Travel Through History

This semester has been a huge learning experience for me. Between working with my peers, watching my peers, and working with the fifth graders. I have learned so much from everyone. I absolutely loved working with the fifth graders at Bishop Dunn. I will take everything I learned this semester to help me grow into a better teacher, classmate, and group mate. I know when I work in a school I will need to work with my fellow teachers just as I worked in Dr. Smirnova's class, collaboratively.

Today, we had mock interviews in Dr. Smirnova's class. I was very scared going into class, being put on the spot is very stressful. We had four different interviewers come around to each group. Out interviewers were Alisha, Rebecca, Kelly and Mikayla. Kelly started with asking us why each of us want to be teachers. I learned to be more prepared. You are put on the spot with many questions so you need to be prepared and also be ready for the next question. I liked this activity. I was able to gain what I liked and what I didn't like about my answers. I felt I did really well during Rebeccas interview. But, I was hired by Kelly! I am very happy we had this experience.

I believe that a classroom should be a safe, caring community where children are free to speak their mind and blossom and grow. I will use strategies to ensure out classroom community will flourish. My personal goal for my future classroom is to challenge students and watch them grow to their full potential. I want to take students at different levels and see them develop together for the betterment of each individual. Therefore, group work is the key to having a successful class and is something I value, especially with older students. The impact of group work, when students help fellow students, changes each person and transforms the atmosphere of the class as a whole. In my classroom, I want students to have freedom that allows for expression and creativity. Students should be able to experiment with likes and dislikes and to realize their strengths and weaknesses. After this base is developed, the curriculum can be molded to tie in each student’s learning style. My philosoph...

This week in class we learned about artifact bags. First, Dr. Smirnova explained this activity by giving us her artifact bags. My group got a bag that had a Russian nesting doll, a gzhel potter dish, and Dr. Smirnova's International Teachers Training Academy of Science. Then, we did our bags based off of our unit plans during fieldwork. In my bag I had 3 artifacts. Artifact #1 - The seal of the house of Representatives. This represents the United States Congress. Congress was split into two different parties, this is known as the Great Compromise. Artifact #2 - The seal of the United States Senate. This represents the second party that was made in the Great Compromise.  Artifact #3 - The Bill of Rights. This represents the Constitution. Without the Bill of Rights, many states wouldn’t have ratified the Constitution. My group presented with group 3. They had artifacts from the industrial revolution and women's rights. I really liked and enjoyed this activi...

 My group, Katie, Nessiah, Alisha, and I did a Jigsaw of a Native American Tribe. Our tribe was the Dine tribe known as the Navajo tribe.   The Navajo are people of the Southwest Native American cultural group. They lived in the American southwest desert regions in the states of Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, and Colorado. I started the presentation by saying, "Ya at ehh!" to the class. This means hello - I also had my class chorally say it with me! Nessiah also taught the class a bunch of other words too! We needed to make generalizations about the Dine tribe. We needed to answer the question, how did Geography influence the Native American Tribes? After the four groups presented, Dr. Smirnova had us complete a scavenger hunt by using QR codes in our groups. We needed to use the QR codes to find 10 questions and then answer them correctly. My group won! The scavenge hunt was super fun, and Iwill ABSOLUTELY do that in my future classroom.

We learned about jigsaw in our class with Dr. Smirnova.  Jigsaw is a cooperative learning strategy that enables each student of a "home" group to specialize in one aspect of a topic. Students meet with members from other groups who are assigned the same aspect, and after mastering the material, return to the "home" group and teach the material to their group members. With this strategy, each student in the "home" group serves as a piece of the topic's puzzle and when they work together as a whole, they create the complete jigsaw puzzle. We participated in doing a jigsaw by using the social interactive model of teaching for cooperative learning. My group, Marianna, Stephanie, Rebecca and I did group processing. We learned about what the parts are in group processing and the roles of the students and teachers in the class.  I learned by using Jigsaw i t helps build comprehension,  encourages cooperative learning among students, and  helps improve...

I have learned in Dr. Smirnova's class just how important it is to reflect.  Reflecting  helps you to develop your skills and review their effectiveness, rather than just carry on doing things as you have always done them. Not only is this important to do as a student, but it is so important to continue to do this in my career as a teacher.  W e know that reflection is a good thing and we encourage our learners to do it, t eachers are always reflecting and assessing students. Teachers should also reflect and assess themselves. This can only make you a better teacher!   Reflecting helps you to develop your skills and review their effectiveness, rather than just carry on doing things as you have always done them. It is about questioning, in a positive way, what you do and why you do it and then deciding whether there is a better, or more efficient, way of doing it in the future. I have learned many things from my short time with Dr. Smirnova. I ha...