Group 3's Days to Shine

      This past week, during fieldwork, students were learning about the colonies and the American Revolution. Group three taught their direct, inquiry, and cooperative learning lesson plan. On Tuesday, group three started and today, on Thursday, group three finished their teaching with the inquiry and cooperative learning lesson plans.

     To start off, group three started with their direct lesson plan. Group three started off strong with their lesson plan about The American Revolution and the thirteen colonies. I thought that group three seemed very rehearsed and knowledgable about their topic. I enjoyed listening to the song they also used to help the students remember the thirteen colonies. Next, the teachers all went through the information. Although all of the teachers were knowledgable, I think that the development was too long. I found myself getting very antsy and impatient during the end of their development. It would have been beneficial for the teachers to split up the information with an activity. However, overall their development was strong and may have ended a bit weak. The guided practice was well thought out as well. Their activity was to fill out a booklet containing information about The American Revolution.  The booklet was a great idea because the students could keep it in their desk and always refer back to it. The other activity that group three did was a timeline, that the students had already filled out during the course of the development. I thought that this activity could have been included int he development and that it was kind of a waste of time to do it as a guided practice. Although, I understand it in the sense of the students being able to organize themselves. Towards the end of their time slot for the lesson, they began to rush. I could see that group three got through their conclusion but rushed through it and the same for the independent practice. It would have been better to maybe go over the first question for the independent practice and then had them do it at home. Overall, I think that group three had a pretty well thought out direct lesson plan!

     Today, group three taught their cooperative learning lesson plan and their inquiry lesson plan. The inquiry lesson plan was an activity working with artifact bags. Each of the artifact bags contained different pictures and elements from different events during the time period they were teaching. As the students entered the classroom they provided groups for the children to get into which saved time because the teachers were not trying to do this in the middle of their lesson. As the students started to finish, the teachers, had the students present their findings. Also, at the beginning of the group work they assigned roles for each of the students to have which was very smart. I also enjoyed that Ms. Melissa and Ms. Emily presented how to do the inquiry process in the beginning of the lesson because it helped the students figure out what they needed to be doing. For the independent practice the teachers had the students write to the first graders which was wonderful! They started the homework in class and they were told to finish at home. I loved this because as for the first two groups they did not get that far in the inquiry process. Overall, the inquiry process was very smart. The cooperative learning lesson plan was next. For the cooperative learning lesson plan the students were creating an acrostic poem for the word independence. The students were very excited about starting this poem. this was a great activity for the students. The students worked with their groups to create words for the word INDEPENDENCE. Next, the students were asked to write a sentence about what they learned over the course of the past two classes, to put altogether in a book for Ms. Pozzulo's book. This has to my favorite idea altogether!!! The teachers then had presented the poster, with the word: INDEPENDENCE and the students were able to contribute what they came up with in their groups. Overall, the cooperative learning lesson plan was FABULOUS!

     The past week has been a fun learning experience for myself and for the students in Miss. Pozzulo's class. The children seemed to pick up a lot of the information from this group's lessons. I liked their lessons for the second day and I thought that they were very creative.  I am excited to see what group four has in store for us next week!