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...

Group three started their direct instruction by explaining their note sheet and explaining what to do when students see a symbol on the powerpoint. I love the turn and talk idea. During my groups direct instruction the students were super quiet. Doing something like a turn and talk would have been great to get the students talking and thinking! Great job group three you all did great!!! Group four started their direct instruction by explaining rewards. I LOVED the idea of using gold. Group four was teaching about the gold rush so I think it tied in really well with their unit plan, and the students loved it! I would definitely do something like this in my classroom while teaching about the gold rush. Great job group four!!! Tuesday, 4/3/18, was our last and final day at Bishop Dunn. Group four finished up and did an amazing job! I really enjoyed our time with the 5th graders. We gave the students certificates of completion. They did really well during all of our lesson plans. I ...

We started off March with group two's last day teaching the 5th graders! You all did a wonderful job! I loved watching you all work with the students and I learned a lot from watching you all teach. Group 2 started right after my group ended. So they touched on what we taught them and moved on from there! They started with a word art with key terms and important people. At the end of direct instruction, they had the students compose a tweet by using their newly gained knowledge. I thought this was a really cool idea! I am going to remember this to use one day! The students also loved this idea of writing a tweet. On their last day of teaching, during cooperative learning, they broke the students up into 5 groups and had them each have a different important person to create a campaign poster. I loved this idea, and I loved how each of the groups presented and were so involved. GREAT JOB GROUP 2 NEXT UP GROUP 3, GOOD LUCK!!!

Tuesday was very bitter sweet for me. These children were so amazing over the three days my group and I did our lesson plans. They are such smart , bright children. Many of their responses to our questions or in their groups amazed me. But, I am excited to see what and how the next groups do during their lessons. I love being able to do this so that we are able to teach from each other and grow as teachers. On Tuesday, we had the students work in groups to use their knowledge they learned the past two classes with us. We broke the class up into 4 groups and had them so team work with specific jobs for each student. Groups 1&3 wrote poems about the Constitutional Convention and groups 2&4 wrote a Bill of Rights for their classroom. We gave the groups about 20 minutes to construct their ideas and then transfer them to a poster board to then share with the class . They did so amazing! Their teacher  Mrs. Vasilakos was loving what the children came up with!!! Below is gr...

Thursday was our second day teaching. We did our inquiry lesson. We used a Kahoot to see what the students remembered from our lesson on Tuesday. My group and I reviewed the Kahoot scores after the lesson and the students did pretty well! For our inquiry lesson we used WebQuest on their classroom iPads. We had the students will out a worksheet on questions that they would find throughout the research we put in the WebQuests.  My Group and I! Once they completed the worksheets they wrote a newspaper article. The students were so excited when I told them that they would be writing a letter in their school newspapers. Using their prior knowledge, knowledge learned on Tuesday, and the information from the WebQuest. We then had one student from each group share what they wrote. They did so well, and we loved reading all of their letters after class. I am excited for our third and final day teaching the 5th graders. I have learned so much this past week and I am excited to watc...

On Tuesday, my group and I were the first group to teach during our fieldwork at Dishop Dunn . We started with our direct inquiry lesson plan. Our topic was about the forming of our nation. We taught about the Constitution, compromise, the three branches of government, the Bill of Rights and the important people during that time. I was very nervous going first especially because this is my first time in a class with Dr. Smirnova. But, my group worked so well in the week that we had to prepare for this lesson. We memorized the material and were all very confidant. We presented this material to the students my using a powerpoint and lecturing. We used a note sheet for the students to use to follow along with so they could stay engaged throughout the lesson. Also, every few slides we had a "lets review" slide. Where we would ask 2 questions about the material we were just talking about. At the end of our direct instruction we then had our guided practice. We used a time line wi...

Today was our first day of fieldwork at Bishop Dunn . I was very excited to meet all 27 fifth graders! We prepared the classroom and divided into groups and waited for the children to come back from their lunch. Once they got back we gave them a pre-assessment. The pre-assessment was supposed to be given through Google Forms but we prepared them printed out because we were unsure if the classroom would have computers or iPads. After we gave them the pre-assessment we did a getting to know you activity. Our getting to know you activity was a board game that we made. The children would tap a spinner to find out if they would more 1, 2, 3, or 4 placed on the board. Depending on what they landed on they would either answer a question about themselves, question about social studies, a challenge question, or ask the teachers something. We found out a lot about each of the children and I am very excited and nervous for our second day of fieldwork since that is our first day teaching! We...

In class my peers and I all picked different digital tools to make a 'digital about me'. I learned how to become more engaging during a presentation. I learned so much about all of my peers in my classroom and I was able to learn about them in such unique ways. I used nearpod for my digital me. It took me a few days to get the hang of it and learn more about all of the features of the program. I found that it was easiest for me to make a powerpoint through Google Slides and then input it into nearpod. Once I did that it was easier to put slides like polls, quizzes, and interactive games. I liked doing this activity because I gained so much knowledge about so many different digital tools and I will definitely be using a lot of these tools in my future of teaching. When I went to present it to the class I clicked on the link through Dr. Smirnova's slides and I didn't make the nearpod live. So when my peers voted on the polls I wasn't able to see their answers. ...

This week was my first week back to the Mount since December. Break didn't feel long enough, but I was excited to come back and get to work! Last semester I realized being an English major wasn't the right fit for me, so I am excited to now be a History major. I am ready to push through the semester and can't wait for May because I am going to Mexico !!! I love all of my classes so far, though it seems like it will be a busy semester I am ready to tackle it. I have classes on Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Tuesday morning I walked into Hudson room 105 and saw a lot of familiar faces! I then got to meet Dr. Smirnova, this is my first class with her. We did an engaging getting to know you activity and I was able to meet two unfamiliar faces that I was grouped with. During this activity Dr. Smirnova asked us to close our eyes and remember a social studies classroom when we were in school. This brought me to Mr. Carofano's classroom in 9th grade. I was neve...