Native Americans Rock!

Talking About The Native Americans

Today was our first day at Bishop Dunn watching Group 1 take the plunge and teach for the first time. I felt nervous for them and commend them for going first. There topic was on Native Americans. The students seemed to know a lot of prior knowledge on Native Americans which helped them with this lesson. Bryanna started with the opening of the lesson and clearly stated all the goals that the students will be able to accomplish in that time period. I think it was important to include this aspect to help the students pinpoint what they will be taking out of this lesson. In the development my fellow teacher candidates ran into a few problems. Before the problems started they gave a brief introduction on what the word shelter means to the students. Heather asked the students their definition on shelter and based the definition off of the pictures that she showed them. I really like how Heather compared and contrasted certain shelters so that the students could get a clear view on what they are looking at. The one suggestion I have for group one is to try not to make it sound so rehearsed. Everyone knew the content which is really important, but if it sounds too rehearsed the students will be able to pick up on it.  After a few slides were up, unfortunately the power went out and Group 1 was no longer able to use the Smart Board for their presentation. This was an unfortunate power outage, but Group 1 worked with the inconvenience and finished their Direct lesson strong. I know being the first group it was hard to think about backups, but when teaching we have to keep in mind that technology can be our enemy sometimes. The only suggestion with that is to bring in visuals for the students just in case something like this happens. An example of this would be using a poster board to post all the key terms you want the students to know. Something as simple as that will go a long way for the students. The one thing Group 1 did well with is recuperating and getting back the lesson. Each student was given a colored card to hold up if the students agreed or disagreed. This was mostly used with the check point questions which hits the understanding section with Bloom's Taxonomy. Students were asked to hold the green side up if they agreed and the red side up they disagreed with any statement. This helps the students stay on task and helps all students participate. Now that I talked about the introduction and development, it is now time to discuss the guided practice. Group 1 supplied the students with 1 guided practices that they all completed. The one they used was a graphic organizer describing the difference between each tribe. Graphic organizers are a good way to help the students organize their thoughts and ideas. This assignment was designed to help the students understand the difference between the tribes and their shelters. I thought it was an excellent idea to draw a graph on the board so the students could follow along. Melissa did a good job working with the students to complete the activity. After the students were done filling in the information, they were asked to draw a picture of the different shelters. I noticed with this grade in particular, students seem to love drawing pictures. Drawing pictures is very useful for students because it still hits a section in Bloom's Taxonomy. This is not considered the highest order of thinking, but it is still apart of the understanding section. I really liked how you had the students draw on their paper and then come to the board to draw on the board. Just be careful with having the students come to the board because every student wants a chance to draw on the board as well. Overall the direct lesson went really well for your group. I will mention every lesson in this one blog.
Helping Steve
Artifact bags are a great idea for the students to follow the inquiry process. Before introducing the artifact bags the students listened to a Voki giving them a problem to solve. Voki is an excellent Web 2.0 tool to use for the students because it helps them engage within the lesson. The only thing with the Voki is to make sure to show the students at the right time. It was a little to early in the lesson to introduce the Voki because when the students were about to complete the artifact bags they forgot what the problem was for them to solve.  I also know how hard it is to teach the steps of inquiry, but if you modeled the steps for them I think they would grasp the concept of what is required of them. It was so much fun to watch the students interact during this artifact bag lesson. Each student seemed very engaged and excited to find out their tribe. During this inquiry process, students are hitting the applying section of the Bloom's Taxonomy. Each step in this pyramid can go by how you implement the lesson being taught. The students didn't really get a chance to explain their findings. Due to time Payge, explained the answers to the artifact bags. I understand time was permitting, but giving the students time to present their findings hits a higher order of thinking. This allows the students to evaluate how he/she worked within their groups. The only suggestion for this section is to have a more structured time frame that the students had to work within. Otherwise for the first group to go you did an excellent job with your inquiry lesson. Which then brings me to the final lesson which is Cooperative. 
Building Tepee's
Making tepee's was an excellent way to end the lesson. This worked with the kinesthetic learners because they had to do hands on work. The one aspect I really liked through this lesson was how the teacher candidates worked one on one with each table. Everyone kept the students on task and helped if they asked for it. One thing I would've liked to see is each group building each shelter. I know it was hard and expensive to buy all the materials, but when you are student teaching that would be an excellent idea to have the students create the shelters. Group 1 seemed to use some of the 5 PIG's within this lesson. They hit  most of them except the face-to-face interaction and positive interdependence. During this lesson, it is important to have the students chose roles and have responsibility for that desired role. I didn't really get a chance to see if each student had a certain role to follow when they were building their tepee's. The last aspect that I will mention is face-to-face interaction. Time was running out at this point and it was hard to have the students present their tepee's. Time management was extremely hard with teaching both inquiry and cooperative. I think Group 1 worked well with the time management in some attributes. Overall Group 1 set the bar pretty high for the other groups because they did extremely well with all their lessons. Until next time bloggers :)