Last but Not Least!

Today was the last day of my teaching experience. The next time that I go to fieldwork I will be observing groups three and four implement their lessons. Today’s lesson was a cooperative learning activity for the students. The task was for the students to create a timeline that was chronologically correct. We began the lesson with a brief review of the major events leading up to the American Revolution. Each of us focused on one event. I was given the French and Indian War. When it was my turn to review the topic, I simply asked the students various questions about the war, trying to elicit answers that were taught in the first lesson. Surprisingly, the students retained a lot of the information that was presented. Each time I received an answer from the students I would provide them with positive or corrective feedback.  The other teacher candidates followed in the same fashion.

For the actual activity, we had to break the class up into four groups. Being that we wanted this activity to go smoothly, we had asked Mrs. Benfer to create a list of students who work well together. We then broke the class up into the assigned groups. Each group was given a picture of an event that we had already covered, and it was their task to figure out what event it was, and also complete the accompanying worksheet. The worksheet provided students with an outline that was used to summarize the details of the event. We decided that it would be most beneficial for the students if we worked with the group that was analyzing a picture of the event that we had taught. For example, I worked with the group who was covering the French and Indian War.

After the groups had completed their worksheet, the group then had to go to the front of the room to place their event in the correct space on the timeline and present their details from the worksheet. The lesson closed by reviewing the events and giving student a thank you note from George Washington for being such hard workers during the previous lesson.

 

My favorite part of this lesson was when Christina was reviewing the TEAM acronym. The TEAM acronym was made so that students could have something to refer back too when thinking about how to appropriately work collaboratively. Before displaying what we made each letter stand for, Christina elicited a number of responses from students to share what they felt each letter should be. The answers that students were sharing were great answers. It was very impressive to see how their brains work so quickly. This entire experience has been wonderful and I am very upset that my turn teaching has come to a close. I am also excited to see what the other groups have in store for the students.