Teaching my classmates

Teaching my classmates about Jean Paiget's Theory of Cognitive Development.

Reflection #6: Teaching Experience

06/18/13

         Today I presented my team building activity to Mr. Smith’s class. I would say it was successful. I had the children number off into four groups and the groups branched off. I made sure they knew that they were spelling “success” with their bodies, and I had them spell it to me in harmony. They then started trying to form the first letter using three of their group members. The teacher and I were the judges, and we determined if the letter was successful or unsuccessful. If the letter was successful they passed to the next letter, if it wasn’t they had to try again by the time I got back to them to judge. They had to use three group members for every letter except the second “C” (they had to use four people) the third “S” (they had to use four people) and the third “S” (they had to only use two people). When I asked them, after the activity, what they learned they told me teamwork and communication. I then asked the group that lost why they believed they lost. They told me “because we were all trying to be the leader.  We weren’t listening to each other.  We just kept bossing each other around”. I then realized that they learned what they were suppose to therefore, this lesson was successful. I believe that they learned more when I had them interact with each other because it showed them that sometimes you do have to depend on other people to be successful. Communication is a major factor and they learned that communication it always the key! I gave them a couple different scenarios, so they knew doing team-building activities isn’t the only time that you should practice good communication skills.

         I had one trouble student, and he basically was trying to be the boss of everything and instead of being a leader and guiding his classmates to success, he yelled at them and pointed out what they were doing wrong but not in the correct way. I had a situation where he was over in the other group telling them the “S” that they were making was ugly and that they weren’t going to win.  Then I let him know that he needed to go back to his group to help them build a better “S” because they may lose if all of their group member’s aren’t helping. They ended up losing and I pointed out to him that next time he should try to practice team participation skills so his team can win or have a better chance of winning. Overall, I had a good experience with the children and I’m pleased with the outcome. 

Reflection #5 Observation

06/16/13

         The class I observed was amazing and the teacher is very good at what he does. The first lesson the students had to complete was listing five significant things about a famous person of his choice. He then made the students present to the class and explain their findings. After that, it was time to play a game with the information the students found. The kids really enjoyed it we all thought it was a nice game. Lastly, they played a team building activity and the groups had to all stand on a certain amount of pieces of paper until they couldn’t anymore. It was fun and creative.

         He had all control over his classroom. They really, really respect him. They know what is expected of them and that they need to get the job done in the timely manner and to the expectations he desires. I respect him a lot for being one of those teachers that expect the most from their students and don’t just do their job to get the paycheck. He told me that he tried being one of those teachers that the school trained him to be but he then realized that being himself is what will get the job done and done in the way that he wants it to be. Doing his job like that he realized that his students appreciated and respected him a lot more and they they responded much better. The environment is really good, its clean and appropriate. Just in that little time period I learned a lot from being in his class even though it didn’t show on Friday. I think having these experiences will help better myself, not only when it comes to teaching, but also when it comes to controlling myself. A major thing that I've learned is that you can’t control a classroom until you have SELF-control. Mr. Smith wants me to come up with a team building activity, and so far I have a lot in mind. So far, I haven’t found a team building activity that has me jumping out of my seat excited so tonight, that is my project.

Reflection #4: In- Class Lesson Presention

06/12/13

My group and I taught how to model strut and I was the male model, Keyana was the female model and Cre'Shawn was the model of what not to do. We taught the class by first defining what a model is and the difference between a male model and a female model. After they got a better understanding of the different model struts, my group and I demonstrated the different ways to model. We then picked individuals out of the class to try and do their model strut. Some people participated and some didn’t. One of the strategies we used was to first go over classroom rules and make sure everyone was on board and knew what we expected from them. To me, it was a good method, but I personally don’t think we were ready to work on classroom management. We’ve had a lot of demonstrations, but I think we got caught up in being funny and stopped focusing on what we were suppose to be doing. I also believe that our teachers should have assigned the lessons that we needed to teach before we actually taught them. That would have gotten everyone’s attention better and probably would’ve helped better because none of the groups could think of anything to teach the class, then when we finally figured out something it was either boring to the class or the lesson didn’t have much valuable information which eventually led the class to be less attentive. I don’t think it worked because once again, I feel like we started out okay and then everyone in the groups started to disrupt the class and try to make everyone laugh and it lost everyone’s attention. We were teaching things that no one would be interested in except elementary school students. If we taught them math, they wouldn’t have been that interested because it’s boring to most people, but at the same time, it would have been far more worth getting everyone’s attention. I believe it would have been worth getting everyone’s attention because math is something everyone needs to know but modeling isn’t for everyone. My overall reflection is that this was a good exercise- a very good exercise. We could have had a better outcome if the rules of the exercise were stricter and if we focused more on the purpose of the exercise instead of making everyone laugh. Some of the problems the students were creating were talking back, if I told them to get a pen and pencil out they told me they didn’t want to and this lesson was dumb. They started fighting and being argumentative with my group and myself. Talking over each other was the main issue, I couldn’t even hear myself think and we were getting beyond far off topic. They were just not showing much respect to the classroom nor teachers at all.

Reflection #3: First Teaching Experience/Observation

06/11/13

         Today was one of the most exciting days. Teaching the children was a blast and working with my group members was even better. Today showed me that working with little children can be a very, very fun experience and not only do we teach them plenty of important information, they teach us a lot too. My favorite part was talking to the children, getting to know them and creating a little bond. Certain kids started clinging to certain group members. The only thing I wasn’t fond of in this experience were the bugs, of course! I am greatly afraid of bugs but I had to seem like they didn’t bother me while I was in front of the children. The teachers were very nice and easy to work with: they helped us more then I thought they would, and we actually got done with our lesson quicker than I thought we would. Saying goodbye to the students was difficult. I enjoyed them so much that I wished I were coming back the next day to teach them about something else. I really enjoyed myself and I would like to go back. I think when we go to the school with the special needs students it’s going to be the next best thing.

        When we began teaching the students that day, we reinforced level one (Pre-conventional Morality), stage one of Lawrence Kohlberg’s Stages of Morality. Stage one is obedience or punishment and it states that rules are established and children are expected to obey or receive punishment/consequences. We reinforced level one when the students began talking over us and not everyone was putting up their “Moose Ears”, which is a method used to grasp the children’s attention and to quiet them down. One of the instructors and myself told the students that they would have to put their Moose ears up and quiet down or they would take a time-out.

         I would say the setting of the place was very healthy, fun and energetic. The people were environmental based; they cared deeply about the environment and wouldn’t even let us kill a spider that was crawling around on the floor. The facility was very clean and it was well organized. They had animals around the place such as: frogs, snakes, turtles and very many insects but thankfully they were all in cages.

         The behavior of the students was pretty good. We only had one crier and we got his complaint solved quick, fast and in a hurry! We didn’t have to ask the children multiple times to do something and they always got it done without talking back. I was very surprised and pleased about that! Their cognitive levels were high; interaction really got their attention and got their little minds flowing. If we didn’t have interaction, I don’t think they would have responded as well as they did.

         The teacher’s actions and interactions were my motivation because they did their jobs so well and I wanted to be like them when it came to communicating with the children. They did their jobs well, and if I decided to become a teacher and/or day care worker, I will think of them and the ways they taught me how to handle the children.

         I applaud my group members; they did an excellent job! Everyone did what they were supposed to, equally and with enthusiasm and it went better than expected. We all worked together, got the jobs done and took many pictures. I’m excited for what we have next in store.