How many more weeks until Spring Break??

     This past week Bishop Dunn had another snow related closing, so we were back in the classroom. On Tuesday, we were in the classroom and on Thursday in fieldwork. It is now the start to week six and we will be in fieldwork for the week. We had to watch a video on how to blog mindfully and read an article on a different educational system in Finland.

     On Tuesday, we focused on edTPA. Well group one in particular focused on edTPA because the other groups were working on their lessons. It was nice to have some class time to work on edTPA but it was kind of frustrating. I feel that the groups are getting a foot ahead of my group because of the class time and personal attention they're getting from Dr. Smirnova. For me this was frustrating because I feel that other groups are getting more personal time with her than we got and she is looking over their lessons and pin point what they should change before their lesson. Otherwise, I accomplished  a lot in one period of time. I was able to finish most of Task 1 Part B. I am also finished with Task 1 Part A and E.

     The video we were asked to watch is a tutorial on how to comment and write in blogs. I thought this video was super helpful to our task at hand. For example, the first tip was to "comment the write in a specific way." This is important for all people to keep in mind when commenting because it makes your comment seem more thoughtful and meaningful. Also, by adding specific information to the comment makes it sound like you are really interested and you may be sharing information the writer does not yet know. By ending with a question you are leaving the topic open for discussion. You are inviting the writer, or possibly another person to comment and keep the conversation going. 

     The article How Finland broke every rule- and created a top school system was interesting. I really like the fact that the article talks about how America does it all wrong. I 100% believe that America's school systems are for money and not for the students. This is upsetting in a lot of ways because these kids, in America, depend on us and somehow I feel like we constantly fail them. Although coming out of school teachers can and most likely will be successful in being creative, most teachers burn out. Once a teacher is burned out their really isn't much jump back from that. Teachers are tired of politics taking over the Education system, so they are doing what they're told to do and leaving it there. There is no thanks, or prize around teachers anymore. I think that the Education system needs to make a huge change, but until then I will wait for one. 

     This video and reading were helpful and provided new insights for future endeavors. I enjoyed reading the article about school systems in Finland. The video on commenting on blogs was helpful as well. 

The First Travelers

     For the past week, Group 2 has been exploring with Miss Pozzulo's second grade class. First, they learned about Native Americans from my group, and now they will be furthering their knowledge on "Our Country Long Ago." I thought that group two's overall teaching experience has been a good one. I think that overall the students enjoyed the activities that group two has implemented for them. Group two consists of Erin, Samantha, Lauren, Christina, Moira, and Paola. This group seemed to have work and flowed well together.
     To begin, group two started off last week on Thursday, because of Bishop Dunn's snow day on Tuesday. Group two started out strong. Their direct lesson plan was well rehearsed and the group transitioned well. A few things that stuck out of their first teaching experience was their attention to details. For example, group two included pictures and GIF's into their power point that signaled different actions that the students should look out for. For example, they had an old explorers hat which the children associated with "thinking caps." For me this was really brilliant because when the students saw this figurine/picture, they understood what was expected of them. Another part of their lesson that I really enjoyed was the matching activity, otherwise known as the guided practice. This was an interactive, yet direct form of practice for the students, and the students were beyond eager to participate in this activity. My last favorite part from group two's direct lesson plan was the teacher candidates ability to function as a group. A lot of times, groups cannot/do not act efficiently during presentations, especially when their rare so many students, so I really enjoyed their professionalism and group work. Some thing that I believe group two could work on is their understanding of the direct lesson plan. Group two did not show complete understanding of the direct lesson plan by their actions throughout the lesson. For example, group two asked for the student's input before they were taught the material. In direct/explicit lessons it is important to not ask the students questions without teaching them the knowledge. Also, in the beginning of the lesson I noticed that one of the student's in the class, who has been determined as a child who needs one on one help, was not being assisted. It is important for assistance to be provided for students who need it. Group two did eventually sit with this student; however, I felt that it was not okay for him to start the lesson without help. Overall, group two's direct lesson was very well organized and created.
   

     Group two's second and final day of teaching was today, Thursday. On Tuesday, Bishop Dunn had a early dismissal due to more weather problems. Group two their inquiry and cooperative learning lesson plans. To start off, group two started strong. Their review and way of activating prior knowledge for the kids was great and it got the students engaged right off the bat. I thought that group two also did really well in going through the steps of the inquiry process. Group two could have modeled the inquiry process for the students but I think that the time constraint on the groups makes it impossible to cover everything in the "30" minute window we have. Next, the teachers all split off into their groups for the inquiry process, and from what I noticed the teacher candidates let the students make all of the inferences and didn't help them. From my group, this was a step up because we helped the students make inferences. Group two then went straight into their Cooperative Learning lesson plan which was different, but I think for the time constraint it worked. the group did not really get to a closure in their Inquiry lesson; however, it would have been pointless for them to go over the same information twice. For their presentation for their CL they were presenting their information from the Inquiry, so personally it wouldn't have made sense for them to make the students present twice. ALSO there is not enough time. Overall, I know that group two had problems with time management, but as I have said over and over, it is almost impossible to cover everything that is deemed necessary, (by the rubrics,) in an hour for TWO lessons. Group two got to their closure in the CL lesson and they had each of the groups present their posters. 

     Overall, group two did a wonderful job with all three of their lesson plans. I think that they nailed the concept of each lesson as well. Speaking from experience, I think time management is a problem every group will have so I am happy that group two combined the last two lessons. Great job group 2! I am excited to see what the last two groups to present. 

Three Types of Lessons Reflections

     Today, in the virtual class we discussed the three types of lessons which included: direct, inquiry, and cooperative learning lessons. Direct is a similar type of lesson to explicit. the inquiry lesson is about getting the students to critical think with problems given to them by the teacher. Last, the cooperative lesson is incorporating their social skills and group work. 

     The first type of lesson, the direct lesson plan, which is straight forward instruction. The direct lesson plan was a type of lesson plan that i had trouble with to begin. To talk in the lesson plan as a single teacher was difficult. It is new trying to learn how to just lecture the students, because I always felt that the elementary age group was too young to just lecture. My direct lesson plan was a journey learning how to teach explicitly. It was a new learning experience. When it came to teaching a direct lesson plan, it was actually surprisingly easier than other lessons. Just lecturing second graders turned out to be very easy for me. I really loved teaching the direct lesson plan in the end. I also think that the students retained a lot more of the information from the direct lesson than any other of the two lessons we did. 

     The second type of lesson is the inquiry lesson. this type of lesson was very difficult to follow. Overall the inquiry lesson was the hardest. I find that the critical thinking part of the lesson was very difficult to get the younger students to grasp. Also, I think that the students need a sufficient amount of time to be able to complete this type of lesson. The inquiry lesson is a long and developmental type of lesson, so to only give student maybe twenty minutes to work on the task is not fair. I also personally think that it is not only unfair, but almost impossible to do in twenty minutes. The students, who have little to no ability to think critically are now being asked to develop that skill in twenty minute intervals. The point I am trying to make is that for students to develop a strong sense of critical thinking, the students need time and good prompts. The ability to work with group members is one that the students will need for the next lesson, cooperative learning. 

     The last, and final type of lesson that I am going to mention is cooperative learning. The cooperative learning seemed to be less effort to put in the lesson and more within our actual materials. For instance, when putting together the lesson I just had to write down my ides, but when preparing it took a few hours just to plan out the materials and putting the materials altogether. Cooperative learning lessons are a little tricky when it comes to the 5-PIGS which are: positive independence, individual accountability, group processing, social skills, and face-to-face interaction. It is important to make sure that these 5 PIGS are included in the cooperative lesson because this is what you will be evaluating yourself on when finished with the lesson plan. Also, these are the most important skills that the students must pick up.

      Overall, I think it is important to know these types of lessons, especially cooperative learning and inquiry because these are the student centered lessons. This is also what edTPA focuses on: student centered learning. I think that the virtual meeting for class today was beneficial because it helped all of my colleagues and I elaborate on the different types of lessons. I am excited for Group 2 to start teaching on Thursday!

First and Last Day of Teaching

    This week was the first official week of fieldwork. It was a great time! It was also one of the most stressful weeks in my college career. The classroom that we were in was Ms. P.'s second grade class at Bishop Dunn. Bishop Dunn is a catholic school on the Mount Saint Mary campus. My group was obviously group 1 and some of the challenges we faced were difficult to overcome. Being that the time restraint on these lessons was very short, we felt a lot of the pressure on us. 
     The first day of fieldwork was on Tuesday. Tuesday was a little nerve racking because it was our first fifty minute period that we would be teaching the students. Our first lesson plan was the direct lesson plan. I found that putting together this type of lesson was long and strenuous. It was really hard to make sure that everything in that lesson plan was teacher-centered. When I go through other methods classes it is nowhere similar to this type of methods class. They are also not really teaching teacher-directed lessons or direct lesson plans. They tend to move towards cooperative and inquiry lesson plans. So, I had no background in writing a teacher directed lesson plan and their were only three of my group members working on it. I think to me that was one of the hardest parts, because when we would meet up our other group members were on their phones or they weren't really helping out. It was a lot of work that paid off though. Our first day with the children went extremely well. I thought that we did very well, and the SMARTBoard went out in the middle of our lesson. We were able to recover from the SmartBoard outage and keep going, we finished strong. Everyone in the class also believed that we did well, even Dr. Smirnova! That had to be one of the best feelings, when Dr. S. said that for our first lesson we did well. I have heard so many stories about Dr. S. ripping everyone a new butt because they did not do well, and I was nervous for that, but it never came. The kids also seemed to retain a lot of the information and I really enjoyed that group of kids. They are bright in so many ways! 
     Thursday was my second, and last day of teaching the class. Now Thursday, although my second time, seemed ten times the amount of stressful. I felt like we were not prepared at all for Thursday and it was frustrating. On Wednesday night, we gathered to finalize the lesson plans, which were the Inquiry and Cooperative Learning lessons. It was a mess from the beginning. Being that my group couldn't decide on what they wanted to do for the lessons, we decided on doing that Artifact Bags. However, we did the Artifact Bags wrong. All of the parts of the lesson that we did not clearly plan out a week ago seemed to be falling and crumbling on top of us. Next, we attempted to make examples of the Native American shelters because that was our CL project. The materials that I had picked up for the group seemed that they weren't good enough. As the group complained I looked over the other lesson plan only to find out that no one, and I mean NO ONE had revised them. This was the last straw in my bucket, because only three out of five group members worked on the first lesson plan and out of the five only two revised the lesson plan. So to me, I was tired being that I was just getting over a stomach bug and I, with two other people, did the entire twenty page lesson plan. But I guess it was how the cards fall, that I ended up revising the last two lesson plans as well. Anyways, Wednesday night was just a mess, and we all went home aggravated and feeling stressed. As I revised the lesson plans until midnight, I just felt happy that it was almost done. On Thursday morning, four out of the five group members met up an hour early to finish putting everything together. When we were done we went over to Bishop Dunn to start setting up for our lesson. I felt the beginning of this lesson was strong, and I feel that it started out strong, but as we emerged into the different parts the lesson crumbled much like the night before. Our lesson was not organized enough and it showed to the all of the teachers and teacher candidates. By the end of the sixty minute lesson, I was exhausted, hot, and ready to have our lesson handed to us. The teacher candidates felt that we had good ideas but that we were not able to execute them correctly and with the correct time management. Dr. Smirnova agreed and I couldn't say that I didn't disagree with them. I felt that the lesson had good ideas but it was poorly executed. 
     Overall, this week was a great one but definitely a learning lesson. I feel that there are areas that we all need to improve on and there are areas that we did fabulous in. I am excited to see what the groups after us are able to scarp together. I feel that this week was a learning lesson for all of us. Now  here's to a stress-free weekend!

The Role of Bloom in Teaching

Week 2 Articles:
     The models, strategies, and methods for assessment are extremely elaborate. Different models of  The different strategies are direct, interactive, independent, experimental, and indirect. These different strategies are very specific learning methods. I found this chart to be extremely helpful in explaining itself. I was a tad confused when I first looked at the diagram/model; however, I think that it was very well-thought out. I found this article to be informative. 

     The article "What is Social Studies?" was kind of boring. I have always found that Social Studies as a whole to be not necessary. I believe that Social Studies is just a game of memorization and that has never been a strong point in my school career. I found that this article addressed that students now learn throughout all of the primary and secondary grades, but the emphasis is primary on the core subjects (literacy and mathematics). Also, this article discusses that the purposes of Social Studies are to "promote civic competence, and it is to integrative, incorporating many fields of endeavor" (National Council for the Social Studies, 2010). The importance of promoting civic competence is the knowledge of a citizen. I feel hat these topics are important but they are not a hundred percent necessary for the younger students. The purpose of integrative incorporating many fields of endeavor is the purpose of history. I understand why at one point in time this would be important for students to understand; however, it is important to make sure students understand how to read and complete mathematical problems before understanding the branches of government and how to be a good "citizen." 

     The National Council for Social Studies standards were interesting but I think they were age appropriate. Most of these standards for the primary grades were similar to each other. I think this is important that these standards are similar because as I said in the above paragraph, the students are not able to process a lot of information as well as learn how to read. When students are struggling with learning sight words it is unfathomable to have students learn the different areas of Social Studies. I love that these standards are more focused on general ideas of understanding communities or geography because these are basic concepts that are appropriate for young students. 

     The article on Deep and Fragile Knowledge was interesting. I liked that they mention that just because a student tests well doesn't mean that they know the information. They may not understand the deep knowledge of the learning. "Insert knowledge allows students to remember information when testes, but does not give them the ability to apply I outside of the classroom" (Perkins, 2003). I think this statement to be utterly true. Just because a student can take a test and score well doesn't mean they can apply the knowledge in other academic areas. As well as, just because a student doesn't score well on a test doesn't mean that they cannot apply the knowledge in other academic areas. I agree with Dvid Perkins, as he says in the article, that deep understanding is a theory of being able to explain, apply, and process the knowledge that has been taught. By having students do the things that demonstrate deep knowledge will show the teachers/professors of that the students have moved from fragile knowledge to deep understanding. 

     What is Understanding? A Deeper Look was an article that was similar to Deep and Fragile Knowledge . Both of the authors of these articles made the same points. They both addressed the fact that students understand when they do. To reproduce it is a skill that all teachers look at understanding. However, I think that this article addresses the fact that, as students we may not understand everything, but we adapt our understandings enough to be able to get our point across. This point can be communicated through a lesson, an essay, or a presentation. 

     The article "Powerful Teaching and Learning" was a great read. I think that, as the authors nation, it is important to have public commitment and time. As I mentioned in the second paragraph, it hard to find time for Social Studies as well as the other main areas of academics. It should be the focus of your lesson to converse the main focus of the lesson, not just trying to get through the lesson. A way to change this is to make the lesson main ideas related to the students interests or fun, active activities. It is important to to create at school. 
     Bloom's Taxonomy was big article/reading. I love that the article broke Bloom's taxonomy down into the six skills of human thinking. Pulling out knowledge is a question that is asking "how many" or "when." To pull out comprehension having the students "explain" or "interpret." Application is by applying previous learned information to a new situation by using the word "apply." Analysis is breaking information into parts by asking "what are the differences?" Synthesis is applying prior skills to combine elements by using "create." Last, evaluation through assessing students knowledge. I loved that the website had printable and vocabulary words that could be useful for all teachers. I especially like the printout of Bloom's Taxonomy Verbs because they are gong to be helpful for lesson planning that is coming up. My favorite resource was the third resource "How to Use Bloom's Taxonomy in the Classroom." This was my favorite because it provided tons of resources for using Bloom's Taxonomy in the classroom. The website explained it so that all types of learners would be able to understand it. The "22 Way to use Bloom's Taxonomy with Twitter" was also extremely creative, especially for students in todays age. This poster is just beyond creative and appealing to me, so I can imagine that it would be for students as well. The next resource that involved Pinterest was cool, and I followed the Pinterest Blog that involved Bloom's Taxonomy.  I though that the quiz that was required was a bit hard, I felt that there should have been an article containing that information. Having the information on the quiz and then to be tested about it made it kind of difficult to answer questions on it. I believe that Bloom had a huge impact on teaching. His thought process is one that most teachers love and use today. Even if they unknowingly use it they probably do somewhere throughout the year.

First Day of Fieldwork

     Today was the first day of fieldwork. Stressful was an understatement for this class period. I would have to say that this class we were in fieldwork and then we discussed the expectations for our lesson plans for the rest of the class. Today's class was interesting and eventful at the same time. I would have to say that I did enjoy today's fieldwork experience.
     To start off, fieldwork was nerve wracking. I did not realize that we actually do not start teaching until 11:30 due to the students being at lunch. I felt that this is something that should have been mentioned. I feel like we're losing twenty minutes and when we are making our lesson plans we aren't planning around those twenty minutes. I also feel like our lesson is thirty minutes so more than half of our lesson is going to be pushed back. That is one concern I think that interests me. However, I am excited to be working with Ms. Poluzzo again. I worked with her this past fall and I think that she is an energetic teacher. I felt comfortable after she introduced the class to us and explained to us some of the expectations, as well as the behavioral problems in the class. It also was comforting when she stated that "this is a brilliant group of children." Although I feel like most groups of elementary students are good children, it is nice to hear a reassurance. Once the students came in, it was clear that they understood who the teacher was. That is comforting because sometimes students do not understand that therefore making our job, as teacher candidates, harder.
      As we divided into our groups and met with the students, I did not have many concerns. The first group of children was quiet, yet bright. This made me very confident about meeting with the other groups of students. As we moved onto the second group of students, I quickly realized that they were an active bunch. This group of students was very outgoing and eager to learn. They answered our questions for our "Getting to Know You" activity. The third group of students was far from outgoing, and did not speak up. They seemed to be very shy. I am sure that once we get into teaching the third group of students will gladly open up. Last, the fourth group of students was interesting. Although eager to meet with us, one particular student was overly excited and seems like she may not know exactly how to transmit her feelings through words.
     Overall I think that fieldwork was successful and that the students enjoyed the programs that we all created for them. I think that they also enjoyed the texts that teacher candidates brought in. For the rest of the class, we discussed what was expected for the rest of fieldwork. It stressed me out that by Friday I have to have two lesson plans done. I find it extremely hard to collaborate with some of the members in my group. I think it is difficult for all of us because we all have a lot of ideas and different ways of teaching students. It will be a learning experience for all of us on how to work with each other and develop our collaborating skills in order to work more professionally in the future.
    I think that class as a whole today was comforting, yet stressful. I am interested to to see where the rest of this collaborating experience goes.