Week 2 of Field

This week was by far the most fun, and most stressful. We taught our Social Studies lessons on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Our supervisor also came to watch us on both Monday and Friday.

Monday we did a lesson introducing mythology. My partner dressed up as a seven-year-old Grecian girl to tell the students a little bit about worshiping Greek gods. I think she did an amazing job. We also showed our digital stories, and read them a story about Athena and Aracknee. Overall the lesson went really well. I think that the students like it, and they learned a lot.

Tuesday we did kind of a concept attainment lesson first where the students were given pictures and then told what group to go in. Then we did a fill in the black on the projector together as we read stories of Athena and Poseidon. The only problem was while we were sorting the children by their pictures. First I had decided to have them stand by their pictures, then it was getting kind of noisy, so I told them to go sit down when they were done. I forgot that the reason that I wanted them to stay standing was so that if they got something wrong, then I could re-direct them. It worked out ok, but in the future I would have them stand, and not tape their pictures to the wall until they were “approved”.

Thursday we did a Synectics lesson that compared life in Sparta to a Bulldozer. Overall I think it is a fun idea to get the students critically thinking, but I decided that I would modify it in my own classroom. There are just too many confusing steps. By the end of it, the children were getting really restless.

Friday we read a few quick stories about Hephaestus and Dionysus. Then we gave the students foldables to compare the similarities and differences. We then played a game where the different teams had to pull a name of a God/Goddess out of the bag and act it out. The team then had to guess who they were trying to be. I think this day went pretty well.

I have learned so much this week. We do our last lesson on Monday, and I’m excited to see how it goes. I think the biggest thing that this field experience has done is made me really impatient to become a teacher. I can’t wait to have my own classroom.

First Week in the Field

This first few days of field has been really great. We are so lucky! We were put in a wonderful classroom, with a wonderful teacher. She is so patient with us and really helps where she can. We worked it out with her so that we go all day on Wednesdays and then for three hours on the rest of the days. So our first day was kind of long, but exciting. We tried quickly to learn all of the kids names. We did also get to help during math time a little bit.

On Thursday, the kids were learning a bit about world hunger. They divided up the desks and students to make it proportionate to the way the world is. Then she handed out money and cookies in ratio to what the world is like. We got to help handout money and cookies it was awesome. The other really cool part of the day was P.E. They played a game where there were cards in the middle of the gym. They had divided up into five different teams. One student per team would run and grab a card from the stack. It would say something like, “Sing Jingle Bells while hoping on one foot” and other fun things that like that. The whole team had to do it, and then the next member would run and grab another card. At the end, the team who completed the most cards won. It was so fun!

Today, Friday, we got to help pump up the footballs for P.E. The teacher hooked up a projector thing that showed a book about world hunger. It was a good day, and what a great group of kids!

Working on Digital Stories

This week we have been working on our digital stories. My partner and I have been given Ancient Greece as our topic. This week has actually gone pretty well as far as our stories go. We were able to gather a bunch of pictures that were labeled for reuse, and get everything recorded. Our only problem was getting the talking to match with the right pictures. For the Vidcast I used Photostory. My partner has a Mac this time, so we are using iMovie (I believe). So things are done a little bit differently than I did before.

I am very interested to see the student’s reaction to the movie. I want to see if they think it is something fun and interesting, or if it is just boring. Our cooperating teacher mentioned that students would probably think it was fun to make a movie. I decided that is definitely something I will do in my classroom if I get older students. Since Photostory is free, I think having an assignment where they have to make their own movie would be a great assessment project.

Copyright Info

This week we talked about different copyright laws. I do think that this is very important information to know while we are working on our digital stories. However, I am a little bit confused. About a year ago I had an idea to make a Mario Math game for some of my students at Windsor Elementary. I did think that maybe there would be a copyright issue. I found a bunch of information about copyright laws online. I found an article that specifically talked about using copyrighted material in education. It said that if it was for an educational purpose, and you were not making any money from it, then it was ok to use. So now I am just a bit confused about what is correct. I think I will have to look into it a bit more.

This has made me more wary about using photos from the internet. I liked how we were shown how to search for pictures that can be used freely on Google. I will be using that to look for my pictures for my digital story. I also think that it is important that I mention copyright laws to my students when I become a teacher. I know that a lot of time we just don’t think about things like that, but it is important.

Digital Story Functions

During class this week we talked about different aspects of digital stories. We talked about pictures, music, text, additional audio effects, and narration. Each part of the digital story has a function; it adds key features to the story. The story would not be the same if you took certain parts out.

Knowing this, I will try to make sure that my story is strong in all of these areas. I think it also will make the process easier now that I know about the smaller pieces of a digital story.

I think it will make a huge difference in the classroom. The whole point of the story is to give students a better idea of what you are talking about for a specific subject. It is much more emotional and real when you can become lost in a story that is done well, rather than just listening to the teacher. It sticks with people, and as teachers that is exactly what we want.

Vidcast Reflection - 1st Grade Dental Health

• The name of our podcast series is 1st Grade Dental Health. We wanted to teach our students the importance of taking care of their teeth. We felt that this topic was particularly relevant to this age group because first grade is the time that most students lose their first tooth. This is also the time that students should start learning how to take care of their new permanent teeth.

• The core curriculum that this podcast series addresses is Standard 1:  Students will develop a sense of self; Objective 1:Describe and practice appropriate personal hygiene.

• Potential drawbacks to using this series in our future classroom is the lack of “hands-on” approach when teaching the students about dental health. We would want to supplement this series with having a professional guest speaker from the dental field, such as a dental hygienist, or a dentist. We would also like to provide each student with their own toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, and a little tooth carrying case to put their teeth in when they lose their first teeth.

• This assignment will cover the INTASC standard 1: Teacher understands the central concepts, tools of inquiry and structures of discipline(s) he or she teaches and can create learning experiences that make these aspects of subject matter meaningful to students.

• This assignment will also cover the NETS standard 1: Facilitate and inspire student learning and creativity. This also fits under the indicator C portion: Promote students reflection using collaborative tools to reveal and clarify students’ conceptual understanding and thinking, planning, and creative processes.

• This vidcast series will be very useful to include in future lessons on health. Even though children may (and should be taught) about dental health at home, we feel that teaching children about this in the first grade is imperative in helping them instill healthy dental care habits while they are young.

Vidcasts

This week we talked about Vidcasts; what they are, where we see them, and some different resources to make our own. We talked about Flip Cameras, Powerpoint, Photostory, and Jing.

Of the four, I think that I liked Photostory the best. It is very user friendly. I love how it goes through one step at a time, adding pictures, narration, etc. I also like that you can specify the kind of transitions that you want from slide-to-slide. I do also think that Jing will be helpful when you want a specific picture of something.

One of the things that I did to study for the Praxis exam was to log-on to the Brainpop.com website and watch their little videos. I never really thought about it before, but those are Videocasts. They were very helpful for me. I think that if you can do those short videos for students, they will learn also. Sometimes there are things that make more sense if you can see some examples in a fun way, like in a Vidcast.