Spring 2009
As a student in EDEL 200, I taught a lesson to second grade students at Burris Laboratory School in Muncie, IN on the relationships of time. In order to write my lesson plan, I first had to research the topic. Once I had gathered all of my materials, I taught myself the content so that I knew it from memory. I then created the lesson and brainstormed ways to apply it to the students’ lives, such as using a calendar to figure out on what day their birthdays will be and how long daily activities will take. In addition to memorizing the units of time and how time was measured, I also learned about clocks and calendars. This additional information was helpful when explaining why clocks and calendars are used to measure time. It was also useful as supporting material in the extension of the lesson.
As a future educator, I will be creating and teaching many lessons. I must research and acquire vast but specific knowledge about each of these lessons to effectively instruct my students. Also, if I teach a lesson more than one year, each year I must research and look for updated information and check my current lesson for outdated or incorrect information. This is a very important aspect of preparation for a lesson and will allow the lesson run smoothly if the content is known thoroughly.
Spring 2011
As a practicum teacher in the Burris Kindergarten room, I researched all of my topics before I taught them to ensure that I knew the material well enough to teach it. Many times students asked questions that I did not expect them to, but since I researched it beforehand, I was able to answer the questions correctly and intelligently. I was also able to present the material in a meaningful way to the students. Some content areas have specific structures and tools of inquiry that are most effective, such as experimentation in science. Most content areas are most effective if there are hands-on materials or manipulatives for the students to manipulate. My teaching style also changed depending on what subject I was teaching. For science, I was more of a facilitator, while for mathematics, I was an informer who explicitly taught the concept. Each subject requires a different teaching style to a certain extent. It is important to know the material as well as the most effective way to teach it to your students.
Spring 2012 - Student Teaching
Every subject has specific features that go along with it. For example, history has timelines, science has microscopes and experiments, writing has a process, and math has charts and graphs. It is necessary for teachers and students to know and understand how to use these features in order to interact with and learn the material.
Artifact 1:
Writing Process
Description:
I taught and used the writing process to the students so they could produce a formal narrative. They went through the pre-writing process, created a rough draft, edited, revised, and published their narrative. I provided support during the editing and revising process through the use of an editing checklist as well as an anchor chart explaining what the difference was between edit and revise.
Analysis of what I learned:
I actually had to research what the difference was between editing and revising because I had not been taught that. Knowing the difference and how the writing process worked helped me to scaffold their writing and improve on it. The more that they understood the functions and why we were going through all of these steps, the better their writing became; it also became easier for them.
Demonstration of competence of Knowledge of Content:
When teaching a subject you must know and research the aspects of that subject in order to effectively teach the material. I had to know and understand the writing process myself before I could teach it. Without the writing process, understanding how to read and write become difficult. Using the writing process and going through it step-by-step allows the students to understand each aspect of the writing and develop good habits when not only writing but reading.
Artifact 2: Sorting
Description:
In the Kindergarten classroom I taught multiple lessons over sorting. Instead of telling the students how to sort I gave them a variety of materials and told them to put the material into piles by a specific characteristic that they chose, such as color, shape, or size. By doing this they learned from the experience and not by direct instruction.
Analysis of what I learned: I noticed as I monitored their sorting techniques that they were sorting by color and then by size. Some sorted into shiny and not shiny. Others sorted by type. By intentionally not telling them how to sort I could tell what they already knew about sorting. I also found out that there are some concepts that you cannot teach directly but that you must use experiments to learn them.
Demonstration of competence of Knowledge of Content: Sorting is just one of the many topics that require experimentation and hands-on material. I provided many different types of objects for the students to sort on many different occasions. They sorted buttons, pasta, animals, blocks, cubes, cars, and insects. They also sorted individually and in groups to help their social skills as well as to help each other understand the concepts of sorting.
Artifact 3: Fact Sheet
Description:
In many of my lessons I created a fact sheet containing background research that I had compiled to ensure that I knew the content and could answer any possible questions that my students had.
Analysis of what I learned: I noticed that as I was teaching I would delve more in-depth with the concepts because I had done that research ahead of time. I would find myself explaining some of the more complex ideas and concepts to the students, even the toddlers.
Demonstration of competence of Knowledge of Content: Below is a fact sheet from my early childhood experience from a lesson on magnets. I found myself explaining to the toddlers why the magnet would stick to the chenille stick but not to their shoes or the shelf.
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