final blog

Reflection of Leson Plan

For the podcasting and lesson I didn't have a partner to work with. At first I thought that would be a disadvantage, to work just by myself, but when everything was completed I took pride in my lesson plan and podcast. To prepare for the lesson plan I thought of what kids on the kindergarten level would like to do in class. I came up with coloring and moving. For the most part students all the way up to grade 8 still enjoy coloring somewhat, so I knew that I needed the class to color and to do something with their bodies. With some research I found out that many kindergarten students are visual learners. Because many students at that grade level are visual learners I knew I had to incorporate pictures somewhere in my lesson as well.

The objective of my lesson was to have students fully learn what a verb is. At the end of the lesson students would be able to tell me what a verb is and show me where verbs are in sentences. In my lesson i would be able to measure assessment by giving the students a worksheet. In the worksheet I would be able to measure assessment by giving the students a worksheet. In the worksheet students would define what a verb is and write a short story of 5 sentences with each verb underlined. The worksheet and independent practice would allow me to assess if the students understand what a verb is or not.

At the beginning of my lesson everything was going very well. When I started the lesson I greeted the class and jumped right into my set to keep their attention. I explained the rules of the activity, that was my set, to the students. As the activity started, it ran smoothly then quickly went downhill. Students were supposed to toss the small stuffed animal lightly to a friend so they could say a verb students began to throw the stuffed animal hard at each other. I had to stop the set and reprimand the students before someone got hurt. After the "bad behavior" I jumped right into my lesson. As I taught the lesson everything was falling into place very nicely. There were some mild bad behavior but nothing too serious. When I noticed that my time was almost up I began to speed the lesson up. Instead of having each student read their own short story outloud, I just went around the room and read their stories quickly and told them what they needed to do to make their story even better than it already was. Even though the changes I made to the lesson weren't major it still wasn't what my lesson plan was originally.

The most important thing I tried to teach the students in my podcast was to learn exactly what a verb is. I wanted students to be able to know the exact definition of what a verb is and I wanted them to be able to find verbs in books and in their own writing. I think that I got the point of "knowing what a verb is" across to the students. At the end of the lesson everyone's verb worksheet was complete and correct. I think that my lesson turned out to be a very good lesson because at the end all of my instructional goals were met.

While teaching the students. the students were in a way teaching me as well. I realized that in an elementary, or any classroom, the teacher MUST be fair. When I was handing out homework passes, sometimes I would overlook really well behaved students. I didn't do it on purpose, but i realized the only reason I didn't acknowledge their behavior is because they were well behaved since the beginning of my lesson. As the lesson progressed I started handing out homework passes to everyone who behaved well for 10 minutes or more. I noticed that if I wasn't fair, not just one, but many students noticed and expressed their feelings to me.

For my podcast lesson I would have incorporated the podcast in my lesson. At the time I couldn't think of any way to use my podcast in my lesson. Now that I think of it I could have played the podcast in the back as students sat at their desk and wrote down what they thought the verb in the sentence was. Another thing I would have done differently is I could have played he podcast in the back and called on students to say outloud what they thought the verb was in the sentence.

To make my podcast lesson more effective I would have tried to make my lesson appeal to all students. I wouldv'e tried to use all of Howard Gardner's multiple intelligences. To be more effective I would have a piece of my lesson geared towards all kinds of learners whether they be visual- spatial or naturalistic learners. In my lesson I would defintley have worksheets for students who finish work quickly. Coloring sheets, word searches with their spelling words, and coloring contests are some activites that I would have on the side for those students.

Reflection of my Podcast

When recording my podcast I had no clue as to how I would use my podcast in my lesson. While I was doing an outline of my lesson plan I kept thinking about how I would use the podcast. I didn't come up with anything so I dropped the podcast out of the lesson plan but used the book a lot in my lesson. After I outlined my lesson I thought again of how I could use the podcast in my lesson, but again I had a blank mind. I really didn't want to use the podcast because I knew that students so young couldn't sit for such a long time and just listen to me read the book on the podcast and listen to me read the book in the classroom. I thought it would bore them so that was another reason why I didn't use the podcast. Since I didn't use the podcast in I didn't know how the students would react. I could only guess that, on a kindergarten and first grade level, they would be excited about the technology at first but after the first couple of minutes their attention would be led astray by something else.

For my first podcast, I think it went well. It wasn't perfect but it was, in my opinion, very good. I went to YouTube and searched for all of the sounds and used them in my podcast. I thought that added something fun to my podcast because the book I podcasted was so simple and repetitive.

I could have infused the podcast in my lesson effectively by finding a video of the book on YouTube and playing my podcast in the back. This would have been a big visual to grab students' attention and keep it. I would use podcasting in the future in a unit to teach grammar. "School House Rocks"videos I believe appeal to any grade level so when teaching parts of speech like conjuctions, vowels and noun I would find a podcast of the songs and play them for the class. I would also play a podcast of me reading a book that has the parts of speech my class is studying. While the podcast is playing students will have a worksheet with the story on it. In the worksheet the students will circle or underline the parts of speech they are studying at that time.

Reflections of other's lesson plans

In class i enjoyed being a student and displaying the behaviors that were on my index card but what I liked most was actually watching my peers teach. I really enjoyed the lesson that taught clouds. That day I had the behavior of crying uncontrollably. I was so intrested in their lesson i didn't get a chance to do my behavior. Unlike some other lessons, the lesson kept my attention. I was fully attentive to what they were teaching and when they were reading. Student's who are young need to touch and feel because that's a way they learn so doing a project that had students making clouds out of cotton balls was great. At the end of the lesson I had knowledge of different types of clouds and a cool project that made me visually learn what a "cumulonimbus" cloud was.

Because we are all beginner teachers many of us had problems with classroom management. Some lessons, I thought, could have had stronger managment techniques. I loved the lesson that had the classroom mangment technique of singing a song to get the students' attention and to remind them of the consequences. I think that they should have sang the somg more so the class could be constantly reminded to behave themselves. I also loved the classroom technique of adding pieces of "pie" to a circle. The bright colors and the constant reminder of the "pies" would be a great way to remind students to behave.

Overall I think that everyone's lesson plans were great. From every lesson plan I took something and added it into my own.