And the adventure begins!

     Yesterday, the experience of a semester began for me.  For Social Studies Methods, we wasted no time beginning our fieldwork placement.  Personally, I find nothing more exciting than practicing what I love to do, teach.  Although I have not had the opportunity to teach yet, I enjoyed being able to watch my fellow classmates teach their first direct lesson plan.  

     My classmates who presented their first lesson plan yesterday did a very good job of starting the BizWorld Company.   I really liked how the group praised the students for sitting up tall in the beginning of the lesson.  The group was able to focus the children on the BizWorld project and was also able to show the children what they expected of them.  The first fieldwork group was also creative when they assessed the students’ prior knowledge on important terms used in BizWorld.  The use of a Wordle engaged the students by grabbing their attention.  This technique also introduced the students to the vocabulary terms they were going to learn in the lesson.  I will definitely use wordle in the future in fieldwork and in my own classroom. The use of questioning of many students, the use of concrete examples and non-examples of the vocabulary terms, and the use of enthusiasm and dedication the first teaching group had really made their lesson a success.  None of us knew what to expect going into the fieldwork placement and I give them a lot of credit on how well they did.  Some things I would change about the lesson would be to have the teachers make more eye contact with the students, not require the students to yell so much when answering questions, and try to present less vocabulary terms because it was a lot of information for the students to take in, without writing anything down.  The first fieldwork group did a very good job presenting the needed vocabulary for BizMovie using Direct Instruction.  The lesson was teacher generated and straight forward.  The children followed the directions they were given and they had no opportunity to engage in any type of activity on their own.

     I have never taken part in a fieldwork experience like this one before.  In most of my education classes, I work with a small group of students and teach them on my own.   For Social Studies Methods, we work in groups and collaborate with one another to teach.  This is just another experience that is going to help me become a better teacher.

Click the BizMovie picture on the top of this page to visit the BizWorld website.