This week in Fieldwork, I taught 3 types of lessons on the American Revolution to the 4th Grade with Ainsley. Before teaching, I was very nervous. This was my first experience teaching to a whole class and I had low confidence in myself. I faced several challenges away but was surprised with myself and I had built confidence throughout the week.
The first day, we taught a direct instruction about the battles of the American Revolution. We provided review before our lesson from what Lindsay and Nicole taught them to help them remember where they left off. We provided a slideshow of information to teach them and we gave them a guided notes packet. This packet had blanks for them to fill in to help them follow along and pay attention. I noticed that this was efficient in helping them focus on learning the information and just fill in one of two words per slide. Next, we had the students play a game called "Name that Picture" where students guess 5 pictures displayed on the slideshow. After that, we had the students play a Kahoot Quiz. The kids were very excited and got very happy. They were very loud and I didn't really know how to control them. I could have clapped and had them repeat the clapping pattern or raise my voice a little for them to hear me. I could have also said to them that we can't play if we are loud. After the quiz, we had the students answer 3 questions for an exit ticket. After reading over the questions, I noticed that we had a little error in the question that stated "Explain why the Battle of Yorktown was a turning point in the war". Many students were confused and I didn't know what to do at first. I told the students that both battles were turning points for different reasons, even though it only says that the Battle of Saratoga was a turning point in the war. After they completed the exit ticket, we gave the students independent practice for homework where students match the battle or event to the correct date and then they had to fill in the events on a timeline. Some students were confused with the timeline part. I could have explained the homework better or gave an example of what they were supposed to do.
The next day, we performed an inquiry lesson. Before the lesson, we reviewed by putting up pictures of battles we taught them on Monday. After the review, we explained the Scientific Method. First, I asked them what the steps were and then I provided more details about the steps. After I explained the steps, Ainsley explained the activity. We put the students into 5 groups and gave them 5 paper bags, a word, a picture, and an handout. Each group was assigned a person or group. In the paper bags are clues. The students must read the clues to figure out who their person or group they have. The word and picture were connected to their person or group. On the handout, the students had to write their hypotheses on who they think their person or group was. After that, as a class each group opened each bag together. In the bags were two or three sentences and a question about the sentences. The answers to questions were the clues so they had to fill out the clues on the handout. After the opened all of the bags containing the clues, the students got to open one last bag that contained the person or group's picture and name. Students got to see if their hypotheses were correct or incorrect. After they finished, the students got to present their hypotheses and clues to the class. This activity overall went pretty smooth. I believe that the activity was pretty straightforward. Students got to use their inquiry and reasoning skills to guess who their person or group was as they read the clues. After the students presented, we gave them their independent practice which was to write a letter as the person or group to anyone explaining the American Revolution during their time and their contributions to the war. The students did get very loud at some times during the lesson, so I tried to get them to lower their voices. The students seemed to have enjoyed this activity.
Our third lesson was a cooperative lesson. For review, we had a matching activity. The matching activity was a SmartBoard activity where the students had to come up and drag a word to the correct definition or description. This failed a little since it took longer than expected and students were struggling with dragging the word. The students as a class got confused between two definitions and I didn't know how to tell them that it wasn't correct. Next time, I would ask if the whole class agrees or disagrees before we go to the next word. After the review, I asked the students what teamwork and working cooperatively means and provided more detail for them. For our activity, they were to work in groups and each person in the group had an individual role. We provided the roles on the board and gave them tips on how to act and behave in a group. After that, we gave them assigned roles. Many students wanted to switch roles but it was probably best if they didn't. One student was very upset with her role and I realized that it was probably best if we let them switch since we don't know their strengths, weaknesses, likes, and dislikes. For the activity, we gave the students cards , pictures, and descriptions of seven different people. The students had to read the descriptions and make trading cards of the seven people. The students had to use the pictures to glue them on the front of the card and then on the back, they had to include the name of the person, date of birth, the place of birth, and 2-4 sentences about that person. The roles were a timekeeper, researcher, illustrator, group leader, and editor. Overall, the students completed their roles and successfully finished their cards. After they finished their cards, they presented one card to the class. After every group presented, the students filled out a group and self evaluation. The only thing I did notice is everyone else finished their roles expect the researcher and writer and the rest of the students helped them. Next time, I would have had them complete 5 instead of 7 cards so everyone does their individual role and finished around the same time. I was impressed at how well they worked on this activity and how well this activity weird.
Overall, I've learned many things during this experience. I have gained more confidence and it was interesting to see the students complete our lesson plans. Teaching the American Revolution was very rewarding and I'm glad to have experienced it.
.jpg)
What is Geography? Geography is a discipline of social studies that studies the world and it's features. Geography is a very important topic for students to understand where countries in the world are and what is happening in the world. Learning geography will create good citizens who can understand the major issues in the country and the world and how to handle these issues. The five themes of geography are location, place, human and environment interaction, movement, and region. There are several ways to teach geography.
