doing a webquest where they learned about the technologies of WWII.

It has been so fun working with these students. I'm so sad that this week is our last week with them!

Journal #8: Fieldwork Week One

The first week of fieldwork has gone by so fast! I absolutely LOVE working a 6th grade classroom. The students are absolutely wonderful! It has been so much fun getting to know both our cooperating teacher and his class. Our teacher always finds ways for us to help in the classroom. We get to help the students with their schoolwork, take them to P.E./recess, and grade MOUNTAINS of assignments.

Last week Rebecka and I had some time to prepare for our lessons. Luckily, she had designed these lessons earlier this semester for Curriculum Design and Assessment so all we had to do was make some minor adjustments. I am so excited to actually put what I have learned throughout the semester to use.

Our lessons are geared towards Social Studies but we also get to include technology and creative arts in them. Before we went into the class, I was a little nervous about how we were going to go about these lessons simply because our cooperating teacher is a core teacher, not a Social Studies teacher. He wanted us to teach about WWII and suggested we used the Language Arts time to teach our lessons.

Although I am excited for this week, I am somewhat nervous because our supervisor will be there for our first lesson!

Journal #7

Last week in class we turned in our Digital Stories and continued to work on our personal webpage. I was glad to have teh digital story done and turned in. I don't think I will have my future students make their own digital stories simply because they take so much time to put together.

I do like the idea of having a class webpage. I think it's a great way to keep parents notified of important dates. I also like being able to post homework assignments, and providing a description for each assignment. This way, the parents and students always know what they can expect to learn in class that day, and they can also be aware of how much time they will need to spend on assignments for school. I would definitely love to use this in my classroom!

Journal #6

This week has probably been my favorite class period so far this semester. We learned how to add the google calendar, assignment, and announcement pages to our website. I spent the entire class period working on the calendar because I had so much fun with it! I absolutely LOVE this feature and would definitely use it my future classroom. The google calendar and the class webpage is a great way to let students/parents become aware of important events and dates. I also love that we can add descriptions to assignments and events. This feature is absolutely fantastic!

Journal #5

Last Monday we continued to work on our digital videos. Fortunately, Rebecka and I were able to work through ours with minimal amounts of trouble this week. In fact, we are almost done with our video! I am excited to see the outcome because we put forth a lot of effort into finding the right pictures, music, and voice recordings. Now that we have all of our sounds and pictures in Photo Story, we just have to work on making everything come together to show the effects of child labor in the early 1900's.

Journal #4

This week in class we started working on putting our story board together. I realized that creating a digital video takes a lot of work. It was hard to find free music to download (the different copyright laws for the various websites are what make the process complicated). My partner and I did not have too much luck with the music. Hopefully we can find something soon! I hope that we can get this video done with little stress and use it during our field experience.

Journal #3

This week in class we talked about Digital Videos. Digital Videos have many purposes. For this class, Rebecka and I have teamed up in hopes that we will be able to use our video regarding Child Labor for one of our sixth grade Social Studies lessons during our field experience. This experience has helped me to realize that although these videos require A LOT of time and planning, they can be very useful with helping students to truly understand the effects of different events throughout history.