My Clinical Science Lesson

On Wednesday, November 12^th, I completed my science lesson in my clinical placement in second grade at Prairieland Elementary School. The science lesson centered around the teaching of what landforms are and the different types that exist to my students. As a class this semester, we have been learning about habitats and climates and the next step was to cover landforms that are found both in and outside of our country. I had set up five different centers for the second graders to rotate through over the span of five different days. The first day was to be the introduction to the centers and then the beginning of the first center rotation with the students.  This lesson was set up to support the gradual release of responsibilities from the teacher to the student. We begin in whole group instruction, with me modeling what will be happening, we have shared practice on the carpet, and then the students broke into small groups to explore on their own. The introduction lesson began with connecting what we will be learning to what we have already explored in our science content area. We then created an anchor chart in which the students can refer to throughout the lessons on landforms. We discussed what a landform is which would be a natural feature (such as a mountain or valley) of the Earth's surface.  The students showed great excitement for the topic of discussion and wanted to share what they already knew about landforms, as well as, what they wanted to learn more about. To continue our exposure to the different types of landforms, I conducted a read aloud that covered all of the different landforms the students would be exploring in the centers. Finally, I introduced what each center would entail by showing them the materials and giving them explicit directions, I then divided students into groups of mixed ability levels, and they began with their first center.

                Students were able to interact with the learning of landforms in a number of different ways. We had a game that tests them on their knowledge of landforms and the placement of landforms on a map. They put together a series of puzzles with the picture, name, and definition of what each landform was. This generated discussion among the group, as they took note of any new or interesting landforms. Once they completed that, they were able to play a memory game which would be matching all of these newly learned landforms. The next center was the writing center that included prompts for them to write about one or more landforms in a creative manor. The next center required them to become an expert on one of the landforms, exploring books on the specific landform, writing down their findings and sharing with the group. The final center combined the creation of maps with landforms and asked them to include at least seven different types of landforms on their fictitious map and to include a map key. The students all seemed to take away a lot of great new information on landforms from their first day of centers. Centers have a heavy focus on students exploring materials and information at their own rate and I believe my class was very successful in being able to take away a new understanding of landforms.

                After we finished our first set of centers, we came back together on the rug to discuss what they had learned, enjoyed, or had questions about thus far. I was very pleased to hear that many of the students enjoyed their particular center, explained what they had worked on in their individual center to their classmates, and were able to share many new facts they had learned about during their center time. Having the class come together to debrief after the completion of a lesson should always be included in your lesson time. I find it especially important during centers, in order to see where everyone is at and if any questions, comments, or concerned need to be addressed at that time. While I circulated the room while students participated in their center, I was not able to work in depth with any one student. Because of this, I believe coming back together at the end is beneficial for both the students and me as the educator.

                There were many things I was able to reflect upon when it came to the creation and implementation of the lesson and the centers.  This being my second set of centers in which I have created from scratch in my clinical placement, I am beginning to learn that creating centers for students is very much an art form. Not only must you create meaningful centers that all of the different types of learners in your classroom can find success in, but you must also make sure that each center would take about the same amount of time to complete. Creating extension activities that will push your students’ learning further but are not essential to the center is also an important component to consider.  You must also make sure that each center can be easily understood by the students without needing your one on one explanation, because being in five places at the same time is pretty unrealistic.  This week, I created centers that are both user friendly and meaningful for the students and I have found them to be much more successful than the last set of centers that I created. Directions were clearly stated on a bright green sheet of paper, along with the clean-up directions for the end of the center time. Rules have been set up to ensure that students raise their hands in order to receive my help and it is known to not simply run up to the teacher with a question because that will cause chaos. Being able to reflect upon your own teaching and implementation of your lesson is vital to improving your lessons and working to make them more meaningful and successful as you continue to work with your students. Overall, I felt that I had a successful lesson and look forward to implementing more science lessons that can build upon what we have explored thus far this year.   

EXCEEDS: I went over 1000 words :) 

My Lesson at Brigham

Today I taught my science lesson, alongside my co-teacher, Kalya. Our lesson was a review of all five senses, which the students have been learning about throughout the duration of our time at the elementary school.  I was very pleased to realize the excitement many of the preschools had about learning the five senses, which became very evident when they all cheered at the fact that we would be working at stations to practice all five of our senses. In previous visits, the preschoolers were quieter and less responsive. However, their growth truly showed as many of them raised their hands to answer questions and responded correctly for the most part! Leading the lesson went smoothly, as we broke the students into pairs and had our assistant teachers run each of the stations. Students had four minutes to interact with each activity and were successful in visiting each station. Each assistant teacher had a checklist to fill out which assessed the learning that took place in each station.  Because this was the wrap up, or review of the five senses, we considered these checklists to be a summative assessment to find out what the students knew or would require further practice with! We walked around and facilitated the station work and prompted students with questions to check for understanding, clear up confusion, and push learning further!

                I had two main goals going into this clinical experience. My first goal was to gain experience working with children who are considered English Language Learners. This is because before this experience, I had limited experience working with ELL students and I feel that simply working with them is one of the best ways to improve your own teachings. This lesson was the first time I was able to lead a class and I was able to reflect on a lot based off of it. I lead the beginning discussion, introducing the topic for the day and interacting with the class as a whole. I found that the students were extremely energetic, which made me even more enthusiastic. I made sure to speak clearly and at an appropriate rate for both, preschool age students as well as ELL students, as well as used hang motions and facial expressions. One thing I experienced was that at times I was unable to understand some of the student responses. In my own experience, this can happen in any early childhood classroom for a number of reasons, accents or the learning of the English language is another reason this can occur. This is something that one could expect when interacting with someone else who may speak differently from you.  In the moment I politely asked the student to respond again to see if I could understand them more clearly. Sometimes this will work, other times teachers may have to ask them to reword it, explain in a different way, or ask them to show you. The use of visuals for them to point at and state is something else that may come in handy in future instances such as this one. I continued to gain more experience in working with ELL students from this lesson, as I paid closer attention to one student at random in order to collect anecdotal notes for our assignment. I was able to observe her interactions with a peer and with all of the assistant teachers. I also interacted with her, prompting her with questions and listening for her responses.  I will discuss more about her struggles in the following paragraph, as it contributed greatly to my second goal.  Overall, this lesson found great success in helping me work toward my goal of gaining experience with English Language Learners and I felt that today was one of the most successful days in respect to the self-growth I experienced as an educator.

                My second goal centered around the fact that I wanted to observe some of the difficulties that English Language Learning students experience in the classroom and use these observations to reflect upon later and think about what I could or would do differently in order to improve their experiences in and outside of the classroom to better their education. My focal student during this lesson was a little girl who was considered to be an English Language Learner. I observed her at each station and interacted with her periodically.  She showed many signed of struggle throughout the lesson that allowed me to reflect on!  At most of the stations she appeared confused as to what was expected of her for a number of reasons. One instance in particular showed that she did not have the vocabulary necessary in order to be successful at that station.  Because of this, it would be the teacher’s job to define those words in a way that she would be able to make meaning out of them. The words she struggled with were “hard” and “soft” which took place at the sense of touch station.  One way to do this would be to have the student physically interact with one or more of the “soft” objects and one or more of the “hard” objects. As she does that, should would state the word and ask the student to repeat it! She would put it in a sentence saying “This ball is hard” and “This toy is soft”. After gaining scaffolded practice with each of these terms, then they could attempt to move forward and allow the student some individual practice. I now realize that this type of direct instruction could have been beneficial to many of the ELL student’s learning during this lesson. I strongly believe in the important of including hands on learning and exploration for all students, but especially those who are new to the English language. 

                This experience has allowed me to move closer to my two main goals that I set out with at the beginning of the semester. It has amazed me that with the small amount of interactions I had with these students, the amount of growth I have experienced as an educator. Pairing these experiences with the learning that has taken place in our college courses has caused me to realize the importance of applying what we have researched about into your classroom, as well as, being extremely mindful and intentional in your teachings. Overall, I felt that this experience has helped me to improve my overall professionalism in the field and made me feel strongly in the fact that I wish to always improve my teaching practices.

EXCEEDS: I went over the word count of 1000. J

Kindergarten experience!

            Today I had my first experience in the kindergarten classroom that we are working with at the elementary school and it turned out to be an extremely positive experience! Walking in, I could tell we were entering a very diverse classroom, full of possible English language learning students which was very exciting to me! The sheer size of the class was a big difference from the preschool room, having many more kindergartners to work with, in comparison to the small class size of the preschool.  I was able to work closer toward my first goal which is to simply gain more experience working with English language learners in the classroom. I followed a group of seven boys through the three different stations they worked in for the lesson.  While I observed and took notes, I was able to talk with them a little bit, ask questions, and see them interact with their peers. I felt that these boys were extremely energetic and excited to learn, due to their talkative nature and attentiveness to the teachers! They were able to communicate with the teachers with ease and contributed to the learning with full enthusiasm. This is a pretty substantial contrast from the preschoolers because they are much quieter and are more difficult to have constructive discussions with.  In comparison, these students were much more talkative and naturally had a larger vocabulary, making it a much more interactive experience. Looking around the room, I saw strong evidence of it being a classroom with English Language Learners with in it. The walls were covered with visuals and any time something was labeled, it was labeled in both English and Spanish! Something I noticed while speaking with some of the students was that they spoke in both English and Spanish throughout the class period. One boy drew some grapes and pointed to them and said “Look! Los Uvas!” which is Spanish for grapes! I, in turn, decided to speak in both languages to the students as well, seeing that they were comfortable using both!

                My second goal states that I would like to discover the struggles of English Language Learning students in the classroom and work to reflect upon how I could improve their educational experiences. While I felt the lesson taught today went exceptionally well, there were some occurrences I witnessed where certain students struggled. It is never a good thing to let a student fall through the cracks and have their difficulties go unnoticed. As the teacher, it is important to make sure to have as much one on one time with your students as possible. During the lesson, there was so much enthusiasm from most of the students; I almost missed the one male student sitting quietly with the large group of boys. When addressed he struggled to answer questions correctly or at all and other students would chime in for him. I feel that if the student is experiencing a language barrier or finds him or herself confused, they tend to stay quiet and not ask for help.  As the teacher in the room, in order to prevent this from happening I think multiple checks for understanding need to happen throughout the days that are attending to each student individually. Especially when working in these groups, a student who is struggling may easily fall to the way side without being noticed by the teacher.  To avoid this, I would also be extremely mindful when giving directions and making sure they are clear and easy to understand, I would offer visual supports or even the inclusion of sign language to help all learners in understanding what we are discussing, and I would make sure to have individual conferences with students, formally or informally, to check up on how they are doing in the classroom.

                Overall, I was able to get so much out of the classroom experience today and felt that I was able to gain some great experiences with English Language Learners which I have been able to reflect on!

EXCEEDS: I went over the word count!