I'm student teaching in 2 1/2 years!!

Brooke Myrick
Dr. Parker
EDUC 250
3/26/18

I'm student teaching in 2 and 1/2 years!! 

Little more than a month of class left. Soon class will consist of all of us teaching lessons instead of Dr. Parker teaching lessons. We have done many group tasks and even started picking apart at EDTPA. We received our handbooks and Dr. Clarke was nice enough to give us the abbreviated version to help us out during our lesson. One of the main takeaways from these past weeks have been the proposal Dr. Parker always gives us. He has asked us what kind of things did some of our favorite teachers do. All answers lead towards engaging lessons and their ability to get on our level and form a relationship with them. Dr. Parker calls this type of teacher "student-centered" which directly correlates to the fact that the teacher is all about his/her students. "Teacher centered" teachers are selfish when it comes to their students. They take the easy way out when preparing lessons. They hand out worksheets and believe they are above anyone within their classroom. I have decided that I am going to do everything in my power to be the best "student-centered" teacher that I can be. I want to be the teacher that kids remember even when they have graduated from college/grown because they truly feel like they learned and were loved in my classroom. It is one of the goals of my future classroom to interact with my students on a relationship basis deeper than student and teacher but rather them see me as someone they know that cares for about them. The best lesson that happened in EDUC250 was actually today's lesson. For today's lesson, a former 250 student and now a level 3 education major taught our class about cause and effect. She did not teach a room full of college students about cause and effect but a room full of "third graders". My class pretended to be at the third-grade level to experience what an efficient lesson plan takes and what it looks like. She did a great job of engaging all of us in her lesson and made us feel apart of everything. Her lesson plan looked like this: 

Cause and Effect

Focus and Review:  She asked questions on cause and effect to grasp our basic understanding of the concepts. She used examples like "it's raining so we need an umbrella" to help us understand that the cause always happens first and then the effect is what happens because of the cause. While she was asking us questions she was simultaneously assessing us on what we knew about the concept in order to gauge how to further move on with the lesson. 

Teacher Input: Her teacher input was creative and involved more than just literacy. We read aloud the book "When you give a Moose a Muffin" which is full of cause and effect examples and she pointed each one out to us as we went through the story. She had the storybook pulled up on the screen which helped visual learner and we also read the story which benefited audio learners. She also prepared several mini science experiments to help us begin to predict what the effect could be based on the cause. The science experiments were interesting and which helped kinesthetic learners in the room to comprehend the lesson. 

Guided Practice: She prepared a matching word/ sentence activity which forced us to again acknowledge that the cause always comes first before the effect. She had several sight words selected that the kids could begin to associate those words to cause and effect. During the activity, she was walking around the classroom and reviewing our sentences. If we had made an error she never put us down but explained the correct way and encouraged us!

Independent Practice: She had us write our own creative sentences and read one aloud to the entire class to make sure we grasped the concept. While we were forming our sentences this time she did not offer any feedback to allow us to make the connections all by ourselves. She assessed us that we all had the basic concepts of cause and effect and felt like the lesson was over.

Closure: In closure, she said: "class dismissed". In my opinion, she had the opportunity to wrap things up in a much better way rather than just dismissing us. She could have asked us to think of a cause and effect at home tonight and tell her tomorrow she could have asked us to look outside and come up with a cause and effect sentence. There could have been a great connection to the real world and cause and effect made. 

All in all, I believe she did a fantastic job and through watching her interact with us I could imagine myself doing the same thing in the future. In her lesson, it is clear that she used and has a clear understanding of EDTPA and a great way to depict what each individual standard from NCTCS. She was organized and well prepared for several lessons.

In my outside research, I looked into how to control my classroom and be clearly be in power over the kids but also be on their level. To successfully be in charge the expectations of the students must be explicit to them, the classroom must be organized and a routine must be established and practiced. In order to establish the expectations, the students must understand that you will go through with the consequences. On the first day of school, your rules must go over and made sure they are understood. The classroom school supplies must be organized and the students must understand what they are allowed to use and what not to touch. Many teachers assign classroom jobs which give the students a sense of responsibility and a privilege. Furniture and learning centers must be placed strategically in order to minimize distractions that could interrupt the attention of students. Through all of these ways to manage a classroom the student's negative behavior to a minimum. 

This upcoming chunk is when we take what we have learned all semester and put it into our own lesson plan. Crazy to think in two and a half years I will be student teaching! Can't wait!!