Classroom Reflection Paper

During student teaching both of my placements were in math classrooms. With math being my endorsement, having a strong understanding of the content and knowing different methods (standards I & XII) lead to success with my students As a future teacher, I believe these two standards are the most important. I need to create learning experiences that are meaningful and age appropriate for my students. I created a lesson for my 8th grade students that showed the importance of content and methods of teaching. In this lesson, students had to solve questions involving the 8th grade math standards, but the questions were made in puzzle pieces. Students had to match the question and answers, making a shape once the problems were completed. This is called a tangram, which is a concept students had learned in an earlier grade. This lesson used a variety of strategies and met the needs of my diverse learners (standards III & V). The puzzle pieces had students use creative thinking and

This way I can be a source of knowledge rather than a teacher who fills the students head with knowledge. This technique should also be able to direct students’ enquiries as well as allow them to ask their own questions and follow what directions their enquiries about Science might take them. My next key learning element would be the value of group work and the peer collaboration between students to enable better understanding about the topic being investigated or the experiment being conducted. My other key learning experience that was gained from this lesson was the determination of what prior learning had the students done on a particular subject so that their constructs can be added to or modified to achieve better scientific results. My thoughts are that, even more careful planning has to go into a design and make (discovery learning) lesson than into a mere investigation through books and the internet. These tasks increase student motivation and the willingness to accept Science as practical, necessary and important in today’s modern

Furthermore, while students were touching and experimenting the mixture, I was around them asking questions such as, what do you think? Is ooblick solid or liquid? How can you tell? Can you roll the substance into a ball? How does the substance feel? Or describe in your own words how does the substance look like. The strategy of asking meaningful questions while students were exploring the mixture made the learning experience more meaningful. Before writing the driving question on the board I played a YouTube video of the book by Dr. Seuss, called “Bartholomew and Ooblick.” It was a long story. Hence, it made it difficult to keep students fully engaged. Next time around I plan on renting the book and reading to students. I enjoy reading to children and I’m a very interactive reader, so that won’t be a

They were discovering what sinks or floats in a tub of water and how to extended a child’s understanding through open-ended questions. As this point I knew the evening was a success because getting parents on the floor was a top goal of the evening.

Here is a simple hands-on experiment for elementary students that examine what items will float and/or sink. For this experiment, all you need is a bowl of water, a cork, a stone, a coin and a grape. Have students first predict what items will float and what items will sink in the water. Then have groups of students observe as they place the items in the water one by one” (Cox, n.d.). Another example comes from my grandson. While in middle school his 7th grade Civics teacher was fantastic at getting the kids up and moving. For instance, on Halloween the kids entered her classroom and it had been transformed into a mad scientist’s lab. All the kids were given lab coats and goggles. They had to “dissect” the constitution. She had fake body parts with pieces of paper containing parts of the US Constitution. They had to proceed to cut open the body parts and then assemble the Constitution on the board. To this day, almost three years later, my grandson can still quote the US Constitution because this one teacher was able to stimulate his mind to learn a complex idea. These are a couple of examples of hands-on learning; yet, there are many, many different activities that can be used in a classroom to help children learn and remember

Together as classmates, review the list of riming words on the whiteboard. Ask students how their parents might feel if they painted their bodies and parts of their homes. Tell them that it's better (and a lot less messy) to paint on paper. End the lesson. After their sheets dry, attach each children’s booklet pages together. Over the course of the lesson, observe the various riming that kids come up with. Use your class list to record that children could also be fighting with the lesson content.

Students were first asked to think of everyday objects they believe are made out rocks and/or soils. Students mentioned glass, buildings, and kitchen counter tops. Students were able to develop a list of items that we use currently, but I encouraged them to think back to the past. I asked questions such as, “How did we make certain items in the past without having a Walmart or a Target?” I then asked students to think back to our lessons before rocks and soils, “What people did we learn about?” Students were able to identify the Native Americans. Student were able to name natural resources as the source Native Americans used to create tools and jewelry. I then activated the students’ knowledge by showing images of Native American jewelry, pots, and weapons which were all made out of clay. I asked students to think about what the items could be made out of. Students were able to use their knowledge of soil properties to correctly identify it as clay. Having a relationship with my students and knowing my students knowledge of Native Americans, made this learning experience an easy and fun experience for students. It also made the delivery of knowledge, one that catered to each child’s learning ability. Student got to view pictures, discuss uses, and have a hand-on experience with creating their very own clay creations. According to Piaget’s theory, “teachers have to make a curriculum plan which enhances their students' logical and conceptual growth. Teacher must put emphasis on the significant role that experiences-or connections,” (Piaget’s Theory of Constructivism). When we use students’ prior knowledge to connect to our everyday world/experiences, students have a greater opportunity to learn and grow in their

My first time evaluation of my first Science Nature activity, it was exciting for me to experiment with ice and salt. I did it first in my house with my grand children; they loved to use the salt over a block of ice. I noticed that the children liked my beautiful block of ice with flower inside of the ice. When I presented the activity to the preschool Blue Room students, I felt confident to present the activity to them. I set limits at the beginning, so the children were following all the rules very well at the Science area. I felt that the table was small for the materials, but Jeniffer gave me the option to move to different table. I changed the big trays for small trays and I made the children to share the colored water cups. The children

lesson three: engage the art principle and element through the written test, there will be some picture provided and student need to point out what art principle and element are and apply them to design their project. Also self elevation will include to let them prove how much they can master form the lesson.

For this activity you will need a couple of large sponges. Have your students lay down on their backs head to toe with one another in a line with three of four other students. Then, give the student at the front of the line a sponge filled with water. Have your students try their best to use only their feet to pass the sponge to their friends.

Assess the lesson by bringing in a variety of toys that can be placed in water, such as rubber balls of different weights, frisbees, toy boats, and so on. Ask students, "Which of these toys would sink in a swimming pool and which would float?"

My own class observation was for my 1st grade class. The art specialist was Benjamin Bragonier and lasted for one hour and thirty minutes. He was teaching the art lesson drawing with shapes (circles). The kids were instructed to make circles by just cutting corners only. They were also instructed to make circles by using black tip marker and going around and around until they got a good circle. The circles were matted onto tag board and circular designs were place into the bigger circles made by the students. The way that Mr. Bragonier showed the students the steps to the art lesson were truly impressive. He would give the students the direction for the first portion of the lesson at the carpet area and have them go back to their seats and

As a professional teacher observing and recording children’s learning requires being self disciplined, practised and systematic systems (Wylie 2009). As an Educator I think it is important to gauge the tempo of the group by listening. The Educator is an active member who is totally engaged with the children throughout the day (Wylie 2009).

Science learning of the flow chart for an experiment, that they will be doing next week. Made sure they understood every detail of how the experiment would be conducted. They all understood that if one thing was done wrong or missed that they experiment would not turn out. They were answering the work sheet with all the right answers and had the understanding of the steps that they were to follow. The teacher seemed to be teaching the very well because the worksheet showed that they had listened to her in the week before. They were very strong in the knowledge of the steps of the experiment.

For my second lesson, I decided to conduct a math lesson as I had never conducted a math lesson in an elementary classroom let alone a 3rd grade classroom. I discussed with my CT what math concept I could teach that pertained to one of the 3rd grade standards. My CT told me that I could introduce the new concept of area to the class on the Friday that I was supposed to teach my lesson. I knew that that introducing a new topic on a Friday in an elementary classroom was not ideal as the majority of teachers that I have observed in the past usually wrap up their week’s lessons on Friday. The Friday I was conducting my lesson was also a shorten day due to Fall Break, so I thought the students would show some off task behavior for the early release day. These circumstances made me think hard about how I was going to introduce the concept of area to the students in an effective way. I knew that I needed to have a lesson that included an exploratory hands- on activity to keep the students engaged and wanting to learn. Therefore, I decided to use cheese crackers as manipulatives to represent square units. The students were to first guess what the area of the different shapes in a worksheet packet were and then they were to use the crackers to figure out the actually area of the different shapes.