Eunica Icebreaker

Having discussed the activities beforehand gives me the opportunity to explore the activity ensuring that I am confident in using the materials, to familiarise myself with new equipment, making sure that it is age appropriate and that it can be adapted and made simpler for the pupils that may need extra support and help.

The lack of consistent laboratory space has led to the adaptation of experiments to be held in my lecture-based classroom. While I provide high engaging, clear and accessible instructional tools/materials, high expectations, and a comfortable learning environment to the students I am limited by the setup of my classroom. Overall, I believe my classroom environment has encouraged my flexibility, imagination, and creative problem solving as a teacher to provide high engaging and maintain my expectations for my students. I have taken advantage of the use of craft projects and humor to create an inviting environment to my students to promote their educational

Lawrence also started a lesson using an active board by having sample problems on it and students were called on random to answer the questions. The students seemed to respond to the lesson very well. There were some students who decided to have their own conversation instead of doing their lesson so Mrs. Lawrence call on the students to get their attention; however , they did not respond so she politely walked over to the group and said something to them and they stop talking completely. For the most part these students looked like they were having fun while learning. Many were helping each other count while some were holding up fingers. After this hour and a half of observation, I wanted to interview Mrs. Lawrence concerning on lesson plan development.

Undertaken prior to a lesson or course is delivered and helps direct my session planning to meet learner’s expectations.

My eighth grade classroom is set in a Jr-Sr. High school and is located in the Jr. High hallway, in the rear of the high school. I have thirty-two student desks situated in rows and two small tables at the front of my room used for paper pick up. My desk and computer are in the back corner of the room. The students all have their own Chromebooks and I have a desktop computer as well as a Samsung Tablet. Google Classroom is used daily as well as many other applications suited for 1:1 schools. I also have a projector hanging from the ceiling and two large white boards located on the front and side walls of my classroom. The class that I will be focusing on in this paper is made up of 26 students, 15 boys and 11 girls. One student with learning disabilities, another is an ELL student. This class meets for 55 minutes.

A typical day consisted of, casual conversations between students, Mrs. Hughes, and myself while we wait for more students to arrive. The older female students often got side-tracked talking to one another and on their cell phones. I noticed the majority of the students who come to class are the intermediate/ advanced students, only two beginner students came throughout the entirety of my service. At most, only seven intermediate/ advanced students came to class. Yet, there were two constant students in attendance, Rose (intermediate) and Vicente (advanced). I consider both Rose and Vicente the most driven students in the program, their attendance and participation in class speaks for

i) Provide a short session plan related to your specialist area of teaching. Include as a minimum: group profile; anticipated learning outcomes; anticipated learning difficulties; staged procedure with timings; one copy of any materials used.

Planning- Mrs. Falchek and I discussed my lesson presentations and how I felt the students progressed throughout the notes. We also discussed the activity that I would be doing with the students

Describe how you managed equipment and space in the lesson. Describe how you managed teacher movement in the lesson. Imagine you had a group of 14 students. Describe how you would manage grouping students in the lesson. Explain why you would do it this way. (All but Kimberly, who will have 14 students and will do it for real)

Students are groups based on their academic level, and have their desks are set in 4 groups of 6 with one group being in a set of 5. Two groups are in the front of the class while the other two groups are in the back of the class. 2 students are placed facing the window and 2 other students are facing the closets (making the students facing each other), and the last 2 students are facing the front of the classroom. I find that this positioning of the students is great for allowing students to turn and talk, and work as a group for certain assignments. The down side, however, is that students tend to talk excessively to one another, and get distracted more

Learning environment – I chose to arrange the room in a horse-shoe shape with participants seated behind desks. This enabled everyone to have a clear view of the screen for my power-point point and video presentations. The desks were needed as the icebreaker and activities required making written notes. I provided fish shaped biscuits and sweets to promote the FISH theme and ensured participants had pens, post-it notes and paper required for the activities and icebreaker.

First, the environment in which learning takes place should be appealing. Regardless of the size of the room--whether small or overcrowded--there are a number of ways to create an

Overall, the students in Mrs. Park’s classes are very well behaved. The main challenge is keeping the students engaged and alert in class. Often times, there will be a student, or several, with their heads down on the desk, asleep. Mrs. Park addresses this issue by quietly walking over to their desk, without disrupting class, and asking the students to complete a particular task. If the issue persists, Mrs. Park will have a discussion with the student to ask them how they think that the issue can be resolved. I have observed that the students are much more alert when they are working in cooperative

With knowledge gained from previous experience, I knew that the students I would be teaching were comfortable with a variety of learning methods, but work more effectively when a practical or group task is set. I shall therefore tailor my resources to promote this type of learning within my teaching group.

However, Thaine (1996b) defended the usefulness of session planning and argued that if the tutor chose to make things up as they went along – having no real indication of the session aims or outcomes, “then nothing useful or meaningful can be achieved,” (Malamah-Thomas, 1987: 3) for either party. It is based upon this principle, therefore that the session aims and outcomes were written on the Smartboard for my learners. Although, I also understand that this process will not appeal to all learners.