First Lesson - March 15th

This morning we taught the introductory lesson to our First Grade Patriotism Unit. Our lesson actually took the place of the class's morning meeting so we broke their routine a little bit. It also was the first time that Ana and I had done any whole-group instruction in this classroom. The fact that we were mixing things up both for the kids and ourselves coupled with the abstract nature of a concept like patriotism made for an interesting lesson to say the least.

We started with an opening discussion of what the students thought patriotism was. The responses we got were all very concrete examples of patriotism, but far from a definition of the concept itself. We also got a lot of blank stares. Regardless, with the help of the classroom teacher and a little bit of our own pizazz we were able to come up with a pretty decent definition of patriotism. However, we wanted to make sure that students understood that you can be patriotic for any country so we invented the marvelous country of FirstGradealonia. I then got into character (by donning a goofy hat) and proceeded to model the Pledge of Allegiance, a patriotic speech, and a traditional dance of my country, FirstGradealonia. I made the kids get up and join in the dance... it was awesome! That part of our lesson was by far the most exciting for the kids. Our classroom teacher commented that it was fantastic because it met them at their level. But the real test of it came when multiple kids commented that the thing they really learned during our lesson was that you can be patriotic for countries other than the US.

If I had to do this lesson again I would change two things:
1) I would script out the exact questions I wanted to use to guide the discussion about patriotism. While there is no way that I could ever anticipate responses like "My mom says that in a few years there will be a woman president." It still would be incredibly helpful to have a stronger set of guiding questions than the ones that I'm able to think up on my feet.

2) On our exit worksheet (formative assessment) we asked students to draw a picture of patriotism from their own lives and then write about something they learned during our lesson. Almost all of the kids spent the entire time on the picture (which was first on the worksheet) and barely had any time to really think about what they were going to write. The order on these two items should have been switched--requiring kids to perform the less-desirable task of writing before moving on to drawing, which they love.

Observation Tres / Pre-Assessment - March 1st

Today we administered our Unit Pre-Assessment during the Language Centers time by pulling 2-3 students at a time out into the hallway. It was interesting to watch as different students responded to the test items in different ways. Some jumped in and tried to work ahead of the questions I was reading a loud because they felt so confident about the material while others wanted the questions read to them two or three times as they tried to select the best answer(s) on the visual symbol selection and the true selected response section. I was also very glad that we included the drawing and writing response questions. The drawing question asked students to draw a Fourth of July Celebration and students' pictures were indicative not only of their knowledge of the holiday but also of their family traditions which was pretty cool. Coupled with the short writing question (what is your favorite American Tradition), I feel like these last two test items also helped us greatly as we sought to determine student attitudes towards our unit's content. As was expected, the class' two students from foreign families very obviously struggled with a lot of the content due to an almost complete lack of background knowledge. We will have to be sure to scaffold these two students during our lessons to bridge not only the prior knowledge gap but also the language gap.

The favorite American Tradition question solicited probably the most interesting answers... several of which agreed that "Halloween [was the best one] because you get candy."

Observation Dos - February 22nd

Today we dropped in during Language Centers time (our usual time to visit as it falls nicely during 488/502/501 class time and Ana and I are crazy-busy the rest of the week). We got to meet and chat with Mrs. Dixon's student teacher. She seems pretty cool. Her placement is definitely different than ours as she's only spending around 2.5-3 months in the classroom... not the whole semester. Much like Dixon, she was incredibly accommodating of our requests for class time to teach our unit and it seemed like she was pretty excited to have us come in and help out. Overall, I'd say she appeared very comfortable in the classroom and pretty much knew what she was doing... I hope someone can say the same about me when it's my turn to be in her shoes this fall...

As far as the observation went, Ana and I really didn't do very much watching. We talked with Dixon about our lesson ideas and she gave us all sorts of goodies from her filing cabinets that should help us as we go to teach an assess. She was also in the process of giving a Summative assessment for their previous lesson and it was really interesting to talk to her about how she does that kind of evaluation. Basically, she gives the same worksheet/quiz as a pre- and post-assessment. I'm not sure if that's exactly the best idea for our unit (patriotism) as it is a fairly abstract idea and there are many aspects of our KUDs that can't necessarily be assessed in a 5 minute worksheet/quiz format. Perhaps after giving the Pre-Assessment next week we'll have a better idea about what would work best for a Summative assessment.

The ironic moment for me during today's observation was when the classroom management side of things got a little rocky. With Mrs. Dixon, Mrs. Kidd (student teacher), Ms. Chicatelli (reading specialist), Ana and myself all in the classroom you'd think that there would have been enough teacher/adult-figures in the room to keep the atmosphere fairly subdued. Such was not the case. Mrs. Kidd at one point had to take her attention away from the reading group she was working with and raise her voice in order to avoid some serious behavior situations. I guess that just goes to show that having authority present isn't always enough to keep kids on task, sometimes you have to assert that authority.

Observation Numero Uno - February 16th

Today Ana and I finally made our way back into Mrs. Dixon's First Grade Classroom. We were excited to be there and to watch a new part of their class schedule that we were unable to witness last semester -- Math. Being in Dr. Berry's Teaching Elementary Math made this observation particularly interesting as we got to watch as students worked through different addition centers. For the most part, students were working on their own to fill out various worksheets and work through a computer addition facts drill. It was cool to watch as students employed various manipulatives and strategies to solve the problems. You could tell that Dixon had given freedom to her students to use any method they found useful to arrive at a correct answer. Some students were using counting blocks, others were using their hands, and some the traditional algorithm. But by far the most interesting strategy to me was employed by the students on the computers. They were using the number keys at the top of the keyboard as a number line to accomplish their basic addition facts. It really was a fascinating strategy that I had never considered before.

All in all, it was very useful to get in and observe how math time goes for Dixon's class. She did admit that sometimes she opts to spend the hour teaching in a more whole-group setting. For the most part she claims to use the centers approach to mathematics because she believes it allows for differentiation of instruction and plenty of concept practice as students move through varied center activities.