First lesson!

Today my group taught our Direct lesson and this was the first time we have taught in front of a class. We have been working so hard on our lesson plan and going over each slide and what we were going to say and what information we wanted to the students to know. It was difficult to make it fit into that 30 minute block, but it was fun being in front of the classroom. I like being in the front of the class, but I like when the students are more involved in the lesson. That is hard to do with direct lesson with teaching three topics in one session, but It was fun. I am very excited for the next two lessons Inquiry and Cooperative learning.

         The first lesson plan was overwhelming to work on alone, luckily we had a group of people to help us develop the lesson plan along with the power point of the information.The Direct instruction lesson I believe is the hardest lesson to plan and write. I think that it was hard to figure out how to capture the students attention and how to keep it. Although, my group was the second to go I don't believe that the group did that bad. I think that we all worked together fairly well which was very helpful. I liked that we met for days before we were to present our lesson, and that we worked as a team on the finished project.

            The second and third lesson plans were rough. The team was very busy with their own personal lives, and so the actual face to face time we got with each other was limited and small. We pulled it together though, and we made it work. We knew what we wanted to do for the inquiry lesson, but it was the getting it together that was the tough part. I thought that using mystery bags or artifact bags was a great idea. The students were very excited to explore them, and I was excited to see how the lesson plan would work out. I thought that the lesson was successful in the aspect of the students learning about the Lost Colony of Roanoke, and the different theories. I thought that teaching wise there was a lot of room for improvement, but I thought that the lesson was better then the direct lesson. 

The third lesson plan Cooperative learning was a lot of fun! I thought that the students really enjoyed making their own Jamestown with each other. I thought that the students were engaged. The groups were a little rough one of the groups the students fought over parts. The students had trouble working together, and when the teacher tried to walk them through it the students calmed down a little. The students presented well, but it was clear which students were part of the planning and which students were not. I liked this type of learning the best, and I loved how hands on cooperative learning is. I think that the students will walk away with some knowledge about what makes a society and how the Jamestown society worked.

MY CHALLENGE TO YOU IS HOW TO MAKE THE DIRECT LESSON AS INTERESTING AS THE INQUIRY LESSON AND COOPERATIVE LEARNING LESSON. DIRECT LESSON IS IMPORTANT. HOW DO YOU PLAN ON ENGAGING THE STUDENTS SO THAT THEY ENJOY THIS LESSON AS MUCH AS A COOPERATIVE LEARNING LESSON?

Until Next Time