The second Rocks and Minerals lesson L and I did went really well! We are having as much fun as our students exploring!
First, we are working with a really great group of kids! They listen, they are very engaged and excited about the material. When we entered the class we were first introduced to Stephanie--a young female students large (at least a few pounds!) pet rock(!), happily swaddled in a bevy of fleece blankets! The students are so enthusiastic and interested in learning! It's absolutely wonderful to work with them!
And, we have a very supportive teacher that we are working with too. She has helped inspire the students by initing them all to choose a pet rock for the duration of the unit! One student even brought in a large collection as loaner pets in case any student needed to borrow one.
Most importantly we learned from our previous experience: we realized that 45m goes by really quickly and that we don't need to pack the time with activities...instead we need to focus on allowing the students maximum time to interact with their specimens in hands-on exploration.
We also planned more this time...we created a script so we would know *exactly* what we were doing, what we would need and who would be leading that portion of the lesson or discussion. This helped streamline our presentation and lesson A LOT....and best of all it made it so much more fun!
Solid planning is really essential to creating a "golden" lesson we learned.
The students are really excited about working with rocks and we are looking forward to next week's challenge of combining 2 lessons while introducing minerals!
This teaching experience is really the time for us to work out the wrinkles and I like that you addressed how you both took away things from your first lesson and improved upon them 2nd time around. I have to remind myself that this is what this experience is really all about. Preparing us to be better teachers by improving on what we learn that does and does not work so well. Becky and I have been using a script as well and it really helps to identify which part of the instruction each will lead. Great job Ben!
ReplyDeleteMegan and I also used scripts. We don't necessarily follow them word for word during the lesson, but even writing them out ahead of time has really helped us to frame what we're going to say, and if we lose track of where we are or what we're supposed to do next, we can quickly refer to our notes. I highly recommend it if anyone is struggling!
ReplyDeleteGreat post, Ben. I think you and Leah make a great teaching team, and your combined positive attitude and energy level must make it really fun for the kids!
Great post Ben! It's great that you and Leah made "research-based" modifications after your initial lesson!
ReplyDeleteTracey and I use an outline and decide beforehand who will say/do what and I agree that is a big help during the lesson. Sounds like your kiddos are really rockin' with rocks! awesome!
Hi Ben!
ReplyDeleteI loved reading this post! How cute was it when one of the students introduced us to her pet rock? I am so happy that they love learning about rocks so much. It's so great that we are learning so much while teaching so that we can improve with every lesson. I can't wait for Monday! Great post! :)