Today I observed group four teach their inquiry instruction lesson plan. Miss Julie began the lesson by asking students questions based off of their direct instruction lesson on Monday. Students gave great feedback by stating the key people of that time and what transportation they used to travel and explore. After activating students prior knowledge the teachers went over the different types of transportation: walking, horses, covered wagons, and trains. Miss Julie, Miss Jessica, and Miss Rachel all had a debate in front of the class, to demonstrate what they would be doing in today's lesson, on which type of transportation was the better choice. Mr Brian then hit the gong to stop the debate and said, "Let's have the second graders decide what the better choice of transportation may be." Mr Brian then discussed what a hypothesis is and how to create one. Shortly students began to create a hypothesis on a slip of paper that was provided. Each table was given a folder and each student was given a role to read and find out all about the different types of transportation. I thought this lesson was creative and engaging. Students truly loved the debate and were excited to debate themselves and stand in front of the room to present their findings.
There were some things I would have changed to this lesson. I noticed when instructions were being given it was not always to the whole class. The majority of the time the teacher would stand at one table and more or less tell that table what to do. When this occurred I noticed the students at the further table were unable to hear the instructions and would not pay attention. I realized how important it is to speak loud and clear and to make sure you have the students full attention. A teachers placement and body language truly make a different and help capture students attention. One other thing I noticed was that it is difficult to work with larger groups. Some of the students began to day dream and not pay attention or contribute work to their group. I realized it is important to have students work in smaller groups; therefore each and every student participates and learns.
Group four did an excellent job! I loved the homework they gave out to the second graders! They died paper using tea and burned the edges to make it look as if it is an older document. They were then told to write about the type of transportation they would have wanted to use. Great Job, I am excited to see all that you do Friday! :)
Thanks for the good feedback Maureen, and I agree with everything!
ReplyDeleteLooking back on it, I wish we had given clear instructions to the full class on what exactly was supposed to be happening in the groups. After talking with Dr. Smirnova we realized that it would have made things a lot smoother if we included a directions worksheet for each table, and to also include the direction on the PPT for the students to reference during the lesson.
And i agree that the large groups were a bit of a nightmare to say the least. It was a tough spot for our group because we did not want to waste time by moving desks or students to make smaller groups even though it would have probably been a lot more quiet, and easier to manage. Instead we decided to take a shot at doing large groups, and giving out roles to each student to keep everybody participating.
As you know, this didn't exactly turn out as planned... It was very loud and the groups were somewhat hectic. Despite this, the groups were able to fill out their fact sheets and give a presentation on their findings.
I guess what I am trying to say is the larger, and fewer amount of groups worked well in keeping our lesson on time, but it was a little overwhelming.
Thank you for the feedback! It truly helps us decide our plans for future lessons. We should be doing smaller groups for our last lesson, so I hope it works a lot better!
Brian
Also, I hope you don't mind if I steal these pictures ;).
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