After interning in a first-grade classroom for an entire school year, it is undeniably a different experience being in a fifth-grade classroom. The students are given the liberty to be more independent and the lessons are more student led rather than depending on the teacher to reign over the entire process. Of course, this is necessary being that students will be transitioning to middle school in a matter of months where they will be expected to be self-sufficient and capable of problem solving without being walked through every step. Not only is the content more complicated in my opinion, but the task of teaching it is as well. The student’s learning preferences are even more differing now that they are older and more in tune with their abilities. I honestly recognize that the need for differentiating instruction is at an all-time high in intermediate grades.
One particular instance that caught my attention while watching the video of my lesson was that around 18 minutes and 48 seconds, one of the students were raising their hand. At that specific moment, I was working at the table in the rear of the classroom with a small group of four students with my back to those students who were working in partners; therefore, I did not detect the student waiting for my acknowledgment. The student held up his hand for about 6 seconds before taking the initiative to come over to me and voice his concern. This helped me realize that although there are students who can work independently, I am still responsible for ensuring that I am accessible to all students. This was a learning moment for me as a future educator because if this occurred in a primary level classroom, probably first grade or kindergarten, the student may have held their hand up until the moment I turned around or simply put their arm down which could have led to them not completing their work. Now I will be conscious of where I stand during the time designated for partner and independent work. By doing that, I will able to detect when a student in another part of the room needs assistance or has a question to ask. This lesson was an excellent example of what we are taught in our courses about reaching our students in order to teach them. I believe that students learn best when the lessons include subjects that are applicable to their lives and are interesting. It is best to relate the material to things that will motivate them to pay attention such as creating the lesson with a focus on their interests. Electrical energy is an important concept to teach students since it is a part of their daily lives; from the time, they turn on their lights in the morning to dress for school to the moment they plug their phone into an outlet to charge. Our world wouldn’t be the same without electricity. The world is constantly advancing so it would be great to teach them about a form of energy that they may work to improve in the future. There is also a high demand for workers in the technology and science fields. I believe that sparking an interest in electricity and science will encourage students to learn more about how their community operates and how they could become involved professionally. If I were to teach this lesson again, one component that I would keep the same is the list of pre-assigned partners that was included in the PowerPoint presentation to let students know who they would be working with to complete partner work. Not only was it helpful for the students, but for myself as well. It made transitioning from one section of the lesson to the next much smoother than it would have if I allowed the students to choose their own partner. I also preferred to pre-assign partners to give the students a chance to work with someone other than their friends or that significant person that they always tend to collaborate with. The students were not happy when they found out they couldn’t select their partner but that moment taught me that as a teacher I will make decisions that will not please everyone. However, if my intentions are good and there is a purpose for what I do, I should not be afraid to implement beneficial actions. The fifth-grade class is full of personalities and different learning abilities so during this lesson it was important to ensure that every student was able to understand the content. The use of technology was an effective instructional material to cater to those whose learning styles are more usual as well as presenting the material in another method other than lecture. When I was in elementary school, I don’t recall my teachers using videos or interactive games to engage us in the lesson. In the beginning of the lesson, I showed a Brain Pop video that provided an overview of electrical energy and hopefully make the reading clearer. Brain Pop is a familiar educational website so when students caught sight of it, they were excited and that proved that I had their attention. I believe that capturing their attention in the beginning of the lesson is so important and will be the precedent for the remainder of the lesson. For those students who struggled with the content, I pulled them into a small group in the rear of the classroom during the time designated for partner work to provide direct instruction which included reading directions and questions aloud, paired reading and modeling how to find answers in the text. There is usually an instructor who comes into the classroom who pulls those students for a few minutes or assists them but it was a great experience for me to figure out how to accommodate their needs in the general environment. At one point of the small group instruction, I had to read aloud to a student who was having trouble to make the text comprehensible. At the conclusion of the lesson, students returned to their desks to answer an Evidence of Learning question independently on a sticky note. I reviewed those sticky notes and discovered that the students answered the question correctly.
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November 2017
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