Teach Me How to CUBE!

Today, my group and I did our ten minute Current Events lesson. Though this lesson was implemented with college students, it was geared towards fifth graders. The video below was our way of engaging our targeted audience.

After engaging our ten students, we put two students in charge of each of  five of the viewpoints. They were able to look at how to do their viewpoint on our class forum: 

Description: 

After reading this article, you will describe what the article is about.

Comparison: 

After reading this article, you will compare your findings to a time when you were praised for something that you didn't think you deserved. 

Association:

After reading this article, you will associate what you read with something else that you have learned about, either in the news, class, or in your personal life.

Analysis: 

After reading this article, you will analyze the details that you read in order to break it up into four main parts.

 Application:

After reading this article, you will write down how you can apply the message that you learned to your own life.

Argumentation:

After reading this article, argue whether you believe that Faulkner did the right thing by asking for his Purple Heart later on in life or if you think it was too late? Why?

We then modeled how to do our cubing activity with the four following steps, using the description viewpoint. 

—Step 1: Read Instructions for your viewpoint, so that you know what you are looking for when reading.

—Step 2: Read an article.

——Step 3: Write your viewpoint as a title and then compose about 3 sentence from your viewpoint.

Step 4: Tape your paragraph to our “Super Cool Class Cube” 

My group and I chose an article called, 89-year-old U.S. WWII vet Richard Faulkner, which was about a veteran who wanted to receive his Purple Heart that he had turned down many years ago. He stated that he had turned it down because he didn't feel right accepting such an award after the death of all of his friends. However, after enough time to grieve, he realized that he wanted to have his Purple Heart to pass down to his grandchildren in memory of his military service. 

I have provided the link to the article here: http://www.studentnewsdaily.com/blog/quote-of-the-week/89-year-old-u-s-wwii-vet-richard-faulkner/

Cubing Activity Completed

We concluded the lesson by having students discuss their viewpoints and how it felt to have to look at something in a different way. We also related the topic back to school, work, social lives, and personal lives. The end goal was to get students to understand that being able to look at things from a different perspective is very important in all aspects of life. I think that we succeeding in meeting this goal and that the activity a whole went very well. 

Three Likes: 

1) The students found our PowerPoint Presentation and "Super Cool Class Cube" to be engaging.

2) All of the students got to be part of this activity and got a chance to talk about their viewpoint

3) We were able to relate the ideas of viewpoints back to personal lives, school, jobs, and social lives. 

~*~*~A Wish ~*~*~

** I wish that we had more time to do this activity **

You Can't Finish a Puzzle Without Every Piece

 About a month ago, my classmates and I were divided up into three separate groups. In our original groups, we each picked a topic on Cooperative Learning. Being that I chose to do Cooperative Learning Lesson Planning for my original group, I was then put into an expert group with the other groups' members who chose to do Cooperative learning lesson planning. The three of us then worked together to become experts within our topic, so that we could later teach our own groups about Cooperative Learning lesson planning. This method is known as the Jigsaw Method. In education today, the idea of group work is very valued because there is so much evidence to show that students learn best from each other.  
             

Because of the horrid weather and the interruption of fieldwork, we had to postpone the portion of jigsaw puzzle where each expert  taught their topics to the members of their original groups. Today, we finally got to present, and I began my presentation by activating prior knowledge and pre-assessing my peers orally. After seeing how much they already knew, I then moved on to talk about some tips for Cooperative Learning lesson plans, such as, the importance of making sure that your students know what is wanted from them, both socially and academically. You want to make sure that students are being respectful towards one another, being good listeners, using indoor voices, and focusing on their specific role. You also want to make sure that your objectives are understood and manageable for all students, while also ensuring that those objectives are congruent to your activity. Lastly, it is very important to choose your groups wisely. You should never leave this up to chance, and you should make sure that you are putting students together who will benefit one another. 

After this, I went over the five steps of Jigsaw: Choosing a lesson, making pre-instructional decisions, explaining the task and cooperative goal structure, monitoring and intervening, and processing and assessing. You can learn about these more in depth by viewing our Cooperative Learning Lesson Planning Slideshow. {To see our complete slide show, Click here }

After doing this, we reviewed a Cooperative Learning lesson plan template specific to Mount Saint Mary College. We did not have time to watch the video below, but I feel that it implements a Cooperative Learning lesson plan very nicely. I also did not have time for our "Cool Down" to assess how much my peers learned, but it is in my slideshow. 

Expanding to the West...

This week was a last first. It was the last first time that a group would begin their lessons. This was bittersweet because I was excited to see what a wonderful lesson group four had for us, but it also hit me that this meant we would be leaving the second grade class soon. Ms. Julie. Mr. Kimbark, Ms. Rachel, and Ms. Jessica started the class with a review of what the students had learned from the previous three groups (Indians, Pilgrims,  & Thirteen Colonies). They then moved forward and presented a PowerPoint  on Western Expansion under Thomas Jefferson's presidency. There was a special focus on Lewis and Clark, who were explorers that really paved the way towards Western Expansion. They also pointed out several other key details and terms, which they later based their cross word puzzle on for independent practice. 

For their Inquiry lesson, the teachers had a very well planned dialog that presented the problem and engaged the students. The three girls each gave their points as to why they believed a certain form of transportation was the best way to expand Westward until Mr. Kimbark stated that they should ask the second graders for help. The second graders were then split up into three groups: railroad, boats, and horse drawn wagons. They had to look up information and then present why their mode of transportation was the best. The students were highly engaged and so well behaved during this activity. 

                                  

During the final lesson, the teachers did an absolutely amazing job by having groups create scrapbooks. The students pretended to be Lewis and Clark in order to write letters explaining their journey, figure out what to bring on their journey, and writing down all of the things that they might have seen. 



*FIREWORKS* to Ms. Julie. Mr. Kimbark, Ms. Rachel, and Ms. Jessica. You all did such a wonderful job with your three lessons!

~☆~ 2nd Grade Stars ~☆~

Today was rather depressing because it was the last day of teaching for my group. However, we made sure to remain in good spirits and ended our teaching in one of the most engaging ways possible. In this case, we decided that meant that we were going to make our second graders stars. After reviewing all of the material that we covered, we split the students up into four groups of five or six students, each of which were supposed to create a poster for their play and put on a performance. Each student had an acting role, but they were also in charge of the following tasks: Director (2), Poster Creators (2), and Time keeper (1). 

The plays consisted of the following:

Taxation Without Representation (My Group)

Narrator 1: Some people moved from England to North America in hopes for freedom.

Narrator 2: These people were known as colonists, and they created the 13 colonies

Narrator 1: But, when they got to the 13 colonies, the British still treated the colonists unfairly.

Colonist 1: Oh Patrick Henry, can you believe the taxes that the British are making us pay!

Patrick Henry: I know, it is just not fair!

Colonist 2: We are already paying taxes to our own colony!

Colonist 3: Yeah! We don't want to pay taxes to England too!

Patrick Henry: And now they want us to pay even  more taxes!

Colonist 1: We shouldn't have to pay taxes if we are not represented in the British government..

Colonist 2: Yeah! There are no colonists that are part of the British government to tell them how unfair they are being!

Patrick Henry: And taxation without representation is not fair!

Colonist 2: The King will not even let us make our own rules!

Narrator 2: The colonists decided that they were no longer going to buy anything from Britain because of their unfair taxes.

Colonist 3:  We must bring all 13 colonies together and fight the British!

Everyone: Give us freedom! Give us freedom! We want our freedom! No taxation without representation!


Overall, I felt that the plays went very well. The students were very engaged and the plays focused on all aspects of our chapter, Thirteen Colonies, One Country. I only wish that we had more time for the students to practice or even create props. For next time, I know that giving second graders a poster and play in thirty minutes is not enough time.

Second Grade for the Win

Today, my group had to teach the second grade once again. For our second lesson, we worked on developing our Inquiry teaching skills. We began the lesson by first activating students prior knowledge. This was done simply by asking students questions about what we learned during our Direct Lesson. With each answer, my group members and I built off of each others ideas in order to get through the key terms and ideas for the entire chapter. 

Once finished with that, we brought back the Patrick Henry Voki that the students seemed to love during our first lesson. Along with Patrick Henry, we introduced a Voki of all of the students' favorite patriot, Paul Revere. Together, Patrick Henry and Paul Revere said the following dialog to introduce the problem: 

Patrick Henry: Hello again boys and girls! I hope you all remember that my name is Patrick Henry. My friend, Paul Revere thinks that he knows more about American History than the second grade class does! Do you boy and girls agree with him?

Paul Revere: Well of course they agree with me. I was there, wasn't I Patrick?

Patrick Henry: But these boys and girls just learned all about American History. I know that they can tell you all about it!

Paul Revere: Is that so? Well how about this...I am going to give each group four clues and you will have to use those clues to find out my secret answer. Do you boys and girls think you are up for the challenge?

Unfortunately, we were hit with the fact that technology doesn't always work the way that you want it to in the classroom. Our Voki videos would not work, so we had to do the dialog one by one instead of clicking back and forth on the videos in our PowerPoint. Regardless, the students absolutely loved these Voki's. They all responded with so much enthusiasm, and it was clear that Voki's are a very engaging and interactive way to introduce a topic or problem starter. 

Before handing out the clues, we first went over how to be a good problem solver. We put special emphasis on the hypothesis, where we modeled how to create an "if...then..." statement for the students. We then handed out a data sheet, which consisted of five sections for students to write down their hypothesis and conclusion, for each of our five "Who or What am I?"'s 

The last thing that we did before handing out the clues was to explain that students would choose one clue from the clue bags and write their hypothesis. After writing their hypothesis, they would then read or view the last three clues in order to come up with their groups conclusion. 

Who or What am I? Activity

After completing the activity, we had each table present one set of the Who or What am I? clues, their hypothesis, and their conclusion. Before having them present this information, Ms. Patricia, Ms. Jean, Ms. Julia, and I went over how to be good presenters and the fact that hypotheses are not always correct. We also made sure that each group had their clue set correct before they went up to the board. We purposely had one group, who had their hypothesis wrong, do the clue set for Paul Revere. 

Paraphrasing what was said: 

"This group's hypothesis was not correct, but you can tell they took an educated guess. The first clue that they picked was "I am a patriot". Patrick Henry was a patriot, so it makes sense that they would guess him for their hypothesis. After more clues, they realized that the answer was Paul Revere. Paul Revere is correct! Great job boys and girls!"

 {The other clue set answers were George Washington, The Declaration of Independence, Independence Day, and the American Revolution}

Overall, the lesson went very well. All of the groups finished almost all of the clue sets with enthusiasm and proper structure. They once again showed us how much information they were able to retain and understand. I feel completely confident in doing our last lesson this Friday!

The British Are Coming, The British Are Coming!!!

Today was the BIG day! It was finally time for my group to teach during fieldwork. I was a little nervous, but getting to go third allowed us the time to really get to know the students before planning our three lessons. This was extremely helpful because it allowed us to make any accommodations and modifications needed to ensure that each student has an equal opportunity to learn. It was also convenient that the subject we were teaching was Social Studies because I am perusing a degree in History. This took away some of the stress for my first full class lesson because I felt very knowledgeable with the content that we needed to teach. Another aspect that helped me feel more comfortable was the fact that I am a camp counselor. I am used to working with large groups of children in a way where I have to demonstrate strong enthusiasm for a subject, exhibit good managing behavior skills, and keep children engaged for a long period of time. 

Our three lessons circles around a chapter that discussed the thirteen colonies establishing themselves as an independent nation. We began with our Direct Lesson, which really focused in on key concepts and vocabulary words of the chapter. Before presenting our Prezi, Ms. Patricia, Ms. Jean, Ms. Julia, and I activated our students prior knowledge by reviewing the previous chapters on Native Americans and Pilgrims.

Because Direct Lessons can be rather dry, we decided to make the Prezi more interactive and engaging by adding a Voki. Our Voki was Patrick Henry, who was a colonist during this time period.

"Hello, my name is Patrick Henry. I moved from Britain to Virginia, one of the thirteen colonies. I moved to Virginia in hopes that one day I would gain my religious freedom. However, when I got to Virginia I realized that we were still under British control"

"Finally the thirteen colonies came together in order to defeat the British. How were they able to do this you ask...Well........"

 :

While presenting, we made sure to have the students repeat all of the important terms as a full class. During one of my slides, I even had students stand up and pretend to be Paul Revere. They all galloped and yelled, "The British are coming, the British are coming!" This was something that I decided to do right on the spot and I do not regret it for a minute. The students responded to this in a very positive way, and I do not think that they will ever forget who Paul Revere is now. 

   

After every couple of slides, we decided to make the lesson even more interactive by using the SmartBoard. Ms. Jean created a True/False activity where students had to come up to the board to place a statement in the True or False swirl. If the student got the True/ False right, the statement would swirl into the choice that was chosen and disappear. If the student got it wrong, the SmartBoard would tell them to try again. We did this two times during our presentation and there were five questions each time. After a student answered, we would ask them to tell us why it was true or false in order to get the correct information across to all of the students. 

SmartBoard True/False Activity

 (Created by Ms. Jean)

After completing the Prezi, we gave the students an Independent Practice crossword puzzle activity that went over the key terms and ideas that the students had just learned about in our lesson. Being that they were only in second grade, we decided to give them a word bank in order to help them with spelling these words. We then went over the activity as a class, where I would say the clue aloud and the entire class would respond with the answer. The activity showed us that the students really seemed to understand and remember almost all of the information that we taught. They were very engaged during this activity, and it was quite clear that our lesson went pretty well. 

Cross Word Puzzle Activity 

(Created by me)

Sample of a student's work

(With two minutes left to complete the activity) 

We then closed our lesson by doing a quick review and assigning a reading comprehension passage with questions on Paul Revere. Overall, I was so proud of the way that our lesson turned out. The students were very enthusiastic about learning and I think that we presented the material very clearly. Though it was a Direct lesson, we were really able to make the content engaging for the students. We did slip up by saying "guys" and "gonna" a couple of times, but we did fantastic for our first time teaching. *FIREWORKS FOR US*