Week 4

I taught another full odd day this Tuesday. My mentor teacher was attending an event that day, so I had 1st, 5th, and 7th periods to teach. For first period, we reviewed deeper concepts of the three essays that they had previously covered and would be tested on the following class period. We divided into groups to generate deeper-meaning comprehension and application to these essays. The class seemed to be divided among groups that were working diligently and other groups of students that needed assistance developing ideas or had to be reminded to stay on task. When we reconvened, all students appeared to participate in class discussion and pay attention to the material being covered. This collaborative group discussion helped all students to develop their ideas further and greatly benefitted the students, especially those who were having difficultly digging deeper into themes and applications of these essays.

5th and 7th periods were dedicated to working individually and collaboratively to strengthen grammar, independent reading, and comprehension skills. We have begun bell ringers in these periods to help get students motivated to settle down and begin work when they enter the classroom. This system seems to be working well: students come in and find the bell ringer sentence(s) in which they must copy down the incorrect form as it is written, then below it, rewrite the sentence(s) with the corrections in place (this activity also helps students work on grammar and sentence structure skills). After they completed their bell ringer, the students were given 20 grammar sentences to correct. This activity helped me to evaluate students grammar strengths and issues, so that I may assess their writing skills and hopefully help these students with the areas that they are having difficulty with. When all of the students completed all twenty sentences, we reviewed them all via class discussion. 5th period completed these sentences, reviewed the answers, read a new story (orally-decided by class vote) “The Pedestrian” and worked on a corresponding vocabulary 4-fold during this class. 7th period took much more time with the grammar sentences; a lot of these students struggled with the material, which coveys to me that these students lack basic and comprehension grammar/sentence structure skills (which I will need to help them with). Because these students required a lot more time to complete the grammar sentences, after they finished, we only had enough time to review the answers before class ended; this only reinforces the notion that this class needs more time allotted to complete tasks.

Thursday’s lesson was much more hands-on. I was in charge of 5th and 7th periods, so I decided to finish up work on the 6 words memoirs that they had previously started on, so that come next week, I could begin with a brand new lesson unit. Both classes were given their 6 word memoirs that they created last week, and told to create a power point slide that incorporated a picture that best represented/expressed their memoir, as well as including the actual memoir and their name. I wanted to show both classes a video that exemplifies the activity that they would be doing, but the computer did not work in the classroom, so only some of the students actually watched it when we got to the computer lab. Both classes were reduced to approximately fifty minutes each, due to class pictures and because 7th period generally needs more time to complete tasks, I decided to give them a jump start on this lesson. While they were getting their pictures taken, I logged each student into a computer, set their memoir with that particular computer, and opened up the website with the video example on it; this way, all the students needed to do was come in, find their seat, listen to/read the directions and get to work, which is exactly what they did. Because of the shortened class period, I was afraid that the classes would not finish the assignment, but much to my surprise, they not only completed it, but they also composed highly creative, quality work! I was very, very impressed with the work ethic and products that these students generated from this lesson. From trial-and-error-type activities in present and past lessons, I have come to find that the students in 5th and 7th periods benefit more with both written and oral directions; they need to see the instructions, so that they can follow and effectively accomplish each step, but they also need oral guidance, or clues, as well as examples, effectively comprehend and complete a task/assignment. Also, hands-on activities seem to fare better with these two classes; they get much more involved, or much more engaged, with the lesson, as well as retain much more of the information and more efficiently complete assigned tasks.